Mush For Brains

I'm back from my trip to sunny (and partly rainy) Orlando, and I'm sitting here with a somewhat mushy outlook on life. I put this down to three things:

1. Jet lag.
2. Trying to re-train my brain to speak English again instead of American.
3. Ten days to go before leaving Riyadh for ever.

1.
I left Orlando at 2pm local time on Sunday, which is 10pm Riyadh time. A two hour flight to Washington Dulles Airport (horrible place, what I saw of it), a two-hour layover, then a seven hour overnight flight to Heathrow (bought a Business Class upgrade with my miles: Thank you United! Bmi won't let you do that), then a five-hour layover, then another seven hour flight to Riyadh, arriving at 9pm local time on Monday. So a twenty-three hour trip airport to airport, more like twenty-five door-to-door. I took a sleeping pill and went to bed at around 11.30 last night, and woke up at 9am. Better than I'd hoped, but let's see how I feel come sunset.

2.

• Restroom = Toilet
• "Can I get...?" = "Could I have...?"
• Check = Bill
• Candy = Chocolate
• Fillet ("Filay") = Fillet ("Fillet")
• Appetizer = Starter
• Entree = Main Course
• "Let's go ahead and get started" = "If I could have your attention please"
• "Wahder" = "Water"
• Trash = Rubbish

3.
We leave Riyadh on Nov 29, in nine days' time, and before that we have to pack up all our possessions and get them collected by the right people at the right time, to be sent to the right place. Apparently (I didn't know this before) there are two different companies shipping our UAF (Unattended Air Freight) and our Heavy Baggage, and the survey that was done before I went to the U.S. was just for the UAF. The guy must've thought it was his birthday as I made him list out everything we own. But no. Apparently there's another company moving the Heavy Baggage and there survey is happening on Tuesday at 10am. Hang on... today is Tuesday, and it's now 1040... Where are they?

I'm a bit worried about all our things getting to us at our new location (wherever that may be). We're going to UK for six weeks to spend Christmas and New Year with the children and family, and for Karen to finalise her next posting. During that time we only need our UAF and don't want to see the Heavy Baggage until we have a new permanent address. I'm also fretting about being able to transfer money out of our Saudi bank account and into a UK one, about canceling the broadband internet connection late enough that we can still use it but early enough so we don't pay a month's fee for nothing.

Oh yes, and I have a load of follow-up work from our Kickoff meeting in Orlando. ...think I'll just drink my coffee and continue staring into space for another ten minutes, then I'll "go ahead and get started".