Well, it's been a while since I arrived, and I think it's already time I let y'all (that's texan) know what's up with my life. I guess the best way will be through this blog.

I arrived here on April 18th and since then I did everything but resting and writing e-mails... It took the people in ExxonMobil 2 weeks to let us know our tasks (May 1st). In some cases the news were not taken very nicely, specially because it was after 2 months and 20.000 kilometers!!!

My task is basically to take calls from employees and try to solve any general doubt or issue, mostly we transfer calls to specialists. Obviously, this is not my type of job.

But, on the other hand, Exxon is treating us well: they pay for our lunches and dinners (even when dinning out), transportation (at the beginning in taxis, now we have 1 car every 4 people), gym and hotel. After all they are paying, I still have my humble salary to enjoy traveling around.

In the group we are 46, all of us from payroll, we are divided into Operations, Accounting and Data Management, except 4 that belong to Training. The first weeks weren't too bad, but were adaptation days. To the new place and to the whole group. Each person needs different times and personal space. I matched with a group of around 10 or 12 people that I'm sure you'll se often in pics (when I post them). Our way to relax so far it's been going out, partying and travelling (hard life, right?).

As far as trips go, the first was to Austin to visit my cousin Esteban. This 1 million people city holds about 50.000 university students, and about the same number of people like my cousin (that's profesionals working there adjusting to university life...). I took off on Friday May 12th right after work, on a rental car. Three ours later I was there and my cousin was already waiting for me.

Esteban lives in a nice house with Einar (american with swedish name), Rito (korean with american nickname), Brent (my cousin's business partner and friend) and Einar's brother (whose name I don't remember). This house is everything you would expect from a 5 singles house: one surf board, 6 bikes and three sofas in the living room (off course they are for any improvised visits). The neighborhood is very nice, a lot of trees a little hills.

That same Friday all 5 of us (Esteban, Einar, Rito, Brent and I) went out, firstly to a place called Velvet Spade. A kindda club/pub near the very famous 4th and 6th street, which is downtown for nightlife in Austin. There you can find students and non-students going from club to club and pub to pub mainly looking for people of the opposite sex.

In Velvet Spade was a little terrace where a band was playing. Little bit after we arrived, they started playing some reggae (probably conmemorating Bob Marley's Death's 25th Anniversary). A while later the main atraction for the night started: Indian Night and artists painting some paints. The whole picture was great, the DJ playing electronic hindu music and a beautiful hindu girl dancing to his music. That gave me the background for me to start getting to know Esteban's friend's.

After an hour we took off to a place, kind of a barn party in the middle of the city. There was going to be a latin band called "Grupo Fantasma" playing. The night continued with more dancing and meeting more people.

Since here there is no alcohol after 2 am, we were back to their house by 3 am getting som esleep for the next day. It started very early (10 am), we had an energizing (argentinean) breakfast and, as soon as my cousin came back from taking a friend to the airport, we sorted everything to do some Rock Climbing. Brent's brother is an expert, so Brent and Esteban got the hang of it and really enjoy doing it and taking their friends to do it.

In Austin is a natural rock wall for that, just by a dry creek. Besides us 3, we had some visitors: Gaby, Esteban's friend with her 2 kids (her husband died 6 years ago at some american war), her sister and italian husband and Esteban's italian friend (whose name I don't remember). We stayed there, rock climbing, for about 4 hours. I got the chance to try it a couple of times, but it takes too much of your body, more that I could handle. So I ended up with sore muscles for the whole week.

Afterwards we went to some Springs, with a natural pool. The water there was cool, beautiful for a hot day as it was. The whole park was awesome, filled up with young people and very liberal. Unfortunately I had to take off, since I had one of the guy's birthday back in Houston.

I arrived just on time (9.30 pm) to Hooters (where the party began) so I could catch up with the party. After Hooters we went straight to a place called Drink Houston. Would you imagine what kind of place it was? Fortunately, I was driving... Of course the rest of my posie (word learnt in Austin) followed the instructions. Naturally everything stopped at 2 am, except for us. We went back to the hotel, to the parking lot's last floor and continued the party there.

The following weekend (20/05) the company organized a trip to NASA, to the Houston Space Center. It wasn't very impressive, but the fact that those very actual looking buildings were actually built some 50 years ago. The whole site is very restricted as for access, so you would imagine we just saw pretty much a lot of walls.

For lunch we went to a place called Kemah, which is by the sea. It is very nice but not overwhemingly interesting. As we returned to the hotel, Santiago and I (the guy who had the birthday the previous weekend) went back to Austin. The only difference is that my cousin had already left to Costa Rica for 3 months, so Brent was "expecting" me. When we arrived Brent was at some wine tour that ended up at a Cabaret. Instead we had to get into their house, where luckily Einar was reading the paper. It didn't take much to convince him to party with us that night. But we all wanted to party, so we grabbed the bikes and went to 4th street. After visiting a couple of bars and clubs, we ended up (2 am again) sitting on a massage sofa drinking our last drink. We went back "home" doing bike slalom and avoiding the mounted police (on bikes).

Next day we finally saw Brent. We went to do some rock climbing and then some Spring and pool time. We had another lovely time and we got to meet enough people to come back to Austin, even though neither Esteban or Brent are at the moment.

I hope this helps me keep y'all (texan) with fresh news. Next chapters: DJ Tiesto and Pensacola.