Things will probably be a little slow around the blog for the next day or 2. I got off the rig yesterday (NICE birthday present) on the helicopter and have been traveling since last night.

The company was nice enough to arrange hotel rooms for us (at the same place I stayed when I came out to work). The problem was, we got there at around noon and they didn’t have any rooms available til earliest 1400. 🙁

I was already tired, since I’d been up since 2200 the night before. I have been working the midnight to noon watch the past week or so. I went to eat lunch while waiting for the room to get ready.

At least the food was decent.

I went back to the front desk a little after 2, hoping they were going to have rooms ready. To my surprise, they did. 🙂

They had a porter help me bring my bags to the room. First thing we noticed was the smell. Disgusting! Like old socks, dirty laundry, moldy old basement. Yuk! His shoes squished through the carpet when he walked into the room and flipped on the lights to show me the bathroom.

OK, so he called the desk and they set up another room for me. We went back down there to trade keys, went back up to the room and… the new key didn’t work. 🙁

The porter found a maid cleaning rooms down the hall and got her to open the room with her passkey. At least I could check out the room and get settled a little bit. The porter showed up in just a few minutes with a new (working) key. 🙂

By this time it was after 3, and the driver was coming to pick us up for our flight at 2000. I figured I had better get up by 1800 so I could have a shower and a cup of tea.

I had already tried to check my email and it was impossible to connect to the internet in the room (again). I was really too tired to get dressed again and go down to the lobby to check email (or work on the blog).

I did get to sleep a couple of hours. I think I probably got 1-2 hours total on the flight to London this morning too. Im hoping I can get at least a little bit more on the way to Houston. It’s another long flight and I’ll be in the window seat this time. Last one I was in the middle (which I hate- doesn’t everyone?).

I should be home by dinnertime tonight (Houston time). I doubt I’ll manage to do anything tonight but pass out as soon as I get in the door.

I HOPE my luggage makes it this time. I’ll only have about 2 weeks at home before I have to be back onboard the ship again. I’ll have only 12 days at home to get everything done and rested up to go back over to Angola and start this trip all over again (in reverse).