(This one is for Mom & Dad.)
People often ask if I feel safe travelling alone outside the States, and I often respond that I’d have to try REALLY hard to get into trouble because I have so many handlers watching after me. Last night was a good reminder of just how ‘guarded’ I am here…
I have struck up a friendly morning routine waving at the guard who attends the reception desk of the company on the ground floor. When I arrive, I always make a production of waving good morning to him as I get on the elevator up to my office. He doesn’t work for my company – Aspect occupies three floors of an eight story office building… but it never hurts to be nice, even to people you don’t know.
So… Tuesday night I was leaving the office (late at night, as usual). I had called the hotel to send a car to pick me up and waved to Mr. Ground Floor as I left the building. My routine is to step outside, sit on this little short wall facing the street and wait for the car. The car arrived in 7-8 minutes, as usual, and as I reached for my laptop bag something behind me caught my eye… It was Mr. Ground Floor, standing in the door watching me leave. I felt like a little girl getting on the school bus – her Daddy watching from the window to make sure she boarded safely. When he saw that my car had arrived (and that I had noticed him standing in the door), he waved good night and turned around to go back to his office. I wonder how many nights he has done that… I love this place.