A month in England

I expected to write this blog earlier than today (my last day in England), again it has been really busy (mostly nice things and some work as well), but unfortunately the details of the last weeks have slipped my mind, but maybe that will make it easier for you to read this.

After a long (21 hours in total, of which only 14 in the air) and tiring trip we arrived in Manchester around 10am, went to our luxurious private apartments and after relaxing a bit, we left to explore the city centre. I was happily surprised to find out that Manchester looks quite different from what I imagined. I expected a dark, grey and boring city, but it is nothing like that, it has a very open and modern city centre with nice places to hang out. For example, on the day we arrived a lot of people were chilling on the main square, which was then very hard for us to understand as it was pretty cold compared to Guatemala. Maybe Rotterdam is a good example to compare Manchester with, an industrial city that turns out to have quite a few nice spots when you get to know it. Also in the following weeks we got to appreciate the city and to know some really nice restaurants.

On our second day we went to Liverpool, which was equally surprising, it was even nicer than Manchester. After a short walk through the city centre, we took the sightseeing tour bus to see more of the city and along the we saw highlights, such as the cathedral (very big, not too beautiful), the Albert Dock (nice place on the shore where we had a good lunch together) and some other nice places and buildings. Of course Liverpool is the city of the Beatles, so that was a reoccurring theme and also why we finished the day in the Cavern, the bar where the Beatles were discovered and where we could still enjoy live music (probably not the next Beatles, but still nice).

The next day was going to be our first working day, which was of course pretty exciting for all of us. But the company had thought it through very well and we got an introduction in the relaxed setting of a hotel, where we also met our Mancunian counterparts. I imagined that it was not going to be a very warm welcome, it is a very awkward situation after all and for our counterparts it was the beginning of the end of their career in the company (for most of them at least). But it was the complete opposite, the people were so nice to us and welcomed us in a way I could have never imagined. Also during the next four weeks it has only been nice to be with them. Imagine that you suddenly have to share your desk with a stranger for four weeks, fulltime... And imagine that you have to teach him all you know, even though he doesn't even understand some basic concepts... And imagine that he is from a strange culture and is not a native speaker... And then also imagine that you will lose your job to him... For me it's hard to imagine, but I do know that it must be really hard to deal with such a situation, so it's really impressive to see how our colleagues dealt with it. Throughout the 4 weeks no friction has occurred, with nobody and even better, we shared some nice occasions. I went to play football with the Manchester guys every weeks, we went out for lunch a few times with my Guatemalan team and our counterparts and in the last days I and David (my counterpart), exchanged some presents.

In my first full weekend I went to Stockholm to be together with my friends Hasan and Ruben (from Utrecht) and Mustafa (from Istanbul). After a short and easy flight from Manchester I arrived at Stockholm airport, took the high speed train to the city centre and met my friends a short while after. Then we went to Mustafa's place, met his housemates who received us Turkish style with tea and pastry. We kept talking until too late (as in the good old times), but we tried to wake up not too late the next day in order to have time to see the city. So that's what we did and we walked around for some hours, had dinner at night and for the next day the programme was similar, I only had to leave earlier to get to the airport in time. Overall, we had a good time together, it was nice to see each other again, although it didn't feel like we hadn't seen each other for such a long time. Stockholm is a nice city, but I don't think it was a very special place, at least not for me, as a tourist from Holland, but I can imagine that it's a very nice place to live, friendly people and a very good organisation of everything. Check out the pictures in this album: http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=10156&id=226700492&l=159b0a42a6

The next weekend we went to Edinburgh, Scotland. Unfortunately we missed our train by 1 minute, so we spent the first hour of the day on the Manchester train station (I and two colleagues). Once arrived in Edinburgh, we checked in to the hotel and walked up to the famous castle, only to find a queue of half an hour, so we decided to take a free tour throughthe city, which turned out to be a good idea; the guide was very enthusiastic and showed us all kinds of places and told stories that made the sightseeing a lot more interesting. After 2 hours or so it had been enough, though, so we decided to join the rest of the group (about 10 people) on the sightseeing bus tour and we drove around the city to see more beautiful historic places of interest. Afterwards we went for dinner and took a "ghost tour", which, unfortunately, turned out to be very similar to the free tour we had taken that afternoon (and a lot more expensive). Afterwards we went to a pub with four of us, but we were too tired to continue for a long time, so we returned homewards at Guatemalan time (1am). The next day I and another colleague who hadn't seen the castle yet left early to avoid the queue and see around. Then we left the city centre to climb Arthur's seat, a mountain that is closeby and allowed us to see the city centre from above. After coming down again we visited the Scottish national museum, had some pizza and met the rest of the group at the station to start the 3.5hr trip back to Manchester.

The next Friday I left work earlier to take the train to London, where I met my mother at 5pm. After some quick updates, we walked around the neighbourhood, trying to find a restaurant, found it, ate there, did some more updating in the meantime and then went to sleep. The next day we had breakfast and took the underground to "Canary wharf" and from there we took the bus to the Thames where we walked through the tunnel to Greenwich, a nice friendly neighbourhood and of course the middle of the world. Afterwards we took the boat to Southwark where we were surprised by a very nice market with a lot of nice and exotic food, the Borough Market. From there we walked to St. Paul's cathedral, which we climbed (same view as from the London Eye, but more fun and cheaper). Afterwards we went to Notting Hill, another friendly neighbourhood that is quite different from the London that the average tourist gets to know. The next day we first went to the National Library (with quite a nice collection of historic documents) and then to the touristic attractions, Buckingham Palace, Big Ben, British National Museum etc. and then it was already time to say goodbye, unfortunately. Again it felt surprisingly "normal" for me to be together, but of course it was extra nice to see each other after 4 months and with 10 months without each other ahead.

The following Friday was the last day at the office, so again time to say goodbye. For quite a few of my colleagues that seemed pretty dificult, both for the ones from Guatemala and from Manchester. I will also miss the guys here and the time we spent here, but to be honest I was a bit surprised by the tears. After work we went for lunch together to a Brasilian restaurant and then we really said goodbye to everybody. It was probably not a real goodbye, though, because we will be in touch with our counterparts in the coming weeks in case of problems or questions. At night we went out for dinner with whole group of Guatemalans and then had a few drinks.

The next day (today), I went to York, a "typical" English town and walked around a bit and paid a visit to the large minster. It was probably my last chance for the coming many months to do something on my own, so that was good. For the rest I spent as much time in the train as in York itself, which is a nice, but pretty small town.

Now I'm sitting in the plane from Houston to Guatemala and I think the trip makes it worthwhile adding a small update. On Sunday morning we woke up early to take the bus from the apartments in Manchester at 5am. Once arrived at the airport we found out that our flight would be delayed and that we would probably not make it to Guatemala that day (we were supposed to arrive around 9pm that evening), but we decided to go to New York and see there what we should do. So we waited a long time (about 5 hours in total including waiting in the plane) before we finally took off, but then had a pretty good flight to New York. In New York it took quite a while before we found out what we were supposed to do (or rather, what the airline was going to do with us), but I and 6 others were put on the next flight Houston and the rest of the group stayed behind. So then again in Houston we had to figure out when we could get to Guatemala and it finally became clear what we would do. On the way we heard speculations that we would stay in New York for 2 days (which didn't sound that bad) or in Houston, but it turned out to be just a night in Houston. Strangely enough, the airline would not arrange accommodation for us, but that didn't turn out to be a problem as the company arranged some rooms in the Marriott hotel for us. So when we arrived at the hotel (which is on the airport), we had some dinner and quickly went to sleep in our kingsize bed. The following day we met at 6.30 for breakfast and left around 7.30 to go to our gate, where we met the rest of the group after a while. And then it turned out we had been very lucky, the rest of the group had been on standby for 4 consecutive flights to Houston and were then finally taken to Philadelphia by bus, where they had 2 hours of sleep in the Marriott over there and then took a flight to Houston. The flight from Houston to Guatemala was delayed for almost 2 hours again, so Murphy's law did apply to this trip.
But now I'm finally sitting in my apartment in Guatemala and everything turned out well. We have the all afternoon and evening to rest before we start working at 6am tomorrow, which might be even better than the original plan, arriving on Sunday 9pm and start working at 6am on Monday...
The following two weeks I haven't had internet, so I can upload this story only now, and I could add more, but I won't do that, it's probably long enough already!

See for all pictures of my trip (except for those of Sweden): http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=10156&id=226700492&l=159b0a42a6