I am in Palatine, IL

My mother insists that everyone still thinks that I am in Mexico. I am not... and I am at my home with my awesome husband. I made it home from Mexico just in time to spend Christmas with Justin and my awesome family.

Not sure when or where I will be going next :)

Minatitlan & Coatzacoalcos

It has been a few days since I have updated! Happy December! Well -- I haven't updated because Beth and I have been so busy. Since our first day in the refinery, we have been making friends with anyone who speaks English... they somehow always find us. On Thursday, Beth and I went out for Tacos with Wicho (Luis) and his wife Gabby. They showed us all the sites in Minatitlan --- Minatitlan is the town where the refinery is located. We first stopped by a small stand where the vendor was named Mike :) -- he gave us a mexican dish that was Gabby's favorite. It was a creamy, spicy, corn in a cup dish with a lot of cream... I will fill in the name later. We then went to their favorite taco stand. Wicho ordered for us.... this was a bad decision at the time. I ended up eating an intestine taco!!! Most of you know that I don't even eat shrimp! After something was really chewy I decided to move on to my beef taco :)

As work is getting busy we are running out of time to hang out with our new friends! We did get to have dinner with our English teaching friend, Denise. She had her mom meet us and they were so cute together. They drove us back to Coatza, but on the way we ended up driving behind their old car (they bought a new car in sept). This old car contained family friends so we honked and honked and honked until they pulled over. The whole family who owned their old yellow VW bug all got out of the car to meet us. They told us we were beautiful. The daughter, about 14 years old, wanted to meet us to practice her English. She also took several pictures of us --- haha we can probably google them later on the internet.

Anyway! Below are some pictures from our adventures!

Coatzacoalcos Coast on the Gulf of Mexico

 

Typical Street in Minatitlan

Working in the Heat of Mexico

Everyone -- this is what I look like at work. A sweaty mess. This is Beth and I on top of the reactors waiting to go in them. Unfortunately, it still did not happen today due to our safety regulation conflicting with the customers safety regulations... blah blah blah. But work is going slow right now. They are taking everything out of the reactors but we are hoping everything is put back in them and ready to load the catalyst on Sunday --- hoping.

Beth and I are making a lot of friends at the refinery and at the hotel.. mainly just the ones that speak a little English and want to learn more English. For example, we were hanging out in the control room and we met a women named Denise. She works in the refinery and also teaches English. She instantly took our information and told us that she wanted to hang out with us to practice her English -- so we might be going to a movie or shopping this week :).

Also -- our friend Jose Morales Morales and his wife want to take us out to a taco stand or just out to dinner. If I am still here on Christmas, we will probably be spending it at Jose's house. We also may have gotten picked up by one of the employees named Palo who speaks excellent English and wants to show up some of the ruins. We hope we have some time to do all these fun things!

Hope all is well in Chicago and other places! Its 80 degrees here ---- which is way too hot to wear the things we have to for work....see picture..

Feliz Thanksgiving!

I hope everyone had a great thanksgiving -- Gobble! Gobble!

Beth and I had to work but we decided to eat dinner like it was Thanksgiving here too. We had turkey clubs for lunch but called it an earlier day. Work will start to pick up again on Sunday when we do reactor internals inspection. At dinner we had the usual Mexican feast but we decided to go all out and have dessert. I attached a picture of our delicious dessert.

One very exciting thing about the hotel today was that all the Christmas decorations were being put up. I will have to put up a revised picture of the hotel lobby with the christmas tree and all the beautiful decorations. Even the restaurant has mini christmas trees on the table :)

Authentic Mexican Cuisine

This morning the operators in the control room made Beth and I a delicious Mexican breakfast. Apparently in Mexico they eat the same food types each meal. All the operators shown in the picture below brought something to share with us. They brought us Nopales (Prickly Pear/Cactus), Picadas, Chicarrones, Empanadas, Delicious Mashed Potatoes and various hot sauces. It was absolutely delicious. We also got the chance to tell them all about an American thanksgiving.

Luis, on the bottom right, wants Beth and I to go with him and his wife to a taco stand and other delicious mexican restaurants. Luis's job is simply to take down all the data points. It turns out that he speaks better English than any of the engineers that we are supposed to be working with.

Our daily routine so far has been:
1. Arrive around 8:30 am 2. Stand at the front gate trying to fill out the form that we can't understand the titles to (I translated it tonight though so we can fill it out correctly tomorrow!) 3. Collect some data in the control room and discuss with Luis because he speaks English -- he has been teaching us and we are teaching him 4. Go to another office and eat lunch and talk with the office workers and give/get a spanish lesson with Jose Luis (different person). Work has been a lot of translating but it will definitely pick-up starting this Friday. We are really learning a lot of Spanish though.

Everyone has been really friendly and welcoming here in a good way! Happy Thanksgiving to everyone!

No hablo Inglés

I officially arrived in Minatitlan, Mexico on Sunday afternoon. We walked off the plane to a definite tropical climate. After passing the 2 person manned customers we made it to our hotel - Hotel Terranova. Hotel Terranova is the only 5 star hotel in the region and is located in the town of Coaztacoalcos in the state of Veracruz. We have not seen the main part of Coaztacoalcos but we are in REAL Mexico. English speakers are not as common as they are in Cancun.

Beth (Project Chief) and I arrived in the refinery on Monday and it turns out that none of our contacts truly speak English. We struggled a lot but today was much better. We have had several Spanish lessons with engineers in the office and they made us try a drink called Agua de Chaya. It is a drink filled with a ton of vitamins. The plant Chaya has more vitamins than spinach and is grown in Mexico and Texas and is known to cure things like diabetes or high blood pressure.

So we have also spent a lot of time in the central control room to monitor temps and pressures etc. The operators are now insisting on making us breakfast. It should definitely be interesting but we are going to bring some back up food just in case. So far the food that we have eaten (mainly in the hotel) has been absolutely delicious. Attached is a picture of the hotel lobby kind of --- I will try to post better pictures later.

Happy Thankgiving!

Jake the Christmas Cat

In prepartion for my work assignment to Mexico I tried to finish up all my Christmas shopping and out up all our holiday decorations. Justin and I went to Home Depot to buy a new 7.5' christmas tree. The only good one that they had was the floor model so they let us take it home without a box, still put together. On Friday we hung our stockings and Saturday we put up the Christmas tree.

This Christmas is Jake's ( our cat's) first christmas and he absolutely loved the tree. He first jumped in the tree to explore but spent most of the night laying on our tree skirt admiring the lights. Attached is a picture of him squinting under the tree.

Overall I am almost ready for Christmas! Happy Turkey Day Everyone! I will eat some thanksgiving tacos for everyone.

A Mall Better Than Woodfield?

Hello all!

I am back from Canda! It was a short but great trip. I learned a lot from the Canadians on the job but most importantly I got to shop!

The mall that I have been referring to is the West Edmonton mall. It not onyl has stores but it has two casinos, a hotel, a waterpark, ice skating rink (of course) and underwater sea adventure, roller coasters...and maybe even some other things we missed. My main goal of our two shopping trips was to find some olympic gear. For those of you who haven't heard, Vancouver, Canada is holding the olympics this January.Unfortunately, we looked in ALL the wrong places for the olympic clothes. I eventually found a stuffed animal named "Mukmuk" at the airport. His picture can be found here: Olympic Mascots

Here are some pictures from the mall. The mask is from Bourbon Street in the mall:

Oh Canada!

Hey all --

It has been a long time since I have blogged about my travels! Over the past month I have mainly been in the office with a short trip to Robinson, IL -- I will sneek a post in about that later!

So right now I am officially in Edmonton, Canada. Myself and the Chief of the Project - Katie, arrived late Sunday night. We drove all around Edmonton looking for our hotel and finally got in at about 1 am. We are staying at the Crowne Plaza Edmonton - Chateu Lacombe...which is way too nice for road life :).

Last night we were exhausted so we just had dinner at a local pub called Sherlock Holmes. The pub was an English/Irish pub that only played country music.

I will take/post some pictures soon --- apparently they have a mall here bigger than the Mall of America.

Birthday in East Central Illinois

My birthday celebration was held this year in beautiful Robinson, Illinois. Although this may not seem like fun to many -- we were pleasantly suprised and heres why:

1. Justin came over from his job in Springfield, MO
2. I got to learn a new technology in the Marathon Refinery
3. Robinson, IL makes it easy to chose what to eat - they have 1 italian restaurant, 1 chinese restaurant, 1 mexican restaurant... etc.
4. They have two bars -- one of which Jason and Justin got to sumo wrestle at!
5. They had a birthday celebration at Monical's pizza for their 50th anniversary and pizzas were only $5
6. We stayed in a "country club" -- the Quail Creek Country Club to be exact... they hosted PGA tournaments....in the 60s..and the hotel rooms probably haven't been updated since

Overall -- it was a great trip and a great birthday! :) The pictures are of the beautiful fall colors from our country club.

Exploring the Coast

After our visit to Stanford we decided to go even further west. We drove through the mountains towards Santa Cruz and then north to Half Moon Bay. It was getting late but we got to view the sunset while driving north up the coast. There was a beautiful ocean sunset on the left and beautiful mountains and forest on the right.

We stopped at a few locations up the coast on the beaches and eventually in Half Moon Bay for a delicious dinner at the Flying Fish Grill. Don't worry -- I ate chicken. Here are some beautiful pictures from our Sunday adventure. The first one is Mary and I on the beach and the other is a lighthouse with the sun setting next to it.

College Tour at Stanford

Happy October Everyone! This is my favorite month! I haven't updated in so long that I will split my post in to two pieces.

So - this past Sunday Mary, Jason, and I took Sunday afternoon to go explore the other side of the bay. I love visiting college campuses so I made Jason and Mary go on the campus tour of Stanford with me. We didn't only get to learn about Freshman classes -- we also got to see the beautiful beautiful campus. We had a cute Beverly Hills tour guide who carried around a skateboard. We decided not to go up the Hoover tower but we did learn that he was an engineer and the first student at Stanford...ever. Here is a picture of me before we entered their Quad. Unfortunately, their quad isn't as awesome as Illinois's quad which actually has grass in it -- but they do have a cool church bordering theirs.

Before leaving the town of Palo Alto, where Standford is located, we decided to visit a bar we read about called the Nut House. At the Nut house they give you peanuts and you get to throw the shells on the floor. The peanuts are not just available on the table. You have to reach inside the gorillas cage and take his peanuts. Here is a picture of him and his box of nuts.

Redwoods in Muir Woods

This week we found out that our job in the refinery is delayed. This is something that I will have get used to -- but.San Francisco is a great place to be stuck :::come visit!:::

When there was a slow day at the refinery this week, I convinced the Project Chief, Danny, to let me have the morning off to convince Mary and Jason to go to Muir Woods. Muir Woods is home of some of the greatest California Redwood trees. We started at the Muir Woods National Monument , here is a picture of us next to the sign at the entrance:

The trees were absolutely beautiful and tall and we got a great hike out of it. As soon as we walked in the park, we saw two deer munching on leaves, one male and one female. We stood in, sat on, read about, and hugged a bunch of trees for pictures. Apparently, we are just trying to get used to how the other Californians live.

In other news -- I got hit on at a stoplight by a cute guy in his 30s on my way home from work (of course he wasn't cuter than Justin :) ) Hopefully see everyone soon!

First Time on Night Shift

For the past couple days, myself and the chief, Ralph, have been assigned to the night shift. We shortened our shifts to 10 hours and worked from 8pm to 6am. Surprisingly the shifts went faster than expected and I was definitely able to learn as much as I can.

Some of the key life lessons that I learned during my night shift were 1. How to drive through the dark californian mountains 2. How to use the port-o-potties at 3am completely in the dark without dropping my safety glasses in the toilet.

The picture on theleft is a picture of the sunset from the parking lot of the refinery. If you look past the power lines you can see the bay and mountains in the distance. Luckily those three nights were the only "official" night shifts that I will have to work during my califonia assignment :)

Hiking Mt. Diablo

Yesterday I was supposed to be sleeping to get ready for my first night shift, when Jason and Mary invited me to go hiking. I figured it would be a good way to tire myself out so I could take a nap before work at 8pm - so I agreed.

Mt. Diablo is only about 10 miles from our hotel so it was a quick drive. We parked at the summit of the mountain and took several touristy pictures. Here is one from the castle like structure at the top. It was a foggy day -- but Mary and I insist that we can see the Sierra Nevada mountains in the distance.

During our hike we hiked two different trails - the Mary Bowerman trail along the summit of the mountain and the Trail Through Time - through Rock City. Rock City is a cool place about midway up the mountain. It is a cool area that has 50 million year-old sandstone that has been eroded over time and has several wind caves. Below is a picture of Jason, Mary, and I in one of the wind caves. We hung the camera on the tree and used the timer to take this picture -- hence it being crooked :)

Ice Cream in Berkeley

A few summers ago my friend Beth from work interned in the Chevron refinery near here, and lived in Berkeley. Ever since she found out that I was coming to the San Fran area, Beth has been telling me that I HAD to go to this homemade ice cream place in Berkeley.

So yesterday me, Mary (my co-workers wife), Danny's kids, and Danny's wife made the 35 minute trek to Ici (Ici Ice Cream) in Berkeley for ice cream. BTW - Danny is the chief of one of the assignment's here on site. It was definitely worth the ride! Everything was made from scratch, including the cone which was partially filled with chocolate. My cherry filled ice cream and cone was delicious. Berkeley was a very neat/cute place and I definitely plan to visit again to see the campus and visit the small shops and restaurants. Here is a picture of us enjoying our ice cream.

Weekend in San Francisco

Justin, my husband, was able to visit this weekend!

On Saturday, Justin, Jason from work, Jason's wife Mary and I went on an adventure.We decided to go to Napa Valley and visited two wineries - Frog's Leap & Casa Nuestra Winery & Vineyards
Both had beautiful scenery and great wine. At Casa Nuestra, we were able to taste the fruit off the vine, taste the wine from the barrel, and picnic next to the goats -- yes goats. Here is a picture of one of them below.He was a very snobby goat and was selective in the food we gave him.

 
On Sunday, Justin took me on a quick driving tour of San Francisco. We were able to see Ghiradelli Square, Lombard street - the curviest street in the world, and even the Golden Gate Bridge. It was a typical foggy day in the bay. Even when driving across to bridge into Morin County, we could not see the top points of the bridge. Below is a picture of Justin and I on the Morin County side of the bridge.

 

First Trip for Work

Hey All -

This is my first entry in my new blog. Hopefully this blog won't be as dramatic as my high school/college blog :)

I am currently in a program for work that started with 15 months of office training on the technology that my company licenses to other companies. Now I have switched to the traveling portion of the job where I spend 100% of my time on the road, away from our office in the Chicago area.

Where will I go? I will not know usually until a week or a few days before the trip -- and it literally can be anywhere in the world! Currently I am in the exotic location of ---- San Francisco!

San Francisco is probably one of the least exotic locations that I will travel but so far has been amazing. The first couple days were tough because I am definitely a home body. I miss my family and football Sundays but I especially miss my husband. He is taking care of our house and our kitty -- named Jake while I am away :)

Just to get a peak of the amazing views here in CA - to the left is a picture of my drive to work. It was a little foggy that morning... like it seems to always be near the bay. I will post more foggy pictures later of my trip to the city with Justin :)