Work Trip to Europe - Day 5

 

 

After an early morning cab ride up to Manchester from Chester, I arrived at the Manchester Airport for a 7 am flight.  I first flew from Manchester to Frankfurt and then caught a connecting flight from Frankfurt to Denver on Lufthansa.  Much to my surprise, I was in seat 1A. I am still getting used to this, but you catch on pretty fast!  Pre-flight fresh orange juice was a good start as I browse the menu.

The meals were great up in Business Class and flying East to West you stay up for all of them.  This was some sort of curry thing that was super tasty.  I think we actually had like two or three other meals.  It seemed like we were always eating.

Quite a long way, but almost home!  I will say I don't love the act of traveling that much but this was a pretty cool trip. Meeting all of the people that I work with remotely and to put a real face and name with all the interaction will provide a lot of good benefit moving forward.  Also, I will say that I am fairly independent, but I know Tara and the kids probably would have loved the area...especially Chester.  Maybe they will get to come out with me at some point.

Work Trip to Europe - Day 4

This is actually a picture of Conwy Castle that we drove by on the way up to Chester the day before.  This is this super formidable looking fortress built in the 13th century.  We didn't have time to get out, but you can actually drive your car right by this castle if you take a small detour on the way up to Chester.  

 

In any case, the next morning, John once again picked me up from my hotel in Chester and we headed over to Northwich.  We have a small corporate office that mostly houses the sales and quality teams (10-15 people) in a small building.  Thankfully, the drive is a rather short 20 minutes or so.  We spent the day there and then headed back to Chester for the late afternoon and evening.

John was going to meet me for a drink later, so I decided to see more of the city (this time with a bit more sunlight still shining).  This is the bridge gate and old Dee bridge.  IT was beautiful and the river was lined with these immense estates.

Continuing on, I arrived at the Chester Racecourse.  This area is known for horse racing and this is a very famous racetrack in the area.  It was built in 1539 and is the oldest race track still in use in the entire world.  No races were currently going on, but I guess when it's not being used runners can job along the inside of the track.  Pretty neat!

Across the street from the racetrack is this really great pub called The Architect.  We had a nice drink before I had to head back back to the hotel.  Tomorrow, I had to get up early to fly back to the US.

Work Trip to Europe - Day 3 (Part 2 of 2)

Getting around before sunset was tight, but Chester turns out to be a rather amazing little place!  I also just read it was ranked amongst the top most beautiful cities in the world.  It has this old town feel to it with this specific store-front architecture.

One of the main tourist things to do is to walk along the old Chester City walls.  It makes a roughly 2 mile loop of the inner city and is from Medieval times and is raised about 15-20 feet above the city below.

Along the way, you get amazing views of old churches like the Chester Cathedral built in 1092.  The grounds around the cathedral are beautiful and the sense of history is just something we can't get back in the United States.

This is King Charles' Tower along the City Walls.  It was used as a Medieval Watch tower and was built in the 13th century.  It is rumored that King Charles watched his army be defeated from this very spot.

This was another view of the cathedral as I passed by.  The sun was getting lower and really provided some amazing color.  I did learn a bit of a lesson, though, as I hurried back to my hotel room a bit later in the evening than I had hoped.  I had a small scare when some homeless gents decided to try to follow me as I came through one of the underpasses.  I guess it may have been unwise to go down there rather than trying to cross the street above.  After a quick jog, I was safely back to my hotel room and had a rather interesting tale to tell, as well.

Work Trip to Europe - Day 3 (Part 1 of 2)

After another night at the Moxy Dublin hotel, John picked both Mark and I up and the plan for the day was to take the 2.5 hr ferry ride over to Holyhead (Wales) on the Isle of Anglesey.  This is where another one of our plants is located, Llengefni.  This ferry was pretty crazy, you park your car in this thing and then we had tickets to the First Class lounge, which is this expansive area with great views and a full restaurant and seating for the trip.

Once landed, it was another 30 minute drive over to Llengefni which is shown above.  This is a much smaller and older plant than Portlaoise was.  There is only a two story office area that sits maybe 15-20 staff members and then also there is a cantine area that has meals (freshly home-cooked I will say!) for the team and plant workers.  I think I had some sort of bangers and mash and "veg" which happened to be carrots for the day.  

After a short day of working here, we headed up the coast from Wales over to the UK to spend the night in Chester.  This is a typical view along the way.  Just miles of green fields and tons of sheep and grazing cows.  It's very pretty.

We got in just before sunset and this was the view from my hotel room at the Moxy Chester.  I grabbed a quick meal and then I wanted to go do a quick walk around town before it got too late.

Work Trip to Europe - Day 1 (Part 3 of 3) and Day 2

 

 

It turns out, after putting in our restaurant "Peploes" into Apple Maps, it was about a 20-25 minute walk back across Dublin!  I guess I am getting my steps in today...but I did run across this cool canal system on the way there which I thought was very neat.

  

I ordered some really amazing pasta dish, pictured above, and we had a great evening together.  After the dinner with John and his daughter (who actually lives in Dublin), John was kind enough to give me a ride back to the hotel so I didn't have to walk back in the dark.  What a great first night!

We also saw this building on the way home, which was pretty cool looking.  I think this is the Department of Taoiseach (Grand Office of the Prime Minister of Ireland), but I could be wrong.

 

The next morning, John, picked me and Mark (my CIO) up at our hotels and we headed to Portlaoise, which was about 45 minutes southwest of Dublin.  This is one of the three manufacturing sites that we purchased and were integrating into our company.  We spent the day here working on integration activities and getting to know the team and then headed back to Dublin for the early evening.

 

Once back in the hotel, I feverishly searched out any local gyms that I felt like I could get to safely and though it was actually quite difficult I found this one.  It was a bit sketchy to get into, but once in I found this bike I could get some miles on.

 

Not knowing what I was going to walk into, I didn't really have a nice gym outfit to work with so here I am sweating like crazy in a white cotton shirt!  At least I got my workout in and returned safely back to the hotel before it got too late at night.

Work Trip to Europe - Day 1 (Part 2 of 2)

Dublin is a super neat city!  I was dropped off by Fintan at the Dublin Moxy Hotel about midday.  It was a bit too early to check into my room, but the held my luggage and I set off to explore.  Apparently, the Moxy is about a block or two away from a sketchier part of town but if you head towards downtown you are mostly fine. This is overlooking the River Liffey just off O'Connell street.  The temperature was quite pleasant and we had almost perfectly blue skies!

If you continue mostly Southward from the River Liffey, you end up at The University of Dublin Trinity College that was founded in 1592.  This was a really beautiful college campus with many historic buildings.  This particular picture is right in between library square and parliament square on campus.

A bit further Southwest of Trinity College is this amazing park called St. Stephens Green.  There were tons of people walking around and enjoying the sun and also just sitting and having lunch in the park.  After hanging out a bit, I decided to head back towards the hotel and check in for the afternoon/evening.

On the way back, I cruised up O'Connell street again which kind of resembles a walking mall but starts to get into a bit more of an interesting part of town.  I took this picture of some graffiti art that was along the mall.  It was actually spray painted on cellophane wrap that was strong between two polls.  

Just a few blocks from the hotel is also this huge metal spire that stands on O'Connell street.  I am not sure of the historical significance but it stands 120 meters tall and is pretty neat to look at.  After this stop, I finally made it back to the Moxy and checked in quickly before trying to head out to a "nearby" restaurant to meet up to meet up with my host John.

Work Trip to Europe - Day 1 (Part 1 of 2)

This is my first international work trip, as we have been working on a multi-year M&A project to integrate a small EU/UK cheese company that we purchased.  When flying internationally, per company policy, we can fly Business Class.  This was certainly new to me and I felt like a rookie, not knowing what to do with this huge stack of stuff that was in my seat when I showed up.  Do I keep this stuff or just use it on the flight or do they just charge me for what I use...in the end I just tried to act like I belonged.  The plan was to leave Denver on Saturday and then I would arrive in Dublin about mid-morning.

In order to deal with the jet lag, I had read a bunch of articles that said the best way to go East is to try to go to sleep as soon as you can and avoid the dinner.  This is made a bit easier with the lay-flat seats that you have.  Then, around morning time for Dublin, you get up and eat a nice breakfast.  So that's what I did and in Business Class you actually get this really nice quality breakfast with metal silverware and everything.

This is a picture of Dublin from the air as we finally circled around to land.  Once on the ground, I slowly made it through customs and my main contact had arranged for a driver (Fintan) to pick me up and take me to my hotel room in Dublin.  For the record, Fintan looked EXACTLY as I had imagined an older Irishman driver would look like.  He was great!

National Honor Society Induction

Gavin was recently honored with an invitation to be inducted into the National Honor Society.  I think this is a result of his grades and leadership within the school.  It is a great honor and they do a nice formal induction ceremony to celebrate all of the new members.

After some talks by the chapter leadership, and a formal pledge by the new inductees, they called them one by one up to the stage to be congratulated and receive their certificates.

Gavin seemed a bit hesitant or reluctant at first, but I think he realized what an honor this is and was proud to be recognized.  Sometimes separating the achievements from the social hierarchy is difficult to navigate.  We are very proud of his achievement and the recognition of his academic effort.

 Lastly, this is a close up of his certificate, though it is coming through sideways!

Prom (Broomfield)

This was Gavin's first prom while he was actually a Sophmore, but his girlfriend Tamiyo was actually a Junior at Broomfield.  Typically only Juniors and Seniors go to Prom.  He polished up fairly nicely as we met a larger group up at the Acreage.  They assembled for pictures and a quick dinner before jumping on a party bus to go the Dance.  This is Tara and Gavin  before the ladies arrived.

This is one of Gavin's good friends, JD, that I think served as a wing man and provided moral support for Gavin for the evening.  They do look pretty sharp!

This is Gavin with his date, Tamiyo.  Her dress was really pretty and in kind of a scary way this looked almost like more of a wedding shoot.  Certainly, none of us were ready for anything like that when they are this young!  It was actually the first time we met Tamiyo's parents as well, which was kind of nice after a few months of these two dating.

 

Here is one last picture from the overlook.  It was a beautiful venue to get pictures and the evening weather was just perfect.  After about 30 minutes of pictures, they headed inside for their dinner reservations with the crew and we said our goodbyes.  It's wild to think back to my own time attending prom and all the fun adventures that come out of the event. He did end up having a good time, but we are not sure they spent a ton of time at the actually dance portion.  Lots of time was spent herding all of the people in their group and getting them to align on a single plan.

Who Loves Spring Soccer Training?

Spring training in Colorado can be awesome or not so awesome...sometimes even within the same session.  Today's forecast had some cooler weather with the possibility of some rain/snow but it was hard to tell what would happen.  I made sure to remind Gage to be prepared for anything and was promptly greeted with a "I'll be fine out there" rebuttal.

This is the look of someone who may not have been "fine out there" as the rain turned into a down right white squall with snow coming down.  He was absolutely soaked through from the early rain and the snow with some accompanying wind was a cruel addition.  He might have (off he record) admitted that I was right and he should have packed some even warmer layers...Some lessons you just have to learn on your own I guess!