Finally we had the opportunity to go on site this afternoon, but boy, did we regret that ...
Nah, just kidding, but we were surprised about the size : we (me and Mark) parked the car at the training center and decided to walk through our units all the way down to the control-room, which is situated about halfway where we were. It was sunny and a little breeze invited us to "go where no man has gone before" :-) Avoiding the most dusty places, we did our tour passing the major equipment while repeatedly saying "Ni How" to the chinese constructors. By the way : "Ni How" means "hello". Everybody seemed sincerely friendly, although some of them looked "shocked" seeing 2 white faces amoung all those brown ones.
When we looked at our watch, time had flown faster then expected, so we went back to the car. It took us 27 minutes and we hadn't been strolling, so this again shows how big this refinery actually is.
Also today 8 of us are driving over 400 kilometer through the dessert to the Belgian Embassy in Riyadh. There's supposed to be a sports-event, but they are all expected in casual-chique. I guess the
reception afterwards was more tempting. Tomorrow at noon they are all expected back at work.
Yesterday at the weekly volleybal meeting another collegue showed up : a french guy from the refinery of Dunkerque. Number 167 of the Total expats and according to his explanation, the last one to be send to KSA. Too bad for those who were still hoping to get here aswell.
Nah, just kidding, but we were surprised about the size : we (me and Mark) parked the car at the training center and decided to walk through our units all the way down to the control-room, which is situated about halfway where we were. It was sunny and a little breeze invited us to "go where no man has gone before" :-) Avoiding the most dusty places, we did our tour passing the major equipment while repeatedly saying "Ni How" to the chinese constructors. By the way : "Ni How" means "hello". Everybody seemed sincerely friendly, although some of them looked "shocked" seeing 2 white faces amoung all those brown ones.
When we looked at our watch, time had flown faster then expected, so we went back to the car. It took us 27 minutes and we hadn't been strolling, so this again shows how big this refinery actually is.
Also today 8 of us are driving over 400 kilometer through the dessert to the Belgian Embassy in Riyadh. There's supposed to be a sports-event, but they are all expected in casual-chique. I guess the
reception afterwards was more tempting. Tomorrow at noon they are all expected back at work.
Yesterday at the weekly volleybal meeting another collegue showed up : a french guy from the refinery of Dunkerque. Number 167 of the Total expats and according to his explanation, the last one to be send to KSA. Too bad for those who were still hoping to get here aswell.
No comments:
Post a Comment