All other things aside, all I needed was a laptop to write on.

And yes, at 10:11, that died.

Well, the laptop didn’t die but Word did.  For days, the laptop has been a bit slow, especially when I was using the internet.  Ok, I thought, that’s a wireless problem.  But, it turns out, I was wrong.  It was the computer telling me it was about to crap out.

I had sat down to start my writing and no sooner had I logged into Word, than it locked up.  Crap.  Things like that happen every so often.  So I rebooted.  Word locked up again.  Reboot.  Email locked up.  Reboot.  No access to the internet.

CRAP!!!!

I tried all sorts of semi-clever things but not really knowing much about how a computer works (I mean, hey, it worked yesterday, why not today?), I feared that I would be like a blind bull trying to stomp on a little fly in a china shop.

Everything I tried, failed.

ACK!!!!!   I was so close to finishing.  I had, what 250 pages left?  2 days work.  And now I couldn’t do a thing!!!

Finally, at about 1, I gave up trying to fix the damn thing.  I decided my best bet was to restore the computer so I began that.  But here’s the thing.  I didn’t give up.  If anything, I was more determined now to get some writing done.

I went downstairs and asked the concierge.   Was there a laptop rental place?  Was their a repair company?  They said they had a business section with computers that I could use.  “For Word?”  “Yes.”

Cool.  So I went back upstairs and took out the flashcard (where I had backed up all my files) and went in search of the business center.

Now, if Margot had been with me, I would have found that in minutes.  But, being me, I got lost.  Even WITH a map.  Even with signs over head saying what was where.   In my defence, this place is HUGE and sometimes it’s a bit confusing.  Deliberately so.  They make it winding and weird to disorientate the stupid (like me.)

However, I took the opportunity to look around, see a few sights and take a few pictures.

Eventually, I found it but wait, their computers didn’t take my little flashcard.  Dammit.  They said they could take a flashdrive which I could buy at Walgreens.  They gave me directions, which is like handing a rubik’s cube to Freya, and off I went.

The adventure was not over.