Marriott Executive Apts Atyrau

Made the reservation for the shuttle. Will make it to the airport before the 5 am crew change bus shows up. Can't believe it is first come, first served seating. But I'm going to get a window.<br><br>Great to be leaving. <br><br>That's what I get for posting before actually flying. Small delay - plane ...

Wrapped up my work real early. Some pics of the mosque from a different angle.<br><br>Went to pick up my bag, I didn't make it over there last night. Glad I left another bag at the hotel.<br><br>Went over to one of the 'malls' just to get outside for a bit. Of course, not much there. But still interesting to walk through one of their grocery stores. <br>

Sure was nice of them to let me check-in at 9:10 in the morning. Much easier to work in the room, then to get dressed up to go into one of the offices.<br><br>Plus, there aren't as many distractions. And I can take breaks to go swim or exercise when it isn't very crowded.<br>Did reconfirm my massage with Olga, so I should go home in pretty good shape.<br><br>Now I just have to wait for my bag to show up.<br>

Finally on my way down to Tengiz.<br>I was lucky enough to get a window seat. Got some good pictures of the city of Atyrau. You can see the resident's 'camp' on this side of the hotel/mosque, as well as the square, all the way down to the bridge. <br>Decided I wasn't going to walk between Europe &amp; Asia on this trip. But if you want to see the bridge photos, check out the other Kazakhstan trips.<br>

Spent the early morning getting my bag ready for its truck ride down to the field. Of course, the biggest issue is getting a laptop bag down to 5 kg (~10 lbs) for the flight. Basically, it is the laptop, my passport, and sunglasses. All the power cords get send in the other bag ...

Went over to one of the engineering firms where one of of project teams is located to teach this class. Normally we have 20 people in the class, but I had 54 for this one. And with translation into Russian, I wasn't going to be able to cover everything. Oh well, I can live with it if they can. At least I'm getting the foreign service premium now for working in the country for over 7 days.

... me back and gave me the taxi number. So until I called them back, I was just killing time. Anyway, I finally got to the office and talked with the people I needed. So it was off to the Renaissance Hotel. On the way, I took some photos of the big Christmas tree in the square near the mosque and hotel. (you can see photos of those places in the earlier trips this year Feb-2008 and Jul-2008). Well - back to Aberdeen tomorrow. Yea!

... che la società impiega le ragazze più carine della zona, evidentemente selezionate con cura.e anche questo fa sorridere e amareggia.  mercoledì eskeen west e si accarezza un'ipotetica fuga in elicottero sull'isola d, vedremo.scomparso anche il freddo e le sue suggestioni, un cielo limpido e un sole sicuro mantengono la temperatura ad inaspettati 7 gradi. ma quale global warming! peccato perchè il velo ...

... a U senza dover fare manovra bisogna avere a disposizione una strada almeno a 8 corsie o meglio ancora la steppa 3. il freno a mano non funziona (e credo che escano tutte cosi' direttamente dalla fabbrica) 4. gli specchietti retrovisori laterali non funzionano, quando si cambia corsia e' obbligatorio girarsi (con smadonnamento incorporato) 5. sprezzo delle basse temperature. va in moto anche a -40 gradi, senza battere ciglio 6 ...

dopo tre settimane ad Atyrau devo dire che questa e' la citta' piu' brutta in cui sia mai stato. forse per questo che i kazaki sembrano tristi e smaronati. Poi oltre il danno anche la beffa: cioe' noi espatriati (soprattutto i 5000/6000 dell'AGIP e i 7000 della Chevron) che abbiamo contribuito ad aumentare il costo della vita di un bel po'.... cmq in 3 settimane non ho ancora visto un albero degno di questo nome ad Atyrau. che sia tutto sto petrolio del Caspio? non lo so ...