We got into the office and Stephen got to work doing techy things to the laptop in order to get it working on the UK system. We made a couple of calls to our IT dept, and were surprised to learn that we were the only people who had phoned in to request things like making our mailbox size larger etc. Oh well, I guess we were in a lucky position of being able to do what we did.
We were very hopeful at reports that UK airspace might open up that night, or the following morning. I had a quick look at how we could book a ship back to the UK....or a row boat...probably each coz we have a lot of luggage...! We began to get news of others stranded abroad. Paul B, stuck in Sweden with some colleagues, my sister in Spain getting on HMS Albion the following day, Stephen's brother and family in Turkey, Richard and family in Majorca. But my heart really went out to the one guy Stephen knows who was stuck airside in Kuala Lumpur with a young family and no luggage (it was checked in and he couldn't get it back) who was told he was being re-booked for mid-May. Nightmare stories like that made us realise that we were in the best position we could be. We had lodgings, all our stuff, somewhere to work, lots of friends nearby and we knew our way around what is, after all, a lovely area.
We decided to go to the baseball on Tuesday as the Nats were playing. What a freakin' nightmare to book tickets on the website. Every page was timed, and it you were too slow you lost the tickets. The page that needed all the address and credit card info gave you a whole 3 minutes to complete it!!! On my second attempt (he'd already tried twice) I was yelling at Stephen for a local phone number "NOW. NOW. I need it faster than that...Oh. There we are. We've timed out again!" Honestly, that laptop nearly became a frisbee!! Between us it took 5 attempts to book the goddamn tickets.
After dinner Carol took us on a personal tour of the monuments at night time. Again, it was something we had never done - usually because we'd be bolstering the profits of O'Connells!! What a fantastic thing to do! We were running about with Stephens camera and a tripod getting photos. The only slightly nervous moment for me was when we were briskly walking to the White House and I realised that I was carrying a long narrow object that could easily be mistaken for a gun, towards the residence of the US President with several police cars and sharp shooters nearby!!
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