Life on a rig: lots of dominoes to play and even more food to eat

Hey folks,

I´m currently offshore. It´s actually rather comical how things have been going so far.

So there I was (this is how all good stories begin, right?) on Tuesday morning. I was supposed to catch the van to get to Rio at 6am at my building. I woke up early, showered, etc. and headed downstairs to be five minutes early for the van. I thought that would be plenty of time. Note: Macae Palace (my building) has entrances on both sides that are equally used. I got downstairs and there was no van to be seen- on either side. I inquired as to the previous departure of the van to the guys working at the front desks on each side, but they both said that they hadn´t seen the van yet. So as time began to pass, I thought it was strange that the van would be late... it´s never late. I ended up calling and waking up the woman from the logistics department for my base to ask what was going on. She told me that the van was already on its way to Rio.

My Response at this point: Oh Holy Crap!! I missed the van, I´m going to miss my flight to my first job... I´m a fricking genius. (heavy on the sarcasm here if you´re reading out loud)

Anyway.. I tried calling my direct boss for 20 minutes and he wouldn´t answer the phone. I had to wake up his boss to approve alternate transportation to get to Rio. To spare you the rest of the crazy details, I was pretty stressed from 6am until 11am when I finally got on anther van to Rio and had a confirmed alternate flight to Sao Paulo. I´m still looking for gray hairs that may have resulted from the experience, but in the end it all worked out. Hopefully I won´t make any other large mistakes while I´m out here and everyone will forget about the van mix-up.

And now on the lighter side of things:

I got to ride in a helicopter. That was pretty nifty. The pilots found out that it was my first ride, so they made sure that I had one of the best seats with the best views. Cool pilots! You have to wear ear plugs and noise-proof ear muffs during the ride, so the ride ends up being really peaceful. The area we took off from was covered in long ridges of foliage-covered mountains. We headed out to the open sea, and the views were really amazing. The windows are way better in a chopper than in an airplane, plus, you can actually open the window during the flight and not get sucked out. Once we lost sight of land, it was really cool. There was nothing in sight but blue sky and blue sea and the occasional puffy white cloud.

Since being on the rig, the operation has been delayed. It´s been five days now and my days consist of waking up, showering and dressing in the dark as quietly as possible (my roommate works nights and sleeps during the days), eating, watching movies in the common room (mostly in portuguese so I understand about 35% of the dialogue), eating, playing checkers, eating, watching movies, eating, and talking a lot of smack about the games that I win in dominoes. I´ve played approximately 84 games of dominoes since I learned how they play on Thursday. I occasionally kick butt and then feel obliged to remind my opponents of my novice-ness. (All smack talking is done in Portuguese, mind you, and I think I can do it pretty well. I actually think that harassing the guys makes them respect me more.)

Did I mention that we eat all the time? The cafeteria is never closed for more than three hours. It´s great, but it´s horrible at the same time. Good news: food and snacks are always available. Bad news: food and snacks are always available. It´s double-edged sword shaped like a messroom, aimed at my midsection. Eating and sleeping all day is a recipe to gain a bunch of weight, which I would prefer not to do.

We should start doing our actual work at the end of this week. Great, huh? It´s been like a week of vacation, trapped on a rig, surrounded by nothing but water. But I´m making lots of friends. I´m trying to be my outgoing, nice self without giving the wrong impression to all these guys offshore. (If you know what I mean.) I´m finding that I smile a lot, and apparently people think I´m a little flirtacious. I try to control it, but most of the time I can´t help it. :-) Most people are impressed with my Portuguese skills- that´s a bonus. I´m still lost most of the time in meetings; people talk all at once about multiple topics with words flying in every direction, and I struggle to catch most of it. In normal conversations, people are always eager to practice their English with me, and I can hold a decent conversation in Portuguese.

Anyway, I think that´s enough for now. I should probably go find a worthy dominoes opponent or something else productive like that.

More later!

Tchau,