Good Morning Vietnam!

It was finally here - time for my Christmas break and another adventure. I tried to get prepared since I was doing so many other things and I prepared by placing everything I thought I would need on the guest bed, until I had a fairly large pile. Then I jammed it all into my suitcase and I still had a whole side free, which was lucky and just as I planned!

I watched the weather and fretted a bit because I was worried about the flight from Wick, but evey thing looked okay. I even decided not to go into work on Friday and instead, I got ready to go. I did my usual routine and woke up early and hit the cross trainer and then did my yoga. I had put some laundry in and after my shower I popped out to the garage to put it in the dryer. As Maggie and I were scurrying out - her in her fur coat and me in my bathrobe, slippers and towel on my head - we discovered that something strange had happened while I was showering. Everything was frozen and I slipped and I slid, seeing Maggie doing the same out of the corner of my eye, then both feet swooped up in the air and I landed on my butt with wet laundry flying around me. I laid there a minute and decided I wasn't too hurt and then gingerly got up and fulfilled my mission. I'd scrapped my hands up - who knows how - and my butt was on fire!

But there was no time to think about it and instead there were chores to do, so I did them. At 11, my taxi arrived and whisked me to Wick and the flight went without a hitch - I even squeezed in a piece of carrot cake. The flight to London also went without a hitch and I arrived at Heathrow, and wandered over to the hotel, which is in the terminal. I got all situated, ordered room service - love that - and had an earlier night.  

In the morning, I reconsidered my packing and decided I should try and send my carry on home and just use my tote bag, which I'd packed. You see the carry on is canvas and it is sorted of heavy before you put anything into it, which is just wrong. I had to take the train to terminal 3 and managed to check in, being very grateful I was in business class because the economy line was INSANE!

I went upstairs and found the post office and bought the biggest envelope they had. The lady said it will not fit, and I said I think it will, it's squishy. I squished it for her as a demonstration. She was dubious and made me pay for the envelope before I tried it. I did work up a bit of a sweat, but I got it and a sweatshirt into the envelope and with one knee on the package, managed to get it sealed and mailed to myself - she had the good grace to be impressed by this.

Through security, I did my shopping for an extra camera case and memory card and then bought some Pringles - traveling tradition - and an O magazine and waited for the gate. We were late boarding, but they eventually figured it out, and I got onto the double decker - I was upstairs and everything was purple. An older lady, off to Burma, sat next to me and she couldn't decide whether she was going to be nice or whether she was going to be a twink.

We were served a 5 course meal, and it was completely impressive. I had chicken satay, mini crayfish with herb pate and salad, Thai beef with chili and basil, fruit and cheese, and a mango soufflé - seriously!

I watched a movie during dinner, slept 6 hours and woke up watched another movie and ate my Eggs Benedict - Seriously! Then we were in Bangkok. I kept my seat companion from forgetting her iPad and her kindle as she was getting ready to walk away from them and then I kept her from going down the wrong concourse - I'm nearly a saint. I had a very short layover and then I was on another plane; before 10 am in the morning, I was in Vietnam - I know that is totally crazy.

The visa line was mini riot and I was glad I paid extra to have someone do it for me. He felt bad that it took so long and pulled some favors to have me scoot two lines through immigration - I checked in as a diplomat - Ha! I found my driver and then we waited for the other two people on my flight, which took about 45 minutes, but I didn't mind because I was on the right side of crazy or was I?