Monday 8th of May 2017 and I was almost 30 minutes late for the school. Aladdin late? I had asked them what time we would leave in the morning yesterday.
- Up to you
- OK, how far is it?
- 30 minutes
- OK, let’s leave at 7 thirty, I suggested
Up to me! I was surprised as I thought that there would be 2 more guys from Maersk. Well, anyway we left at 7 thirty and at 8 o'clock they dropped me at a place. The course would be at Torm's office, same as last time. Maybe they have moved I thought. Well, this was not the place and I was lucky that my driver was outside talking with another driver.
I got in to the car and I checked my mobile map. We were going to a place called Leela Business Park. And it is just next to the hotel so I really don't know what they had been up to in the car department on Holiday Inn.
Ask a friend
Last lifeline- Call a friend
I was not happy, and when I stepped in to the class room my fellow Maersk people had asked for me yesterday at the reception to set up the transportation. Well, this was strange. But tomorrow we will go together and I will make sure Holiday Inn don't send any bill to Maersk for this morning sight-seeing tour through Bombay.
We were driving past a big lake and I was thinking that this would be a nice place to look for birds. I never tried to ask for any information from the driver as his English was kind of limited. Suddenly he was driving in 120km/h and I to scream SLOW DOWN!!! I was almost shitting myself. He was almost running over a family on a motorcycle in front of us.
- The other car...
Seems like he didn't knew where he was and he wanted to follow another car from the hotel. But where are they going? Obviously, as it turned out, not where I wanted to go. Anyway, I had been on my way for 90 minutes when I arrived 30 minutes late, ON A TRIP THAT WOULD TAKE MAXIMUM 10 MINUTES! Not bad.
But I was not the last one to arrive. There was yet another guy coming some 10 minutes after me. He was living in Bombay so he had no excuse for being late. And 30 minutes or so later we had another guy knocking on the door. But it turned out that he was ONE WEEK early.
So he could go home again. Yes, some students are late and some are very very early.
We got started with the class and as it was quite interesting the time passed very quickly and it was soon time for lunch. I had planned to go back to the hotel for my lunch.
But as we only have 30 minutes lunch I could not do it. The canteen here at Torm has been improved since I was here 5 years ago. But no, I wait to eat until I'm back at the hotel. So I decided to go out in the garden to have a look for birds. I might bring my camera tomorrow to see if I can get any bird pictures.
The garden at the back of Leela Business Park
The garden at the back of Leela Business Park
There were a few birds, most of them crows, and of course, Mynas. But I saw a new bird that I had never seen before. A beautiful Purple-rumped sunbird and now I really had to bring my camera. A new species to put on my Indian bird list.
After lunch and it was time to start with injections. We prepared the shoots and then we had to inject each other’s with the water. I prepare my syringes and my new friend will inject me with them. And I will inject the syringes he have prepared in to him.
Everything is prepared
Again, time passed very quickly and it was time to go home. Now I shared car with my two new friends from Maersk. When we were back I went to the travel desk and they were so sorry for the car debacle this morning. They told me that they would not send the bill. Actually, the bill was already in the waste bin.
I went to the restaurant and I had a late lunch before going to my room and my IT Center. I will look for birding sites in the city of Bombay on the internet and if I find something interesting I can go in the afternoons after school.
And as I had a late lunch I could skip my dinner. And I really think I'm on to something here. I will soon have a V-shaped torso by only eating twice per day.
My IT Centre
My IT Centre and a nice view
+++++++++++++++
Tuesday 9th of May 2017 and I was out of bed at 5 thirty and I went for breakfast at 7 o'clock. Cold tea and I let them know that I was not very impressed by the service. When I come down early for the breakfast I am almost alone.
There are so many staff members and you expect the tea to be ready in a jiff.
My food, my first and my second omelette is ready and almost cold by the time they bring the tea.
Same every day at every meal. OK, at least I have managed to get them to arrange a pot for me. Usually the pots are only available for room service. But for me they have the special service. I sipped the tea and what the ? The tea was cold, well, luke warm and I called the waiter.
He was so sorry and he would make a new pot for me. I told him never mind as I didn't had any time.
The car will pick us up at 7 thirty and I had a few minutes over. I went to look for some birds outside the entrance. There was not many birds
The driver was of course late and I gave him the full song and dance. I don't want to be late for the second time. Grown-ups that cannot make it in time, embarrassing. Maersk is paying premium dollars for us to take a course and we're late every day.
The driver told us that he would be there at 7 o'clock tomorrow morning. We got out of the car at Leela Business Park and we met our Teacher.
I had planned for a few minutes of bird watching but now we went straight up to the class room.
We started by taking our vitals and then we got right on to our homework. We have had homework and the Teacher checked so we had done our homework. When this was ready we started to work with our spine boards. We split the group in to two teams and we practiced with the spine boards almost until lunch time.
We started with a radio medical exercise before lunch and as we only had 10 minutes we had to continue after the lunch break. I spent the lunch break in the garden looking for birds. And as I had my camera with me today there was no Purple-rumped Sunbird. Actually only crows and Common Mynas. But the time passed very quickly and it was soon time to go back to class.
I will give it another try tomorrow again, the Purple-backed Sunbird is very beautiful so I really want to put the bird on my list.
We continued with the Radio Medical exercise after lunch, 2 scenarios that we will send to Radio Medical tomorrow and we will see if they can come up with the solution.
So we spent the afternoon writing the reports that we will send tomorrow. The last 30 minutes or so we were discussing and preparing the I.V drops. We will start the day by doing I.V. drop exercises tomorrow. OK; we will start with the vitals as we do every morning.
We were ahead of schedule and we discussed Varanasi and I recommended our Teacher to go to Varanasi over the weekend. I think she got scared when she heard about all the holy men and all the things happening in Varanasi.
And suddenly they ended up discussing shopping here in Bombay and, well, I didn't felt so very good and I was mostly in a hurry to get back to the hotel room.
But they went on and on and I asked our Teacher, she is from Denmark coming down here to teach on these courses whys she didn't did the shopping in Copenhagen. It is the same shops, she should take the opportunity to see something unique while here.
We could finally continue our lesson and we were soon finished for today. I was at my desk Hoping that she would forget to give us homework. But no, just when it was time to leave we got homework. Not much, but anyway enough to keep me busy for a while.
We finished class quarter past 3 and today the car was waiting for us when we came down. Just like it should be. We pay for a service and they have to wait for us, we should not have to wait for them.
Back at the hotel and I went to my room as I didn't feel very well. I went on internet to look for some Mumbai City birding cites planning for this upcoming weekend. I will have to spend the whole Saturday here in Mumbai waiting for my flight so I can as well go have a look at something.
They mentioned the Sewri Mudflats, or better known as the Flamingo Point. I knew about the place as I had spoken with a guy on the flight coming here. But he told me that the Flamingos only came here in December / January. But I saw a tour going there on the 14th of May.
I called the reception and asked them to call a taxi, I was off for some Mumbai bird watching. And you just need to click HERE to find out if I found any Pink Flamingos
OK, it has come to my knowledge that we have senior citizens visiting my web page. How hard can it be? So it's not very easy for them to see the blue coloured links to the next page.
Jiffy (also jiff)
noun [in SING.] informal a moment: we'll be back in a jiffy.
ORIGIN late 18th cent.: of unknown origin.
So as you understand, in a jiff pretty much depends on your internet.
So I put a “Next” button here and I hope that there isn't any problem to understand how to use that one. So just CLICK the “Next” button on your left hand side and you will be on the next page in a jiff!
Marunong ka mag-tagalog? Walang problema! Magpunta sa kabilang pahina pindutin ang “NEXT” button sa itaas
Faites vous parlez le français? Pas de problème! Pour arriver à la page suivante faites s'il vous plaît un déclic le bouton “Next” ci-dessus!
Haga usted dice el español? No hay problema! Ver la siguiente página sólo hacer clic el botón “Next” encima!
Farla parla l'italiano? Non problemi! Per vedere la prossima pagina lo scatto per favore giusto Il bottone “Next” sopra
Sprechen sie Deutsch! Kein problem! Wenn Sie die folgende Seite sehen wollen gerade klicken der Knopf “Next” oben!