Business as usual (just more of it)

Well I had a busy week and a half. My new roommate probably forgot that i even live here with him.

The basic premise of the week was my dad visiting/business tripping to warsaw. Basically, a partner company of my current place of work sent 3 Canucks to come visit the Warsaw offices and learn the new systems that they are using. My position at the company meant that I was thrust into the middle of this, becoming half tour-guide, half-student, half translator (poor math skills?) What ensued was a week-long english/polish flury of presentations, questions and engineering. Team Canada (myself included) would arrive in the office at 830 and push forward with meeting and conferences up until the wee hours of 9pm. It was crazy. I remember the first day we all forgot about lunch until about 3pm at which point we ordered pizza which took two hours to arrive before being eaten in seconds. Suddenly all those days of 9 to 5 work didn't seem that bad at all

Whining aside, it was really such an interesting delegation to be part of. I learned a LOT and basically had a chance to see largescale company dealing in first person. Not to mention the fact that we would go out for dinner as a group at night and laugh about how crazy the week was going.

One of the highlights of the week was a tour of a current project. The Canadian team and I were taken to one of the newest Warsaw skyscrapers downtown to see how the
new control systems that were installed worked. We spent the day working with the engineers there to see how all the components and features are installed and fixed. Part of our work took us to the roof of the building to see the weather and daylight sensors that monitored the position of the sun, temp, etc. It really is cool to get to stand on top of a huge tower like that. We had a fantastic view of downtown, the old city and the death-defying window washers who were rappelling down the side of the glass tower. Sure, its no running of the bulls but it still looked crazy. (photos from the top: #1 the shiny building, #2 a shiny building of a man, #3 a shiny building of a man on top of the shiny building, with father)

Besides work, we spent the first weekend with my relatives in Katowice and this past weekend in Deblin visiting my dad's friend from school (who's family pretty much counts as our family now). The weekend in Katowice became my unofficial birthday party which was really fun, since I was expecting to spend my day of birth alone somewhere, sleeping on a picnic bench or in a ditch in some random eastern european country. Instead I was treated to (many!) cakes, friends and lots of fun talk. Here's a photo of me waiting for my dad to come with my winter stuff.

Time for me to clean up for young Paul Todd's quick visit tomorrow. I acknowledge that it's hard to live without me once you know me, so I'll be sure to show him a nice time in my new city.

My dad is currently in the air over the Atlantic, so mom, if you read this, he should be home soon