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Hi all,
I know its been quite awhile since I've written. But here
is another installment of the trials of a one Aaron Coday.
I've finally got my web site up and running, so this means
two things:
- I have pictures from my travels so far and from my friends
new and old, and
- My Updates will be online as well and will include pictures.
My web site is http://www.coday.org/
and the Updates will be under http://www.coday.org/travelpage.htm#travelogues
. Please check them out!
I spent Christmas back in Oregon and enjoyed it very much.
Definitely recharged my batteries so to speak. However, towards
the end of my vacation I found I was looking forward to going
back to Munich. I did however bring a few key "American" things
back with me to ease my integration to Munich and Germany.
Most importantly American Cough/Cold medicine which can only
be gotten in Germany with a prescription.
Upon my arrival back to Munich, things began to move into
overdrive both personally and at work. At work, we were "reorg'ed"
which is Intel speak for saying the group(s) were reorganized.
This reorganization was good and relatively painless. A peer
was promoted to manage all of the Field Application Engineers
(I'm one of them). While this is his first time as a manager
he is already proving to be a good one. I was also able to
travel some more for work; twice in Feb. and once in March.
The exotic destinations of London, Amsterdam, Berlin, and
San Jose, CA.
I won't bore you all with details of the work side of the
trips, but in London and Amsterdam  I
was able to spend a weekend and enjoy the city some. My trip
to London was my
third there, but the first time I had been able to spend any
time sightseeing. General impressions of London? Expensive,
very expensive and huge. To give you an idea of costs, imagine
everything is the same price in London as say any city in
the US, but it's in Pounds. When you convert Pounds to Dollars
you find that it's basically 50% more.  So
a $5 value meal at good olde McDonalds is about $7.50 in London.
I took a couple of tour bus trips around the city, and you
can see several of my pictures. I went and saw the changing
of the guard. I also got to see Big Ben. You remember National
Lampoon's European vacation where they get stuck in a Roundabout
for 8 hours and they keep saying, "Look kids Big Ben?"
Well try as I must I could not find that Roundabout. Must
be one of those made up Hollywood things. Although I think
the things I enjoyed the most were two things: really good
Indian food and going to see a Musical in a West End Theater.
I saw "Chicago". BTW, you can get really good seats if you
go by yourself :) I got 5th row center, and the production
was great. I will definitely be taking advantage of traveling
to London to catch up musical and theater productions.
Amsterdam. Okay yes I did walk through the Red-light district,
but before anybody thinks it, I didn't spend much time there
at all. The weather was pretty good.
I spent it walking around the city quite a bit. I also saw
the Heineken brewery which was interesting, but not breath-taking.
It was a bit over-commercial. I did however spend several
hours in the Rijksmuseum. This is a quite large Art museum.
They also have a fairly large section of art related to Dutch
history, which was very interesting. Some of you may know
or remember from history, but the Dutch at one time was one
of the largest trading fleet in the world (15th - 16th centuries).
Well unlike my house in Oregon, I actually got around to
having an Apartment Warming Party within a years time of actually
moving in. Yes, I know this is a big feat! But you can see
a lot of the pictures from the party. It turned out quite
well. The police never showed up, but apparently several of
the neighbors complained to the land lady. She was quite nice
about it and didn't say anything about the party until the
next day. And the gathering of people was quite mixed. It
wasn't all Intel people! My roommate, Greg, invited a lot
of his friends whom are largely astronomers. But we had a
great mix of people. It wasn't all American's, it wasn't all
Intel, it wasn't all Astronomers... It was just right! Below
here you can see just a few of the pictures, but you can check
them all out here!
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| Jelly &
John |
Aaron &
Amy |
Nicholas &
Barbara |
Hallway Shot
1 |
Hallway Shot
2 |
Well, that is about all I have for this time. I hope you
all enjoy my update. And feel free to email me!
Ciao!
Aaron
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