Oh Lovely Florence I Hate to Go

So day 22 and I now know there is no Letter of invitation due for another 4 weeks and then another week for the visa and then I can travel to Russia so I am leaving for home, problem is that all the planes are full of tourists and I cannot get a seat. So I am here for another couple of days and then I can get home to my new house and my wonderful wife. So what have I learned in the last few weeks in Florence, well it is dammed expensive but I already knew that. Florence is a jewel in the tourist destinations of Italy. It has such a concentrated core of wonderful things to do it overshadows most other places and we can thank the Medici family for that. Train travel is also very good not fantastically cheap but very clean and regular trains are perfect for getting about. A very important point is that I now know that most oil companies don’t have an idea about planning for anything so that is why most projects are months or years behind schedule and billions over cost, but it doesn’t matter as all the mugs who buy gas will pay what ever it costs to drive on the road. Today it is going to be at least 38 C and most people complain but I love the heat. I think I will really love going to Qatar, I will have a great tan and have the beach to myself.

Venice The Disneyland of Old Europe

A tale of a rather sad and neglected city that is disappearing into the sea. The trip to get to the crazy tourist attraction is not bad, I got my train ticket to Venice at 7.15am and was told the first train with a seat was at 9.36 am. This pissed me off right away as I was so excited about going I was awake at 5.30am and was eating breakfast at 6.45am. So I sat about and walked about the station until the train arrived. There were literally hundreds of people at my station and when we got onto the train my reserved seat was occupied by some upset and sweaty Australians. There were about 25 teenage girls from the USA who were also trying to get into their seats and frightened to tell anyone about “Your sitting in my seat”. So I finally got into the carriage and pointedly said to this man and wife, “I’m sorry but these seats are all reserved and you’re sitting in them”. He tried to complain that he had bought a ride anywhere ticket. I agreed that it was a great ticket but still not in the reserved seats, this also meant that he had missed his chance at getting in the free for all seating at the back and probably had to stand all the way to Venice. The train was full and the ride was not bad, we passed through a series of tunnels that were immensely long, maybe 20 km long. This is far longer than anything in the UK and I was impressed by the standard of the trains and stations and lines. The trains were well kept and very clean and quite modern, the only blot was there were lots of illegal immigrants begging on the trains, I wish you would be allowed to physically throw them off the train out of a window, could be a new sport, that would be a deterrent. So I got to Mestre where we all had to disembark, this is where the ticket was poor, it meant I now had to go to the ticket office again and buy a ticket to go the 10km on a local commuter train, this is poor planning, I should have been able to buy that at the same time and have it on my ticket, so I got the quickest train in as they go every 5-10 minutes. The train goes over this marshy lagoon over a giant bridge system, quite impressive, passing little islands of trees that were full of nesting egrets and herons (just thought I would mention birds again somewhere). We pulled into a giant station with 18 platforms a huge modern building which doesn’t fit into the renaissance architecture of this really old city.

A big bridge over the grand canal in Venice




I passed over the Grand Canal on one of the huge old bridge and I bought a guide book of the city which contained a map, an essential in this crazy maze of an unplanned old place. I was heading for Saint Marc’s square that contained the Doge’s Palace.

A gondolier on one of the many canals in Venice, very strange to see them like taxis




I was walking along with maybe another 100,000 tourists mostly from the USA and Japan, well that is the same the world over, it was very busy but once you got lost amongst the old walkways streets the crowds got much less. The city is much bigger than I thought it was going to be and the walk to the square takes maybe 1 ½ hours in total. It is easy to get lost as the streets are narrow and there is millions of them and the maps are not that great.

One of the many very grand Churches in Venice




There are some fantastic churches amongst the houses. But the houses themselves are looking very sad and unloved and rundown, it looks like a city that no-one actually lives in anymore and is just a tourist spot, that was a major disappointment that it looked so empty.

One of the man very run down looking houses




Let's face it why would anyone want to live there. Flooded in winter and millions of tourists in summer, there are much nicer places to go and live rather than a damp place with crappy winter weather.

St Marc's Square very nice but millions of Pigoens




The Doge's Palace, a really rich dude who had the power of life and death in his hands, doesnt that sound nice. He was a bit like a king but didnt have any land, just the canals and the sea




A big church across the grand canal from the Doge's Place, great for a party




Some fancy houses that lined the grand canal, they must have been really rich to live here, i wish i had been that rich in those times or that rich today




So when I get to St Marc’s square there are billions of pigeons and millions of tourists and three nice buildings, again I don’t want to sound like a miserable old fart but I have been to nicer places with equally nice buildings, it just left me feeling a little deflated after the immense build up from all the things I have seen and read about Venice over my life. Yes it is impressive but that lasts about 5 minutes, what else do you do after the 6 hours it took me to get there. Personally I like old family homes, which actually could be huge mansions or palaces, but if they have the contents it feels like I am going back in time to what it was like, but Venice didn’t give me that feeling like going back in time. I immediately started my return walk and got lost very badly, my map was OK but crossing one little bridge was the same as any other little bridge and I ended up amongst the crappy cheap housing of the local workers and into the dock area, so far from where I wanted to go the railway station. I had to walk along a roadway and basically out of town to get on the road into the town and to the railway station, perhaps adding another mile onto my journey, all through my walking the temperature was about 35-37C, very hot and humid, I took along 2 bottles of water and 1 bottle of some fizzy sugary soda, this was a mistake, as after each drink of this thing, I felt more thirsty and my throat became all clogged up with some crappy product from the drink, it was nasty and I was glad I after I finished it up. I was drinking like mad and my packed lunch of a giant ham and mushroom pizza was perfect it filled me up and saved me from buying some very expensive crappy food in Venice. I did get a giant smudge of pizza grease on the lens of my new camera, I managed to wipe it off with my sweaty shirt, and I will have to give it a proper cleaning when I get home to Costa Rica. I finally got back to the station and slumped into a seat and was happy to be going home, I had to change train at Mestra again and waited for the Eurostar train ignoring the first possible train as I wanted to go fast. The Eurostar train arrived and it was a nice impressive train, very luxurious actually and the ticket inspector came along after about 10 minutes, I handed over my ticket to him and he handed it back saying, “where is your return ticket”, I looked at him in disbelief and pointed at the one in his hand and said “that is it”, “no, this isn’t it”, he retorted, I then explained, “the woman in the ticket office gave me that one after I asked for a return ticket”. “You will have to buy the return ticket now from me”, he then said. I nodded in agreement feeling pretty silly with everyone looking at me. He came back with his credit card machine and said, “That will be 51 Euros ($65)”, my jaw must have dropped open at this point, “how much” I must have screamed at him, “well there is a fine of 25 Euros for not having a ticket, I complained that it wasn’t my fault and the woman in the ticket office is to blame and that it isn’t fair and that the pope is wonderful and that I don’t support George Bush and the Queen is a relative of mine. He looked at me and said with an air of finality, “You will have to leave the train at the next station and get a ticket there”. I assured him that is what I was going to do. I have never been thrown off a train before and never been accused of not paying and this after seeing the illegal immigrants begging on the trains knowing full well they have no ticket either. So I left at the next station and got my ticket and realising I had actually saved 3 Euros on the ticket price so I went to the bar and had a big cold beer, it was heaven but not worth the 1 ½ hours I lost from my train journey home. Man I was angry at the silly woman not knowing what I was asking for, serves me right for not speaking Italian. So the weekend before when I went to Pisa I had got the wrong ticket again, I could have been thrown off that train also. So the trains are not as cheap as I thought, so the fare for the Venice trip far from being about $25 was actually $50, and Pisa was more like $15 and not $7. there are some lessons to be learnt for travelling around on the trains, read the ticket you get, it is actually very easy and I just didn’t do it, it tells you on each ticket like a flight boarding pass, from where your leaving to and where you're going. Make sure you have the correct number of train passes for your journey. Always take a packed lunch with you and lots of water, this will save you tons of money as Italian tourist prices are probably amongst the highest in the world. Never give the beggars any money, they are professional beggars and work for gang masters who skim most of the money. In summer in Italy wear sun block as you will burn very quickly and without knowing that your burning and can be very bad if your pale and from a cooler climate like New York or Japan. These tourist destinations are never like you expect and therefore don’t build your expectations as you will be disappointed about it and the amount of money you have spent getting to see it.
My best trip ever and most satisfying ever was my 3 month drive across the western half of the USA, I drove from Denver Colorado through Colorado springs had a few weeks there working, and to Las Angeles after driving past the grand Canyon. I was working in Palm Springs of all places. I toured all the major tourist destinations in California, like the Giant Redwoods in the Sequoia national park and Yosemite, Lake Taho, Sea Word the entire coastal road up California, Monteray bay, the Getty Museum, Seattle, watching the Killer whales in Puget Sound, all 3 pods, total 85 killer whales. After all that I drove back to Denver to fly home, going to see old Faithful the geyser in Yellowstone park in early winter with snow on the ground, what a crazy trip and I even saw a mountain lion cross the road in front of me while driving along, magical, once in a lifetime trip and all paid for by my employer, he didn’t realise what he was doing but he made money out of me anyhow.

Italians Are Really Romans in a Car

The Romans never died out they just turned into Italians and the great sports they used to have are still with us today, the gladiatorial games are still being played daily. The chariots they used are now cars and the same lethal tactics used then are still used today.
1, they have to chase the car in front to overtake and kill the occupant by whatever means they can, usually weaving about and forcing them into oncoming trafic.
2, they drive as fast as those horses will make them go and try to lead the race around all the circuit even if it means overturning and dieing in a ball of flames.
3, pedestrians are all willing opposing gladiators in the eyes of all motorists and are meant to be killed by being run over at every opportunity, so pedestrain crossings are a killing ground and should never be used by a tourist.
4, scooter riders are nasty horsemen from the north and should be squashed into pulp under the wheels of a chariot, I agree with this one
5, bicycle riders are nasty horsemen from the north and should be squashed into pulp under the wheels of a chariot, this as a bicycle rider I do not agree with
so here endeth the lesson on Roman gladiatorial car driving today

My New Neighbour

Did I mention that a neighbour of mine is Chuck Norris's Mum, this is the rumour. the house is quite striking as you can imagine, it has a blue shigle roof and as with most houses not in a condo it is surrounded by electified fencing, or as one salesman called it electricuted fencing and this was after we tried correcting him several times, he was a buffoon for sure and we never did buy that house he was selling. more news later on my trip to Florence oh wonderful Florence.

A Real Case of Compulsive Ossessive Disorder in My Office

I am a people watcher by nature, I enjoy seeing people do their little idiosyncrasies and it is a great time waster when in an airport or on the plane, but I have come face to face with a crazy obsessive compulsive person in my companies office. Not only do they have a very serious case of this disorder, they cannot control it even when face to face with other people. Normally obsessive compulsive disorder is carried out behind closed doors as most sufferers know they have a big problem and like to keep it well hidden but this person cannot control it in the slightest and has the worst case I have ever seen. Usually this disorder is suffered by insecure folks and is a dead giveaway to their state of mind. My first encounter was in the office and when talking to this person I was amused by the fact that she was twisting and twirling her hair around her finger like a little girl, now this women is someone who has a responsible job and one would assume they were confident but I am sure this women is actually mad, she kept spinning her hair round and round her finger and her hair was totally messy as she must have been spinning it constantly all day and horrendously greasy and this was probably due to it being played with all day. Now this isn’t a real problem and she may be just a little insecure but what she did afterwards was just insane, she was then flattening her hair down like almost slicking it down and then she grabbed a braid and pulled it straight down her face and then pulled it under her nose and pursed up her lips to pinch it between her lips and nose and snorted loudly while sniffing her greasy hair, now I burst out a little laugh and then coughed to cover up my laughter and she must know that as being only 3 feet away I saw everything she was doing but she just couldn’t help herself. I have been told other stories about this women and she has a serious problem. If you are sat in her office then she will spin her hair and if you are talking about serious stuff she will progress to swiping parts of her body with her finger tips and then sniffing them and doing it as though she cannot be seen. She will sniff her fingers after swiping them under her armpit and then progress to swiping between her breasts, so what will this women do when she is alone. She needs help and basically is out of her depth with this job, she is a bully and a tyrant and takes the power thing in her job to the extreme and if she doesn’t have a breakdown she will get fired for going over the top with her bullshit rhetoric and petty minded nitpicking. How did she ever get that job, it just proves that once again that it isn’t what you know it is the amount of bullshit you can spout that gets you the job you want.

Florence oh Wonderful Florence, Will I Ever Leave You

Well on Saturday I went for a walk in the old city centre of Florence and I was mingling with millions of tourists as this is the high point of the tourist season, but I know Florence is great but I have been around the centre so many times now that I am getting bored with it and the hassle of getting around with the tourists.




I am wondering if the whole of continental USA has come to Italy for its summer vacation, the overwhelming language heard on the streets is English and with a heavy American accent. It is so funny that you can see a lost tourist with a map in his hands and looking hopefully at me and then asks with no hint of shame and says, “Can you speak English”. This is in central Italy, what is he thinking of, he was lucky it was me so I normally reply, “I hope so”.




They are having a big problem here with the thousands of illegal migrants, as they usually sell shitty tourist crap, like prints of famous paintings and fake Rolex watches and fake Gucci bags and rip off music CD’s, they are in their hundreds along the streets between the main squares and the Medici Palaces and the Ponte Veccio bridge.




There are tourist police and they patrol along these streets and can arrest these street hawkers if they catch them with the crap they have, but the hawkers usually have a look out and can lift up their stuff in about 2 seconds and start walking away if the police are coming, very funny to watch.




I was sat in my room watching a bit of TV after my walk into town and I was laid down on the bed looking out into the lovely garden and I saw a monster Mosquito fly into the room, this may not sound strange but I am on the 5th floor and I am thinking how on earth did that insect find me, they must be able to smell me out, this happened 3 times and I had to spend lots of time chasing them down to kill them as I am sensitive to mosquito bites, I did see one later and I didn’t find that one so it will have probably sucked at least another pint of blood out of me in the night, little shit.
Sunday being the day of rest I decided to go for a tour on the railway to Pisa to see that famous leaning tower.





Getting the ticket was a novelty, I asked in my strong northern English accent and this poor women only caught the word Pisa. I asked for return as I am in Florence and normally people come back from where they go, but I a sure my ticket is only a one way and from the looks of the ticket it says from Pisa to Florence, how could she give me a one way going the wrong way, mad women.




Anyhow I now realise that nobody checks the tickets on Sunday at least and from a colleague he told me then rarely ever check as he was here for two years and rode into Florence all the time without paying. So I get to Pisa and found a not great looking little town, some old buildings but not very pretty, I walked for about an hour and got completely lost inside a hospital grounds trying to get a shortcut to the main road, madness, I could see a church dome above the houses but couldn’t get to it, I was going round the houses to use a British expression but not getting to the place. I was on a main road and certain I was lost but I could see tourists here and there and it gave me hope, and then I was upon the place without knowing, it was hidden behind the old city wall probably and the grounds were quite big and millions of tourists. Call me an old fart and call me miserable and maybe I am getting bored with travelling but I wasn’t that impressed, I am still impressed with the great Duomo of Florence, but Pisa isn’t worth the trip, it is nice to say I have seen it but if I wasn’t in this part of the world I would be very disappointed with what I got, don’t get me wrong it is nice and picturesque but I have seen nicer and better buildings, Florence is far better.





I probably left after 30 minutes and I don’t do the climb the tower thing anywhere. I went back to the station and waited for my train and climbed aboard and watched as new countryside came by and an oil refinery which I definitely didn’t see coming to Pisa, I was going in the wrong direction, I was wondering where I was going to end up but the line does stop at this small town called Livorno at the coast and yes that is where I ended up, I had to wait only 13 minutes before the next train came back to take me to Pisa and yes it did go all the way back to Florence central, this is good as I fancied a nice sandwich or a pasta. I got this what I would call a hot toasted sandwich with loads of cheese and cured ham on it, it was probably the nicest piece of food I have eaten in Florence so far, I went back to the station to catch a train to the small station about 4 Km out of town called Florence-Rifredi, he was some important dude about 3-400 years ago. So I then go to find an open supermarket to kill a few well deserved beers and to my horror after a 45 minute walk to my nearest one, it is closed along with every other food place, I thought this place was civilised but seems to be stuck in the catholic middle ages. My legs are dead and feet sore and well worn and I have another week to kill in Florence before I fly to some place for a meeting or maybe fly home, we will see what the Lord Buddha brings me.

Will it Ever End

Today was the end of my second week in Florence and there is no sight in end to me being here, things have gone from hopeful to hopeless. Not that I am complaining, life here is not bad, had a football game and a night out with the guys from the office at an open air sort of eatery come bar thingy, it was in a spare room at the local modern art museum and it was not bad , as long as the weather is good of course, food was minimal and wine was acidic to the point of puking but here in Italy drinking is for just wetting the tongue and not getting drunk so we had two glasses of wine and a glass of vodka and orange. So my arrangements for travelling to Russia have ground to a halt and we cannot contact anyone as they are on holiday and we don’t know when we can get a meeting to press them for an invitation letter for the visa and I have only two weeks left before I have to go home for my rotation, things are getting close to the point that I will go home after achieving nothing and doing nothing other than copying and pasting a few docs into some other form and adding my project name to the front page. I have now run out of things to do and I am not sure how I am going to fill in 40 hours next week, the other thing is I am losing money on this as I normally work 84 hours a week and here I am only doing 40, I am working for half pay, crap really, but as I have found out that I can only work in Russia for no more than two rotations, as the company I work for doesn’t have an office there and I cannot therefore get a work visa but I can get a 2 entry business visa, this suits me fine as I don’t want to be there for the winter months. I did get to meet some bigwigs from Exxon with an old buddy from the project in Equatorial Guinea, he introduced me and I told them I was already working on an Exxon project and they was suitably impressed and I am sure I am going to get onto the giant Qatar project. It will be sometime about October or November and this seems perfect for a nice warm winter in the city of Doha. Maybe getting a house sorted out for some proper living for once in about 15 years of working in this contracting game. This weekend I am looking at going to Pisa and look at that crazy bell tower and maybe the weekend after that I will go to Venice and take a million pics , it is easy by train so I have been told. We will see what happens, as all field engineers know life is a bitch and then you die.

Day 10 In Florence

Well it is day 10 of my Florence tour of duty and there is no sign of when I am going to be either going to Russia or even a project meeting in Korea to get my letter of invitation for the Russian Visa, I could spend my entire month in Florence and achieve nothing, to be honest I am starting to prepare lots of documentation for my project but it is nothing to compare with what I normally do for a living. The weather is fantastic, clear blue skies and wonderful fresh air blowing through the windows when you have them open, I have just been for my annual medical and had what can only described as medieval water torture inflicted upon me, I was asked not to eat before going to the clinic and that was for the cholesterol probably and I was invited to lay down and a guy had hot water hosed into my ears with my eyes closed and this was until my brain was spinning and then he put a bright light over my eyes and got me to look in different directions, I almost puked several times, he was not happy doing this in one ear but both ears, I felt like shit after that and then he threw me out of his office to await some other doctor sticking needles into me, I felt like death with my brain pulsating form the bright lights and my ears still pounding from the water torture and having no food inside of me made me light headed and very bilious. I needed some comfort from mama and nothing was available, I left the clinic after they drew at least 2 litres of blood and was desperate for a taxi and some food, I wandered around a part of town I didn’t know and found a supermarket and got fruit juice and some donuts, this gave me some sugar in the blood and I felt less sick but I was still lost and kept trying to flag down a taxi, No chance, all were occupied and I was left to wander around and finally I found myself in a dead end housing area. This was getting insane and out of control. I managed to find my way back to a small main road and finally got an empty taxi after 1 hour. I felt total relief and went to complain in my office about the tests in the clinic, the guys in the office were all laughing but they don’t have to do these tests. I am now off to the main company office and to carry out some more meaningless paperwork and see if I can not fall asleep as I had to get up at 6 to go to the clinic.

Florence Forever

How could I have ever planned something as crazy as this trip, today on Monday I found out that I am here for another week in the office helping prepare all the procedures for the project and the week after I am going to a project meeting in Korea to try and pressure the oil company into giving me a visa , I don’t even know why I am going but my project manager is probably overloaded and is looking for some moral support and needs me to hold his hand, I almost feel that I belong in Florence, it is a crazy expensive place but the food is fantastic, I could get used to the cheese and ham and wine, what a life.

Oh Lordy Sakhalin Sounds like Shite

What have I let myself in for with this Russian posting. I have been speaking with the main contractor today and he was scathing at the miserable site that the plant was constructed in, this made me feel a bit desperate, he claims it is built in a swamp that this time of year is swarming with Mosquitoes. The name of the place is Chayvo and in the Indian tongue it means place that should be avoided. Basically it is a miserable shithole and if it wasn’t for the fact I am only supposed to do two or now possible three rotations into it I would be desperate. The food is potatoes every meal but as an Englishman brought up on meat and two veg this is a positive thing. Pork is the main meat for the camp but again no alcohol and no fun basically. But the travel to a far off distant land still holds its appeal for me and I will look positively at this. I am also finding out that this construction site is far behind schedule and nothing will be running while I am there and may not be until after I have left. So it seems I am a victim of a pre-prepared schedule made years ago and with far too much optimism and not enough real life pessimism. Also obtaining the visa it turning into a nightmare of telephone calls to long far flung places, I could spend another 10 days here in Florence waiting to travel but that is something I can endure with fortitude. Long live the hopeless planner in Houston.

Destination Sakhalin, Estimated Arrival Date, 2007

I am somewhat bemused by the fact I am in the Florence office of my company and making inspection of the operational plans for my posting and helping along with recommendations of operation. which is a first for me and that is because the new project manager is a newbie to all this thing, but the company that is requiring my services is being so goddam tardy about getting my visa, there is no definite date for my departure to Russia or even a potential start date, what the hell is that all about, can't they organise something, they are going to be paying for a service on the start of the contract but the man running that post is going to be in Florence eating cheese and drinking strong black coffee in the summer sunshine of Italy or lazing on the beach in Costa Rica taking a well earned rest after moving house, or actually having the house moved while working in Peru and just mopping the floors after the move. So how can the company not have my visa ready for me and why no urgency, probably they have far too much money and don't care and are so busy checking how many hundreds of millions they have already lost on the project to bother with the piffling couple of millions that this service contract is going to cost to worry about me going to the job, either way I get paid and have an easy time in the real world not the rarefied world of oil company accounting.

The Insanity Factor of Flying Around the World

Why do some people think they are flying alone and do crazy shit when they fly, they have a carry on bag that is bigger than themselves and weights about the same as a baby elephant and then try and push through other people as though they do not exist and never say sorry, excuse me or even kiss my ass dipshit!. Do they believe they are invisible or that some bubble of excusability surrounds them that excuse their intolerable behaviour. What possesses these travelling morons to act in such a horrendous manner. I will not suffer such acts in future and will tell all and sundry of there miserable behaviour in future. I have reached that age where I can tell both older and younger what I think and have no repercussions. I have to suffer the same crappy food as them and they miserable seating as them also, so why should I tolerate there boorish antics. I watch in astonishment as they lug these huge bags up and down stairs and through the aisles beating themselves around the legs with sharp and pointy bags, having to lap over them as they trip over and flail around like a dying antelope to stay upright and not look like a moron with an overlarge and heavy bag. I can appreciate why they try and do everything as carry on as my bags today are in Atlanta as I am sat in the office in Florence Italy and have no chance of getting them until tomorrow at the earliest. This doesn’t happen very often to me but I am stuffed for toothpaste and toothbrush and shampoo. this is a massive inconvenience but I am not about to change my flying habits because of this, you will never see me trying to carry the equivalent of a mobile refrigerator onto a plane and hinder everyone else and then complain about it to everyone else. Can someone finally tell these assholes to carry nothing larger than a laptop bag or a bag of knitting. I rest my case, the airlines are to blame as they do not make strict rules so we all have to suffer the inadequacies of some members of the flying public