Lazy Sunday afternoon. All your colleagues are cosily tucked away at ‘Chez Nous’ or ‘Dunroamin’ spearing their succulent roast beef and quaffing claret. Then maybe a bracing walk-off-the-lunch in the country, and feet up for the next episode of Downton Abbey.
Saturday there was a bit of shopping, a trip to Twickers or Stamford Bridge perhaps, and later dinner out. Ah, the bliss of a British weekend.
Not you, mate. You’re stuck in a prison-like room in a hotel in Podunk, Iowa, Nullepartville, Quebec, or some other God-forsaken town that seems a million miles from home. My heart used to sink on a Friday or Saturday when I thought I was heading back only to hear some infuriatingly cheery boss go, “Alright mate, you stick around, and… er… give us a bell on Monday or Tuesday.”
Oh thank you God, thank you so bloody much, as Basil Fawlty would say. You’re all beggaring off for a couple of days with the nearest and dearest while yours truly is facing yet another lost weekend.
The government are thinking of allowing those who fall sick taking a holiday to get those days back. Now what about all us business travellers who technically have days off but are stuck somewhere they’d rather not be?
Even when I was based in Los Angeles they’d keep me in a more-dead-than-alive hole like Indianapolis, Indiana – or India-no-place as even the locals call it – instead of letting me fly home.So you’ve got 48 hours to kill and the question is how to spend it without going totally stir crazy or ending up a DT-trembling booze-sodden basket case like Ray Milland in the actual movie The Lost Weekend?
No danger of that in the small Arizona town of Atoka where I was stuck one Saturday and Sunday. I scoured the shops for a bottle of wine. Nothing. Couldn’t even see a can of beer and presumed I was hallucinating from lack of alcohol. It was only when I tried to order a drink in the hotel restaurant and got the frostiest look, did I twig that Atoka had a no-drink ordinance. Because of it everyone drove to the nearest non-dry town to get bladdered. And then of course drove back, thus leading to a spate of fatal accidents. (It’d be safer to have let them get pedestrian-legless in town).
Some tips based on experience: Try going to the cinema. Even in non-English speaking countries you’d be surprised how many films are in English with native language subtitles – and sometimes how little you actually need dialogue to enjoy a movie. Don’t worry about what’s on, just go in and watch anything that’ll kill at least two hours. It can even be amusing. In West Palm Beach, Florida I picked a movie at random called The Crying Game. It was late afternoon and I squeezed in among the reduced-price oldies. It was a crummy IRA movie on the face of it, but I thought the girl Del was quite tasty. Then, ahem, it turned out Del was – a transvestite. As the wrinklies shuffled slowly out all the men regarded each other somewhat shamefacedly. I fessed up first, “Don’t worry – I fancied him too.” Smiles of relief from the oldies and chuckles from their wives.)
OK, after the cinema resist the temptation to head for the bar and eat a quiet dinner (see Toad’s passim for the stupidity of dangerous sexual liaisons). Next day check out the museums, festivals, anything that’ll get you out of your hotel room and pass a few hours. I went to an ice-hockey game in Detroit once. With the bloody brawls it was a bit like Tyson and Holyfield On Ice, but it served its purpose.
If it’s Sunday, start with the newspapers even if they’re in a foreign language. Buy a dictionary, translate. It’s good fun, educational, and when you look another hour has passed.
And at the risk of sounding like your Dad, get up and go for a walk! Fresh air, pounding the pavements and those endorphins pumping will make you feel a lot better. And then – call the folks! But control your blood pressure on Monday when the boss says enviously, “Lucky sod. I had to spend the weekend with the wife and kids.”
The exception is of course when your weekend has been spent somewhere like New York, Paris, Sydney, San Francisco, Capetown or Aspen. I’ve spent enforced weekends in all of them, and confess I understood exactly what my boss had meant.
