After some travel and more excitement and adventure (or rather, disventure) than I bargained for.
In January I flew with Alitalia to HongKong and they lost my luggege. I am still trying to get some settlement from those jerks. I have never seen anything so bad. I recently read Milan, Alitalia’s hub, was the worst airport in Europe (delays, lost luggage etc). Gee, why does that not surprise me? Alitalia has to be absolutely the worst airline in the entire world.
Oh, and we had a fire onboard because some idiot decided to smoke in the toilet and throw the butt in the bin for the towels. By the time someone discovered the fire it was pretty serious. Of course, in Italy and China nobody respects the no smoking signs anywhere so why would they think they need to respect them on an airplane? It’s not like under the no smoking sign there’s another one saying “here we really mean it”. Idiots.
So, me in China with no luggage whatsoever and the second day all my money (in cash) and credit cards are stolen from my person. This is during the Chinese new year festivities and there was no way to get any help or interest from anybody as they just close everything down and go home for ten days.
I spent the worst two weeks of my life in that hotel room hoping my bank could finally get some cash to me. Pretty much living on charity and loans from kind people.
Of course, no one to blame but myself for being careless as I know how good they are at picking pockets and it is not the first time it happens to me.
I did take my laptop and it is incredibly easy to connect in China. You just buy a card for a predetermined amount at any small phone or computer store. They are everywhere. The card has a number to dial, name and password. Less then an hour after checking into my hotel I was on the net.
I have been lurking all these months but did not want to post as I was not sure I could have continuity and did not want to drop out of threads.
Also I have seen many threads are things we have discussed too many times already and I feel I have already had my say about those topics.
Anyway, I am back in DeeSee where I arrived about a week ago. I am still getting settled here and trying to decide what to do next. To use a Spanish expression (which does not translate too well), “I am not sure if I want to hire a servant or if I want to hire myself out as a servant”.
My boat was hit by lightning last year and I have a ton of repairs to do which I am just not inspired to do at all (even though the insurance pays for everything and I am actually getting better electronics than I lost). I am seriously considering selling the boat “as is” even though I’d take a big loss…
I have had a pretty bad toothache for the last few days and I finally got an appointment with my dentist tomorrow (not easy, as he is so busy)
Maybe when the tooth doesn’t hurt I’ll be more inspired.
In any case I trust nobody missed my input here. Those who know me know what I would say, and those who don’t can’t miss my input.
Reminds me of a story;
This preacher had to preach for the first time but could not bring himself to start talking. After a long, awkward, silence he said “You all know what I mean to say”. One of the parishioners got up and said “Well, some of us do but some don’t” to which the preacher replied “In that case let the ones that do tell the ones that don’t and, that way, everybody will know”.
Hey, I’m rambling again… better go get some aspirin for my tooth.
