November 15

Long red-eye flight.  I hardly slept a wink, and I didn’t have anyone sitting next to me.  Makes for a very long day.  Got into Perth at 6:30.  Funny thing, as we got on the airplane, the pilot comes on with an announcement, “We’re afraid that the plane is going to be getting in a little later than usual this morning, we have had to reroute the flight plane to avoid the erupting volcano in Indonesia.”  Holy crap!  I forgot that I am now a neighbor of Indonesia, and that actually affects me.  We did have a lot of turbulence, but I think we successfully avoided the ash plumes.   Went through customs, I didn’t get checked or anything.  There was a huge line, and we all thought that we’d be there for hours, but we were just whisked right through.  We think it might have had something to do with the fact that we have work visas.  I didn’t even need to use the documents that I printed out, so much for that expense.  We took a taxi to SLB-Perth, it’s only about a 2 minute drive from the airport.  It’s on federally owned land, and SLB is renting the building from the federal government.  We got there, and Nick and I were not expected.  They only thought that Jessica was going to be there….  Right.  Well at least they told me I can stay!  We met with Andy, our boss’s boss.  Nice fellow from the U.K., I’m really glad that he had some tie to talk to us today.  He told us that all 3 of us are going to be going to Roma, Australia, approximately 400 kilometers west of Brisbane in the Outback.  We are expressly forbidden from going offshore with any of the clients here in Perth, so we will have to do some jobs in Roma/ Eastern Australia in order to complete our job requirements.  So may new things today, I can’t even go into them all.  We only stayed around till noon, then we went back to our respective accommodations.  I am unfortunately staying in a hotel tonight, but I’ll be in the same place as Jess.  Nick is unfortunately a little ways away, but we’re all going to get phones tomorrow at work.  I came to the hotel, paid for my this funny little card that SLB gave me, got a salad, and passed out hard for a couple hours.  I met up with Jess and Nick in the downtown area, we thought that everything would still be open.  We were mistaken.  Everything closes down early, I guess we’ll get used to that.  After a short dinner, and a side trip to the supermarket, we split and I came back to my hotel.  Tired, but I’m glad I’m finally here.  Tomorrow should be interesting.