Dom's den

Hello again,

Writing this from my suite in Houston. Came back here for another training session on April 9th, on a Lufthansa flight from Frankfurt. 10 hour flight was uneventful, other than a bunch of Germans that got drunk in seats in front of me, so they kind of stank of booze. Well, what can you do, at least after a few hours glass of clinking and cheering they gave up and went to sleep 🙂

Training was interesting as it is every time, but this time I have a good friend with me so we’re having a good time over here. One of the off days (Apr 15th 2017.) we decided to travel 300 something miles up north to Dallas to see the Gas Monkey garage and their bar n grill.

Well it was a pretty uneventful ride up there with lots of green pastures and landscapes. White picket fences, horse and cow farms. A big statue of Sam Houston. Sam Houston led Texas to victory and independence of Texas from Mexico and he also led Texas into the US as a constituent state.

Some funny cars you encounter on the road

Some funny stuff you see in the shops(check out the price).

Dallas looks a bit smaller than Houston (personal observation), but it had some interesting views. I’ll just throw in a few photos from the trip. Ignore the guy in the photos, as I love taking selfies. 😛

Photos below are from the bar n grill. Good burger, but the decoration of the place is brilliant.

We saw the owner of the garage Richard Rawlings, but for a few seconds before he buzzed off.

Went back to Houston the same day.

Today(April 17th 2017.) I had a day off again, so I planned to go visit the state capitol, Austin and also Jacobs well place that jumped out on my Facebook the other day and I got interested.

My buddy had training, so I buzzed toward Austin myself. Early morning 8 o’clock 😀 sat in my Chevy Impala and started my trip west on the 290.

I must say, the drive on the 290 from Houston to Austin was much more interesting than the one to Dallas.

A lot of interesting towns and landscapes to see. My favorite was town called Giddins where I felt the need to click of a couple of photos below.

I passed right through Austin and continued to Jacobs well, which is about an hour out of Austin.

(I took the gray route back (Not the airplane route)).

The well is an interesting place, so is its history. I didn’t go for a swim as I forgot to take my swimming shorts and there were people there 😀

After Jacobs well, went back to Austin to check out downtown as I heard it was something to be seen.

The rain storm was growing stronger but I was dedicated to see as much as I could. Parked the car somewhere on 4th street and Congress Ave.

And walked rest of the way. Stopped at the Starbucks cafe to get some coffee and internet and continued walking toward the State Capitol building.

Statue of Angelina Eberly.

And here starts the State Capitol building and surroundings. I put photos of statue description plates as they are an interesting read.

Inside of the State Capitol building is quite impressive. Paintings of all state governors are on the walls. And as I heard from one of the tour guides inside, George W Bush is the only Texas governor that became president of USA. How about that.

Anyway, as the weather started to get worse, I decided to head back towards Houston. My plan was to spend the night in some motel half way towards Houston.

As I was driving and got to like an hour and a half to Houston where I was planing to spend the night I figured I could make it back without problems so pushed forward and made it back to Houston same day. I was driving down the I10 east, and the rain storm was in full power, so I couldn’t see anything around me. All of the sudden I saw the Katy water tower and knew I was close. Katy Mills mall is my favorite shopping place in Houston :).

Anyway, good night, I deserve some rest from all this driving today.

New place again. So soon. Man, am I tired. I’ve been more in the air last two days than on ground. Well not really, but I spent quite some time in airport business lounges.

Flew in the morning of 19 March 2017. from Dammam Saudi to Doha Qatar, spent some time in Doha airport, flew to Dubai, picked up my baggage and went straight to check back in for the flight to Kuala Lumpur.

Over Doha of course, I collect miles with Qatar Airways, so always fly over Doha.

So spent some time in Dubai business lounge, went back to Doha and then took a 7 and a half hour flight to Kuala Lumpur.

Now I’m here waiting for the final flight to Labuan, which is as I found out Googling, an island with an interesting history close to Brunei. Once I get to Labuan I’m getting a boat ride to somewhere, still don’t know where.

My initial plan was to visit the Petronas towers and some other stuff before the job as I have a 6 hour layover here, but I don’t want to risk any unexpected events that might interfere with the job. As this should be the last job this hitch, I think I’ll just stay in Kuala Lumpur a day or two longer when the job is done, just to check it out.

What’s the first thing I notice? They’re driving on the wrong side of the road…. Just kidding, they’re driving on the left side of the road. Right? No, left. 🙂

I’ll try to take photos and update this post. If I don’t fall asleep before.

Updating the post with the photos about a month later.