Sunday, August 10, 2008

Rick's in Norway, but on his way somewhere much more remote

Ok, so no postss in a while. Sorry loyal readers, but I have a feeling I was hanging out with most of you so that makes it ok right?
Anyway, here the update. I took 6 weeks off from work in aberdeen to head to calgary. It was awsome, loads of canoeing, hiking, campling. Picked up an ultimate frisbee MVP award, and learned how to make beer. Thats the short unemotional update and all I feel like writing for now, cause I miss not working.

I went swiftly from that to.... well not working. I arrived in Aberdeen after a helish flight with a kid kicking my chair and his father next to him having no idea how to be a parent, just in time to get to sleep. Straight to work in the morning and I got some news. "Hey Rick, your going to Norway" I thaught this was my transfer and I started to loose it, but then I was told it was just 1 job and should be fast and easy and not to worry. SO that some day I was on a plane and heading East. Found my hotel and again went to sleep. Woke up the next day for offshore survival with Matt (My flat mate from Aberdeen). Apparently they wanted the entire dream team over here. After that I wne tto the base, then went binge drinking from Friday night until 3 am Sunday monring.
First impressions, Norway girls are amazing to look at, but are kept in glass jars. You cannot touch them or talk to them unless you are from here, and you can't break the glass, no matter how much you want to and how hard you try.
So Monday in the base, checked some tools. I talked to my boss and he told me to call him later, I went to the hotel and fell asleep. I woke up to a phone call saying "Your transfer is in and you are going to In Salah, Algeria."
Amazingly enough one of my oldest SLB friends works in Algeria, In Sallah to be exact, so I emailed her and got the inside scoup. I also looked it up on google maps and this is what it looks like.



May not look like much, but its worth a visit to Google maps to see for yourself. Its at least a 1000 miles fromt he middle of nowhere, and at least 2000 from somewhere. Its going to be great. I really am excited about it, only reading things like ( http://edition.cnn.com/2008/WORLD/africa/08/10/algeria.bombs.ap/index.html ) worry me a bit. But who is going to drive a car 2000 miles to blow me up.

So there will be lots of time to talk about that, now to talk about Norway.
I was in Bergin, and like I said some good place to drink, some great place to eat, and luckily I was on expences the whole time ( I think/hope) A beer here is about $18. Yea you read that right. I pint of Beer $18.... crazy.
So after some time in Bergin doing nothing but reading about some big sand dune invading my future home on line I was sent North to Kristiansund.
We were supposed to get up here Saturday and leave Sunday, but now we are delayed til tomorrow (Monday)
So we took today to do a little sightseeing. We went to this little fishing village called Grip. It was amazing. It was about a 45 min boat ride out into the Norweigean Sea and we found this little Island. There are about 30 buildings.




Apparently they are Redskins fans (Go Skins Go)

They had a church built in the 1400's





Apparently all of the Churchs here have ships and the beginning and end of the Isle and its called the ship not the isle. I thaught that was interesting.

The landscape here is also quite amazing. All the rocks are Granite and its Islands everywhere.


Ok thats all for me. I wont be heading off to Alferia for a little while due to the excessive time it takes to get a visa, so after this job it will be back to Aberdeen for packing up and a few goodbye parties.

O ans sorry about the sideways pics, i don't know how to fix that

Goodnight all!

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