One Day Down
The day began at 6am when the alarm clock went off on my mobile phone. This wasn’t the first time I woke up this morning of course, because guess who fell asleep while lying on top of the bed covers reading a book at 8pm, and then woke at 1am, 4am, and then again at 5:30am? I’m blaming the 30C temperatures outside – it definitely had nothing to do with beer and wine. Nope, nothing to do with beer and wine at all.
I scraped myself out of bed a few minutes after 6, and stumbled off in the direction of the shower. Ten minutes later I was showered, dressed, and wondering if 6:15 was too early to show my face for breakfast. It turns out any time before 7 is the perfect time for breakfast – as the clock ticks closer to 7, all manner of construction workers appear and pretty much clean the breakfast area out of anything worth eating.
I made a bacon roll for myself, filled a cup with cappuccino, and grabbed a yoghurt from a refridgerated cabinet on my way past. I also picked up what I thought might be a boiled egg, and an egg-cup. Yeah – make that a hard boiled egg. You know that moment when you just fancy a dippy egg, and you find out it’s hard boiled. That.
After nursing my coffee for twenty minutes, I decided I couldn’t stretch breakfast out any further, and faced an hour with nothing to do. Thankfully a wonderful friend from the other side of the world appeared in my phone, and saved the morning. I think somehow it might become a regular thing while holed up in the hotel.
Of course I cannot write about the middle part of the day for obvious reasons (professionalism, blah blah blah), but I can talk about escaping the office at 6pm, getting changed out of my work clothes, and immediately heading off along the river to the bar I discovered last night. Along the way I called my other half and caught up with the various adventures of the children (mostly to avoid gawping at the variously unclothed people sunbathing at the side of the river).
I sat in the sunshine with a beer, and watched the world go by. It struck me how few obese people there are around here – certainly among those that frequent the river bank, anyway. Most of the mile-or-so walk to the bar had been spent dodging people on bicycles, rollerblades, and scooters – and while I sat sipping my beer, I couldn’t help but notice the continual stream of runners, or couples out for a walk in the evening sun.
It’s funny how lonely you can suddenly feel, sitting at a table on your own among so many people meeting up on the way home from work, or while heading out for the evening. All I had to look forward to was a quiet walk back to the supermarket, or to find a restaurant nearby. I chose the supermarket, sushi, and a pot of natural yoghurt.
Now don’t laugh. While sitting in the hotel room, attempting to watch a German soap-opera and eating sushi, it dawned on me that I had no spoon to eat the yoghurt. I also figured the yoghurt was just too thick to drink. What to do? I could get dressed I suppose and ask at the bar in the hotel if they would lend me a spoon. I then figured that the plastic fish from the sushi that had been filled with soy-sauce could probably work as a spoon too. I tried it. It did work. Kind of. I think mostly it just slowed me down – and also helped coat my fingers with yoghurt – but it was one step up from scraping the yoghurt out with my fingers like some sort of neanderthal thug.
So. Here I am. As soon as I’ve finished writing this I’m going to have another go at reading the book I fell asleep reading last night. Wish me luck. One day down, two more to go.