Frustrating Morning

Aaaaaargh. How do people do it? Let me explain. I live inside the highway circle. I work inside the highway circle. It can still take me 40mins in traffic to get to work if I leave after 6:50am in the mornings, which is why I try my dammedest (how on earth does one spell that?) not to. I freaking hate traffic. I hate the complete waste of time spent crawling in ones car. And I even have fun podcasts to listen to.

This morning I took Bell to the vet - I managed to get her an appointment to be spayed today so at least I'll still be here to keep an eye on her at her most hurt. The vet is outside the highway circle. It wasn't hard to get there by 7:20am (they open at 7:30am), going against the traffic, but oh my word, what I saw going in the other direction put the fear of God into me. I dropped Bell off and managed to get out of there by 7:30am - they were inside already and kindly opened up instead of leaving me to sit outside waiting in my car. And after a brief squiz at my handy mapbook, I headed into the nightmare that is Joburg Morning Traffic. It's taken me over an hour to get into work. It was a complete nightmare ... and I even tried to take the most direct backroads ... let me tell you, there are no secret sneaky routes left in Joburg, everyone knows abotu them and *everyone* is using them, creating just as much of a traffic nightmare as on the highway. My most frustrating moments were seeing a green light in front of me and still not being able to go anywhere because the turning traffic had so blocked up the lane there was no where left for me when it was my right of way. Aaaargh. So not a good start to the day.

There were also a bunch of other things I wanted to post about that I've forgotten over the last few days.

Firstly, Varen's work. Now you all have read abotu what insane hours he's been working for the past month and a half or so. It was all to ensure they got their project live by tomorrow, an insane deadline by all accounts based on how recently they've changed the requirements, hence the overtime. On Monday they're told that the go live has been moved out 2 weeks because of *new* requirements. This means he'll probably be working soldly up until he joins me in Morocco. Then on Tuesday they get told, nope, actually, thanks for all your hard work, but we're moving the go live to 15th December. So now there is no pressure whatsoever and everyone is left wondering why they've been rushing and working 70 hour weeks. Sigh. But at least it means I've had him home at a reasonable hour this week :)

Secondly I had an amazingly long chat with the Peeb yesterday. Yes, I know she's my sister but let me tell you, this was a rare occurence. She was in a good mood, a pleasant mood and from my perspective, I don't get to see that side of her much. And chatty. The Peeb is never chatty ... well not with me at any rate. And we spoke about things I never would've thought we would discuss. The Peeb and I don't have a close sisterly relationship really. So yesterday was a good day :)

Thirdly Varen's Schengen Visa. Let me explain. He was never supposed to be in Spain, he was supposed to fly straight to Morocco to meet me and join the tour. The airline (after we booked) cancelled one of the flights, so he had to catch the one the day before meaning he had 24 hours to spend in Spain. Now that may sound nice to some but let me tell you what a mission it is. He now needs a Schengen Visa. For a 24hr stop over, too long to qualify for a transit visa (less than 6 horus I think). The airline offered to pay R300 towards his visa costs (the Schengen here costs R711!). Then we found out when he tried to apply on Monday that the Schengen Visa requires that you show proof of purchase of a minimum of 520 Euros, whether you are there for 1 day or 9. How freaking silly is that ?!? He already bought EUR 350. And he doesn't really need Euro's, except for the trip local payment. All his Euros will be immediately converted into the Moroccan dirham (at a similar exchange rate to the Rand-EUR, I gather). So now he has to buy even more Euros just to get this freaking Visa, in this sucky exchange rate climate, because he has to spend a mere 24 hours in Spain because of the airline's fark up! It's annoying. To say the least.

I think that was all of it :) One. More. Sleep.