Hi there :)

Nice of you to stop by to read my blog :D I have just come home from my good bye dinner tonight at Peppes Pizza with 15 of my good friends :D It was great. Im really happy to have such a wonderful group of people around me.

Linda and Robert stopped by to drop of a belated birthday gift, that will come very well in handy while travelling. A 4Gb Memory card !!! Awesome. I think that is about the only thing that ive been thinking a lot about lately that I would have to get a few more Memory cards for my camera. Really great !

I spent most of my last day in Norway working and packing and sorting and arranging and, and, and. hehehe. Well. Its been a few busy days lately. I got my tickets and I got my insurrance and all I needed in last minute (compared to how I normally prepare for this long trips - like a few months in advance) but hey. I think most of it is ok now. I should have vaccinated the cat but lets see if Ill get someone to help me with that.
Today it has been pooring down most of the day and I cant say that Im not happy about going to sunny Houston. Its been about 2 weeks that they have reported 30C and sun every day on the weather underground website. Anyways everything is better than 0C and rain :D

At 7pm I left my apartment and went to meet my friends downtown. Most of them were there and we had a great time with Pizza and Beer. Myriam, Ellie, Ricard, Alexandra, Oyvind, Celine, Linda, Kirsti, Ornella, Asbjorn, Jorunn S and Margaret were there and it was a good time.
Im really happy all of you. Thank you for coming !
When we split up I went with Ricard and Oyvind for another bar until it was about time for the trains to take us home. We had a great chat and Oyvind entertained both me and Ricard with his incredible stories about his latest adventures. Man, ONLY to Oyvind can that happen. Hehehe.

I was home about 11:30pm and had a chat with Wendy. She is still in NL and was not able to meet me today but we will meet in Rotterdam in 6 weeks. :D Awesome. I cant wait. That trip is something Im really looking fwd to !

O, Im really exited about my trip tomorrow though !
Ill write to you as soon as I am online again and landed so that you all know that Im safe !

So, Im on my way.
I was done packing at 2 pm last night and got about 4 hours of sleep before I had to get up again. I got a cab to the airport and was there in good time. This entry is written from Amsterdam just before boarding the plane to Houston.
Just wanted to let you know Im safe and in Netherlands for the moment. :D

Ill update when I arrived the Hotel in Houston.

Finally after a really long flight I arrived to Houston.
The flight was 11 hours long and the first 4 of them were ok. That was when we were fed and my first book was interesting. I also managed to sleep about 2 hours. The 6 next hours I recall as being quite bored. That is something that has not happened in quite a while. Eh some years. Eh.. pretty many years actually.
Eventually I found some interesting programs on the video channels and finished up another book that unfortunately was not as interesting as it could have been. The last hour was quite good and suddenly we were landing. Wooo.
All in all the trip was good - Im just not used to forced relaxing any more.

I got a cab to go to my hotel that supposedly is on the opposite side of Houston from the Airport. The cab driver was nice and chatty and that kept me awake for the 45 minute long ride. I had no idea how big Houston is. 7 million people? Oups hehe. The 4rth biggest city in USA. Not that I actually checked before going :D

For the check-in, the personell at the Hotel were really helpful and nice. I was quite exhausted at the time and after several tries to make sense I figured I was in need for food and sleep.
Luckily there is a big grocery store right next to the hotel that is open 24/7 and I had youghurt for dinner ! It was quite interesting to see how inmense amount of unhealthy food was displayed in the shelfs although they also have a great deal of healthy food for sale too.

Once settled in my room, I had a few startup problems with the internet, the phone and such things, and after recognizing that I wasnt gonna understand how to solve the problem due to lack of sleep and long travel, I decided to go to sleep.
The inner clock was set to 4:30 AM Norway time.
Hopefully the jet-lag wont last too long :D

Anyways, Im quite ok and enjoying temperatures above 20C
Ill catch you later.
xoxox

A wonderful day. +32C, hardly no clouds, warm wind :D I like this place.

Today I had my first day at work and it was quite interesting. I was totally jet-lagged but managed to sleep until 6 o clock. Houston is 7 hours behind Norway so that is quite a good deal actually :D

I had breakfast at the hotel and when I was done I waited outside the hotel.
Staale, one of my Norwegian co-workers that are also here in Houston, and his dad came to pick me up and took me to work where I was introduced to a few of the co-workers I will have for the next 6 weeks. It was great. I think Im gonna like it there :D
Most of the day today was spent to get settled and finish up last rests of work I had to do before starting my tasks of the job Im here for.

Staale, Haavard and myself went for lunch at Chilis. It was so great to be able to sit outside and enjoy the sunny weather and have fresh strawberry lemonade ... love it.

After work they took me home and I stopped by Krogers to do some grocery shopping. Mainly my diet has consited of fresh fruits of the region, fresh veggies, yoghurt and pasta up until now.

At 7:30 the guys came to pick me up for a movie. Righteous Kill with Al Pacino and Robert DiNero. It was a great movie.
The guys dropped me off at home and I managed to stay awake to almost midnight Houston time.

Tune in later for more updates

Weather over Houston has been wonderfully sunny, about 30 C degrees and a few clouds, but mostly clear sky. We had some wind and the summery dry smell we have here takes me right back in memory to Costa Rica dryland and I realize I would soooo love to go back there soon :D

Hi again, Here are some updates from Houston and today has been a great day !

I woke up way too early, once at 5 but fell asleep quite fast, then again at 6 and I could not sleep until 7 again, but then I ended up sleeping until almost 10 and then I had like 10 minutes to get ready before Staale and his dad Haavard would pick me up to go to BuckHorn Ranch and Lakes for a Aker Solutions Company Family Picknick. It was about an hours drive from where we live, but it was a great trip and we tried paddle boats, the little train around the lake, horseshoe throwing and had a great lunch on top of it !
For the paddleboat trip we tried searching to see if we could see aligators as the crew members said that there was aligators living in the lake. We saw none of them but lots of nice black birds and trutles.
After the paddleboats we did the train trip around the lake. We got to see quite a few fishes jumping, turtles and we even saw one aligator in the water, but also the movements of others going into the water. It was quite a nice trip around the lake and in general it was a great day.

We had lunch at the Ranch and while we were almost the first to have arrived and there was almost noone else there when we arrived, we had been joined by loads of people by now. We didnt find anyone from our own office (Aker has like 5 offices in Houston) until after we finished eating. We greeted Per and his wife and kids before we headed over to the horseshoe throwing range. That was our last acitivity for the day at the Ranch.

But our day was far from over yet and out next stop was at Houston Zoo. It was a great day for the Zoo and it was also quite a good Zoo ! If you click the link provided here you can check out their web page to see what im talking about. Staale and Haavard dropped me off at my hotel where I freshened up and wrote a few emails before I was picked up by Melanie to go to the CS meeting at Agora cafe in Westheimer Rd 1765. Imagine Thats quite a drive from my place. About 18 kms down the same road !!!

Melanie, Andrea and myself arrived Agora at 10pm and guess what. We did not find any CSers. They had left the place without us .. Too sad. Well, we had quite a lot of fun though and we spent the night chatting and we found an Albanian guy that joined us + a big group of other locals visiting the cafe that night that joined in :D It ended up to be quite a nice evening and party even if we didnt find the CSers.
Melanie and Andrea drove me home and we continued talking for quite some while after arriving to my place. Both of the girls are amazing and Im looking fwd to join them for other adventures while here in Houston!!!!

Yet another day with +30C and sun. It was mainly sunny but at times party cloudy today. Someone once asked me if I dont get bored of weather with constant sun and warmth. I dont. I love it. I always loved it.

Considering I went to bed at 2:30 Houstonian time last night I should have slept longer than 7:30 but why stay in bed when you are not tired and have things to do?

I spent a few hours during the morning to go through last weeks emails and reply to the urgent ones as well as sorting out information for the New Years Party Im arranging. Quite a few people are showing interest and that is GREAT !!!!

I had breakfast and after that went to read by the pool for some hours. Nice way to spend the sunday. Swimming, Reading and Relaxing. Aint nothin better than that :D

After a shower to get rid of the worst chlorine from the swimming pool I decided it was time to explore my surroundings in my new neighbourhood.
I strolled out on Westheimer Rd and walked towards Houston Downtown, At Borders I stopped and picked up a Dutch language course for when Ill be 3 weeks in Netherlands soon and when I reached Target I entered to pick up some groceries. At Target, DownTown is still quite far away in walking distance.
I had walked almost 1400 house numbers down the street from 9965 to 8605 to where Target is located and by now I had started feeling the urge for lunch (5pm) and entered for shopping.
I picked up some and I had spent about 45 minutes slow walking or 30 minutes speed walking to reach there. Ive been told that its about 20 kms to downtown from my place. Luckily there are buses ! Ill have to catch one of those one day to get down there !

I was home about 6 and started cooking some lunch, Pasta with Chicken ! Yummy :D
I also killed a cockroach I found upside down. I carried him away and threw him in the bin outside the reception. No way Im gonna invite 700 cockroaches in this ones funeral.

I also dyed my hair darker, prepared for a new work day and wrote a few emails but not to forget, let you guys in on my incredibly interesting day :D

Stay tuned for more interesting adventures tomorrow .Have a fantastic day!

Some shattered rainfalls in the morning, 25C and rest of the day was sunny.

This morning I woke up at 5:45 and to stay in bed until breakfast started at 6:30.
I walked to work and to make sure I would find my way I had a little map. It is great to walk in these still pretty warm mornings.
I had lunch with Staale and his father Haavard in our new lunch restaurant, also called the Deli.

After work we stopped at the mailoffice, but dont you think that was closed for the day? How should we know the post office closes for Columbus day? Hehe.
So, we went to The Houston Galleria Shopping Mall instead.
Its quite an expensive place to go for shopping, but great design and nice shops.

I got myself a cell phone today too. Thats gonna help I think.

We had dinner at Kona Grill , where I tried the Chicken in Macadamia nut sause. It was sooo delicious. Service was great and dinner was just the best.

I also bought my tickets to go to California today ! Its gonna be great. Im gonna visit Dionne and Gregg in Norco, Marco and Alex in LA and Rachel at CS Basecamp in Berkeley, SF.
I cant wait.

The guys took me home after dinner and that was about all the exitement for the day!

This morning it had rained and it was wet all over. Still moist and warm though. Scattered clouds all day, but big parts of the day with beautiful sun too :D 25C

I was picked up this morning and while working I spent the morning listening to music and dutch classes. These days my work is to gather information and that is quite easy brainer work. I also had a phone meeting with Heidi in Norway and later in the day also with the team over here in Houston.

We had lunch at the Deli at work, but after lunch Staale had to go down to the Houston Galleria again because he forgot his cellphone at Kona Grill yesterday so he offered to let me tag along and of course I wanted to. Exiting adventures all over in this city.

The trip to the Galleria was good, I got a few postcards and window shopped a bit. After the Galleria went to pick up Staales car that had been up for repairs for some while. This was a detour that would have normally taken less than 30 minutes to drive there, pick up the car and be back at the office. Only problem was: Houston has 7 000 000 inhabitants. Lots of these dont drive very well and in high speed on the highways.... accidents happen. So, we sat in traffic jam for an hour to get up to the place the car was at.
Thankfully nothing happened on our way home and we were back at the office with 5 minutes to go before the department phone meeting !!!!!!

I would say Ice cold and PERFECT calculations of time.

Since we had a bit of a long lunch break we stayed behind some extra hours to make sure we worked full day and for dinner Staale and Haavard invited me to join them at their house for Home made mashed potatoes and Sausage. Haavard is a great cook and I like their company. :D

I was dropped of at home around 10 ish and was quite tired so went almost straight to bed.

scattered showers in the day / morning and sunny towards the night. Temps have fallen a bit and while mid day its still wonderful with temps around the 25C ish, in the mornings its going down under 15C.

Today wasnt a very intersting day though but ill sum it up at least.

I had breakfast and then walked to work as it was cloudy but no rain. I spent the morning working on gathering information about the applications I will work on and after the phone meeting with Anette in Norway I listened to music while working. The open landscape we sit in carry sound pretty well and its not always the best surroundings for concentration with loud speaking, phone calls on speakers.

I had lunch with Staale and Haavard again and after work it started raining again so I spent the night working on MDST issues and catching up.

My back problems are never ending and I went for 15 lapses in the swimming pool before I warmed up in the SPA before going to bed.

Another rainy day in the morning, then some sun, some clouds and some rain again before more sun. I love it though. Its about 25C every day.

At work we had a Celebration meeting to celebrate that Haavard had been in the company for 40 year as an employee in the AKER group. I got to know a spanish speaker, Sergio, so finally I have someone I can practise spanish with at the office.

At night the German girl, Andrea, that I met last saturday with picked me up at the hotel and we went to a the third thursday CouchSurfinig meeting at a Mexican Restaurant called Chapultepec. They had great food. I had chicken fajitas! yummy. Their Margaritas were awesome. Frozen Strawberry Margaritas. I could go on for some while with them.
I had a fantastic night there and met a few new people. Jordan and Lisa was sitting next to us and they were awesome :D We laughed heaps as we all became quite giggly after the margaritas :D
Andrea drove me home around midnight. Thank you Andrea!