Almost time to head home

In about 24 hours from now i will be on my way to the Airport to head home. It is about 20 hours from the time we board the first flight until we touch down in Calgary. There have not been too many exciting things over the last few weeks that warrant an entry in the blog. It has just been steady drilling (with the occasional trip to semmens beach to soak up the rays). We are almost getting to the point where we can do  two complete wells in 30 days.
They sure don't wait long to haul in the service rig, to bring the finished well into production. This is not something you would see in Canada (two rigs this close)

You would probably not see this on a lease in Canada either

In Albania there are a steady stream of shepherds passing through the well site. From sheep, to cows, to turkeys, and ducks. If you can raise it to eat, they will have a man standing beside a small group of them in the field.
We do get some work done over here.

Below is a shot of the MWD tool as taken from the rig floor. It is sitting, waiting to be placed into the hole.

It wasn't all work though, We did find time to make the occasional trip to the beach, to watch the watermelon salesman cruise by (and possibly drink a few corona's)

All and all it was a good Rotation over in Albania. The time flew by and it is almost to to get on a plane and head home. I am looking forward to Seeing my Grandmother waiting at the airport. She ends up being a taxi for our whole family to and from the airport, as she lives close by. we all owe her a hug thank you, so here goes my Part THANK YOU GRANDMA see you soon.

July 31, 2011

Back in Albania.
Over a month has passed since my last blog, and i am once again back in Albania. We touched down in Tirana On Tuesday afternoon after a few good flights, and then drove a couple hours to our home in Fier. Upon our arrival we learned that they were just finishing the current well, so we would have one day at the rig to lay down/service tools, followed by a couple days off. Wednesday morning we arrived at the rig, to find i had been assigned an Albanian trainee by the name of Altin. He seems like a nice guy, and speaks real good english. We did not end up getting to the mwd tools today, so we spent the day rolling up cables, and studying manuals.

Thursday Morning Wayne, Morgan, Andy, and i decided to head to a local beach just outside Fier. The actual name of the beach i do not know, but the fellows i was travelling with uttered the words simmons/salmons/semens beach to a local Cab drive and off we went.

The beach was really nice, with much more sand than the ones found Down in Vlore.

The beaches were populated by 25 or more bars that look like they could be put up, or torn down in a day if need be. They all rented beach chairs out front for $1 and delivered your choice of Peroni ($1.50), or Corona ($2) Beer right to your lawn chair. 

For 40 cents you could even have a fresh Watermelon off the horse drawn cart.

Below is Morgan selecting us a nice small one as he only had a one inch knife to cut it up.

Morgan dividing the watermelon 4 ways, Wayne in the Background.

Apparently after 4 beers i should not be allowed to operate the Machete like cutting utensil.

The Cab driver who drove us to the beach had to borrow 1000 Leke (about $10) to get gas. This got him less than 6 liters and $20 in fare once we reached the beach . So as a result he hung around all day rather than make another 20 minute drive out from Fier to come get us later on. Rather than wear sunscreen he rolled in the sand, had one beer but refused offers of more (apparently shocked at the Canadians who drink so many beers on the beach starting at 10am).

Friday Wayne and i spent the Morning Getting phones, Sim Cards, and some minutes for the phones. We then spent the afternoon hiding from the sun, and nursing the Lobster red Burns we had received the previous day. Saturday we returned to the Rig and spent the day setting up for this next well. As i sit here now it is Sunday, and we are waiting to pick up our tools.

Time for another update.

Thursday June 23, 2011
It has been a good week the weather has been good, and we finished the first well on this rig last Saturday. We then had 3 days while they moved the rig to do some site seeing and relaxing.
On Sunday 2 other rigs were moving also, so 9 of us made our way down to Beach at Vlore. It is a beautiful city  situated on the Bay of Vlorë, an inlet on the Adriatic Sea. We spent the day at a place the guys called the tunnel Bar, Due to it location next to a stone tunnel (us Canadians are so crafty with our names for places). You can rent the lounge chairs for $1 and we did, although we ended up spending most of the day in the Bar section eating pizzas from a stone, wood fired pizza oven (and copious amounts of beer).

Right down the beach is also the President of Albania's summer home

All and all it was a good day.

The next couple days we stayed close to home, worked on my tan, then nursed my sunburn.

We also wandered the streets of Fier living off "Street Meat", (a donair like concoction  made by stuffing a flat bread with pork, and topping it with fries) and getting funny looks from the locals( a really common occurrence).

It is now Thursday, and we switching over to working nights to ease our transition back to Canadian hours (in less than a week). We have been back on the rig for a couple of nights and are currently waiting on casing so that we can pick up tools. I need to run as there is much work to be done, somebody has to hold down this chair.

Drilling,Drilling,Drilling!

June 12, 2011
We Finally got around to some drilling on June 5, so there hasn't been much to blog about for the last week. 12 hours a day my life has pretty much looked a lot like this first picture.

Other than going to the Rig floor a few times a day, i haven't seen much else. It is beginning to really cut into my site seeing time. I did have an experience the other day, While i was servicing my equipment there was apparently a 4.0 earthquake nearby that shook our condo (we live on the 7-9th floors of a 9 storey cement building). I must have been really into my work, because it was news to me when i heard about it a couple hours later. The work shack shakes many times a day, because we have a road running 10 feet behind it with all sorts of big trucks, and tractors passing by. I remember the shack shaking at about this time, but just attributed it to a passing tractor or such. http://www.emsc-csem.org/Earthquake/earthquake.php?id=224907

I can imagine it is a much scarier experience on the 9th floor with the building moving.

This a picture of the gas station across the street, where 5 or 6 of us meet everyday at 6:30am for a couple $1 cappuccino's (under the big umbrella). 

Behind that building (just to the right) is a small 4 story build. On the 3rd floor is a gym that we have free access to. I have been working out there on a regular basis, and keeping up my running on the treadmill. For those who follow my Nike runs on facebook, i cant update them as i think it is about $30/mb if i turn on my iPhone. A Gym here is not like a gym in Canada. It is kind of like doing hot yoga (or how i imagine hot yoga) there is no air conditioning, or windows that open. So even if you just stand there for 15 minutes you are sweating like you have just finished the iron man. They also don't disinfect or wipe down the equipment, so it sounds like staph infections are a common problem over here. 

I have been trying to get a picture of this guy ever since he drove by me on the first day (it can be rather quick believe it or not), but by the time i have pulled out my cameras he has always been too far away. There are lots of Horses, Donkeys, 3 wheeled truck and even mopeds pulling carts. This one i thought my grandfather would like though, it seems there may be a use for our collection of rototillers after all.

I am a day away from casing break, so i may have a little more exciting adventures in the days that come.

 

Another day on standby.

June 4, 2011.
After making our 6am call to see the status of the rig we found we had another day on standby. Wayne, and i decided this would be as good a day as any to head to the Apollonian ruins. we wandered downtown and found a cab, said apollonia, waved $10, and off we headed the 10km from town to the ruins. When we arrived we did our best to communicate for the drive to wait for us, as Taxis are hard to come by.

to Quote Wikipedia: "Apollonia was an ancient Greek^[1] city in Illyria, located on the right bank of the Aous river (modern-day Vjosë). Its ruins are situated in the Fier region, near the village of Pojani, in modern-day Albania. Apollonia was founded in 588 BCE by Greek colonists from Corfu and Corinth,^[2] on a site initially occupied by Illyrian tribes^[3] and was perhaps the most important of the several classical towns known as Apollonia. Apollonia flourished in the Roman period and was home to a renowned school of philosophy, but began to decline in the 3rd century AD when its harbor started silting up as a result of an earthquake. It was abandoned by the end of Late Antiquity"

The Saint Mary Church part of the Ardenica Monastery on site houses some of the unearthed ruins.

After a self guided tour of the ruins, we returned to where we left our cab. Only to find no cab. We wandered down the hill, and talked to the man operating the front gates. After a large game of what could have been observed to be charades, and a wave of $10, words Fier and Taxi, the gate operator convinced the man selling cotton candy (dead serious) to unhitch the cotton candy machine from his car battery, and drive us back into Fier. We got dropped at the main traffic circle and decided it was time for a little lunch. We headed to what is referred to as the library.

Where i had probably the best Greek salad,

and a really good chicken tortellini.

Wayne at lunch

We ended the day, with a game of Texas hold em with the boys (i won one of the two games!). Then  i headed off to bed, hoping that tomorrow we might actually drill a couple meters.

Wandering the city, searching for a grocery store.

June 3, 2011
Today we never even made it out to the rig, as we are on standby waiting for parts to clear customs. Wayne Buckland (the fellow i am working the day shift with) decided to head out to find a small grocery store to find some coffee filters for our work shack. Armed with some crude verbal directions from John, we headed off on foot. We found a market where we could buy garbage cans full of olives, and even live ducks and chickens for sale.

We found the transportation that brought the food to the market.

and even a local indoor playground.

After searching for what seemed like hours we finally came across the grocery store, that we had missed by a 1/2 a block 3 or 4 times. we got our filters and headed home to enjoy a beer on the roof.
Mother nature had other ideas, thunder storms, power outages and no Internet made for a quiet night.

One of these days ill do the work they are paying me for.

June 2, 2011
Today we went out to the rig with the hope of picking up directional tools. We spent a couple hours setting up and testing equipment. After that we spent the next 9-10 hours sitting at the rig on standby (a fairly common occurrence over here). the rig failed to pass an inspection so it looks like we will be on standby for a couple more days waiting on parts.

June 1, 2011

I woke up early, thinking that i might have a chance to actually drill a little bit of hole today. The rig that i am assigned to (we have 4 over here) is new over here from china and has been broke down the last few weeks. It appears that is not going to happen for another day or two. We (the newbies) met up with John Power the local supervisor and decided he would give us a local tour of the work related sights after he had a morning meeting.
 John on the left

 While we waited we had a great $2 cappuccino at a cafe across the street, then decided we would bask in the sun, on the roof.  It is in the mid 20's in Fier today.
A couple of the directional guys i will be working with.

Once John was free the four of us piled into a little crew cab ford ranger and headed over to our shop. it kinda looked like we were entering a prison.

We have a little mwd shop to service our tools, and keep everything working.

After a quick tour of the shop we headed to a local restaurant. Which is owned by a drug dealer who just got busted with 10-15 kilos of heroin. apparently he makes good money as it is referred to as the castle by John.

It was a very impressive building, and i had a really big, very tasty pizza for $6.

After lunch we took a tour of some of the rigs we will be working on. this is a picture of my office where i will spend a good portion of my time over here.

Once we had returned from our tour, i sat down and started this blog. i will try to update as new things happen over here. I will leave you with a few comments made by John on our tour. He is a large biker looking fellow from Newfoundland, and had me laughing for most of the day.

John on driving in Albania :

"Whoever looks shows weakness, so if you don't look, you don't have to stop, if you look you have just given up the right of way" apparently in Albania you just barrel into intersections and hope the other guy stops. Stop signs are also apparently just a suggestion that should be ignored "driving here is just like a nonstop game of chicken".

John on the hospital

"you don't want to go to the hospital, or you will find out why you don't want to be sick in Albania. You come here and get diseases its not the place to get them cured. I'm sure they have hepatitis X over here"

It is time for me to visit the beer fridge, i hope you have enjoyed my ramblings.

It has to start somewhere.

Monday morning May 30th, the adventure has begun. Chris drove me into town, and dropped me off at my Grandmother's house so she could deliver me to the airport in time for my noon flight (thank you to both Chris, and Grandma for helping make this adventure happen). Once i was on the plane to Frankfurt,  i realized that i was seated a few seats back from one of my closest childhood friends Tim Snell .  I got a chance to briefly talk with him in the airport in Frankfurt and hope to reconnect with him when we both arrive back in Calgary. He has grown up to become a Model, and Recording artist so i figured i could give him a little plug on here with a link to his site

http://www.timothyjames.com/ .

 After a short flight to Vienna,  another short flight to Tirana, and a few hours car ride to Fier we were delivered to the staff housing complex.  i have no pictures up until this point, because of rushed packing, (i blame you Chris!) i had packed my camera in the checked part of my luggage.

 The staff housing is much better than i had expected. The blue and yellow building is the Phoenix staff condos, we occupy the top few floors.

My room is rather large, has its own bathroom, desk, balcony, and plenty of storage.

After settling in we had dinner in the common room, which contains 3 video game systems, TV, a fully stocked kitchen, and best of all A fully drink fridge complete with water, pop, and BEER (ooh so many types of beer). I'm not sure how i will get by, i will need to call in the morning and ask for a raise.    the couch, and a few of the Guys

The kitchen

The Drink fridge

After a dinner of pork kabobs and lasagna (we have a wonderful group of Albanian ladies who cook clean, and even do your laundry). a few of us decided we needed to head downtown to hit up a bank machine. It was only a few blocks walk, and the streets seem safe. They and are filled with vendors trying to sell you everything from cell phones out of their trunks, to spices on the side of the road.

Their seem to be very little traffic laws here, so crossing the street can best be described as being  similar to the old video game Frogger, you kind of wait for an opening and then run like hell.

After a few beers on the balcony enjoying the warm humid climate i called it a early night.