I am rehashing the stories I wrote just for the practice and to get something up on this site.....
Greetings All,
Well, we are finally at
the job site and it is HOT. Well, I
guess hot is a matter of perspective.
For me, hot is anything above 85 degrees. Right now it is about 125 degrees. Good thing we are working indoors where the
AC keeps it about 18 Degrees C (that is about 64 degrees F). Life isn’t too bad at the current moment.
I haven’t had Internet
access until now so let me catch you up on the trip….
On the flight over we
stopped in Chicago for about 4 hours and got bored real fast. Not enough time to go anywhere but just
enough time to realize I hate long layovers.
Then we went to Heathrow
Airport in London. I got a London shot
glass and when the nice lady gave me change, I noticed the coins were funny
shaped and had a picture of the queen on them.
I thought to myself “didn’t we kick the crap out of them just so we wouldn’t
have to use this stuff?” Ed (my co
worker) stopped me from asking her because he was afraid I would look silly
getting my ass kicked by some little old lady.
I did like the fact that they spoke English. Well, it was funny sounding but I could
understand most of what they were saying.
I made a mental note to pick up some Pimm on the way back. It tasted good but they have this ornate
formula for mixing it up.
I was going to try and get in a smoke but I
did not fill out an Immigration form so I couldn’t cross their border to go
outside. That sucked. The only cool thing was they let me take my lighter
on the plane.
Which leads to a cruel
joke played by the airlines……..
When I was in the Army
and flew around commercially, there was always a smoking section in the back of
the plane. And being in the military, I
usually drank for free. Smoking,
drinking and flying went hand in hand.
Now I know some of you will argue that a “No Smoking Section” indoors is
like a “No Peeing Section” in a swimming pool but please indulge me in this.
There are a multitude of
No Smoking signs all over the aircraft.
Even in the bathroom. But if you
look around, there are ashtrays in the seat handles, ashtrays in the bathroom
and in the employees’ area. What a hell
of a mixed message. When you add the
facts that they let me keep my lighter, drinks are free on overseas flights and
toss in my known lack of thinking, we are lucky to have made it without some kind
of incident.
So, we get to Oman and
we needed to exchange our dollars for Omani “Rial”. Apparently Oman is doing a hell of a lot
better economy-wise because their Rial kicks the crap out of a dollar. To the tune of 1 Rial equals 2.6 dollars. So much for feeling rich.
The flight was approx.
23 hours total. Drinks were free and so
were the movies. Beats the hell out of
driving.
HJG
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