Today was a pretty normal work day for me. Did some things at home and then headed out to the airport. Quick trip to Raleigh/Durham this week to perform my first pre-study visit for my new study that is finally starting. Complicated, in-depth - love it! I'm learning a lot.
Got to the airport with no issues, love that I was flying Southwest today. I seriously do not like any other airline. We're boarding the plane and are told that the flight was full - well, lucky me! There was one empty seat on the plane and guess where it was. Right next to me....
Southwest is really moving toward putting WiFi on all of their planes. I've never really played with it before but as a frequent flier, I get the service for free, so I was playing with it on my long (ha - one hour) flight. It's so slow, but also cool. You can shop at skymall and also watch the tracking of the flight.
When I arrived in Durham, I had to meet up with the Japanese monitor that is accompanying me to the site tomorrow to observe. I called him when I arrived and we realized that he was in one terminal and I was in the other. With the noise and the difficulty hearing over the cell phones, he couldn't understand me and I couldn't understand him. We finally got him on the big yellow, Hertz bus, but it was a bit of a challenge.
Luck didn't go my way where Hertz was concerned. Hertz now texts you the number of the stall in which your vehicle is and includes the type of vehicle. The first text I received from them told me that I was to be in a Buick Enclave. As this is one of the cars that I really want to check out when it comes time to buy a new car, I was excited - it wasn't to be, though. By the time I got to the Hertz lot, I had received a new text. They switched my rental to a Nissan Altima - come on guys, I can drive one of those any time I want. Oh well, maybe next time.
I was telling the Hertz driver that I was meeting a colleague from Japan and that we were having trouble understanding each other - she was hilarious. Each time she did some announcement over the speaker, she'd say it in English and then act like she was speaking Japanese and repeat it. I was really stressed out when I arrived, so her sense of humor really helped me to calm down and relax. And to note, I was the only one on the bus, so she was free to do that. I really love Hertz.
Got the Hertz lot, picked up the other monitor (who, by the way, speaks fine English) and we headed to the hotel.
Once I arrived at the hotel, it was time to really buckle down and get ready for this complicated slide deck I have to present tomorrow. Mostly continuing to work on pronouncing the names and things like that. Giving presentations is something that really makes me nervous so I like to have it down.
When I checked in at the hotel, despite having two bottles of Evian in my bag - the hotel had Fiji - guess who bought some of that?
Went down to the hotel cafe to grab some dinner and realized that the grass in the decorative planters in the Courtyard lobbies is actually fake. All this time I thought it was real. HAHA - joke's on me.
So, I'm getting to bed way too late again - but I took my pills way too late again. Sigh. One of these days I'll get this back on track. Fingers crossed.
I have the morning to continue to prepare for this visit. The nerves are starting already.
One funny thing today - on my way to the airport I got a text from Laura. Seems WTK doesn't think he has enough freckles on his own. So he took a marker and gave himself some more. HAHA - funny kid.
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