Heathrow Airport was an interesting experience. We parted ways with Aisling as she went off to the Funky Passport Express Lane (proving that being Irish is indeed a super-power), while we spent half an hour in the 'foreigners' lane. It was about as much fun as it sounds.
After confirming that yes, we were allowed to enter the country, it was up to us to find our bags and pass through Customs - which, as it turned out, apparently seemed to be optional. We collected our things and waited for Martin to arrive. "Waited", of course, entailed more than just standing patiently - we'd been sitting for the majority of a 14 hour flight and needed to move around. Some of us decided that a toilet break was the best idea.
After confirming that yes, we were allowed to enter the country, it was up to us to find our bags and pass through Customs - which, as it turned out, apparently seemed to be optional. We collected our things and waited for Martin to arrive. "Waited", of course, entailed more than just standing patiently - we'd been sitting for the majority of a 14 hour flight and needed to move around. Some of us decided that a toilet break was the best idea.
Meanwhile, the rest of us made a tremendous discovery.
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| Maybe Captain England's power is to contain awesomeness in vending machine form? |
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The most wondrous vending machine I have personally encountered in my life. (I will be keeping note of this title in case I ever go to China or Japan, don't worry) |
Caitlin was politely accosted by a person with a clipboard at this point, and as we'd just discovered that ice-cream tubs could be dispensed in vending machine form, we were more than happy to answer her questions about how our time in the airport was.
Eventually, Groundskeeper Martin arrived and we all went to Godstowe in the Godstowe van. Considering that most of us'd had something like 5 hours sleep in the previous 30 hours, we managed to conduct ourselves sensibly, and didn't leave anything, or anyone, behind - even though some of us found the hand driers in the toilet so exciting that they wanted to stay there.
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The snow may have gone home early, but the cold which had brought it to the party was sticking around until it got into a fight for drunkenly hitting on someone else's girlfriend.
Maybe it was the lack of sleep, the realisation of what we were getting into, or the recreational drugs we'd got from that dealer at the airport, but everyone was in a pretty good mood when we arrived at Godstowe. There was a patch of ice on the ground, which everyone stomped on and was disappointed to discover that it was not like snow at all. Then we came to our senses and went inside as quickly as possible - it was most likely below zero outside.
We were greeted at Godstowe by Other Groundskeeper Martin (there's two) and his partner Sam - she works in the boarding house for the younger girls. They went through the ground rules, which are:
Maybe it was the lack of sleep, the realisation of what we were getting into, or the recreational drugs we'd got from that dealer at the airport, but everyone was in a pretty good mood when we arrived at Godstowe. There was a patch of ice on the ground, which everyone stomped on and was disappointed to discover that it was not like snow at all. Then we came to our senses and went inside as quickly as possible - it was most likely below zero outside.
We were greeted at Godstowe by Other Groundskeeper Martin (there's two) and his partner Sam - she works in the boarding house for the younger girls. They went through the ground rules, which are:
- Don't go to work drunk
- Don't get drunk during work
- Don't go out with "a Wycombe boy". We can do better, apparently.
- Don't get drunk during work
- Don't go out with "a Wycombe boy". We can do better, apparently.
Okay, there were a couple of other rules, but those were definitely the important ones.
After we had rested for a while, Sam offered to take us into High Wycombe and show us the sights.
She didn't say that to go into town we had to go through a cemetery.
She didn't say that to go into town we had to go through a cemetery.
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| It's even creepier when you've been awake for 18 hours straight, trust me. |
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| The first time we saw a squirrel, we freaked out. Last week, I saw three together and just kept eating my cereal. |
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| I will let the sign speak for itself. |
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| Sam asserted that the town was at the bottom of the hill. We were not immediately convinced. |
We walked in a loop around the more important places. High Wycombe has a shopping centre, called Eden - it certainly doesn't lose points for modesty, at least - with plenty of choice and most of the prominent UK fashion brand stores. There's several pubs, each trying to look more "traditional pub" than the last, a market every other day, and the walk back up the hill will make anyone feel much less guilty about anything unhealthy they may have bought. All in all, it's pretty neat.
I was planning to make a little Flash widget-y thing to put at the end of the post here - just a little game-like thing to waste a couple of minutes with while you should be organising your uni timetables. However, my free time is minimal and I'm focusing on getting my blog posts up to the present at the moment. Certainly in future posts you can expect to see a couple of them. After all, I wouldn't want y'all to suffer through my writing without some compensation for your efforts at the end!
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