First day of work at the plant

View of Lake Como from my hotel balcony

Nov 7
On Monday we had the opening meeting to kick off the audit. Everyone was sooo nice. I couldn’t keep the names straight since there were about 22 people in the room. I was the only female but hey, I am NOT complaining! All speak English even though it’s broken English. With their charming accents I would forgive them anything, lol! The plant is 80 years old and quite big, it will take me more that a week to be able to find my way around. Our working space is a nice conference room on the 4th floor with awesome views of the Swiss and Italian alps. Every morning when we get to the office there is a platter of croissants and sweets, local fruits, water and even a coffee machine. Lunch at the plant cantine is great. Even here they follow the Italian tradition of a multicourse meal. You typically have a primi (first) choice of soup (best ministone soup ever!) or pastas(always 2 kinds) and then secondi (second) choices of fish or meats with veggies or salads. THEN you have some separate portions of meats like thinly sliced salami or prosciuto ham or cheeses or fruits. OMG! I’ve already gained 10 lbs just writing about it! They do not have concept of to-go food, meaning eating lunch at your desk. There is no rush to eat your meal. Italians will take an hour to eat what American can do in 10 minutes. After lunch we have a coffee together. The coffee is so good here that I make the exception to drink it. It’s strong here so you only need a 1-2 oz shot. Yes, they do laugh that the American version which is a big mug of watery crap. I enjoy so much the lunch conversation with our Italian colleagues. Some like to talk to me about their traveling experience in the US. Simone told me about his 8 day trip by car from LA to Phx, grand canyon, monument valley, bryce canyon, las vegas, sanfranciso and Chicago. I didn’t understand how the hell he did that! Well, one reason was that he spent literally one night in Phx and got the heck out of there because it was in the summer and 1000 degrees! He was also the first person I met that took more pictures than me! I spent 4 wks in Africa and took 800 pics and edited it down to 200 before I can show it to friends, Simone spent 8 days in the US and took 1500 pictures and doesn’t delete anything, lol!

It has been cloudy and rainy in the past few days but not so bad. On CNN I saw them talking about record rain in northern italy (which is where I am) and flooding. It looks really bad on the news but it’s not where we are. The lake level is a little high but that’s about it. The rain is just a drizzle from time to time. Still, can't wait for the sun to come out!