efincomputer

A little less Work! Work! Work! / The Journey Home – 11/02/09

I still woke about 3am as usual, but after getting back to sleep I managed to sleep through until about 7am for the first time on my visit – the irony being that my body was now adjusting to the time difference on the day I was due to go home again! Ironic! I got up and showered before I finished packing my cases. As I knew this would be a long day, I decided to have a big breakfast so headed down to the restaurant for the breakfast buffet instead of just having a light breakfast in the lounge.

The buffet was much the same as my last visit – a good selection of fresh fruit (melon etc), pastries, yogurts etc, as well as a hot selection with pancakes, bacon, sausage, scrambled eggs and omelettes. I loaded up on a bit of everything, starting with the fruit and pastries, then moving on to a big plate of pancakes and bacon with maple syrup. Mmmmmm! Once I had my fill, I headed back to the room and had a final check to make sure nothing had been left behind, before heading down to reception and checking out. I headed out and caught my last cab of the trip down to the office to get my day underway.

This was to be a shorter day than the previous two, as I had a car booked at 3pm to take me to JFK ready for my 7pm flight. I know this might seem like a long time in advance, but id finished all my critical work for this trip in good time, and given how hit or miss the traffic volumes can be on the trip into JFK at this time of day, I had allowed an hour and a half for the car ride, a couple of hours in the lounge and then boarding to take place about 6.30pm, so this timed in quite nicely. As it turned out, I finished everything by about 12 noon and of the two staff left in the office, the admin assistant had to go home as he was ill, and my other colleague was leaving at 12 to drive out to another site for the next 5 weeks for one of our other projects, so I was faced with sitting in the office on my own for a few hours until the car arrived. I decided to call the car company to see if they could pick me up a bit earlier, and they were able to bring forward the collection from 3pm to 2pm. I was working on the principal that I’d rather spend an extra hour in the lounge than an empty office – the office doesn’t have free booze and snacks! So it was that around 2pm the towncar pulled up and after loading my bags into the boot we were back on the road to JFK. It turned out to be the same driver who had picked me up on Sunday night.