Oddballs

What we do when we are not in a classroom

 

After a swim in Lagos

I have spent this last week in Lagos without the benefit of roaming. My TESCO sim card has not fulifilled its duty. The only time I can log onto the internet is when I am on my training course and at my hotel. Argh... When group messages are posted, the only way I find out where to meet or what everyone is doing is if someone tells me! As you can can imagine this is most frustrating. 

I have tried all the usual things to try to get it to work... taking the advice of the IT Crowd! I even swapped my sim to the position two in the slot. This seemed to work and I had access to my local network here in Portugal. Woohoo. I thought this would be the end of my troubles, but no. My phone now says my home is seven hours ahead... Singapore time and then when I tried to access my phone I was locked out and it said I was in Turkey. Writing this, I now realise that my other sim is the Turkish one but that has no data on it. Weird or what?

I managed to meet up with another person on the course for a sea swim one morning. He had swam the channel  - Wow... That is the nearest I'll ever get to swimming the channel. The water was a bit warmer than Cornwall in February and if I had bothered to pack a hat, I would have been up for a much longer swim. As it was, it was a bit cold when I put my head in the water it felt a bit like being gripped by a vice. 

Other than that, life has been been pretty cool. I have learned loads, met wonderful people from all over the world and done a bit of cultural research, AKA finding out about the local nightlife. I also met a Canadian couple who are travelling around the world with two tiny dogs on a yacht. They were on the next table to me in the bar on the marina. Lots of "locals" are Brits of a certain age in search of sun all year round so there is an English translation for almost everything. Home from home some might say.

My apartment/ resort is quite nice but housekeeping and organisation is all over the place. There are two of us sharing and only one breakfast between us! The towels are now replaced whether we need them or not even though I opted for the every other day clean up in return for vouchers... This seems to be a case of left hand not knowing what right hand is doing. Other than that, the coffee is good and that is what matters!

And it is now to home that my journey starts today...See you soon.