At last, I'm back on a chemical plant!!!

It's been six and a half months since my interview, 4 medicals, 2 visa applications, 11,000 airmiles and a few days when I've questioned my own sanity but last Monday I finally got to see what I'll be working with in Saudi Arabia. Polymeric Methylene Diphenyl Di-Isocyanate (PMDI).  It's used to make foams and insulation for the construction industry and in things like memory foam mattresses.  I've had to re-engage my brain and think again, I never thought I'd miss working but it's been a good week.  The plant I'm training on is part of Dow Chemicals Texas Operations in Freeport, the biggest complex in North America, I've been round the plant a couple of times but spent a lot of time in the classroom learning the process from our trainers for the next 6 months, Kristi, Byron and Jim, who are excellent.  Something I didn't know was that Sadara are licensing the technology from Dow and at some point in the future Sadara and Dow will be competitors in the same market so although our trainers are doing their utmost to teach us there are certain things that they can't tell us as Dow protect their technology fiercely, we're not allowed access to full plant technical drawings, we can't take photo's or recordings of any kind and although we can take our own notes and produce our own drawings we're not allowed to take them off the plant.  It makes it a bit more challenging. 

I've started to get used to my new surroundings, been for a couple of walks in search of alligators although I've yet to see any however I have seen turtles, racoons and an armadillo in the wild.  We took a drive down to Galveston which is about an hour from Lake Jackson, it's a seaside resort with a funfair on the pier and things like that, we had lunch in Bubba Gumps Shrimp Co, for anyone who hasn't seen Forrest Gump it won't make sense but we thought it was excellent.  

We also had a day out in Baytown at the Royal Purple Raceway watching NHRA Drag Racing, I've been to watch F1 before and I thought they were quick but nothing can prepare you for the speed and noise of Top Fuel Dragsters.  To put it in perspective a high end supercar can do 0-60 in about 4 seconds and take over a minute to get to 200mph, Top Fuel Dragsters go from a standing start and cover just over 300 meters in 3.8 seconds and reach speeds upwards of 320mph, phenomenally quick!!!

As I've said previously the local nightlife isn't exactly bouncing but I've had a couple of good nights out with other lads who are here with Sadara, some have just arrived like me but others have been here for months so it's been good hearing what others have been getting up to.  We're planning on a couple of weekends away, 1 of them back to Houston to see what we missed on our flying visit and it would be rude not to go to Las Vegas as it's only a 2 hour flight away!!

Places that I would never have visited are on my doorstep now so in that respect this is a fantastic life experience.  I just hope that it continues to tick so many boxes.

Something that I'm really looking forward to is Lindsey and Tilly flying here in less than 3 weeks so we're going to go to New Orleans for a long weekend as well as a weekend in San Antonio at a ranch horse riding and the like, it'll be good to have some family time as it's been 92 days since I left England and we've been apart for 84 of them.  One of the things I've struggled with since arriving is that we don't have as much Skype time due to the time difference, Saudi is just 2 hours ahead of the UK so we could spend most nights chatting about nothing much, just chatting.  The time difference here is 6 hours so when I'm at work Monday to Thursday by the time I get in it's 11pm in England meaning Tilly is usually in bed so it's quite tough getting the time.  As I've said before nothing in life worth doing comes easily, I can see the light at the end of the tunnel now though. 

Anyway, I'm going alligator spotting again............