Friday night in Birmingham, Britain. The hotel was full, but I managed to get an “accessible” room with a really weird bathroom. I left my luggage there and drove around to find a “petrol station” (gas station) to fill up the tank. Then it was off to return the car and walk about a mile in a steady drizzle to the hotel while fences forced traveling in roads instead of walkways half of the way.
After checking in and finishing a local late-night conference call then going back downstairs I told the lady taking my dinner order in the hotel that I would take it up to my room but found an empty seat in the lobby to nurse a beer while I waited. The lady later approached me grabbing my arm saying that my food was about ready. Indeed another person followed her shortly carrying a bowl filled with chicken curry and rice with naan.
I took this and another beer to my room.
I had been watching a series on Amazon and tried to continue my viewing, but it said that I could not stream it from my current location. I switched the tablet to a VPN on my home network and was able to stream an episode of the show over dinner. Why Amazon did not complain about me being in the UK then a few minutes later in the US is not something I’m going to complain about but fear they might crack down on in the future—I better just VPN for everything!
Then it was up at 4:30AM local time. While my flight was at 6:30AM there is a strict one-hour cut-off on check-in for international flights and I was not going to make that mistake again. I got to the counter a little after 5. There was a new wrinkle though. I had two small carry-on bags, but the airline had a combined weight limit which was new. While my bags were small in dimensions the total weight was too much (about 24k combined) and I had to check one. Not a big deal, but with a 50-minute layover in Paris I figured the checked bag would not make it, (it didn’t). Now it’s about 6PM here and I’m ready to sleep but need to get on local time, so dallying around on FB.