I honestly cannot believe my last post was November 19th, what a lazy little blogger I've been! Time just seems to be flying by and already there's only 16 days until I return home for Christmas! That gives me two more weekends to see whatever else I was going to see before going home. That's not much time and those 16 days will fly by I'm sure!
I suppose at this point I should also mention that I've decided to extend my secondment and return after Christmas. When I started this journey the intention was to see what it would be like working in Saudi Arabia and whether I'd like to work for MHI again at some point in the future. It was supposed to be a 3 month trial but ended up being only 7 weeks for various reasons. Consequently, the project I'm working on has really only just begun and I'd really like to see some tangible progress made before I go. Since year end wasn't a reasonable timetable for that I decided to extend it until the end of June next year.
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Powerplant PP9, home to 56 GT's, some combined cycle
steam turbines and about 5000 MW! Yep, about the size of
Manitoba Hydro in one station! |
So, how have I judged the success so far? Well, it's twofold; work and personal. On the work side I feel I'm really starting to find my way around and gain some confidence and what my role is and what's expected of me. I can see what needs to be fixed and I have an idea about how to do it so why not stay and try to make a difference? It's a good team here and I enjoy the people I'm working with. Several others are like me, working away from friends and family and dealing with that goes with that. We've started a Tuesday night supper club where we go out for dinner somewhere and we plan to do some activity each weekend. Instead of time going by day by day, it seems to go by week by week when you're keeping busy.
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Saudi family weekend getaway. It's pretty popular to pitch a
tent (so to speak) and hang out in the desert for the weekend. |
On the personal side I'm finding that having a "work family" here coupled with technology has me feeling a lot closer than 11,290 km from home. I have MajicJack and can phone family and friends whenever I like for free, I have Facetime for video conferencing and What'sApp for in between Facetime and texts or email. Through a VPN I have my regular Netflix and through the Bell Media app I can listen to local radio stations. Facebook let's me share what I'm doing (which is pretty therapeutic actually) and see what everyone else is doing too. Some days I honestly kind of forget that I'm really not at home. Of course, I miss my wife most of all but we're doing different things to stay connected and it's working fine.
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Riyadh sunrise, notice all the construction cranes. This city
is literally growing a little every day. So much construction. |
With all that said what's next? I fly home on December 19th, we'll have Christmas then head to St Martin in the Caribbean on the 29th and return mid January. I'll have a few weeks to relax at home while I get my new Saudi visa in my passport then come back some time around the end of January. The plan is for Paula to come visit me in March, then in May we'll probably have a little mini vacation together in Greece before I come to probably the biggest homecoming party in the history of Canada! Then again, maybe not. Who's to say who'll even remember me after being away so long!
Well, this post was supposed to be about my trip to Dubai last weekend so I guess it's going to be a double post this weekend!
Thanks also for all the support everyone has shown on Facebook, reading my blog or the phone calls and texts. It means a lot to me so thanks again!
(People like pictures so I gratuitously sprinkled some throughout this post whether they were relevant or not. Enjoy! haha)
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