Friday, November 16, 2007

Home!

Okay, I'm getting kind of tired of the "I'm home!" blog post. I'm travelling too much, and while I'm seeing cool things in beautiful places, the best part of travel is always the arrival home.

Both KL and S'pore (learning the local ways) were great. The hotels were incredible, the food was mostly edible, and the work went really well. I had few problems with the 30C equatorial climate (1 degree of latitude north of the equator) and was pleasantly surprised with successful meetings.

The jetlag, however, knocked me out at least half the time I was there. Tuesday, after the incident with the night club in my hotel room, I was useless. I think I did some of my best presentations, and reached some real low spots for working while sick. And while I did that, I played observer to other people going through their own highs and lows. Or more precisely, lows and highs.

The worst often comes out when people are travelling. There was an incident at the airport earlier today yesterday where flustered airline staff were facing two customers with ticket problems. One was irate and mean. The other was polite and quiet. I feel bad for the attendants, but I recognized a motive in their reactions. The loud man got no quarter. He wasn't getting on the plane until he relented his demands. The polite man got his ticket fixed and an upgrade to business class privileges. I think that the ladies, unwilling to help the loud man were also unwilling to think of themselves as mean. They tried to at least balance the goods and bads that they had control over.

I saw it again this morning. The cab I grabbed from the train was pulling up to let out another fare. It took a while for the passenger to step out and once my bags were in the boot and I was in the car the driver blurted out," She was such a bitch!"

He had been stiffed for most of the fare, the lady arguing she wasn't going to pay rather than offering to go inside to the bank machine, or similar. We talked on the short ride home and at the end, as we pulled up to my apartment, he mentioned her smelling of whiskey and that she should just go to bed.

"Yeah, I should have a whiskey and go to bed," I replied, adding "But I don't have any cola to mix it with."

"Oh you want cola?" he asked. I've got cola! After lifting the luggage out he reached into the back of his trunk and pulled a can of Coca-Cola from his private cache, insisting that I enjoy it and sleep well.

The taxi driver had just had someone do him a wrong, and he immediately forgot it and offered someone else a kindness.

And I guess that's the summary for this last leg of the trip. I saw some interesting things and met a few really kind people. The Crown & cola is nearly sipped now. And the dawn is winking in the sky. So it's time to sign off and shut down for a while. Me, not the computer.

11 comments:

Minka said...

I have followed your blog and with it part of your life for a while now...and I am not surprised you are hitting teh matress now. I think you deserve a weekend of sleep.

Thank you for the photos you did post, I hope there are more to come :)

I Dive At Night said...

I think I have a pic or two of some lamps. ;-)

I slept from about 8am to 1pm. Up now and loaded with caffeine to go out and play. Saturday will be about sleeping in and cleaning. Sunday similar.

J. D. said...

I really liked your airport and cab stories. I must be a closet voyeur because, I find, little peeks inside strangers lives very interesting.

Your blogs from KL and S'pore are my new favourites.....but nothing ranks as high as all the blogs titled "Home".

Sle-e-e-ep, sle-e-e-ep, sle-e-e-ep. (night shirt...happy dreams)

......Love, Mom

Anonymous said...

Night shirt?

Anonymous said...

I love people coming across people someone else has just been cranky to and being able to leave them happy. However, I don't like it so much when I'm the one leaving cranky ....

I Dive At Night said...

The worst can bring out the best in people. Which is good. Provided they don't do their best to bring out the worst in me. Which would be bad.

Anonymous said...

Welcome home !! And thanks very much for the great pictures and of course the blogs. Greetings from Vinnie :-)

I Dive At Night said...

Hi Vincent! Hoi Irene! I hope to post more... although for each good one, there are a lot of blurry bad ones. It's great to be home!

Mother Theresa said...

Hi, welcome home. Now, if only all those rude people would get what they deserve. But I guess if they got someone to do something nice, then their rudeness isn't all bad. :)

I Dive At Night said...

Theresa, have you seen the clothing line that proclaims "Mean people suck"? Rude is just another type of mean. But the low pressure left in the wake of some mean people's suckage allows room for kind deeds to fill the void.

Deb Rox said...

Coke, whiskey and kindness is an excellent cocktail.