Ok, now to write about the third week of my internship over here.

So I turned up at work on Monday faintly sunburnt and raring to go after a weekend of incessant tourism! David and I had a 3 day trip down to Baltimore booked Tuesday to Thursday for work purposes. Monday was largely about keeping in touch with everyone we wanted to meet, putting together an itinerary, buying a cell-phone each so that we didn't have to sell our souls paying international rates on our mobiles and generally trying to be organised. On Tuesday, we left for the airport with our boss Matt and left for Baltimore. The flight took an hour and by the time we'd got the hire car and arrived at the hotel, it was fairly late. Matt's a really sound boss, he largely lets us get on with things and though he doesnt tell us what to do, when we bounce ideas off him, he tells us when we're going in the right direction. Oh and him being there meant I didn't have to make a crazed attempt driving a hire car on the right side of the road. I'm not ready for that yet.

On Wednesday, we went to the facility housing the boiler that we'll be using the biofuel in. We had a look around to try and get a feel for how things will work - it's really good to meet people face to face (things get done so much more quickly than by leaving emails day after day) and it made the whole project 'real' to us! We met with our potential suppliers, who bought us dinner at night and we'd prepared as many intelligent questions as possible! All in all, it went really well: both parties gave a really good account of themselves and the lines of communication were properly established. Again, meeting people and seeing things face to face really makes a project less theoretical and more real: after this visit, it felt less like a problem from a textbook and much more relevant.

On Thursday morning, we showed our suppliers' engineers round the site and started talking about a field test - we're planning to do it on week 6. We had a walk around, visualised how the test would go, shook hands and went our separate ways. Successful week at work! It would've taken 3 weeks of emails to establish what we managed in a 3 day period. While it's important for a company to be careful with money, we realised it's sometimes equally important to spend some money sending your employees on an all-expenses-paid trip to get things done.

So more about what's different over here... There's something I'm still trying to get used to! You know how in Scotland, people say by way of greeting "awrite" followed by a wee nod as they walk past? People here say "Hi, how're you?" then walk on without waiting for an answer. It's confusing! I have to stop myself from saying "hey! I'm not bad! What can I say, life has it's ups and downs but the net feeling is one of wanton optimism. How're you?" because by that time they are miles away. So you just have to learn to grin, say hello, and depending on the relative velocity (your walking speed + their walking speed), see about getting a "i'm fine thanks, you?" in there. 

This week, the interns from New York had been in contact to come up and visit. They got good rates on hire cars and drove around 3 hours to get here, and on Saturday morning/afternoon we met them and assisted them in the logistics of not paying through the nose to park. After that success, the 14 of us (6 from NY and 8 from Boston) went to a brand new restaurant experience: Fire & Ice. It's like a buffet but instead of picking up stuff and eating it, you pick up raw materials, take them to a circular "kitchen" where you hand it to the chefs and watch them cook it on a huge circular stove. It was pretty special! After that, we headed back to a nominated flat for socializing. A good night was had by all. On Sunday, we went to another excellent eatery in the Quincy Market (there's a building probably around 200-300 yards long with 50+ take-away eateries inside, pretty amazing!), relaxed in the park listening to a guy playing his guitar and periodically getting soaked by an overly-powerful fountain. Then we went on a boat trip...

Not just any boat trip..! Codzilla! Dun dun dunnnn... (Notice the title of the blog?) Codzilla is basically a 100-seater speedboat. That's it. You get on the boat, and take your seat on these ominously wet chairs. It's a bit like the boat equivalent of being in a horror movie and walking into a room only to find bloodstains up the wall. Anyway, wet chairs. Around 8 of us got on the boat, and then the crew got into character in a fantastically cheesy manner. There was one fellow on the microphone pretending to give us a tourguide, and a second fellow interjecting every now and then with stories of his traumatic history at sea, largely about how terrified he was of an epic fish called Codzilla who had haunted generations of his family. There were all sorts of awful puns rendered. Anyway, the culmination of the story was in the speedboat rushing off, us getting soaked, then waddling home wet but happy. Great fun!!

Hope everyone else is having fun!