Boring weekend

Saturday was my first day off since arriving so I was determined to use it well. I decided not to go to the beach with the Redknee guys - I thought that I didn't fancy sitting on a roasting hot beach for hours and getting burnt. So I went down to the hotel pool after breakfast instead. I did a few lengths, then a bit of reading, and repeated that for a couple of hours until lunchtime. Then I decided to go for a drive around Port of Spain. The car we had at the hotel was some old Mitsubishi, but it did the job. Just a pity the air con wasn't the best.

So I had a drive around, and had a look at a couple of malls and the IMAX cinema. I found a DVD shop that sold good quality (but pirated) DVDs for a quid each so I bought a few of those. Then I headed back to the hotel and watched TV for a bit. Spoke to the guys later in the evening and they hired a boat and went around the coast for a bit which sounded pretty good actually, not what I expected.

Sunday was spent mostly working and went for another drive in the evening, then came back and packed up as I'll be checking out of the Hilton tomorrow and moving into the apartment. Wonder what that is going to be like. Only a four day week this week too as we have Wednesday off for the Hind festival of Diwali of all things!

First week over

Well that's one week down, 4 to go. The last 4 days at work were interesting, there is certainly a lot to do on this project before launch so it's going to be a busy coming month.

Settling into the hotel nicely, I was due to be leaving here tomorrow to move into one of the Redknee apartments, but that's been pushed back until Monday now as it hasn't been cleaned after the last guy left today. It's a 3 bedroom apartment but only 2 bedrooms have en suites, so the third bedroom is not used. The guy I'll be living with is a Jamaican called Jerome, a nice guy who is built like a rugby player and seems very sharp.

So tonight (Friday) the project manager Waseem took 5 of us out to Pizza Hut to celebrate one of the other projects being finished this week. So around the table we had an Indian, 2 Pakistanis, a Lebaneze, a Jamaican and a Scot, and the 3 large pizzas we ordered between 6 were equally as diverse, 1 was pure vegetarian because there was no halal meat, the other one could have no beef due to the Hindu, and the other one (my one) was pepperoni. Luckily I was able to eat all three pizzas of course but the other guys were limited depending on which sky fairy they supported.

It was a nice meal, the Indian guy was surprised that someone from the UK wasn;t drinking beer with him as he said all UK people he's met before have always drunk beer! Ha ha, if only he knew me back home.

So tomorrow we're off to the beach together, leaving the hotel here at 10am so i'm sure we'll get all the scorching heat we need tomorrow. I should probably get some sun cream or something I think!

First 24 hours

I flew into Trinidad just over a day ago to start working here for over a month. I flew from gatwick in the morning and we landed in St. Lucia for a stopover & refuel about 8 hours later. People going onwards to Trinidad had to stay on the plane and I was worried that my luggage was being taken off and left here! We soon took off again and the flight to Trinidad from St Lucia was about 45 mins so nice and quick.

The heat hit me as soon as I stepped off the plane. Took a couple of hours to get through security but at least i had all of my bags. It's also the first airport I've been to where there was a metal detector on the way out.

The driver, Lester, was waiting there for me in the airport lobby. During the drive into Port of Spain, Waseem the project manager called and we had a brief introductory chat. He'd booked me into the Hilton hotel here, the same one he was staying in so that meant it'd be easy getting to work tomorrow. Then on Saturday I'll be moving to apartment that the other Redknee guys are staying in. Everywhere I've travelled with the company prior to this I've been by myself but for the first time tere seems to be other people here too!

The Hilton hotel was fine, it's just outside of Port of Spain close to the Savannah area, which is a massive green field surrounded by an even bigger one-way system. The views from the higher vantage point are pretty spectacular, looking over the city center (right).

The hotel itself is very nice, when I got to the room it reminded me of the hotel we stayed in Bangkok before, a nice room and surroundings but the air-conditioning is a definite! I went down to the bar after unpacking (and I actually unpacked properly!) and had a coke and a burger, it was $140 which is about 17 pounds. Still pretty expensive but that's the Hilton for you.

Went to bed soon after that and went to sleep after watching a bit of TV, was probably asleep by about 9pm.

The next day I met Waseem for breakfast. He seemed like a nice enough guy, very straight laced and by the book. He drove us into work and said that I'd be moving to the Redknee apartment on Saturday which is bigger and closer to town, so that sounded good. The hotel was a bit out of the way so I'm sure after a week of being here I'll be bored of it.

We drove into the city cemtre. Seemed quite a rundown place but there were also modern skyscrapers poking up as well. We got to the office, and after signing in and going through a metal detector at the front door, we went up to the office. I was introduced to the people I'll be working with for the next few weeks, and also met the Redknee people here working on different projects.

This is the first time that I've had any kind of support on site so it was a good feeling having about another 8 Redknee people there, usually I am their sole representative.

The first day flew by in a flurry or meetings and introductions and before I knew it I was back at the hotel. I was still a bit tired from the previous day so I went to bed about 9pm after having a lovely chat with Karen on Skype.