Delays

The first half of today was marked by delays and queues. Our taxi was a little late, raising my initial anxieties about catching the flight, etc. This meant we were towards the back of the queue to check in our luggage and we stood in that queue for around one hour.... Then the usual (smallish) queues for security and then to get on the flight. But although it arrived super early, the plane was late leaving again, putting us about half an hour behind schedule. So we were around 25 minutes late arriving, and then there were further delays. Waiting to get off the plane and onto a bus. Waiting at passport control (don't ask...it was epic, but I blagged my way through as a non EU citizen....Mr A got caught by his passport not working properly). And then another 20 minutes at least waiting for baggage. And finally about 10 minutes waiting for a taxi. Then the coup de grace. I had an idea which hotel we were staying in, but unknown to me (and this had not been really clearly drawn to our attention so I'm actually steaming about this), the hotel had been changed (the previous one was under renovation). Anyway, we body swerved another trek to the hotel, went straight to the Law Faculty and poor Mr A had to sit through my presentation which went reasonably well. We missed that of my colleague JRB. Things then picked up. A beer with members of the Faculty/audience. To the hotel, which was about half a kilometre away across Esplanadi, and then on the advice of JRB and his wife, who arrived on Sunday, we ate in the hotel and it was very good. After dinner, we wandered down to the market square and the harbour and got ourselves blips. And extras. I could not decide which one.

Now we are in the hotel room, which is fine - although the bathroom is bijou. I've unpacked the stuff that might spoil. And I'm just waiting to lay my head on the pillow. It wasn't strictly necessary, but we were up at 5.30am this morning.

The fun and games begin.