Day 1 - The Journey Begins

Well the day has finally come for me to begin my adventure full of working in a desert and traveling to all corners of the world. It was a morning filled with doing last minute things like laundry, packing, mailing visa applications, getting maps, and teary ‘goodbyes’. Once all of that was out of the way, I could finally begin my travels.

My journey began of course at LAX. Normally this would not be a pleasant experience, through waiting in all of the lines, paying for luggage fees, TSA, etc. But this was a new experience for me…business class! As I walked into the terminal, I was immediately shuffled to the Business Passenger express check-in line, where I had no wait what-so-ever. Next, I found out that two checked bags were included with the cost of my boarding pass. Bonus! Especially since I’m leaving the country for four months and needless to say, I had a lot of luggage! After a quick check-in and then dropping my bags off with TSA, I walked up to the passenger identification line where again, I was allowed to go into the “Business Passenger Express” line and was allowed to move ahead of all of the others that were waiting. As I moved past that, I realized that there was no Business class perk for the TSA security line. Fortunate for me, it was relatively short and I was able to breeze through with no trouble.

Now that I’m through all of the lines, I realize that I showed up 3 hours early for an international flight and now I’ve made it to the gate with more than 2 hours to spare. Have no fear, I can just mosey on up to the Business Lounge. Once I find the KLM Business Lounge, my mind is immediately blown to learn how the other half travels. Free wifi, drinks (including alcohol), snacks, newspapers, plush seats to relax on. I’m quickly learning that I am getting spoiled and I am now ruined for traveling on any other Southwest budget flight. In the lounge, I find my friend Ted, who is the other Designs Engineer that is traveling to Tengiz with me. We get caught up on what we’ve been working on, talk about our excitement for this assignment and just generally relax before our flight.

As the departure time approaches for our flight, we begin to head down to our gate. Once again, our Business class perks pay off and we’re allowed to board the plane first. As we board and we are shown our seats, I am once again blown away at how nice these accommodations are. I’m somewhat of a tall person at just under six feet tall. When I can lean back and fully extend my legs out and still not touch the chair in front of me, then I can finally say that I have been comfortable on a plane ride! Soon after I sit down, I’m greeted by one of the flight attendants with a glass of champagne. After about half an hour of “oooo”-ing and “ahhh”-ing over everything in Business Class, we are finally airborne, making our way to Amsterdam.  I begin to enjoy the in-flight entertainment which consists of individual LCD screens that come out of the arm rests and have a plethora of On-Demand programs for me to enjoy including TV-shows, movies, news, sports, games, and more. On a 10-hour flight, entertainment is a must! I watched a few movies including “Man on a Ledge” and “Contraband," while I enjoyed one of my three course meals that was included with my ticket. Oh and I almost forgot to mention that all drinks (including alcoholic) are complimentary in Business Class. Needless to say, I had a few glasses of wine with my meal.

After the first meal, I tried to sleep, but just couldn’t. Based on Pacific time, my body still thought it was only 4 in the afternoon which was way too early for me to go to sleep. So I read, watched some more programs and enjoyed the view over Greenland from 30,000 feet. I must say it was very impressive to see all of the ice and watch the sun set for what seemed like 2 hours. I was hoping to see some Northern Lights, but the sun was only down for about 20 minutes before it came right back up again as we began our descent into AMS. As we broke through the clouds, I saw one of the most peculiar things in the ocean. We saw a whole field of wind mills in the ocean. I had never seen such a thing before in my life, but of course the engineer in me found it really interesting and really wondered how the heck they got those things installed.

We finally land (a very smooth one at that) and of course we are privileged to be the first ones to de-board the plane. My buddy Ted and I are starting to feel like jerks though because the flight attendants are holding all of the other passengers back for us to go first.

The Amsterdam airport is very clean with a lot of blue and white themed decorations everywhere, which is much more inviting than the dingy gray of LAX. As we are walking to the transfer desk, we meet up with our counterparts that are coming in from our Richmond Refinery. This all begins to make sense as we realize there is only one flight a day from Amsterdam to Atyrau, Kazakhstan. After we get our new tickets, we make our way to the Business Lounge once again. It’s a nice opportunity to try some dutch food and get a fresh pint of Heineken!

Our trip from Amsterdam to Atyrau was aboard Air Astana. The business accommodations weren’t as nice as KLM, but they had many of the same perks including food and drinks. This was only a 5 hour flight, much more manageable, but again, I’m hardly able to sleep. By the time we land in Atyrau, it’s about 7 pm local time which means that it’s 7 am the morning after I left back home. This has basically just felt like one really long day for me.

It takes a little while for us newbies to make it through customs because we have to get our visas finalized, but the process goes fairly smoothly. Before we know it, we are getting shuttled over to what we call the Atyrau Transit Hotel. It is a set of buildings that are owned by TCO (Tengizchevroil) for Ex-pats to stay in while they transition in and out. After we check in to ATH, we get a look at our rooms. For the most part they are very much like dorm style living. There is just enough room for a couple of beds, a bathroom and a closet. It’s simple, but it’ll get the job done for one night. By this point, we’re all pretty hungry so we make our way over to the kitchen where we learn all they really have is sandwiches, which by the way aren’t quite the same as sandwiches in the US. They don’t have luxury items like lettuce, or mayo, or mustard. My sandwich basically consisted of chicken (very little), tomato, cheese, and cucumber. Again, nothing fancy, but it got the job done. We ate our dinner in the common area of the hotel and enjoyed some Kazakh soap operas. I found a computer to write a few emails home, took a shower (which felt amazing!), and basically finally got some sleep!