Finally, I Can Lie Down
Well, there are times when being a World Traveller(tm) is incredibly fun. The adventure, the excitement, the romance. And then there are the times when bouncing from place to place is one continuing series of headaches. The past few days have contained both. I've already posted about the Unawatuna road trip.
Now the ugly
I was planning on staying at the Dubai Youth Hostel (I have a Hosteling International membership). But when I checked my email on Sunday night I got a message back saying they were full. Very not good! Staying at a regular hotel would totally blow my budget for this scouting mission. Other stuff that didn't go right for this trip:
-Frank's phone was down Monday morning (unpaid due to bank holidays and a narrow window to pay it in) so that meant no Internet access.
-My computer refused to start that morning, and since my laptop is central to how I organize things I think I developed an ulcer in the space of ten minutes. I'm still not sure what the problem was, but it's gone for the moment. Basically it refused to start (power would go on for 2 seconds, and then shut off). But it didn't seem to be a cord/battery issue. I've recently replaced the laptop end of the power cable. After three years and much abuse something inside the cable started misbehaving. So while I was staying at Kamal's place I had to hunt down a new connector (that was an adventure unto itself).
-I woke up sick Monday morning. Not horribly sick, more like a medium hangover that I didn't truly deserve. I kept my booze consumption pretty limited on the Unawatuna trip. I blame being sick on the very little sleep I've been getting for the last few days. All that fun has a price.
-I forgot my hat in Frank's car when he dropped me off at the airport. A porter was distracting me.
-Other stuff too, but I'll skip that.
And in a strange coincidence, I'm surfing late night satellite TV and came upon an Arab travel channel talking about rafting on the Ottawa river. It's been years since I did that with michelmo, imp_of_cthulhu, and others but I think I recognized some of the rapids.