Some news

Well hello hello, people of Montreal!

I know it's been a while since my last post..I'm getting lazy already :S lol. Say thanks to Gab, he got me off my ass to write something at last.

Almost two weeks have passed since the last time I posted and a lot has happened. Let's begin by the beginning; I'll try to retrace the events that took place on my trip in a chronological order.

2 weeks ago, I went to Venice, and my plan was to visit Bologna on my other day off..I ended up doing nothing, just stayed in the hotel all day and watched Italian TV...Rai to be more precise, that's the main TV channel in Italy, just like Radio-Canada.
The week after (last week), I was in Florence...yes, the city on which the game Assassin's creed is based. I took my first day off to go and visit the city. It's really beautiful. The historical aspect of the city is very well maintained and portrayed through the various buildings and monuments. As you can see in the album, you can see that the city existed for several hundred years.

We stayed at the Grand Hotel Mediterraneo and although the lobby looked really nice, the rooms were quite small and the style was really old. It's the kind of hotels you see in movies from the 50s with huge crystal chandelier hanging on the ceiling and cardinal red drapes with golden embroidered thread... To top it off, the rooms were very badly isolated so you could hear anything that took place in the next room. I could hear the "ding" sound msn makes when a new contact comes online from the other room! Fortunately, I did not hear "other" stuff :)

On my other day off, I went to Rome. This was something I couldn't miss! I took the fast train (eurostar) and 1 hour 40 minutes and 44 Euros later, I was in the capital. I could tell right away it was one, if not the most important city of Italy because it was FULL of people. First of all the train station was huge. Then just outside it was so busy!!
I have relatives there, my aunt lives in the outskirts of the city, so her husband came to get me at the train station with his scooter. I noticed that it's a privileged means of transport in Italy, and I guess Europe in general.
While waiting for him I went to grab a bite at this local food joint where I got a square piece of pizza. They don't do triangle slices there, as we know them lol. It was good but not awesome. It was funny because I had to communicate in sign language. Even when he said the price I did not understand I just gave him the money and he gave me the change. He could have screwed me over; I would have been the last to know.

So I hoped on the scooter and we went to his place. I took a several small video clips during the ride, with one of them while we were on the highway, riding at more than 100Km/h! That was a thrilling experience. It's very exciting to go faster than cars on a scooter lol! Oh, and don't laugh at my helmet. I just wore what he gave me :p
I spent a good part of the day at his place, hospitality obliges. We ate "a l'italienne" meaning pasta first, then salad. Pretty interesting if you ask me :).

At around 4pm, we took the scooter again and headed to the city. First stop, Vatican. Just WOW. Just from the outside you know it's not an ordinary place. It's breathtaking. It's the definitely the most impressive building I saw yet. The building is HUGE!! I got to see inside and the first thing that struck me is that the ceilings are so high! There's marble and gold everywhere, everything is spotless, and a grain of dirt would be scared to enter the place. I'll let the pictures speak for themselves.

After the Vatican, we hoped on the scooter again and headed to the Coliseum. Again, it was so impressive. That's another huge building. To know that several hundred years ago, that's the place where Gladiators fought, as we've seen so many times in movies and documentaries, it's pretty special. Unfortunately, when we got there, the place was already closed so I couldn't see inside. It would have been 15 Euros to get in too. Once again, pictures are worth a thousand words.

I was disappointed at first that I didn't get more time to visit and see inside the Coliseum, but all in all, I consider myself lucky to even have had the opportunity to go there. It will be a nice souvenir.

This was it for Italy, after Torino, Pesaro, Bologna and Florence (including Venice and Rome on my own) the tour moved to another country. This week, I'm in Stuttgart, Germany. We transferred with a plane (1 hour 30 minutes flight) and a bus (2 hour bus ride from the airport to the hotel). My first impression of Germany is good. I didn't get to visit the city yet, as last Monday, I was still pretty mashed up from the party the night before... I will tell you more about it live. We're staying at the Hilton Stuttgart and it's my favourite hotel so far. The beds are so comfortable! I really like the design, it has a very modern style with straight lines, square and sharp angles, metal and glass is often used as a material. And it's got a microwave in the room lol.
Also, the hotel is 300 meters away from the Venue. So just like last week, no shuttle to go to work, and no 25 minute walk :). We work at the Porsche Arena. Very nice building looks, brand new.

I will try to go and visit the city on my other day off and maybe go to the famous Porsche Museum and/or Mercedes-Benz Museum.

***

I've been talking a lot about the visiting and leisure stuff, so here's some news about the work stuff, we need to remember that it's actually a job and that I originally came here to work lol

My training is over, the technician that trained me left last week and I am now on my own. I did my first load in by myself yesterday and it went well. You feel a bit more pressure when you know that all the people here rely on you to have their local network and internet connection up and running. Fortunately, the local promoters were very helpful and everything went smoothly.

For those who are interested, each office needs to have their access point. There are 5. RMO (Road Management Office) which contain the Tour Manager, The Travel & Lodging Coordinator, the Accountant, the Publicist, the HR person and myself, the IT. You also have the SMO (Stage Management Office), the AO (Artistic Office), FOH (Front Of House) and Production Office. They are often spread across the building; it is my job to make sure that all those people have an internet connection. On top of that, I need to give internet access to the Wardrobe director (her team and her take care of costumes), the head of catering, the sound & lighting technicians and to top it all, I need to setup shared computers for the artists to use and if possible a wireless access point so they can use their personal computers.

When everything is setup, I provide day to day support for their various needs. For example, last week one of the printers ran out of toner ink. I had to ask the runner (a local person who knows their way around the city that goes and buy stuff for us) to buy a replacement. If someone is not able to access their voicemail on their company cell phone, I'm the one calling the service provider to help them. If an account runs out of Skype credit, as the business account administrator, I allocate more credit to the particular person.

What's been taking most of my time recently though, is a conference call happening next week in Bremen. As the IT, I need to call the hotel and ask they for their conferencing capabilities, I need to make sure they have a big enough room for us, and that they can provide the audio/video equipment we need. It's a lot of dealing with people rather than just technology. Also, I discovered that I'm not only responsible for the computers, but anything related to technology in general. Thus, IT :)

I had a false impression on my first few week regarding the job. I had a lot of downtime and was not really busy. But that's because we were two and he did most of the work. Now that I'm alone I see that it's not that laid back. But it's really fun at the same time because there are many different places, situations and challenges we face on a weekly basis, even daily basis.

***

Well well well, I didn't expect to write this much lol. I'll try to post more frequently instead, or else I'll end up writing a book each time lol.

It's 2:40 AM here, I need to go to sleep. Fortunately, tomorrow I'll go to work at 1:30pm. I'll do the late shift (stay until the end of the show, at 10:30pm). At least one member of the RMO has to stay late each night, and we rotate. I'll check up rds.ca to see if the Canadien won or not :P

Have a good evening and I'll talk to you soon!

Feel free to comment, it's always fun to read you :)