Virginia Beach

 Arriving in Virginia Beach, the airport is a surprise… it is tiny and cozy. It feels like a private space. Walking out and getting an Uber is extremely easy. It took me a while to get to that point, however, as I had left my AirPods on the plane and when I tried to return for them, I was denied access. I walked to the loo and then returned to the gate… the ground staff called out my name and handed my AirPods to me. Relief.

The Uber driver looked and spoke like Ned Flanders from the Simpsons. He attempted to offer me guidance, which I appreciated, but I felt he was forcing himself in an attempt to get a tip. He dropped me off and I gave a relatively large tip in Uber terms, but he never ‘liked’ it, which means, I suppose, like many things in life, it didn’t meet his expectations. He’d dropped me at the wrong hotel, which was my fault, but a kind old African American gentleman drove me down the street to the correct one. I checked in just before midnight and was delighted to discover that my room was a high floor with a beautiful view of the ocean. I passed out.

I awoke at a ridiculously early hour, which seems to be my Saturday morning curse… bit this was worse because I was in a different time zone. I spent the morning in bed, watching English soccer, then got up and went for a walk. It was windy and freezing cold, but beautiful. By Sunday, life was slowing down wonderfully and I found myself sitting at the bar of a pizza parlor. The barman was a history teacher. I had a few beers and, when I left, the history teacher gave me a beer to go, which I sipped as I walked back to my hotel.

On Tuesday, the weather had transformed completely, it was sunny and warm with no wind. Officially, I was working, but I was struggling to avoid the lure of the beach. I attended a few meetings from my hotel whilst gazing out over the ocean and then decided to take my laptop and venture back to the pizza parlor bar to have lunch and a beer whilst working from the bar. With it being Easter, things were relatively quiet at work aside from some mails and chats ongoing. I suddenly heard a voice from behind me, booming, ‘is this where the cool kids hang out?’ I turned around to see a gigantic Viking-like man walking into the bar with his wife. ‘Of course it is, that is why I am here’, was my silly reply. They came and sat next to me, at the outside section of the bar, and started talking to me. It was their 25th wedding anniversary. Before long, they bought me a shot. I in turn bought them a shot. By this time, an old man inside, on the other side of the bar, was talking to us and he bought us a shot. We bought him a shot. Then another couple arrived… a beautiful young lady and her husband who were in town from North Carolina for some kind of Nascar business event. They started talking to us and drinking with us too. In a blur, we ended up on the beach together and an even younger couple came to talk to us and started talking about drug addiction.

Several bars later, we ended up having dinner together. It was a blur. I awoke in my room in the morning, puzzled at how I got there. I recalled that the wife of the Nascar guy tried to kiss me, I wanted to, but I didn’t want to get beaten to a pulp, I pushed away. I got out of bed and checked that I had my wallet and my phone and was amazed to discover that I had both. I spent the day sitting on the beach with a terrible hangover. Later, I made it to the airport… a 30-minute ride listening to the 61 year old American driver talk about his girlfriend in the Philippines. I got pulled over by airport security because I had forgotten a large bottle of water in my backpack. I stumbled to an airport bar for a coke, and the psychotic barman, in an ‘I will murder you’ trance, informed me, with a cold stare, that he had no coke. I stupidly ordered a beer and suffered through it. The flight was slightly delayed.

I am home and it is great to be here. I can’t wait for the weekend.