Monday Morning Blues
As all my regular readers know, I am supposed to fly to Aceh today. I will, provided I can get to the airport. Last Thursday it started raining again (after a couple of weeks of pretty good weather). The rain was on/off all night, but then really broke loose on Friday morning. We had a lot of street flooding during the day – and water was quite high in many places. As it turns out, I had to go to immigration that morning, so I spent about 2.5 hours in the car for a 10 minute event. Things were getting so bad that people were allowed to leave work early and to go home (I did not).
Lots of houses and streets were underwater – many 3-6 feet deep. Additionally, the tollway to the airport was closed due to flooding. Some planes were diverted to other airports/cities, and the main airport was closed. In the evening, the airport reopened.
But, as of Sunday morning the main road to the airport was still closed. The only way to get to the airport is via an alternative route. According to the press, over the weekend the travel time to the airport (via the alternative) is 2-3 hours – and is expected to worsen on Monday (today). We have confirmed with the airlines (as of last night) that all was in order more or less. We will call again this morning to see what is going on – before I head to the airport. While I expect the airport to be open, I also expect there to have been more flooding overnight – as the rain was quite heavy from time to time.
**** on different matters, working backwards.
Sunday was an ok day – My body is incredibly tired / fatigued (I think Decy’s is worse) and I finally got up at 11am (not sure when I went to bed because we were watching a movie). Did a bit of work, then had 5 guests come to the house for a chit chat and a “get out of the hotel” event. Four of the folks are business visitors who are here to help us install an SAP accounting system. Two I know from my Angola SAP installation experience, two are new acquaintances, one was an indonesian national. The guests showed up about 145pm. We chatted awhile around the pool area, then played some pool, then enjoyed Decy’s excellent cooking. Somewhere in there we had Decy’s world famous fried corn finger snacks – complete with embedded shrimp (yahoo!). The folks left about 730/800pm.
Saturday was a blur. Got up at 11am … after having gone to bed at 5am. Worked in the office on finances and work stuff until about 6pm; then watched a couple of movies – first in the family room with the girls and Decy, and second with Decy in the bedroom. Not sure what time we went to sleep.
As for Friday, I have already told you about the flooding. I stayed focussed at work all afternoon trying to get some things done before leaving for Aceh. Interestingly enough, the commute home was quite easy. There hadn’t been a lot of flooding on the route I take to work – and most people had left work early. Soooooo …. lucky me. Got home visited with Decy (Chely and Thaysa were out at parties), layed down and took a little nap. Decy woke me up and we went to the Ritz Carlton. I was a VERY VERY good boy that night. Danced a quite a bit with Decy and just enjoyed the evening. We left the Ritz around 330am … when we got home, Decy and I chatted awhile … had some leftover pizza and then went to bed at 5am.
Well, I guess that is about it for now. I need to take care of some other things before I take a final decision: (a) go straight to the airport, or (b) go to the office for a couple of hours and then go to the airport. Don’t know yet what I will do. I will have my laptop with me in Aceh and will have access to the company email system. All going well, I will also try to blog from up there.
I’ll be in touch … ciao ciao …
