The start of the werkdays

Today was relatively quiet.  Things started with leaving the hotel at 9am to make a short drive to the facility I am visiting this week.  I arrived in 15 mins, exactly as the GPS said I would.

It took me a little bit of time to find where to park.  All the employees part in a four story parking garage behind the building.  I tried calling the front desk from the machine at the gate but no one answered.  So I backed up the Tiguan and drove to the front.  I asked the receptionist and she said that visitor parking was one of the five spots right up front.  Luckily there was one left for me.

Once checked in with Reception, my contact took me up to the office and I got setup for the day.  There is another guy from Bombardier here too so we are sharing the office for the Head of Qualification and Testing.

They are so direct!
(PS. Just missed out on 007 again... lol)

We then took a short tour around the facility, looking at the various items that they build and test here.  It's quite an impressive outfit, very clean and tidy (as you need when you are fabricating electrical components).  They also have a large number of test machines, more than I was expecting.

The one thing I have learned from my few trips to Europe for work is that these companies like to have test machines to use at their disposal.  Therefore many will buy tensile, environmental and flammability test machines so that they can do their own internal tests before sending externally for official tests.  It is an interesting concept.

Also, the pace seems very relaxed and organized.  I am in Germany after all so I would only expect things to be organized.

Testing went well today.  Had a small "issue" (can't really even classify it as such) where we had a pressure leak on the vacuum line when trying to do negative pressure tests.  Helps when you don't simply hand tighten the fitting.  After this small adjustment using a leatherman (or whatever German equivalent it is), we were back in business and finished the testing.

I was told that there were supposed to be more tests this week but seems like there is only a few more vibration tests starting tomorrow - so I will get to see how they setup the apparatus and unit for test.  It's too bad I didn't know about this test schedule earlier as I probably could have arranged to meet with my other contact in Spain on Thursday rather than Friday.

I worked until about 5:15 and called it a day.  Another short drive back to the hotel and then I made my way down to the restaurant for dinner - turkey cord en bleu and potato and cucumber salad.  And a beer.  It was delicious, and so was the beer.

While I was eating, I was finally able to get the live feed working on my phone for the solar eclipse in the US so I got to see the count down and then the reemergence of the sun - very cool.  There is nothing to see here in Germany, too far away from the action that was streaking across the continental US.

After making my way up the one set of stairs to my room, I talked with Lola who was on her lunch break.  Now, it's almost time to get ready for bed.  I'm tired today, must be the jet lag finally catching up.

Hopefully I can sleep through the night tonight, not that I was up much last night, not like the night before.

Hope you are staying warm and dry on this rainy day back home.  Here, it is 12*C right now.  Very fresh with the window to the room open.  Except when the cigarette smoke makes its way in with the breeze.  I forgot how much European's like to smoke...