Days 45-51: Paigey’s first business trip

Sup! I was blown away by England this week but unfortunately had a really tight schedule and wasn’t able to do much actual exploring.

Quick hits:

• so glad I wear my retainer
• DONG Energy is a private company, which supplies the primary amount of Denmark’s energy. This is important to understand before looking at the London office…
• I bought a postcard with Manchester cathedral on it and it looked cool so we visited and it was actually the lamest building in the city
• GIS is the coolest (who’s surprised I just said that)
• There are so many sheep in this world

 

Details:

Wow. I’m really running out of time to even write these blog posts! I wish I could give the full experience of England in a post but I’ll be honest, it had a lot of very natural kinda depressing beauty I would not be able to capture in writing.

SO, I will say I had a great time with my boss and coworker that came along with! We spent Wednesday in Barrow-in-Furness (not a joke, actual town name) and Thursday in Grimsby (also not a joke) Both were field sites and very remote. We stayed in Manchester because it was much more central.

The weather was not that bad, honestly. I feel like this whole summer people have been telling me to wait for terrible weather and I am still waiting!

In short, we were consulting for a majority of the time. It was a lot of listening to what they use our GIS solutions for, learning what they could be improving on, etc. In the field they are doing a lot of maritime traffic tracking and logistical work with our maps. It was awesome to be sitting in the control room, maybe 14 monitors around one desk, with three live streaming a helicopter landing on a pad on a windmill to drop off technicians. The conditions were HORRIBLE and everyone was really focused so that made our meeting seem really lame in comparison. Regardless, it was like I was in The Hunt for Red October for a couple minutes there and that was sick.

In London the consulting was a little more focused, working with GIS engineers that help develop projects around the UK, Germany, and Denmark. THAT was really cool information. I could realistically see myself doing that type of work as my career progresses. I wont bore you with technical stuff but it was AWESOME.

DONG Energy’s office in London was very very ritzy. They owned the first five floors of the building with Armani being on the sixth floor… It was really central, just behind Buckingham Palace and around Westminster Cathedral. After our meeting we had literally an hour to look around before our flight so I saw as much as I could and then we were back on the plane to Copenhagen.

London was the coolest. I am so bummed I only had 12 hours there. I will be back (maybe to work at DONG Energy’s London office…)

This weekend was filled with new friends and lounging around all the best hangout spots in Copenhagen. I haven’t been with more than to 20 somethings hanging out in months so it was so awesome being a part of that again.

I am pooped. We slept maybe 4 hours a night on the business trip and I’m trying to soak in this city while I can and that’s resulting in a lack of sleep. Last night I knocked out at 9:30. I also watched Surfs up for the first time in a while and I’m just giving you a friendly reminder to go watch it because its FANTASTIC.