Saturday, Oct. 25th: Day Two - Arrival and Experiencing Farnham
(Side-note: finally got pics through Day 3 uploaded onto Facebook)
7:15AM (London): Attempted to get some sleep on the plane after playing some Castlevania, but as I kinda expected I couldn’t do it. Despite how tired I was getting, ended up just lying back listening to music (more advice I’m so glad I took was bringing my Zune along with me).
9:00AM (London): “Wake up” time on the plane, as the crew turned the lights back on and began serving breakfast…pretty awful, but sustenance is sustenance (and at least the coffee was still awesome!).
11:15AM (London): The estimated arrival time was accurate to some degree when it said we’d arrive in London at 11:15: we arrived in London airspace at 11:15AM, and began circling in our slow approach…
11:30AM (London): And circling…
11:40AM (London): And circling…
11:48AM (London): Touch down! The Captain then announced that we would experience a 5-minute delay due to another plane at our station before us, yet assures us that despite this we are still ahead of schedule.
12:04PM (London): Off the plane, through the security, and waiting for baggage. After not too long my mom’s luggage pops out, and after several more minutes mine does as well.
12:40PM (London): After navigating through Heathrow and realizing that we never solidified the place to meet my brother at 1:00, we asked around and was directed to the (supposedly) ideal spot for picking people up.
1:05PM (London): My mom is getting nervous about the pick-up, but I think that’s the effect of the jet lag. We go back to the terminal to see if perhaps he was looking for us somewhere else, but wasn’t able to find him. We decided it best for me to keep waiting where we were before with the luggage as she looked around and tried paging him.
1:40PM (London): The three of us are finally reunited! As it turns out, he had been looking for us elsewhere and in his asking around people told him that where we were was the one place we were not likely to be! It’s really funny how these little frustrations chain together like this, which only adds to the anticipation. I know I was getting a little irritated myself too, but that effectively melted away by the time we got picked up. Interesting fact: apparently for these wind tunnel projects, the members of my brother’s team don’t shave, so for the first time I saw my brother with a beard. Kind of a trip…but not as much as being on the wrong side of the road on the M3, as we sped towards Farnham. It was cool to see all the different cars that we don’t have back in the states, and how the ones we do look different!
2:15PM (London): Got checked in at The Bush Hotel, and planned a bit of what we were going to do with the rest of our day (even though both my mom and I were exhausted from the trip we wanted to make the most of the day). We proceeded to “walk the town” a bit, and chose a Tapas restaurant for lunch. Not bad stuff, and I’m realizing now that I must have been too tired/hungry to think about taking pictures of the food once it all came out, but still got a picture of the Brazilian coffee :P. Ended up with a plate of chorizo (not great, but really, how good can you expect a Mexican sausage to be in England? Especially because Brits are notoriously bad with their sausages), tomato and goat cheese focaccia (the cheese was AWESOME!), some fried potatoes (rather bland, but oh well), a veggie stew thing (forgot the name offhand, but it was surprisingly good) , and beef stifado (an interesting variation of a great Greek meal, and our best dish).
3:40PM (London): Took a short drive to the nearby Waverley Abbey. By this time the sun we had a bit of in the early afternoon faded behind threatening rain clouds, which in a way was nice because it added something to the ambiance of the ruins. When we first arrived at the parking area, my brother pointed out two relics of the Second World War - an old pillbox and a gun emplacement. He said these sorts of structures had been built, scattered through England, and their purpose was to provide defensible positions in the event that they had been successfully invaded. From there and walking down to where the ruins of the Abbey lay, we passed by a small pond and a beautiful stone bridge crossing it. It was really cool to see a few swans up close in the water, and one in particular going into a “defensive” position and fluffing up its feathers (“LOOK, I’M A BIG BIRD!” my brother said in a silly voice). As we approached the first of the now partitioned Abbey, my brother also told us the major reason it’s in such disrepair now: people would simply take the stones as building materials for other projects. Walking back up to the car, we could plainly see the primary contributor to the Abbey’s current state: the Waverley Abbey House (apparently a good deal of its structure was built with the Abbey’s stone). We also had a swan pass overhead, and it was hilarious just how loud it was at it flew. You know those sounds when a giant bird or similar animal flies by in a cartoon? You know, that really exaggerating flapping sound? That’s exactly what it sounded like! We cracked up when it went past, and again when it started circling a nearby field and we sound still hear it so clearly.
5:15PM (London): We only had 30 minutes or so of useable daylight left, and also since my camera was out of batteries by this point we decided to take a drive around the countryside. We left through Farnham and came into an even smaller town called Well, presumably named for (you guessed it) a well that the little town was known for. My brother pointed out something really interesting, and I think kinda funny, that probably speaks to at least more traditional social life in the area. Bear in mind at this point we’re about 20 minutes out of Farnham (which mind you is a rather small town, but there is a pretty large range of shops and restaurants in the heart of the town) , and within minutes of leaving town you get into a very rural setting. Anyway, at about this point he says, “And just up here is a pub,” and laughed a little bit about how someone actually built a pub basically in the middle of nowhere yet people apparently still go there often enough to keep them open. Even funnier, he learned about this from other co-workers at Boeing, and he has no idea how THEY learned about it! Anyway, I think it’s cool, and makes me think the pub is probably like the main hub of social communication at least in these small-town settings. Shortly after that story, I could feel myself struggling to keep conscious.
6:00PM (London): We arrived back at the good ol’ Bush Hotel, and I opted for a short nap before dinner plans (since I hadn’t slept since Thursday morning).
6:58PM (London): Woke up enough to get out of bed, and my mom and I accidentally ripped my brother away from a phone call with his girlfriend to take us to a local pub for dinner. We went to the Nelson Arms, that really reminded me of the College Inn without pool tables and a little better lighting. I got the ½ shoulder of lamb in a red wine sauce, and it was fan-frickin’-tastic. That had to have been the largest portion of lamb I’ve ever eaten in one sitting, and it was delicious! We also all split a rather rich, though small, slice of chocolate torte cake with chocolate sauce and chocolate ice cream. The whole time, we talked a little bit about our plans for the next couple days, and my brother shared more funny stories about his last few trips here. It was really great! He also let us know that as of that night, the clocks would be set back an hour, so we’ll end up with an extra hour to sleep (not that we’ll particularly notice :P). Incidentally, after ordering the lamb the waitress warned me that it may take up to 25 minutes for it to cook, and advised me to order some “nibbly bits” to make the wait more bearable. That’s right. “Nibbly bits.” HAHAHAHAHA! Oh, but the jokes went unsaid.
Total pictures for day: 138
Total to Facebook for day: 47