(Get yourself a snack... this is going to be a long one.)
TUESDAY
On Tuesday morning, our little trio was split up. Marina stayed behind in London to do Genesis-y things and Ilhan & I set off for the airport to catch a flight to Finland for TOF-y things. We were slated to fly into Helsinki and then hop a flight to Pori. Sounds simple enough, doesn't it?
On the flight from London to Helsinki, I buried my nose in a The Girl Who Played with Fire and thus was completely unaware of my surroundings. While I was busy trying to unravel the complex maze of Lisbeth Salander's brain, I missed the fact that we arrived into Helsinki 1) to a f'realz snow storm and 2) to a zoo because the kiddos were all out of school for "half term". (What is half term? American school children, we may have really missed the boat on this).
Anywho - based on these 2 things, upon touch down we were already 30 minutes deep into a 1 hour layover. After getting bused to the terminal and doing some Olympic class run-walking, we arrived to our gate 3 minutes before scheduled take off time to find that... our plane was already gone. (Insert Nintendo "Game Over" music). I picture the pilot laughing menacingly at us as he flew off while tapping his fingers together... but that's neither here nor there.
We noted that the next flight to Pori wasn't until nearly midnight, 8 hours after our originally scheduled program. Upon a quick glance around the airport it became evident that may not be the best option- no matter how interesting it might have been to see how many Karl Frazer duty free chocolates I could eat in an 8 hour time span. After many calls to the regular Finland fliers at the office, the folks in Pori, and the travel office in addition to a delightful face to face with a Finnair customer service rep- it was determined that taking a bus to Pori would be our best option. The bus trip was 3 hours which would put us into Pori well before the next flight... and without the chocolate hangover. Win-win!
The bus trip actually went remarkably well. Sure, the stops seemed to be in random parking lots and sure we had to change buses about 1/4th into the trip without realizing it but these are the things that make travel interesting, right? I enjoyed another few hours of quality time with Lisbeth Salander and Kalle Blomvkist - LOVE those guys!
Having never taken the bus before, we weren't really sure where it would take us. Ilhan pulled the "stop" cord when we were across the road from the airport, thankfully. I'm not sure if that was a true stop or not? Either way - that rental car was going to be ours. So we filed out and rolled our suitcases across the icy, snow-covered road as well as the icy, snow-covered parking lot like the professional travel gurus that we are. Luckily no one was around to watch this journey, or it might be on YouTube now.
We made it to the entrance to the airport where the automatic doors welcomed us into the warmth and we felt like we had finally made it. We looked around expectantly to see a welcoming Europcar agent to congratulate us on our feat but found... no one. Not no one at the Europcar desk but no one in the airport. Period. Cool feeling. Luckily Ilhan found a phone and somehow got a hold of someone.
Miraculuously after finally getting the car (which informed us the temperature was -4 degrees celsius), we made it to the hotel without further issue. The restaurant attached to the hotel was called "Amarillo" and had a Tex-Mex-y theme. It's always interesting to see other countries' take on this genre as any Texan knows. I noted that nearly all the "Mexican" food included pineapples. Interesting combo burrito there. I played it safe and had a chicken sandwich and a big beer that were both delicious. After that we called it a day. Phew.
Blurry airport picture of Pori. For some real comic relief, picture Ilhan and I tredging through this with rolling suitcases.
WE MADE IT... wait... where is everyone?
Finnish looks hard. I think their motto must be... if everyone else uses 3 letters for a word, we'll use 9. And 6 will be vowels.
I think this is probably the biggest hotel room in Europe period. Thanks Sokos hotel!
Is that a...? No... it can't be...
Oh yes. That is most definitely a red rubber duck in an otherwise very starkly decorated bathroom. Keen eye for decor those Fins have.
WEDNESDAY
It should be noted that this was the first, and only, day of our trip that we did not set foot on an airplane. In an unrelated story, it may have been my favorite day.
So Wednesday morning we woke up and headed to the office. I know that part is boring to hear about and I would usually refrain from sharing details. However, this day I got to do something really cool that was work-related. So, like it or not- I'm sharing.
The whole purpose of Ilhan & I going to Finland is because that is where our yard is located... which means that is where the drawings that those crazy** engineers come up with are brought to life. We were really going to touch base about reporting issues with the Finland team, but it was a special treat to go when I did because we just started our 15th spar, Lucius, in December/January. Which meant I got to see it!
What is a spar? In Amy lingo it's the huge thing that goes in the Gulf to drill for the oil. There are lots of variations of the huge things that go into the Gulf - TLPs and jack-ups, but this one looks the coolest in my humble opinion. Per wikipedia it is actually a much longer definition than I care to put here... so if you're curious... check it
out.
Marko was kind enough to give us a tour of the yard and I got to take lots of pictures. As you'll see below. I know it might be hard to understand what is going on with all the highly technical language I use, but just do your best. It was easily one of the coolest things I've gotten to do for a job and it gave me a lot of pride in my company and the things we do. It's so cool to see the tangible evidence of all the hard work our engineers put in. It's also humbling to see how SMART people are. So much smarter than me. If it were up to me, we'd be trying to get oil out of the ground with the world's longest straw chain. I think we can all agree it's best that I stick with the 10 key, huh?
** I can say this because Papa Bear is an engineer. Thus I have the rights to use it playfully. It's science.
Ihan & I rocking that PPE (personal protective equipment). Wearing your hat on the side of your head makes it cooler. Or maybe it's a sign I didn't know how to adjust it. I think we'll stick with the former.
Marko, our fearless tour guide, Ilhan & Merja. Soaking in that knowledge.
Woohoo!
Big crane that moves steel from one side of the hall over to the cutting machine.
Chains that would rival Flava Flav's.
Spar Hall on the left. This picture doesn't really capture it's massive-ness.
I'm a regular snow bunny. How lucky is Ryan?!
I believe this is a 1/8th piece of a hull ring. Please note how many levels of scaffolding there are... and this is only 1/8th of a full ring.
The bending machine. It bends/shapes the pieces.
Outside where the spar gets assembled and shipped out. Looks like a carnival to me! But much safer, obvi. (Last sentence added for the Safety Department's benefit).
A buoyancy can doing an impression of the Goodyear blimp. It's a pretttttty good impression if I do say so myself.
Next time you complain about the lighting in your office/cube, remember that you could be working inside this bad boy.
I believe these are 1/4th pieces but they could have been 1/2 pieces of ring pieces. What I do know is that they are insanely large.
Same piece, different angle. See the guy in the top left hand corner for scale.
The rest of the day was spent discussing spreadsheets and getting to know our counterparts at TOF. Don't worry - I didn't take pictures of that. :c) For dinner, Ilhan & I ate at the courthouse in a cool restaurant. It was within walking distance from our hotel, so we got to walk in the snow. I resisted the urge to make snow angels because something tells me that is not professional behavior. All in all, this was an awesome day.
Order in the court(house)! Do you get it? Because we ate dinner there... so we literally ordered dinner in the courthouse. KNEESLAPPER!
THURSDAY
On Thursday we woke up and spent the morning at TOF finishing up some reporting discussions (again- no photografias). Around noon, we headed to the airport to make our return trip to London via Helsinki. On our way to the airport we tried to stop to fill up the car with gas like excellent rental car patrons. Surprise, surprise - we could not get either of our cards to work. After trying unsuccessfully to pay a man in Euro to use his card to fill up our tank at one place and stopping at a second to encounter the same issue, we decided that whatever they charged us to fill up the car the rest of the way was well worth not having to have another conversation in Fin-glish. Upwards and onwards...
When we arrived to Helsinki there were, of course, more travel tales. We couldn't get our boarding pass for our flight to London in Pori for some reason that I never did really understand. We were told to go to the transfer desk in Helsinki to see our customer service friends who would print it for us. After all, I'm sure they missed us after a 48 hour absence. Shockingly, our customer service rep friends told us they couldn't print our tickets to the Promiseland and that we'd have to get them at the gate. Then I couldn't buy chocolate at the duty free store because I didn't have a boarding pass. You know- usual stuff.
The remainder of the day went off without a hitch... other than having to be manually checked in to the hotel in London because their system was down. At the end of the day though- we arrived in London and stayed at the Hilton in the airport. We had the best dinner of the trip at the Asian bistro in the lobby and called it a night.
I love this diagram - it shows the stats of all 14 spars we have built, in order. They have it blown up on the wall in the TOF office. Note the huge link of a mooring chain in the bottom right hand corner on the ground.
It's a tradition to throw a bell out the window at TOF to kick off the manufacture of all the spars we build for Anadarko.
Mantyluoto is where the yard is. Pori is where we stayed. Just in case you thought I was making the existence of these locations up, I took a picture of the sign from a gas station.
Looks like a Christmas card, right?
In case you want a Christmas card with some birch trees as well. While I was taking this picture Ilhan was trying to get someone who spoke only Finnish to help with the gas pump. Clearly I was very helpful.
Okay, last one- I promise.
So... this is the runway in Pori. One gate. One plane at a time. Lots of snow.
Nakemiin & kiitos (good bye & thanks), Finland!
FRIDAY
We woke up bright and early and headed back to the U.S. of A. The travel heavens smiled upon us and we made it back and safely home with no hiccups. To boot, I finished The Girl Who Played with Fire AND the first Hunger Games book on the flight home. I highly recommend both!
So that, my friends, was last week for me! It was such an amazing experience and I feel so fortunate to have gotten to go. My boss is the best!
