Fourth Week

My fourth week in Saudi is nearly over, which means I only have two more before my first 'free' European trip. I still need to book my plane tickets and try to find someplace to stay while in Ireland. Plan to go to the Guiness brewery, the Blarney Stone, St. Patrick's Cathedral and not 100% sure what else. If I'm really, really lucky, I might be able to catch some local rugby matches too, which would be awesome.

Spent this work week out in the plant getting VERY, VERY dusty. Another 'dust bowl' rolled in on Sunday and took most of Monday before it cleared out. Somehow, I have become sick and ended up staying home on Monday, but was feeling a lot better today and was able to make it for a full day of stair climbing and jungle gym work around the scaffolding. They have so much scaffolding erected in the plant area it is almost unbelieveable. I don't think you can go more than 10 feet outside the two major walkways and not have to step over, under, or around some. They even have some placed partially in the stairways, which can make going from floor to floor really interesting.

After being here for four weeks I have begun to notice a distinct lack of female voices. The only time I hear a woman's voice is if it is on the TV. That is something that I don't think I will get used to. Although I know some people who would probably pay good money to be in my situation (oddly enough, I think they are all married men!).

Other than the good food over here, I am enjoying the fact that I get to watch rugby on live TV without having to pay for an ultra-premium cable package. Get to watch both Southern and Northern hemisphere leagues and national team matches! Woot! Woot! The downside to that is that I'm also stuck watch that other European sport, Cricket, if I can't change the channel fast enough.

Weather is starting to warm up, but still stays below 90 so far. Don't think I have but maybe 4 or so more weeks of that. Which is another good reason to take my time off in cooler climates.

Well, I should sign off and get ready for work tomorrow.

Miss everyone in the States and hope y'all are doin' fine!

Dust Bowl?

We had our first sand storm yesterday. When we headed into the plant in the morning, the visibility was probably only 50 yards or less. When I first looked out the windows I thought it was just really hazy out. No such luck, instead it was the air being full of really fine dust/sand. Once we got to the plant and went inside for the training class, the visibility in the building was nearly as bad as it was outside. We were able to look down one hallway and it looked just like a smoke filled bar or something. The building we were in is not sealed all that well and people have a tendency to leave doorways open which made it even worse. One of the South African's in the class was joking that any time he washed his car it would either rain (what little bit they get) or a sand storm would roll in. The wind blew all day and the visibility never got any better that whole day. Didn't have my camera on me at the time or I would have tried to take some pictures.

Various Pictures

OK, I see none of my picture captions came through. Will do my best to describe what the *bleep* that thing is in the pictures.

Restroom pic - Yes, that is a 'standard' Saudi toilet. Yes, it is a toilet seat situated directly on the floor. No, you don't actually sit on it. Yes, I'm glad my living quarters has an American sytle commode.

Me in a tent. This was taken at Khalil's family's tent at a 'campground' outside of Bahrain. The base carpet in the tent was HUGE and spotless (not sure how they managed that one!).

Picture of part of the 'campground' outside of Bahrain.

Group of co-workers out for dinner at the Brazilian place.

Random city art located around Bahrain.

Raymond in front of the mosque that was located near Ric's.

The mosque located near Ric's in Bahrain.

Ric's dinner in Bahrain. Good American style food.

All of my stuff for 9 months in Saudi.....is that all I really need? Why do I have a house if that is all I need?

Dad and I at the airport in Tri-cities. Two 'large' pieces of luggage, one 'carry on' size piece, one backpack and one brief case. Not a lot of volume for my stuff, but I got all the neccesities in there (XBox, personal laptop, video games...oh yeah and clothes.).

Second Week in Saudi

Worked 6 days the first week here (5 days of operator training and one day of misc.). A group of us (Raymond, Rodney, Paula (Rodney's wife), Jorge, Bill, Tom and I all went into Bahrain on our day off to eat out and do some shopping. Well, realy only three people shopped the rest of us just looked at all the neat stuff. We started off the day by leaving town at 7:45am and were able to make it across the dreaded causeway without incident (it has takn upwards of 8 hrs to make this trip in the past). Upon arrival in Bahrain, we ended up at Ric's (a dinner Rodney knew about) for breakfast. They had a very extensive menu and we all ended up eating an American style breakfast. I had the blueberry pancakes and actual pork sausage patties and it was all very good. Next stop was to the shopping 'center', which in this case was an area of town with a bunch of shops all squeezed in together in the same area. Unfortunately, since it was Friday (Saudi's Sunday) all of the shops were closed until 4pm for prayer. We all piled back into the vehicles and headed to the "Gold City", sort of an indoor mall dedicated to jewerly and such. Can't count the number of times I had to say "I don't wear a watch" or "I don't need a watch" to the guys behind the counters as we walked around looking at stuff. I don't wear watches and when I do, I hate paying $20 for an authentic one in the States, let alone paying $100+ for a knockoff. Looked at lots of neat jewerly and such and was rather grateful (for once) that I'm not currently seeing someone, cause it would have been easy to spend a lot of money on several pieces for her if I was! After looking around the stores we meet up with Khailil for an early dinner at a great Brazilian resturant. For those who haven't been to one, it is heaven on earth for anyone on an Atkin's diet. They basically keep bring out skewers of different meats (chicken sausage, pork sausage, chicken rolls, chicken wings, beef brisket, lamp, steak, etc.) until you say no more. Me being me, I was the last one to finally say no and I didn't pass up on ANY of the meats as they came out!

I have added some pics from the trip to Bahrain and hope they come through OK.