I believe I got 5 hours sleep last night; I even woke naturally before the alarm was due to go off at 7.30. I knew today was going to be a long day, so in contrast to my usual wont, I headed straight down for a quick breakfast and over the road to work. Yesterday’s planning session had gone really well, and I was looking forward to going over the next component of the system.
The team spent the morning finalising changes to documentation, and we met at 11 for the planning session, which ended up taking 5 hours. It was a tiring and hard day, and I suspect tomorrow will be the same.
We did get out for lunch, and the men were trying to taunt me with the idea of pig’s blood again. My enthusiastic response didn’t phase them, and off we headed to a back alley for street food again; albeit a quiet alley with hardly anyone around. Unfortunately the place they’d headed for didn’t have pig’s blood, so we chose to eat there anyway and sate my cultural needs another time. I think the team must have been really tired - I know how hard it is to talk in a foreign language all day - as they jabbered away in Vietnamese, with the occasional break to English to include me in conversation again. And I was quite glad of the opportunity to empty my mind and relax a little too.
Working this evening in the hotel lobby restaurant was great - the hustle of guests and staff, coffee and beer service, and a fantastic AU$7.34 meal that would set you back four times that in an Australian hotel.
It’s been a 15 hour work day so far, and there’s still more do to. I’m looking forward to Thursday, when things ought to ease up a little. For now, though, I have my Vietnamese coffee and a quiet room (downstairs was starting to get a little busy). I might call room service for some matchsticks to keep my eyes open a littler later.