Houston, TX !

It's been almost a month since I arrived to the U.S.A, specifically to Houston in Texas. I'm here for a training program in the Weatherford WTTC under the Fishing & Re-entry Services classes. I pretty much like it here and how systematic the life is, however, it can get nasty when there is a traffic jam which you really don't want to experience. People here drive very safely and in order, sadly unlike in Oman. No one honks you at the traffic lights, no one flashing you with full lights if you're driving slow, no one is interfering your business and so forth.

Through my interaction with Texans people, I noticed the majority of them are very racist and they can be super sarcastic even about other people from other States, although they're from their own country. I know it happens the same in my country but very minor! One of the most shocking thing that happpened here and freaked me out is a raping crime. A 40 years old black man who's infected with HIV raped an old white 69 years old man in front of his house at 8:00 AM in the morning and infected him with HIV, too! How could it be any less insecure? Is this racism? Insanity? What exactly? Such a real madness!

Anyways, I'm staying in the Crown Plaza and during the weekdays, I'm completely lonely and I do not go out since classes finish at 5 PM. However, in weekends or breaks, I do go to one of my SQU mates' place (who's here for two years working for OXY) and meet other Arabs in a coffee shop, a mall or a restaurant. It happened that we went to Dallas two weeks ago and to San Antonio last week. I had fun in Dallas but in San Antonio I didn't really enjoy because we went there during the Thanksgiving holidays and most shops and malls were closed. I did a lot of shopping in the BlackFriday they have which is basically crazy sales (up to 75%) for most of the designer wears and most of the people went into shopping madness.

I'm glad I made it here and made some friends from Lousiana, New Mexico, Mexico, Colombia and even some from Norway. I'm enjoying my classes and I'm planning to go back to Oman with full confidence to run some operations independently. I just feel like I need to spend some time more with dressing and undressing couple of complicated fishing tools and go out with experienced Fishing Supervisors and then, I'll definitely start running operations alone, thereafter.