The Big Shopping Day

So today was the big day to go out shopping, for Chris. We were going to Odel's which is a big fancy clothing outlet with some eateries and household stuff.

Spent five minutes trying to find my BlackBerry when I realized I must have left it at work, but that didn't matter as it hasn't been working lately. Obviously not so important to me. What I really needed from my BlackBerry was the number of a trishaw driver I wanted to call.

Decided we would just grab a trishaw from across the street as there is a trishaw station srand there. As we walked across the street there was the guy I was looking for, he was happy to see us.

He took us to Odel's, it was a short ride if you know how to get there.

The place was a mad house, wall to wall people. Lots of clothes that's for sure!

I finally broke down and bought some foo foo cologne, got to do it sometime, Hugo Element.

We had sushi at a sushi bar and cold coffee and a doughnut at the doughnut place.

Had the driver take us to a shopping mall. Three floors of shoes and clothes. I picked up some great linen pants, they had the tag removed, my guess they were Banana Republic pants. Great price, about $17.

Came back home to relax and I went out to get some curry to bring back to the apartment. I also got some chocolate mousse but after reading the ingredients not sure if I can eat one again. Creme, eggs, chocolate, oh my!

The trip to the airport

Had to go the airport to pick up some items for work. It was this big orchestrated affair beginning with the mucho important faxes. Got to send faxes out to a whole bunch of folks at the airport who in turn have to send return faxes. The Sri Lankan guy who was helping with the faxes had me redo them at least six times. On my way to the airport I get a text message from him "Do you have your copies of the faxes sir?"
More on this.

I have a special badge that gets me access to all areas of the airport. Funny thing as I walked around all of the secure areas of the airport nobody looked at me twice or asked to see my badge but when I was leaving I was stopped twice to check my badge.

I had to meet the plane at the tarmac and it had to have been the craziest and most dangerous tarmac I had ever been on. I threw on my reflective vest very quickly. Forgot my ear muffs, it's loud on the tarmac.

Everything worked out, got what I had to get and not a glitch.

Came back very early in the morning. There were dogs lying in streets everywhere! That and must have run into eight army checkpoints.

Nobody asked for any copies of the faxes.

Worst Flight Ever!

My beloved is on her way from the States to Camp Colombo. She departed yesterday from Norfolk, VA.

We have this challenge game of sorts we play, being that she or me had just completed the worst flight ever.

I had held the record previously for my 3 day jaunt from Norfolk to Montevideo via JFK and Miami. That mission resulted in long delays in New York, a canceled flight resulting in a overnight stay in a run down Ramada in New York followed by a glitch of sorts starting the plane in New York resulting in at least an hour or more delay at the ramp followed by mechanical problems in flight to Buenos Aires resulting in rerouting the flight to Miami followed by hectic crowds at gate trying to rebook our flights resulting in a overnight in Miami (Okay, not so tough). I eventually made it to Montevideo. A 13 hour flight from Washington took 3 days.

So I get points for switching carriers (Delta to American at JFK), long delays, international flight, long haul flight, and multiple days.

My beloved is officially over the middle east right now on her way here.
So far she earns points for:

Stress and tears (No points for tears, counts for a tie breaker)
Pets
Confusion at ticketing (Never good)
International Flight
Business Class upgrade turned down because of no pets in Business Class (Quite possibly worthy of winning with that category alone)
Long Haul Flight
Multiple Time Zones
Switching Carriers
Reclaim pets and go through customs and security (Bonus points)
Long Delays (See http://tiny.cc/SP7W8)
Changing Carriers
Running through the terminal (Bonus points)
Questionable Carrier (Sri Lankan Air, hmmm)
Last but not least a one hour ride back home.

Oh did I mention she gets here at 04:45! Talk about oh dark !

Yes she takes home the trophy!

Thank goodness I have an expediter when she gets here, basically he will take all the cat paperwork and her passport, take her to the front of the line at customs and passport control and get us out pretty quickly. I also hold a special airport badge that gets me access past customs and passport control so I get to meet her soon after she gets off the plane.

My employer is picking me up in a pretty cool Toyota Landcruiser. The driver asked me if it was big enough, I said I hope so!

Floods

Wednesday as I was going to work the apartment receptionist told me that my housekeeper had called and that her home had flooded and she wouldn't be coming in.
I knew this wasn't good.

When I got to work I heard that there were people from work who also had their homes flooded. It must have really rained pretty hard Tuesday night.

I work a half day on Friday so it's my only day to see her and talk to her. As she smiles away and makes curry for me she says the water was 3 feet deep and everything is ruined.

I don't know what to say but, I'm sorry.

She tells me lunch is ready and politely leaves the room. Awhile later she returns and asks if she could get her salary, she needs things, well I guess so. I tell her no problem and she hands me an envelope from the apartment across from me, which she also cleans. The gentleman who lives there wrote on the envelope that he is going away for a week and told her not to worry about coming over till December 1st. Well she was pretty upset. One, she thought he had left her salary in the envelope, it wasn't, it was just a notice from the apartment building and two, she was afraid that he wouldn't pay her for the week. That and, she needed the money.

I could see she was crying. I think a combination of being in the situation she was in and the embarrassment of asking to get paid earlier and probably because she felt she was bothering me as I was at my laptop and I told her I would have to go get the money as I didn't have it.

I went to the ATM at the mall and withdrew her salary and a little more, bought her daughter a Kinder Joy egg (German chocolate egg with a toy inside).

It is raining pretty hard right now. I am going to give her some extra money to take a tri-shaw home, hope she does as there is lightning flashing everywhere.

Count your blessings.