Wednesday 17 October 2007

the medal, the trip, and the lunch

See me smiling? Ear to ear! The American congress is giving His Holiness the Dalai Lama the Congressional Gold Medal! Well done yanks! President Bush was rather squeezed into acknowledging him but did so nonetheless, so well done there. The Chinese of course have their knickers in a twist, and are flexing their political global muscle by threatening to let Iran split those nuclei to their heart’s content.

I know, I know that I am behind on what I have promised you; but my life is running ahead of my typing speed. I am going to start from now and back my way into the rest.

I left Rabat at six a.m. on Tuesday morning and limped into the hotel this morning around one a.m. I don’t ever want to do that again. Everything actually went well – I mean I’m here and I’m not dead – always good. I had to sprint from one airplane to another and I spent a couple of hours sitting on the tarmac (in the airplane, which is better than without eh?), but all in all it came off well through three countries and two continents. I really didn’t expect my bags to arrive with me, what with all the close connections but one of them did; it was of course the one with all the stuff Q left in Morocco when she went to America in August! All my clothes and shoes (I was wearing my I-will-not-go-through-a-song-and-dance-to-remove-shoes-for-the-airport-security sandals) are in the OTHER bag. I have, so far, made three calls about the bag – it was coming this morning, it was coming this afternoon, now it is coming after midnight… I’m still waiting for it to arrive, but I am thinking positively, but just in case I am going to get the address of the nearby mall. They will have shoes yes?

When I arrived last night/this morning at the airport I was done in and then some. I picked up my bag (singular) and made my way to the taxi stand looking forward to not having to expend effort in giving directions yes? No. An ancient gnome, an ancient gnome who is a Sikh, in fact inhabited the first taxi in line. Shiva! His head came up maybe to my waist, and I was afraid if he lifted the bags he might die, so I put them in the back. Driving to the hotel was an experience in moving at the speed of dust! There were Canadian geese passing us on the freeway – they were walking! Again, good news is that we arrived and neither of us died.

Today I had a fabulous, conversational, and long lunch with jmb who treated me to lunch in my hotel – I couldn’t go out as all I have for footwear at present are sandals (not really weather appropriate). I can tell you she is even lovelier than one would think from her blog. I had a great time. But I am soooo tired, as I didn’t sleep last night, and was up at seven this morning. And so lovely readers I am off to bed. More on the morrow.

Ciao.

11 comments:

I Beatrice said...

So glad you arrived safely!

And how well I know those killer flights! The one to New Zealand is deadliest of all, 24 hours min, and the only respite an hour in the hellhole that is LA transit lounge where they make you about as welcome as a carrier of headlice or bubonic plague...

Sorry you lost your luggage, hope you are now suitably shod at least - and look forward to hearing more adventures.

Kim said...

Good to know you're safe and sound. I do not envy you that flight. International travel is tough. I hope that bag arrives very soon.

Have a wonderful time and enjoy the cool weather.

jmb said...

Wonderful news about the Dalai Lama's medal.
I hope you are feeling well rested this morning and that your luggage turns up very soon if it hasn't already.
Our conversation was interesting and fun and I expect we would not run out of things to say for days.

Good luck with the networking, it's so important at these events.

Ian Lidster said...

I look forward to hearing your impessions of darkest Surrey. And how nice to be able to chat with wonderful jmb. She truly is a remarkably lovely woman, aside from being intelligent, interesting, and so forth. Quite similar to you, as a matter of fact.

wakeupandsmellthecoffee said...

Goodness, you'll need a holiday to get over this trip. Nice that you get to meet some fellow bloggers.

lady macleod said...

i beatrice

Oh my that New Zealand flight sounds deadly, but what a great destination.

My bag and package arrived so I have shoes and clothes.

thank you for coming by.

lady macleod said...

kaycle

All is well. I survived, and the bag arrived, as did my shoes. Huzzah!

I am VERY MUCH enjoying the cool weather, and there is RAIN! whoo hoo!

thank you for coming by.

lady macleod said...

jmb

I know! I'm so happy about His Holiness being so honored.

I had no idea that much time had passed until you said your parking was running out!

I'm networking, I'm networking...

thank you for coming by.

lady macleod said...

ian

Did you hear us talking about you? Oh yes. um hmm. I agree with you as regards jmb, and I thank you for the compliment sir - you silver tongued devil you.

thank you for coming by.

lady macleod said...

WUASTC

I'm all better now; a good rest, up to the gym, and I'm good to go.

Meeting jmb was great fun indeed.

thank you for coming by.

Welshcakes Limoncello said...

Well, glad you arrived safely too. Frustrating about the luggage, though - I do sympathise. I bet you had a great gossip with jmb! Wish I could have been there.