Borat country here I come!
 

Yep, first training trip of 2008, and it's a no-holds-barred whopper of a journey to Almaty in Kazakhstan where I will be training around 50 or so oil industry people from the new and old Soviet block in the wonders of tanker shipping and operations plus (a new one for me) oil storage and pipelines (hey, you at the back, did I see you nodding off already? - well hold on a bit, when I travel things have a habit of going more than slightly askew!)

Leave lunchtime armed, as usual, with laptop and digital camera. So be ready for a blow-by-blow account of all things wonderful and otherwise about my journey and short-ish stay there (fly back on Friday - that's Good Friday as well - such dedication to the cause!)

I think it's going to be interesting......

Excellent. Keep us posted.

Are you going to get a bike ride in while you're there?

Kazakhstan is a beautiful country, like Canada in many ways. Looking forward to your experience there.

Ah, Borat's family scenes were actually filmed in Glod (literally "mud") Romania. Please tell me you are going to see Mud, Romania--a town without a sewer system. Please, please!

If they named the city I live in as acurately as that of Glod, my town would be called WTF, Ohio. Or, possibly, Racial Tension Shoot-Out, Ohio.

It's amazing the things you know, Brianna.

What? You don't get Wikipedia? :D

Actually, after I saw the movie I was so intrigued by that town that I researched (ha--looked it up on the Web!) the area. It's a pretty sad town, to tell the truth. Backed up against those menacing Carpathian mountains--all shadow, forest, big bad wolves and vampires. My kinda town.

My kid is doing a mission trip to Romania, any of you ever been there?

What's a mission trip? It sounds like fun.

nope - sorry.

Now this isn't going at all to form.

Flight left on time, even landed on time, uneventful(ish) taxi ride to hotel (the guy knew all the back streets and missed all the jams), hotel is top quality 5-star jobbie, class are hanging on every word, food is excellent, room comfortable.... not me at all...

So what can I tell you....

Well there was that moment waiting in the departure lounge when the announcement came across the PA system: 'bing-bong, would Mr Daniel Craig in the Diamnond Lounge please contact the BMI flight attendant as we are now about to board....' Hey, 007 on my flight, must be filming a scene for the new Bondie 'Quantum of Solace' (god, there's a gripper of a title if ever there was one...!!) - wonder if he's smaller in real life....? . So, camera at the ready, but.... no sign, dammit! - turns out Daniel Craig is a petroleum engineer on his way to a meeting in Almaty. And that's about the way it's been going, so far.

Not a patch on my colleague who was presenting before me. He decided to fly from Norwich (where he lives) to Amsterdam where he would catch the KLM direct flight to Almaty. Only when he arrived in Amsterdam, for the first time ver since its inauguration, the KLM flight was cancelled. After a lot of to-ing and fro-ing they found him an alternative - fly from Amsterdam to Heathrow (3 hours wait for that), then a five hour wait in Heathrow, before he could catch the Aeroflot overnighter to Moscow, then wait another 3 hours in Moscow before he got a connecting flight to Almaty. Door to door, 26 hours. Now that sound more like the usual me than him! Good job he left a day earlier than he needed to.

My flight did have to call at Ekaterinberg to drop off and pick up, but even that went ahead quicker than normal (-12 C which must be around 8 F, I reckon - not that I ventured outsidethe plane to conmfirm that, mind you!)

So what have i got for you, then....

..well a few piccies to post and some info - not as much as I'd like but a couple of days to go yet - will post them tomorrow as need my shut-eye now (nearly 2.00 am)

Have a video from my son to keep you amused until then.... one for the brits and one for the more global audience

A mission trip is a trip to learn more about religion.

It is a group of like minded religious or non-religious individuals get together on their own dime and go somewhere to do good things for the less fortunate. The only common theme is those who go, do it out of goodness of the heart and not to spread religion to those who don't have it or sell bibles. In this case they are going to a orphanage and help rebuild some buildings and a recreation area. Many of my compatriots go on medical missions that are partially sponsored or affiliated with different religious groups or non-profits and all they do is free surgery.

A friend goes with a Christian group to China, to work at several orphanages, giving medical care and improving the physical facilities. Kind of hard for her to teach religion to babies, that don't understand English. ;)

Sorry for the delay in posting - the Internet connection in Kazakhstan left a lot to be desired so I decided to wait until I arrived back home - then the last-night meal at a mountainside restaurant left its toll on my digestive tract - still suffering, but can at least get on with the posting.

First the map of the route to Almaty - one of our airlines, BMI, now flies direct,, but has to make a fuellinhg stopover at Ekaterinaberg until it gets long-distance aircraft on the route from May - so the flight was an hour longer than needs be. As Ekaterinaberg was recording sub-zero temperatures itwas encouraging to know we didn't have to get off the plane - managed a couple of photos on the way back when it was a daylight stop there:

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