The mission: deploy the soil sensors that the company I work for sells in olive fields around Valladolid, Spain, and at a research station in Florida. Time frame: Spain -> 5th-8th October; Florida -> 8th-12th October. Where else? -> Visiting my family in Lévis, Quebec for a week. Guilt level about flying so much: 100%. **Love **for being on the road: 120%. **Excitement **to see my Quebec family again -> ♾️
Olive field in Pozaldez, Spain
Spanish hospitality = going the extra mile
After a minor fauxpas at the airport in Basel, where my screw drivers were confiscated by security because they are an imminent threat to the safety of all passengers, I arrived in Madrid. An extra expensive metro ride later I was at the train station Chamartín and on the high speed train to Valladolid. The train can do the distance of >200 km in just over an hour. Once checked in in the hotel, it was high time for food. Off to a bar it is. The bar keeper recommends the local IPA accompanied by some enchiladas. Vegetarian food? -> Not on the menu. The IPA runs down my throat as smoothly as maple sirup on delicious pancakes.
Next day, our host and customer Luis picks us up, on time like a swiss watch. After checking all the devices we take off to our first location. For today, two olive fields are on the menu. At both sites we would deploy soil sensors that measure the temperature and density of the soil to indicate how wet, or rather dry, the soil is at a given point in time. Here in this region, I noticed, the soil is as dry as any I’d ever seen It almost reminds me of deserts. When we pull out the old sensors to replace with the new ones, this impression is reinforced by the fact that both old sensors are damaged. Whether from the extreme heat or rough handling, I cannot tell. For sure the desert like conditions didn’t do them any good.
After a successful day in the field, our host and his colleagues took us out for a night in Valladolid. Three bars, many tapas and beers later I had to come to the conclusion that the generosity and love for hospitality on the part of our hosts, is an absolute treat. I’ve hardly every seen such dedicated hosts that were so easy going, so kind and helpful in every regard. Seeing my St. Pauli suicicle cap, Luis even took me to one of his favorite bar in Valladolid. It was St. Pauli themed, and not even badly! Except for the Oktoberfest decoration, that’s just completely out of order, the bar was draped perfectly in St. Pauli style. The bar tender, noticing that I was German, even gave me an Antifa pin, which I proudly attached to my hoodie at once. (I took it off again for getting through the US customs though- > No risks there).😉
The sticker parade on the bathroom door
St. Pauli decoration in the bar
Unexpected Ultra Relaxation
When booking my trip I thought that it would be a really nice idea to book a hostel for a night in Madrid before my flight to Miami. The idea was to connect with some people and maybe have a nice social evening in Madrid. Well, it turned out to be the complete opposite. When I arrived at the hostel and checked in, I was told they have a spa, which to me sounded absolutely fabulous after two days running around, working in the field with high concentration not to forget anything and to get everything done we set out to do. So I booked a one hour slot at 8 p.m. for a tenner. Once I got there to redeem my hour of regeneration, I was told that there is nobody else who booked a slot for the spa and that I could therefore have it for 2 hours by myself. In that moment I felt like pieces were falling into place perfectly. So I got butt naked and started off with extended sessions in the Jaccuzi, the Sauna and relaxing, almost falling asleep, listening to Harry Potter books. What a fantastic way to relax and spend an evening.
Madrid Window Art
My Private Spa for the Night
The Miami paradox
After 9 hours on an airplane, reading a good chunk of my current book (https://www.stephan-orth.de/couchsurfing-im-iran.html) (a highly entertaining account about couchsurfing in a country of highly restricted freedom of self-fullfillment), I finally arrived in the US. In order not to waste any time, I immediately went downtown to explore Miami. The first thing that really struck me, in comparison with europe, was the extreme humindity in the air, coupled with weather that was hot AF. While I really enjoy heat, the humidity really costs you a lot of energy. So I just strolled around the harbour area, soaking in the craziness that is Miami. And by crazy I mean an absolute paradox of a city. If ever you visit Miami, you will notice how insane the parties are that happen here. Yatchs, bars and festivals are on every corner of downtown and around the harbour area. Doesn’t matter whether young or old. the people line up to have a good time here. At the same time, the paradox is completed by homeless people lying around every corner of the city. The incredulity to me was not that there are homeless people. It was more the fact that two worlds that couldn’t be farther apart were co-living so closely together that it really made me think about how we got here. While every situation is very individual and highly subjective, I couldn’t help but think that this system doesn’t offer a place in our society for these people that now live on the streets. To think that they are choosing to live on the street rather than to participate in this system makes me so sad. It means that we are failing as a society to offer other human beings the opportunity to fulfill themselves. This whole setup ended up being too much for me to the point where I decided that this is not my place to be that particular night. The party scene just struck me as being so superficial that at some point I felt like I needed to retreat. Perhaps it was also the fact that I was really tired from the flight and had an extra long day flying against the time.
Party bus in downtown Miami
Trash in the river, next to million $ yachts passing by
Last Stop: Vero Beach
The last stop on my trip for work was Vero Beach. There, one of our customers has a big research station where they conduct early stage herbicide, pesticide, perennial crops and insects trials to see how the soil, the plants and the nematodes in the soil behave. Plus probably a ton more that I just didn’t understand. I wasn’t there for the plants particularly anyway. My objective was to set up our soil sensors and a gateway to collect the data from the sensors. Although I worked probably some 9-10 hours every day, the whole job went pretty smoothly and we even had time to do tests to see whether we could cover the whole research station. On the side, our host Jeff had organized for us to meet a lot of the scientists and even invited us to his home for supper one night. There we ate huge, and I mean huuuuuge, rib-eye stakes. Well, Jeff said they were only the average size. To me at least that was 3 meals. Because Jeffs wife is of chinese heritage, I was fortunate to try some very typical and expensive Chinese liquor, called Kweichow Moutai. They thought it tasted really bad and was too strong (53%). I thought it was actually pretty fruity compared to, say, Vodka.
Finally, we also got to go on an airboat ride on the Blue Cypress Preserve. There we saw aligators, snake birds, local ducks, turtles and lots of other beautiful plants and animals. The flora and fauna there astonishingly were pretty much intact and as far as I understood from our guide, protected. The swamp-like area was so big that soon we had lost our sense of where we were or came from, but probably that was mostly due to us gazing around open mouthed, trying to spot the next animal or plant around us. Of course the biggest attraction were the aligators, which were not always easy to spot due to their nature of adapting their shell/skin color to their surrounding over the course of their lifetime. Some of the ones we saw were up to 2.5 Meters long, either floating through the water or else hanging out on floating islands. Apparently they are in a constant battle of not being too cold nor too hot, which is why they alternate a lot between being in the water and above. While we couldn’t tell any aligators apart, our guide certainly knew a lot of them and even gave them names. We learned that these aligators tend to stick to one spot as their home and will defend their territory or fight for females pretty ferociously at times. Our guide reinforced that story by showing us an aligator who had his upper jaw bitten off almost entirely. It was a grotesk view to see an animal without the upper jaw. Apparently the force of the american aligator bite can have a force of over 200 kg per square centimeter. To put it in comparison: that’s about double the force of a bite of a lion or tiger.
While we had a great time roaming around Vero Beach, what amazed me the most, once again, was the absolutely outstanding hospitality of our hosts, especially Jeff. Both the Florida and the Valladolid visits made me think that humans aren’t bad at the root overall. Maybe we can still turn this shipwreck earth around. If we can find a basis of mutual respect and trust, I think that many of our challenges can be solved, even though we might have different opinions on many topics. If we trust each other, we will also trust that decisions we make, even if they do not reflect 100% of our opinion, will lead to happiness and welfare for all of us.