Homeward Bound

I know I have been horribly remiss at keeping this blog up to date, and that is something I will strive to change in the future. I always have these great ideas on the train, or in the shower, and I mean to put them in my blog - and, in typical absent minded professor fashion, I forget.

This morning I had a bit of a tussle with my driver. My team administrator was nice enough to order a car service for me, so imagine my surprise when I walked outside to find a vehicle the size and shape of a panel van waiting for me. I reminded the driver that I was only one person and he said that he just takes the vehicle he is assigned to. As I am such jolly good fun in the morning, I felt compelled to point out that we had ordered car service, not van service. He didn't like that so much. I swear he drove over every speed bump he could find on purpose just to make my life miserable. I swear I think a rickshaw would have had better suspension and given a smoother ride. So I got to make the 1 1/2 journey to the airport in the back of a serial killer van being driven by a pissed off fat dude with a bad attitude and an even worse Cockney accent.

I am sitting in the Admirals Lounge at Heathrow awaiting my flight to California. I'm off on a bit of a work/fun jaunt to the U.S. - my own four-city tour of awesomeness. San Diego, Seattle, Cleveland and Cincinnati. The Admirals Lounge is not nearly as nice as the BA Galleries Lounge. The bacon rolls are on the wrong sort of bread, although they do have tomato on them here. But I think that's less of a "let's be healthy" feature and more of a "if we load this up with cheap tomato, maybe they won't notice that there's not that much bacon" approach. The bacon rolls that BA offers are like 1/4 pig they are so thick. Now that's how I like my bacon rolls to roll ;)

I am fighting the beginnings of a cold - my throat is scratchy, I'm all stuffed up and I'm coughing up a lung. I'm currently all hopped up on Beechams Ultra (kind of like DayQuil without the "I'm on crack" feeling) and Vick's VapoRub. I am hoping to get some sleep on the plane because I really did not sleep at all last night. I went to bed at about 12:30 am after chatting with my brother and I kept waking up every hour or so. I'm not sure why, but I find this always happens the night before an early flight. It's like I'm afraid I won't wake up on time or something. Considering that only happened to me ONCE, and it was in Evansville, Indiana after a night of way too many shots and jokes about Sir Beef, I'm not sure why I'm so paranoid. (Incidentally, the Evansville story is hilarious. I made it on to that plane with literally seconds to spare. I don't know how I did it but I managed to shower, check out of the hotel, return the rental car and get to the plane in like 40 minutes.)

I'm really looking forward to going back across the pond.  I plan to eat salads... real salads, and lots and lots of them. If there is one thing that England cannot do well, it's make a decent salad. (I won't even touch how furious it makes me that they insist on referring to the lettuce + tomato + onion that goes onto a sandwich as "salad").

On a side note, there are some funky looking people in this lounge. It's a good thing you don't have to be attractive to get in here, or the place would be empty except for me and the woman sitting next to me who looks like a Ralph Lauren model. Oh and that cute guy over by the bacon rolls. But I've just seen him eat four bacon rolls, two yogurts, three danishes and six croissants so I'm getting a bit concerned. I'm also a little worried about the old guy sitting in front of me with SIX duty free bags which are all chock full of alcohol. He looks confused enough as it is without adding booze to the party... And well looky there, bacon roll guy just got himself a glass of red wine. At 09:42 in the damn morning. I sure hope I'm not sitting next to him, as I worry about the after effects of these choices.

And on that note, I'm going to go apply a second coat of Vicks VapoRub (thus assuring that any man who displays interest in me must REALLY be interested) and stuff my pockets with packets of green tea for the long 11 hour flight ahead.

I love travel. ;)