I haven't posted in quite a while which is largely because I have gotten into a routine so to speak. On days when I wake up, go to work, have dinner, go to sleep and repeat the whole process the next day I am often not inspired to write much. That and the random topics I think to touch on throughout the day are lost just as dreams are often lost later in the day even if you remembered them in the morning. That being said here is what has been happening in my life.
I have been working a lot, we decided to work four ten hour days instead of five eight hour days which is really nice. There often is not anything I would do in the two hours after getting off after eight hours that would warrant not wanting a full free day off. i.e. today. Work is going great too, my first paycheck was earlier this week and it feels great to be making some Aussie dollars especially when the exchange with the states is nearly even. I have an Australian bank account and feel as though I don't have any loose ends at the moment.
On the job I have been learning quite a lot. When I arrive I am essentially given some assignments to complete. They could take hours or days, but there is always work to be done. Now that I am getting the hang of things I am largely able to complete my work while stopping to ask questions. I start work at 7 A.M. and since I am moving around and busy the time just flies. Even the ten hour days are a piece of cake. What I do at work is largely moving wine around. We will move wine from large tanks to smaller tanks, move wine to blend with other wines, transfer wine to oak barrels, or transfer wine to Vinpac, a bottling facility next door. We are always getting samples tested in the lab, and the winemakers often have things for us to do to make the wines better. The smells of working at the winery are really nice too, sans a few. The smell of the wines both whites and reds are excellent, and I am starting to be decent at picking up off smelling wines, and telling how far along in fementation a wine may be. The new oak barrels smell sooooo good, especially when you are filling them up with wine and combining both smells.
I part of the job that is really novel and fun is tasting wine. When we move wine from one vessel to another at some point the wine runs out from a vessel, or another vessel is full, but since they may be far apart there is hundreds of liters tied up in hoses and lines along the way. That translates to a lot of money so we do not want to just lose the wine. Using pumps we will push the wine back with water. There is a fun part of the job called a catch in which you watch the wine flowing through a site glass waiting for the color to change indicating water is on the way, or vice versa. When you are pushing water out of the line with incoming wine you have to taste the wine to ensure it is not watered down before you change the direction of flow to the intended vessel. Meanwhile water is pouring out right in front of you at a fast rate and splashing all over, then when it changes to wine you are reaching down and splashing the wine all over to get a taste. When the time is right you turn two valves at once to alternate the direction. This change usually is done within 2 seconds, though you sometimes wait for nearly a minute before the water or wine arrives. I hope this description makes some sense let me know if it doesn't.
Other things of note are trying out surfing a bit, climbing at a friends home made climbing wall, and hosting couchsurfers that have been traveling around the world on bikes for the past six years! The couple are a french guy adn his english wife in their mid thirties. They have been to over 50 countries on their trip, and that doesn't count the trip before this one where they rode from Alaska to the southern tip of South America. Check out http://www.velomad.com/ to see about their longggggg ride. Speaking of rides the Tour Down Under will be rolling through our area for about a week next week. It will be Lance Armstrongs last race outside of the states so it should be awesome to see him and the pros all rolling through town. I have yet to get a bike here but am banking on it being a terrible time to buy since there will be mass excitement due to the Tour. The same theory that says you should buy skis in the summer rather than the first snowfall. I think that is all for now, here is a link to the tour down under: http://www.tourdownunder.com.au/
No comments:
Post a Comment