Tuesday
Oct, 2, 2001
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Tuesday Oct, 2, 2001 |
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working, moving |
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Having to get up, get ready to meet customers and pack and be ready to move to the next country. What fun! Plus, it's raining. Cats. Dogs. I get showered, dressed, get the luggage buttoned up. I dig out my anorak to keep the rain off. One of our hosts shows up after breakfast to take us in. The idea is that another guy will show up so we can get all the luggage in. We get a call that those guys are stuck in traffic. So the guy who is there takes me and another work mate to the office to meet with a customer and arranges to come back for the others. Work. Customers. Listen to the accents. Answer. Question. Stay alert. Then, suddenly, it's afternoon and there's a car to take us to Heathrow.
We are at the airport in plenty of time. One work mate shops for ties, another for gifts. Another sits with me and has a drink. It is a champagne and caviar bar but I drink a Bloody Mary. My work mate who is a pretty big guy comes back for a drink. The bartenders, who all appear to be Italian, ask if our 'bodyguard' wants a drink. We fly to Amsterdam, find the hotel bus and get checked in. I eat and drink with one of my mates in the hotel. It's travel. But it's no fun. It's just more work. At one point, my work mate asks the waiter for an ashtray. In Dutch. He is Dutch. So is the waiter. Finally, he asks in English and the kid, who looks fragile and young, understands.
Back in my room, I ponder speaking to customers the next day and arrange my possessions to check out in the morning. I see a rope hanging in the bathroom over the bath tub and wonder, "Hmm, what's that for?" In case you fall and can't get up, it turns out. Because in every hotel after this the rope will be there. Marked emergency in several languages.
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"Imagine there's
no countries
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Meta: |
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???
JUST
TYPING