New bridge!

Great new things happen everyday in the glorious city of Atyrau!

The new walkway bridge is complete! So now we can walk safely from the office over to TGI Friday's! Earlier we had to do a kamikaze drill to cross a flexible 3x2 lane road in the middle of an intersection. So it was a pretty good chance of getting a white Lada up close and personal. But now we can walk safely across this glass bridge, pretty nice!! As a little curiosity, when we got up the tiled stairs, a sort of sticky gravel met us. Guess they did not have enough tiles to cover the bridge..

Esso/Lukoil

Today in our lunch break we went on a little trip to the market, Dina Bazaar. And on the way there we passed this great gas station. And today I was lucky, we got stuck in traffic just next to it, so I rolled down the window and got a good photo! It is a shame that a white Lada was not tanking, that would have been too great!

On our way back crossing the Ural river, we saw a white Lada driving down the river! Perfect! Lots of people fishing, and then a Lada driving down at full speed, nice!!

New office chair!

Exciting things have happened in KZ. I got a new office chair! This might sound like a trivial thing, but believe me, it is not!!

The chair story started during the summer. The chairs we have are really bad. And it must be said, that it is a pretty strange thing to be so wrapped up in, but let me tell you, that if you sit 12 hours a day, 7 days a week, totaling 84 hours a week, on a bad chair, I promise you, you will be very interested in chairs! The standard chair we have is so uncomfortable, does not give any support, anywhere, and is hopeless to adjust, and the armrest are to tall, so you can not roll under the desk. They even brake on occasions, and then you have to "sit" almost horizontally under your desk! Nice for sleeping, but not too nice for working… We asked HSE for new chairs, but the answer was vague... very difficult...

To try and amend the situation, we brought back-support cushions from Oslo down with us. That helped a little. Kristin even made the handyman take off the armrests, so she could actually roll the chair under the desk. But on our 4 weeks off the chairs got swapped around and even Kristin's back pillow got "borrowed" away. So we were back to scratch!

But now, all off a sudden, we have a few new chairs! It was only for pregnant girls, and people with back problems! And I got one! Thank you Amalia, I love my new chair! It is so great! You can adjust it, it rolls under the desk, and it even supports your lower back! Fabulous!

Note the pink piece of paper on the right armrest, that is my name tag! Yepp, have to make sure no one takes my new chair!

And if you look closely at "the feet" of the chair you see why the cleaningladies clean our floors several times a day. The fine Atyrau dust is everywhere!

Ice skating in Kazakhstan

Today we went ice skating after work! Fun fun fun!
It was a really nice indoor ice arena, and you could rent skates. Aker had booked it for 1 hour, so we had the whole rink for our selves!

And another exciting thing happened today, Gregor joined the project! Welcome Gregor!!
Here you see, K and K posing with Gregor. (And Jørn and Amalia skating by!)

Yesterday's view from the office

We finally got some light snow! Some snow has fallen earlier this winter, but snow turns grey pretty quickly due to the dust and the mud. So it was very nice to wake up to a white landscape! It is not proper snow though, more like ice powder, but never the less, it makes everything go white!! The day turned into a great winterday with minus 15, beautiful sunshine and glittering snow!

Today, on the other hand, the world around us was gone! Fog! pretty thick fog as well. So the view from the 11th floor this morning was pretty limited....nothing really, just white cotton..
And we know the reason for this weather change, K and K are supposed to go offshore! Jepp, the saga continues... When will the girls be going offshore this trip? That is the 1000 kr question!!

Exciting new event in KZ! Pizza Delivery!!

A new and exciting service is available in Atyrau: pizza delivery!
A poster in our elevator in the apartment building said that we now can order pizza and get it delivered to our apartment door. This we had to test of course! So Catrin, Kristin and I ordered pizza last night. And after 40 min a nice girl knocked on our door on the 11th floor and had two pizzas for us! Great! And they even tasted ok! We of course had to add spices, and should probably have made some pizza sauce, but we were out of sour cream, but anyway, we were pretty content and happy! Small joys in the life of an expat in KZ!!

Back in KZ!

We made it! After a rather comfortable journey, we landed safe and sound in Atyrau. Even our suitcases made it. We did NOT travel light though... Two big somewhat overweight suitcases, two inflights, a rather big handbag each, add in a couple of big airport shopping bags and even a pc-bag, then you have K&K on a trip to KZ! And do not forget the HUGE jackets! We were quite a show! And add the fact that we were the only girls on the flight, we did probably not go undetected...
The girls are prepared!! We even made some shoe-shopping at Schiphol, and the usual cheese and snacks shopping. It should last us a couple of weeks!

Even though we were well prepared, the first 12 hour day in the office was tiresome and pretty tough! It was the usual 28-29 degrees, and stuffy. My high spirits lasted until 09:30... I thought they would last at least the first week.... Well, hopefully it was just a first day setback! Tomorrow will be better, much better!!

Here we go again!

The time has come, again, to return to work! 4 new weeks in Kazakhstan! Well, actually this time it is almost 5 weeks.

After a night of partying at Oslo Plaza, it was two somewhat reduced K's that meet up at the Airport Express Train. But luckily for us, the airport was almost empty on a Saturday evening, so everything went smooth, and the flight to Amsterdam was not full, it was on-time, quick and rather pleasant. The transfer to the hotel was quick, and the dinner in the hotel lounge was good. So now two tired but content girls are planning an "early evening", and hopefully some sweet dreams and a good night's sleep! God natt!

Pictures: Kristin on the train, talking to Anne. And me at the hotel lounge in Amsterdam writing this!

Aker New Year's Party

The annual Aker party was at the Oslo Plaza this year. Around 500 happy party people attended, and we had a fun evening! Pre-drinks at the Sky-bar, dinner with entertainment, and good table company, what more can you ask for!!

Happy New Year 2010

Happy New Year 2010!

We had a great celebration in Oslo! Gjertrud made a fantastic new year's celebration dinner, and after the great dinner party we made our way to Frognerparken to look at all the fireworks! It was a cold night, yr.no said it was minus 14, but we had plenty of warm clothes on, so we had fun! A great evening!
I do not know what PØ wanted to take a picture of, the snow or our hats! But if you can not see us, it is three happy girls: Hilde, Gjertrud and me!