To Office, To Office, To Learn about Drilling….Part Two!! 6 – 20 Nov 2011

The next 14 days, following our little tour of the city, we would spend in the same routine of going to the office at about 8 AM and leaving at 8 PM, trying to get ourselves in the rhythm of the 12 hour shifts we’ll be working on the rigs. Every day it was dark when we walked to work, and it was dark when we left. Discounting the lack of vitamin D, the routine is actually pretty easy once you stop taking the weekends off. No dreading waking up on Monday, and no sleeping in on the weekends to throw off the daily routine. It’s not like we didn’t have plenty to do. There is still an insane amount of coursework we have to get through in a limited time, and 12 hours a day is barely enough time to do it. We managed pretty well. The most difficult thing was just seeing friends’ updates on Facebook about how great their weekends were. That’s something I’ll have to get over throughout the next however-many years I’ll be working this job.

I shall now give a photo tour of semi-significant items from throughout the two weeks working in the Krasnoyarsk office. 

The Office:

Our office was in one of the taller buildings in the area (top center)

One of the views from the office

Another view from the office

I think we took a wrong turn at Omsk and ended up in Paris.... Either that or this had to be a really high-quality French restaurant.  We never ate there, but if they can afford to put up a scale replica of the Eiffel Tower, they must be doing ok.

Planeta: the largest mall east of the Urals. We heard there was a KFC in there, so we went. The KFC (and most of the other food court restaurants) sold beer. Some things about this country are just too great to pass up.

Ok, so I don't really have much in the way of any other photos dealing with Krasnoyarsk. Like I said, our routine was pretty much all about working. Wake up at around 7. Eat breakfast. Walk to work by 8. Work until at least 8. Walk home. Work out. Eat Dinner. Sleep. Repeat. This routine was only disturbed on the first night when we went looking for KFC for dinner and on nights we had to get groceries. Otherwise, it was EXACTLY THE SAME. We did meet an American family of missionaries at KFC. While chatting with Jeff in line, this little blonde girl in a purple dress kept trying to get her dad's attention: "Daddy! Daddy! Americans!" The man's name was Kevin and he works at a church down the road. He had been there for 15 years, and three of his five kids had been born in Russia. He gave me his card and it turns out they also provide English speaking lessons to Russians. Makes me kind of wish he could have also given me some decent Russian lessons for my two weeks there. I just didn't have any time for that.

Jeff and I were the only Americans in the office. Most there are Russians, with only a small few exceptions. The operations manager for East Siberia is Egyptian, but he's fluent in English and thus we count him as one of "our own," because he's not speaking another language to other people all the time. It does really help for focus to not be able to understand the majority of conversations around you. I'm a person who can easily be distracted  by some eavesdropping, so this was great for me.

A note about the Russian language. It is semi-impossible to get a good handle on it with Rosetta Stone. I stopped using Rosetta stone early on back in Tyumen (mostly because I didn't have time) and it just cannot get you the things you really want to know when you most need them, unless you've completed at least multiple levels of the course prior to arriving in your country. I have taken to just memorizing key vocabulary and sentences from a phrasebook, and I try to learn a new chunk of these every day. But it is still difficult to learn because the Russians who do know English will speak it and help us along. Someday, I'll be able to feel proficient. This is one of the reasons Angola would have been pretty cool--I already had a good handle on Portuguese, and my past experience with French and Spanish had strengthened that. I'm really excited to go to a romance language-speaking country, though, because after this I'm going to be full of confidence for the easier languages!

Next stop, Vankor Field!

To Office, To Office, To Learn about Drilling! 6 – 20 Nov 2011

Our first night in Krasnoyarsk, I slept like a baby. You know…waking up at all hours of the night and disturbing others. My “bed” was a fold-down futon-like apparatus with a major crack right down the middle. It would be a week before I realized there were linens in one of the living room cabinets. But hey, at least I had my own bedroom. Jeff was on the couch in the living room, which, he didn’t realize until two weeks later, was a hide-a-bed. Obviously, we weren’t really given too much info to work with, other than, “here are the keys to your apartment.” But that’s a good thing, right? It forces us to re-learn how to fend for ourselves after being provided for at the training center. This is the “real world,” after all.

Typical residential block. Apartments galore!

After I finally pulled myself out of bed at about noon on Sunday—the latest I had awakened since leaving the US—we took advantage of our one day off and decided to explore Krasnoyarsk. The lack of apartment internet spurred us to find an internet café. Jeff’s Lonely Planet Russia guide recommended a couple places, one of which was described us, “below the Playboy Club,” so we obviously we figured we would try that first. The map in the book had little to no real detail, so we asked a cab driver we found on the street. The place supposedly didn’t exist, according to his maps, so we chose the next place on the list, with a far less intriguing location. The driver dropped us off at the address on Mira Street, but there was no immediate indication of an internet club. I was trying to figure out where we were on the crappy guidebook map, so we walked awhile to reach a landmark (a stadium) to get our bearings. We ended up on Lenin Street, parallel to Mira, and decided just to walk down it and see what we might find.

We came across a downstairs café, called “English School,” and we rejoiced in the possibility that the employees might actually know English there (not to mention it advertised free Wi-fi). Sometimes, stumbling through poor Russian ordering can be mentally and emotionally taxing. Luckily, the cute waitresses usually just smile and giggle, and I pretend they think I’m a cute struggling foreigner and not just some bumbling fool. I’m an optimist. In the café foyer was a bulletin board with English advertisements for different tours and day trips, indicating that this place really does try to cater to an international crowd. The waitress did speak English, which actually made me more inclined to want to try some Russian with her (although she would still respond with English). I did my good deed for the day by teaching her the word “non-carbonated” for water with no gas. I ordered a steak, and it actually came out more steak-looking than any other thing called “steak” I’d seen so far. It was still pretty small, compared to American steaks, but it also was cheaper, so it’s ok. Good steaks in America are overpriced, anyway. The café also had a very well-done medieval theme. I’ve come to realize that they take theming very seriously here.

We got our fill of the internet, and we went on our merry way to find the big city park. Jeff had wanted to get a picture of a Lenin statue since arriving in the country. We didn’t see one in Moscow (though we saw his tomb), and we only ever drove past the one in Tyumen. But the one in Krasnoyarsk was supposed to be quite nice. So, off we went to find ol’ Vladimir. Sure enough, he was exactly where the map said he was (once we realized where we were on the map (a lot of cross streets just aren’t labeled and can throw you off for a few blocks)), in a large square in front of a big government building and adjacent to the city park.

Vlad and me

Next we explored the park. It is apparently common to have carnivals in the city parks. Our day in Moscow, they were just dismantling a portable roller coaster (it looked like the EuroStar, a portable inverted coaster), and in the city center of Tyumen, there was also a carnival area. That’s something pretty cool about Russia. Of course, the ride season is probably pretty short, but I wonder if they have any sort of good winter carnival celebrations. Ice slides come to mind. They were the 16^th and 17^th century Russian ancestors of the modern roller coaster—Russian Mountains, as they were called outside the country. In fact, the word for “roller coaster” in several languages is, literally, “Russian Mountain.” But I digress (thank you, Russia, by the way, for your probably-insane-at-the-time thrill-seeking efforts that led to such great developments in amusement attractions). But yes, there was a little roller coaster in this city park, but to my dismay it was already closed for the season. Eventually, I will ride a roller coaster in Russia, celebrating the roots of one of my original life obsessions and the reason why I chose to be a mechanical engineer.

There wasn’t much else of interest in the park besides a haunted house kind of attraction that may or may not have been open and had a hell of a statue out front.

In the US, this would probably scare the children. But in Russia, children scare statue!!

We then headed down Karl Marx Street. We decided to buy SIM cards for our phones that worked in the Krasnoyarsk region, and we went to the MTS store to attempt to buy the exact same plan we did in Tyumen, but apparently plans are different even across adjacent regions in this country, and as far as we could gather in our very comprehension-lacking conversation was that the card plan we bought in Tyumen wasn’t available here. I chose another plan I had read about on their website, and after laboriously figuring out what we were trying to achieve (much more giggling by the cute female employees) we paid for our plans and got the hell out of there. We would later find out that there was something wrong with our SIM card activations and we couldn’t make any calls with our Krasnoyarsk plans, despite having minutes available. Where’s Paul, with his more advanced Russian bartering skills, when you need him? The answer is Irkutsk.

After those difficulties, we decided to just get some food and find our way home. We figured we could walk back instead of taking a taxi. This city, despite its population of nearly a million, is relatively compact. And now that we actually knew where our apartment was in relation to the rest of the city, no longer a just a similar-looking building surrounded by other matching blocks of buildings, it would be pretty easy for us.

We walked into a mall, looking for a food court and a bathroom, and we found what we were looking for. The gender labels on the bathroom can be somewhat confusing. Same places merely have an upward pointing triangle or a downward pointing triangle. The upward one symbolizes a female (kind of dress-like) and the downward one symbolizes a male (big lat muscles). This goes against my previous symbological beliefs I gained from The Da Vinci Code, in which the female can be symbolized by a downward triangle (the womb, or the challis) and the man by an upward triangle. Don’t make this mistake! It also seems that passersby have a tendency to look at us and giggle, which happened multiple times in this one mall. It might be the matching laptop backpacks we both sported, along with the slight look of bewilderment of someone not entirely acquainted with his surroundings, which may have suggested silly missionaries or something. It may also be attributed to the fact that I almost walked into the women’s bathroom on accident, even after a woman walked out, thinking that she was actually in the wrong. But luckily I realized my error before crossing the threshold entirely. I don’t think anyone actually saw, nor do I think that led to the giggles we later received, but whatever. I’m just really growing accustomed to the Russian girl giggle.

We ate pizza in the food court. Again, there was mayonnaise on it. Still, it is unacceptable.

We left the mall and proceeded to walk the length of Lenin Street to get back en route to our apartment. We passed some museums dedicated to authors that came from Krasnoyarsk. The city was actually very arts-friendly back in the day. Anton Chekhov was also so bold as to declare it “the most beautiful city in Siberia.” Many of these museums used to be old log mansions of the former aristocrats of old. We also passed the Krasnoyarsk Philharmonic Concert Hall, which was a nice modern building (forgot to take a picture… oops). The rest of the walk back wasn’t all that eventful. There were some downed power lines just chilling on the sidewalk as we passed, which was a bit unnerving, but I’ve grown accustomed to things that seem slightly, um…. Off.

A park we walked through on the way home.

To be continued….

Krasno-who? Krasno-what? Krasnoyarsk! TJM-VKO-KJA, 4 - 5 Nov 2011

Friday the 4^th was a difficult day, because of course over the last three weeks we had all become da bestest friends in da whole wide world. But seriously, it always sucks saying good-bye to people you were just starting to really know (or starting to annoy, whichever is the stronger of the two).  Most of us shared parting beers at the sports center café, reminiscing of “old” times, or something like that.

It was hard to leave everybody and get to packing, but I hadn’t really started at all, and the way my clothes were strewn about, it seemed as if I had way more stuff than I had started with. That actually was true, because I had acquired a work laptop and its corresponding backpack. I decided that it was time to get rid of my old laptop, my dear, red Dell Inspiron 1520, whose operating system had been reinstalled on multiple occasions, and whose nearly every part had been replaced at one point or another. I had been gradually backing up the entirety of its contents to my external hard drive, just in case I really went through with its disposal. And I did. It kind of felt good. I’ll buy a tablet the next time I’m in the US, so I have something much more portable. I’ll be that guy with the laptop, tablet, AND Kindle. Sweet, huh? I guess the tablet kind of renders the Kindle useless, but the Kindle’s even more compact, so it may still be useful. I wouldn’t even bother with the tablet if it weren’t that I’m quite limited in my use of the work laptop for personal stuff. It doesn’t even have a webcam for Skyping. And I had expected to at least be able to Skype while abroad. Hence, I shall be tabletizing (if it’s not a word, it should be) in the near future.

I stayed up the whole night in order to pack. And by whole night, I mean until 5 am, when Jeff, Andrey, and I had to catch the bus to the airport. Andrey was only with us on the leg to Moscow, and then he was going off to his own location. Yes, you read correctly folks. Despite Tyumen being pretty much in the middle between Krasnoyarsk and Moscow, we had to fly to Moscow to catch a flight to Krasnoyarsk. And, I came to the realization that Moscow had a third apart: along with Sheremetyevo and Domodedovo, there is also Vnukovo, the hub of UTAir. UTAir is, for all intents and purposes, Russia’s version of Southwest. It is the budget airline.

The good part about Russian airlines is that they still serve meals on domestic flights. The bad part about this is having to deal with a big full food tray in front of you if you want to get anything else done. I guess it’s a small price to pay for nourishment. But seriously, the domestic meals might even be bigger than the meals on international flights of US-based carriers. Jealous yet?

The Tyumen airport’s main terminal was pretty crowded, it seemed. Like in Moscow, we had to go through a metal detector and x-ray just to enter the building. There were only three ticket lines working, but each one was designated for a specific flight. In order to pack as compactly as possible, I was wearing my slightly-too-tight winter boots and my ski jacket, which, coupled with the 50 pound duffle, the backpacking pack, and the laptop bag, and the intense heating of the terminal, made me overwhelmingly uncomfortable. It’s great that the Russian’s buildings are heated well and all, but they really don’t need to overdo it so much. It’s been true every place I’ve gone so far. I mean, once we walk inside from the cold, we have to immediately shed all our layers in order to not overheat. Sometimes, I just need wear some stuff so I don’t have to carry it. I then decided that I’m just going to have to suck it up and find a way for my body to stop heating up so much (destroy my metabolism?) and with that I will become a true Russian (-like) man. I’ve learned that the Russians’ bodies aren’t necessarily better able to withstand the cold, they’re just really good at wearing lots of warm clothes. Even earlier in my time in Tyumen, when I didn’t find it cold enough to warrant a hat, gloves, and big jacket, the Russians were already bundled up. They looked at me like I was crazy, but I didn't find it that bad. I also kind of wanted to condition my body a bit for what’s ahead. I might have to endure temperatures as low as -60°F when I go to my rig site.

So, after going through security, it turned out that the extent of the concourse was just a couple rooms. The lone bathroom was a little unisex single in the corner. Everybody exited through the same door to buses when their flight was called. People aren’t very polite about waiting in line here, either, so you always have to stroll up assertively and slightly aggressively to make sure you don’t get passed by about ten people in two seconds. So I squeezed in as the last person on the bus, and despite being the first one off the bus, I was quickly overtaken and ended up being at least the 20^th person to board the plane.  

The flight to Moscow was a nice two hour bit and the plane seemed somewhat roomy, despite being completely full. All was well, getting to Vnukovo. I expected Moscow’s third airport to be small and cramped or at least annoying in some way, but it was actually quite modern and spacious, and its only drawback was that everything was a depressing gray or black. It also turns out that when making a connection—even if it’s domestic—you once again have to go through security. They divide departure and arrival portions into two separate levels of the terminal. We said our good-byes to Andrey and headed through security for the third time that day.

I was starting to get sleepy from having not slept last night and I was starting to feel sick, so I was quick to pass out once we got on the plane. This plane was a bit more cramped than the last one, and the air conditioners above the seats spewed warmed air, which made it extra miserable. I can’t remember a flight that I had felt worse during, and it shouldn’t have been that way. But oh well, I blame the “sausages” from our breakfast meal on the previous flight.

After a difficult four hours, we landed in Krasnoyarsk, which is thankfully surrounded by rolling hills and some small mountains. I was getting depressed by the plains of Tyumen. We had an identical deplaning to Tyumen, with the same kind of bus and the same short ride along the tarmac to a small receiving terminal with one baggage claim room where they checked everyone’s luggage tag receipts against their tags for matches. Our taxi driver was waiting for us (I must note that I have yet to make an on-time arrival in Russia). We walked out into the Krasnoyarsk Saturday evening air, and it was above freezing. I had expected colder weather. When we left Moscow the pilot reported the temperature at our destination as below freezing. I don’t really like slushy puddles.

I was temporarily taken aback when the taxi driver got into the car on the right side. As it turns out, there’s a significant number of cars in Krasnoyarsk that are configured with the steering wheel on the right, despite driving on the right side of the road. As long as they still follow the driving-on-the-right-side rules, I guess I’m fine with it. I wonder if it’s because this far east they just get a lot of their cars directly from Japan, with their typical-for-island-nations-for-some-reason “wrong” side driving configurations. Hmmmm, I’ll see if I can look that up later.

We first had to stop by the office to get our keys to the company apartment we get to crash in before we head to the rig site. The office is in a 30-story office building. Not too shabby. It took the security awhile to figure out what we were there for, but luckily our manager just happened to still be working at 9 PM on a Saturday night, before heading out on vacation (People take big vacations in this job, because it’s so time and energy demanding. See “9 PM on a Saturday night.”). We finally got our keys and were whisked off to our apartment. After navigating narrow alleyway/parking lot/driveway/street things among the blocks of stereotypical “communist-style” apartment buildings, we came upon our building. I wasn’t sure exactly how we ended up there or if I was going to be able to find my way around later, with all these apartment buildings that looked the same, but I was just glad to be at a place where I could sleep. The apartment is nothing special, but hey we’re International Mobile employees who live out of suitcases. Who are we to expect luxury? At least I’ve got a place to sleep.

We did a short exploration and found a shopping center right across the street from our block. It had a grocery store and of course we had to buy some water and beer. It is nearly impossible to find multi-packs of regular, noncarbonated water. What is it with sparkling water this side of the pond? I swear, because I chug so much water all the time, this sparkling stuff has just been super abrasive on my throat. I did get some orange juice, which I knew had to be good because it's called "Yes!"

Obviously, "da" means "yes." Also worth of note, the word for "orange" is "apelcini." Darn false cognates! 

We also came across the original Czech Budweiser brand, which had a trademark dispute with Anheuser-Busch back in the early 20th Century and forced the American Budweiser to be labeled and marketed as just "Bud" in Europe. 

Budweiser Budvar

I got excited, because in and around all these apartment complexes are a bunch of playgrounds—the eastern European kind I had hoped for with lots of jungle gym and bar apparatuses—which give me somewhere new and exciting to work out. The cold also adds another fun element. I was most excited about the rings.

Rings in the center. Also a funny shaped thing on the right for  awkward pull-ups.

I can practice more gymnast style exercises, getting a variation from my normal pull-ups, push-ups, and dips routine. Time to get pumped!

More pullup areas...

Not for workouts, but I just thought this slide was worthy of note. The snow ruins the affect, but the slide goes directly to the pavement. Must instill butts of steel in the kids!!

Training, Training, Birthday, Training… 23 October - 4 November 2011

Okay, so it’s been a couple weeks. Perhaps you've given up on checking for updates. I know how much you've missed me. Well, you might be in for another marathon post. Let’s see how this goes.

Following the completion of OFS-1, we had to attend light vehicle driving training. I had been semi-dreading this experience, because I knew we’d be required to drive manual vehicles, but my experience with manuals consists of a couple times being coached by someone in the passenger seat in slow residential zones. I had kept meaning to find ways to practice over the summer, but of course I didn’t. So here I was, a pretty competent driver in the states when it comes to mountain roads and other difficult conditions, but I had to drive like I was a little n00b trying to learn the stick.

But, as luck would have it, I talked myself into being good at it with my sweet Zen driving skills and voila! I drove (and maneuvered) an old stick shift car unaccompanied by an instructor. It was like getting my driver’s license all over again, except we did more badass maneuvers. We had to do an exercise where there was somewhat of an L-shaped area demarcated by cones, and we had to slam the breaks and skid initially before turning sharply at the end, thereby simulating crash avoidance. It also happened to be the first day that it started snowing, which made for a little wilder time. After that we had to practice weaving through cones at two different speeds, proving that it is impossible to not miss a cone trying to sustain 60 km/h. By the last maneuver, I was no longer stalling out every time I came to a stop. I was also able to start the car on a (slight) uphill grade.

One of the cars had somewhat of a "Little Miss Sunshine" moment where it wouldn't start without a good push...

Our driving instructor was cool little man named Dmitry, who obviously had a lot of professional driving experience. He would also tell stories of crazy races he would sometimes have with his friends and the stupid things he did. He also had the largest collection of driving-related video clips (serious, funny, instructional, etc.) I had ever seen, and he enjoyed showing all of them to us. He also really enjoyed showing off his spinning and skidding u-turn skills, sometimes with us riding. Unfortunately the only English he knew pertained to driving, so many of his jokes in the classroom lecture portion were lost in the translation. That’s another thing. For two weeks, we had classes taught us in Russian with an English translator repeating every sentence, elongating all explanations by more than two-fold. I saw “more than” because there were often mis-translations and a lot of clarification had to happen. The first day, our translator was a designated medical translator to handle on-site communications with the nurse-on-duty. But when it came to automobile specifics, the poor girl was often at a loss. The second day was the most skilled translator, a woman who had spent time in Texas and had a definite grasp of the technical and idiomatic terms. She was also the only translator to speak in real-time, as the instructor was talking, which got the class to move along a lot better. Consequently, I was less likely to fall asleep and be called on by Dmitry to demonstrate something to the class.

Oh, and I can’t forget to mention the full-sized driving simulator that they had in the driving school. Dmitry could put any sort of scenario settings up on the front screen and we could attempt to drive them. Most notable was a setting that made men suddenly pop out of manholes that you had to avoid. Sometimes they just seemed impossible. I think Dmitry was just messing with us most of the time.

Treacherous mountain road

Our lovely driving class. Dmitry's in the center, flanked by women.  What a  guy!

In my last entry I spoke of the two ways of beef preparation—the stew and the ground beef loaf that could take the form of a ball or a turd. Well, the turd shape just went to a whole new level, when they decided to fix what they labeled “kebab.” Behold, the poop-on-a-stick!

And, as I said before, it tastes the same as all the other ground beef concoctions and is fine once smothered in hot sauce.

Oh, and as I mentioned before, it snowed on the day of the driver’s test (October 25^th), which I think is the earliest that I’ve ever seen it snow (not counting up above 7000 feet in the mountains). This was also a very exciting day for us, because it was…..Tuesday! Yes, we were excited for Tuesday, because our first and only full day off for our three weeks at the training center was Wednesday. Following that, we would have nine straight days of Industrial Safety Training, as required by Russian Law for all Specialists (as we are designated by the immigration authorities, “Highly Qualified Specialists,” to be exact. Teehee.). Many of our new found Kazakh and Azerbaijani friends from OFS-1 had already had the training and would be leaving us. It was also going to be my birthday on Saturday, and what better way to celebrate the big 2-3 than to go out on the town with your international buddies on the preceding Tuesday night?

So, everybody got all pumped up and decked out (in what few going-out clothes we had packed), and I found myself singing my own version of Rebecca Black’s “Friday” with the word “Friday” replaced by “Tuesday” and the word “Weekend” replaced by “Wednesday.” It actually worked out really well, except for the people who had to listen to me.

We boarded our bus (why try to fit everybody in cabs when we can all ride a chartered bus?) and rode the half hour that it takes to reach downtown Tyumen. We weren’t sure where we should go, so we had the bus drop us off in the city center and we started walking. We passed a Mcdonald’s and some sushi bars (there is actually a lot of sushi here, though I’m not exactly eager to try it) and then we landed at a quiet restaurant with very modern but boring décor. It didn’t take us long to decide we wanted a place where it was ok to dance and get a little rowdy, so we called up some cabs and drove across town to a better place. I don’t remember what it was called, but that really doesn’t matter.

Hookahs are very popular in Russia (I’ve seen them sold in supermarkets) and judging by the smell, this place was no exception. We ordered our drinks and I assured everyone I would be sticking to a couple beers, because after my Vodka experience the previous week, I’d rather take it slow. Of course, nobody listened, because they said we’re celebrating my birthday, so I found myself sharing tequila shots with Kazakhs and wine with a Texan, and then I was dancing-off with an Azerbaijani. Some of the guys also ordered a hookah, and I wanted to see how they compared to American hookahs, so I had some as well. American hookahs have more of a flavor in my opinion. But I still had fun getting creative with the smoke. All in all, it was a pretty fun night. Though, like the last time, I went into it somewhat dehydrated, and I spent the next day with a bigger headache than I needed to. But hey, it was our day off! Anyway, here are some highlights from that night….

Hookah smoke in my Guinness. Classy, no?

Tequila in Russia. I like to be different.

Dancing cage? Yes. Did I dance in it? Maybe. Is there documentation? Yes, but you're not seeing it.

I think this one captured the most people with Andrey's fantastic arm length, and it also captures the essence of the night.

The next day, headache and all, I joined my fellow International Mobile employees on a trip back downtown to a mall. Everybody had some essentials they wanted. We all needed something in the way of phones, SIM cards, and/or calling cards. We also had Paul—the Scottish-Italian who knows enough Russian to get by and who also chose not to go out with us the previous night and thus didn’t feel like death. He handled most of the cell phone difficulties. Apparently it’s really hard to get it across to people that you just want a pay-as-you-go SIM card. Unfortunately, in Russia, everything is still region-specific, and once I am to leave the Tyumen region, I’d have to get another SIM card and phone card in the Krasnoyarsk region, so as not to incur roaming and other long distance charges. Oy! Paul opened up his phone and I saw at least 4 cards just chilling in there with the battery. I’m sure he has more. I’m having trouble even memorizing one new phone number for myself. Geez!

I did learn another valuable lesson: Mannequins here have a lot more personality than in America. Check out these kids:

I ended up sleeping the rest of the day and night, upon returning to the training center. It was great.

The following day we had our first Safety Training class. Since these classes are required by the Russian government and its endless bureaucracy, the classes would be taught to us in Russian. With a translator. For nine days. Unfortunately, this translator neither seemed to have a lot of the legal terminology down (we probably covered more policy than actual procedure), nor did she have much in the way of a technical oil background. Needless to say, it was a rough nine days. Luckily, the first two days, for “Labor Safety,” we were taught by a man who looked like Peter Lorre, and all I had to do was picture him screaming, “Rick! Rick!” and running from the police in Casablanca, and I would smile and it would all be okay.

Imagine this guy teaching you about labor safety policy.

On Friday night, Paul and Jeff convinced me that we needed to celebrate my REAL birthday. This time I actually avoided the call of the drink and stuck to just a couple beers. We began our celebration by celebrating that the café in the Training Center’s sports building now served beer. Then we went into town to look for a good nightclub. We first went to a little café and had some pizza (the first mayonnaise-less pizza I’d seen in the country) and Paul asked the cute waitress for recommendations on the best discos in town. She came back later with a list of three places, named Giraffe, Mirage, and Pyramid (all translated phonetically from the Cyrillic form, so actually Zhiraf, Mirazh, and Pirimid). We decided we’d try Giraffe, and we hailed a “cab” to take us there. Despite the accumulating snow, the driver was very enthusiastic about accelerating around every turn. He also was more interested in turning and talking (more like yelling) to Paul in the passenger seat in Russian than he was about watching the road. But, thankfully, we made it to Giraffe. One could only discern the Giraffe theme by the statues out front.

Inside, it was all futuristic themed. The club was several stories tall, and the second story had cosmic bowling. The floor with the coat room also had a sweet Einstein bust thing.

Then we made our way up to the dance room. We got nailed with a high cover charge to enter, but the music was alright and the women were pretty nice too. Interestingly, all the women danced while all the men stood on the outside and watched, except for some extra-metro looking guys that went right in the middle. I wondered if this was the usual flow of things. Paul kept assuring us that the girls would be all over us once they realized we were foreign and therefore a novelty, but I wasn’t feeling it and had not had enough to drink to even think about going wild on the dance floor with all these Russian girls. Paul went up to a girl and started some Russian small talk (I’m just not good at that yet) and he told her it’s my birthday. She told him she wasn’t interested. I said, “Let’s go. This place is silly.” I mean, it was kinda cool, and really well themed, in a Dr. Seuss kind of way. And it was all too expensive. I’m trying to save my money here!

So, back to the training center we went. And along came six more straight days of safety training. I won’t bore you with the details. I’m trying to forget them. But for each of the five training sections we underwent, we had to take both a written test and an oral test before a panel of people from the Russian who-knows-what. Frankly, I’m so sick of all that stuff, I don’t even want to rant about it.

On Thursday the 3^th, our second to last day together before we went our separate ways to our locations around Russia (except for Jeff, who’d be joining me in Krasnoyarsk), we decided to go out, but instead of drinking, we went bowling (and drank a little). So, in mall food courts here, the food counters sell beer. Is that not awesome? I think it’s awesome.

I was also impressed by my Tuborg bottle and how it had its own cap tab thing. I really did find it interesting enough to take a picture. Sorry if it disappoints. I stood up an issue of Mango magazine behind it just to make things more interesting.

Ooooo, special cap tab thingy....

I had one of my worst showings in bowling ever, but I will contend that these lanes were shorter than in the US. I’m probably just BSing but it seemed like it. I was also trying to work the whole side spinning method, which gets me a gutter ball 50% of the time. It can also get me cool strikes… just not with the frequency I’d hoped for. But hey, we had a lot of fun! Look at us!

Friday was our last day of safety class. It was Fire Safety Training. It was pretty easy, except when the instructor showed us some traumatizing fire videos. Here in Russia, they have no qualms about scaring the bajeezers out of you with graphic videos of what not to do. They worked for me, at least…

Okay, there's more to say, but I'm posting this, so you actually have an update to read. Woohoo!!