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Published: January 4th 2009
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I just do not know where the time goes. At the beginning of December, I had been in Australia for 6 months and it felt like I just got here. Two years will certainly fly. The beginning of December also brought with it the start of summer and Christmas shopping. Certainly a little odd to be Christmas shopping in shorts and a t-shirt. Very hard to get into the Christmas mood. I would expected Santa to be in a Hawaiian shirt and shorts, but instead you had fake snow and Santa in his usual outfit. He must have been really hot is all I have to say about it.
December brought a surprise trip to the US for work. What a nice surprise! On my way to Seattle, I stopped for a few days in San Francisco to see friends. I also got to meet the new addition, Jordan. So cute! :-) God obviously heard that I was having trouble with the weather and decided to make it snow in Seattle. I really didn't think much of it when I heard it was going to snow as I assumed this was a normal occurrence in Seattle. Turns out I was
wrong. The western part of Washington doesn't usually receive snow, just lots and lots of rain. As a result when it snowed 6 inches, they didn't really have equipment or salt to deal with it. In two days, I saw two plows and neither of them was actually plowing. As you can imagine, after two days 6 inches results in a very icy mess. Without four wheel drive, we got stuck in the snow outside of Best Buy. Thankfully a nice passerby pulled us out of the parking lot and we were good to go.
I was working an hour outside of the city, so I only spent the weekend in Seattle. My co-worker and I spent Saturday doing the typical city tour. We took a trip to the Pike's Place Market, the local fish market and souvenir stands. We located the first Starbucks and noted that their coffee supplier was originally Peet's Coffee in San Francisco! The space needle was a must. Wow it was cold up there!
The next day brought a trip to the Boeing museum and factory. Definitely the best part of the weekend! The museum was good but very similar to the air
and space museum in DC. I guess that makes sense as Boeing was the maker of many of those planes. The factory was much more exciting. I have included the photos of the runway with the factory in the background. Cameras and phones were not allowed on the property. Each of the doors you see are 100 yards wide and 90 yards tall except for the far two which are 110 yards tall. There are tunnels under the factory for employee movement. This is one of the largest buildings in the world. The fist four bays are the production lines for the 747-400. The last four to be made were sitting on the line for us to see. The 747-400 is being replaced by the 747-800. The new version will be competing with the Airbus A380. The next two doors are the production lines for 767 and 777. The last bay is the production line for the new 787 Dreamline. There were three planes on the line including the very first one produced. They estimate that the Dreamline will fly in 2009 and be in commercial flight in 2010. It certainly looked pretty cool. The really unusual thing about the
Dreamline is that the production time will be 3 days once it is up and running! The 747 takes four-five months to build. For the Dreamline, all the parts are coming from suppliers pre-wired eliminating most of the work that needs to be done in the Seattle factory. I wish I could have taken photos! If you look closely, you will see photos of a brand new UPS plane waiting for the paint line. You can tell it is UPS due to the brown tail flap. The other planes just rolled off the paint line and are waiting for their first flight. All planes have there first flight off of the runway in the foreground. Wouldn't it be cool to be on those flights!
It was back to work for a few days before off on Christmas break and back to PA for me. I got out of Seattle before the next snow storm hit and dumped another 6 inches. Whew! Seeing my family for Christmas was great and certainly a nice surprise. I had fully expected to spend Christmas in Australia this year.
I arrived back in Sydney two days before New Years as I just couldn't
miss being the first to celebrate. Okay well close, as New Zealand is technically the first. I spent New Year's eve in The Rocks district right by the Harbor Bridge and the Opera House. The fireworks are set off of the bridge and then replicated on 8 barges located throughout the harbor. Boy was it packed. There are managed access sites located at all of the key locations and the only way to get in is by camping out or paying lots of money. The free sites fill up as early as noon! Thankfully, a friend of a friend was throwing a party in The Rocks and I didn't have to show up in the morning. The show was spectacular. It truly is one of the best I have seen. I got a few photos that are pretty clear. If you look close you can see a pylon of the bridge and half of the arch. Happy New Year!!
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