I’m back from my trip to the Middle East and in the middle of planning the next trip to Houston where I will present another paper at the Pigging Conference next week. The week and a half UAE/Bahrain/Rotterdam trip was great. As expected, it was quite busy and fun.

While in Bahrain, I had the opportunity to travel out into the desert to visit a gas plant to discuss how we can help solve some problems. The best part was to see an area where people were living in tents. While that may seem primitive to us, it is a cultural custom to live in the tents during the winter time. I saw luxury cars and satellite dishes outside of the tents. One tent I saw was open on one side and there was a family sitting on the ground on beautiful rugs. It matched almost perfectly a painting I have hanging in my home that I bought on a previous trip to Bahrain.  It was very cool to see that in person.

Back in Dubai, I spent the weekend (Friday and Saturday) at the home of Shyam, our agent in the region, and Poonam, his very gracious wife. They do the same things we do; hang out, take a nap, talk, work some and eat. The food, Indian, was great.  Shyam and Poonam were great hosts. Poonam said I was like a father to her. I asked to be downgraded to just big brother……

On the working side of things, we drove to Abu Dhabi on most days for meetings. One trip was to the Emirate of Sharjah for a meeting at Crystal Plaza, one of the most beautiful building complexes I have seen anywhere. It’s worth a look using Google.

My trip home was made even better by my stop in Rotterdam. It didn’t get light there until well after 8am. Love the train system over there. It’s so easy, once you figure it out. My meeting went well there in Rotterdam and before long, I was headed home.

Since I got back, a large oil company in Abu Dhabi liked the paper I presented in Bahrain and asked permission to publish it in their internal magazine. Hmmm, I think I need to return soon!

-Doug