Time for my regular trip to lovely Southwood again… I must say I wasn’t particularly looking forward to this one – this time of the year is really when I think the Cote d’Azur is relatively speaking one of the best places in Europe to be (with the weather on the coast typically being very mild, with temperatures approaching those of the Finnish summer when the sun is shining, but with ski resorts just an hours driver away…). On the other hand, it’s nice to see friends and collegues every once in a while, and to visit some of the old haunts (=pubs) again…
My flight to London Heathrow was once more without incident and even ahead of schedule! Seems to me that Heathrow is working pretty well these days – maybe things run a bit more smoothly with Terminal 5 up and running? (or then again, maybe I’m just being lucky). My taxi driver had accidentally gone to Terminal 5, so my journey into the office took a bit longer than expected. This combined with the normal catching-up on office gossip, etc. meant that my first day at the office wasn’t all that productive. I also met the new guy in the team, David, who’s joined us from the other side of the English Channel, from Paris. So that will give me the opportunity to practice my French even more, then ;-) Monday night I joined the badmington club curry night – I suppose you could say I was making a guest appearance as an ex-member. A lot of changes have obviously taken place over the last couple of years – the only 2 guys I knew where Sinhung and Xiangdong. Anyway, the curry was good, and it’s always night to meet new people ;-)
Tuesday was London night – have to do one of those on every visit. The plan was to meet up with Chie and Geoffrey in Faringdon road, near Liverpool Street station. Lauri, an old team-mate who has transferred back to Finland, also came along (he had also come to Southwood for the week, to provide some support), came along as well. During the train journey, he entertained me and Sinhung with stories about what life in Oulu feels like after a couple of years abroad (sounds like he’s suffering a bit from reverse cultural shock – I can fully understand it as it hits me after about a week in Finland…). Apparently he had forgotten just how little people speak in Finland ;-). As our stomachs were grumbling, and our rendez-vous in Faringdon road wasn’t until 8 o’clock, we decided to have dinner first. We opted for a Chinese-Japanese restaurant near South Bank called Ping Pong, where we had a tasty meal of Dim Sum (with some wasabi-flavoured peanuts and sake for a bit of Japanese touch).
We then took the tube to Faringdon road – quite an operation which took as over half an hour. We eventually found the bar as well, where we met up with David, and ordered pints while we waited for Chie and Geoff. Actually the occasion was the birthday party of an ex-collegue of Chie’s - which we kind of gate-crashed. Not a bad idea – seems Chie has a lot of female collegues, which balanced out the male engineer bias of our group. We had a very good time indeed, just like in the “old days”, having shots, catching up on old times etc. David seemed to be a bit shell-shocked by Sinhung on overdrive, but seemed to be enjoying himself as well…
For Wednesday eve, the team curry was scheduled in, as Blue Tiger in Fleet has a special offer which is difficult to refuse - £11.95 for a started, main dish, side dish and rice/naan. Before the dinner, though, we had a team sauna at the office (I think a sauna for the employees should be mandatory in all companies). David seemed to think we were all mad again – hopefully he won’t resign straight away. And of course we had a pre-curry beer at the Oatsheaf – all part of a tradition. The curry was good – and David impressed us all by having a Vindaloo, and didn’t even seem to suffer (well, I tried his dish, and to be honest, it was more madras than vindaloo….). Cliff was kind enough to shuttle me back to Guildford after the meal, to Hotel Whitaker’s (that would be Phil’s flat, yes).
Of course, no trip to the UK is complete with a pub quiz in Guildford, so Thursday night was reserved for this important activity. Before the quiz, I went to Sainsbury’s to buy some British “culinary delights” (crumpets, cheese cake kits and flavoured teas), and then had dinner with Adrian (who’s off travelling to South Americ – lucky bastard) at a nice Californian restaurant in the town centre. These necessities out of the way, I headed down to the pub quiz venue, which is the George Abbot these days. The normal stalwarts; Phil, Nick and Maxime, showed up (Stephane would of course normally be present, but has made the strange decision to immigrate to San Diego – I mean how could California possibly measure up to Guildford – too hot there right?). Lauri also joined us, only slightly worried about all the booze he had just bought and stuffed in his car (kind of typically Finnish – the shopping list his friends had given him included 1 bag of toffees and 15 bottles of Whisky ;-). We did OK, marking 32 points out of 40 – but not enough to snatch a top 3 spot though. We decided we’d to celebrate our near-success in Fahrenheit 55, though (and there I was thinking I would finally succeed in spending a Fahrenheit-free week in the UK – well I came close).
My flight to London Heathrow was once more without incident and even ahead of schedule! Seems to me that Heathrow is working pretty well these days – maybe things run a bit more smoothly with Terminal 5 up and running? (or then again, maybe I’m just being lucky). My taxi driver had accidentally gone to Terminal 5, so my journey into the office took a bit longer than expected. This combined with the normal catching-up on office gossip, etc. meant that my first day at the office wasn’t all that productive. I also met the new guy in the team, David, who’s joined us from the other side of the English Channel, from Paris. So that will give me the opportunity to practice my French even more, then ;-) Monday night I joined the badmington club curry night – I suppose you could say I was making a guest appearance as an ex-member. A lot of changes have obviously taken place over the last couple of years – the only 2 guys I knew where Sinhung and Xiangdong. Anyway, the curry was good, and it’s always night to meet new people ;-)
Tuesday was London night – have to do one of those on every visit. The plan was to meet up with Chie and Geoffrey in Faringdon road, near Liverpool Street station. Lauri, an old team-mate who has transferred back to Finland, also came along (he had also come to Southwood for the week, to provide some support), came along as well. During the train journey, he entertained me and Sinhung with stories about what life in Oulu feels like after a couple of years abroad (sounds like he’s suffering a bit from reverse cultural shock – I can fully understand it as it hits me after about a week in Finland…). Apparently he had forgotten just how little people speak in Finland ;-). As our stomachs were grumbling, and our rendez-vous in Faringdon road wasn’t until 8 o’clock, we decided to have dinner first. We opted for a Chinese-Japanese restaurant near South Bank called Ping Pong, where we had a tasty meal of Dim Sum (with some wasabi-flavoured peanuts and sake for a bit of Japanese touch). 
We then took the tube to Faringdon road – quite an operation which took as over half an hour. We eventually found the bar as well, where we met up with David, and ordered pints while we waited for Chie and Geoff. Actually the occasion was the birthday party of an ex-collegue of Chie’s - which we kind of gate-crashed. Not a bad idea – seems Chie has a lot of female collegues, which balanced out the male engineer bias of our group. We had a very good time indeed, just like in the “old days”, having shots, catching up on old times etc. David seemed to be a bit shell-shocked by Sinhung on overdrive, but seemed to be enjoying himself as well… 
For Wednesday eve, the team curry was scheduled in, as Blue Tiger in Fleet has a special offer which is difficult to refuse - £11.95 for a started, main dish, side dish and rice/naan. Before the dinner, though, we had a team sauna at the office (I think a sauna for the employees should be mandatory in all companies). David seemed to think we were all mad again – hopefully he won’t resign straight away. And of course we had a pre-curry beer at the Oatsheaf – all part of a tradition. The curry was good – and David impressed us all by having a Vindaloo, and didn’t even seem to suffer (well, I tried his dish, and to be honest, it was more madras than vindaloo….). Cliff was kind enough to shuttle me back to Guildford after the meal, to Hotel Whitaker’s (that would be Phil’s flat, yes).
Of course, no trip to the UK is complete with a pub quiz in Guildford, so Thursday night was reserved for this important activity. Before the quiz, I went to Sainsbury’s to buy some British “culinary delights” (crumpets, cheese cake kits and flavoured teas), and then had dinner with Adrian (who’s off travelling to South Americ – lucky bastard) at a nice Californian restaurant in the town centre. These necessities out of the way, I headed down to the pub quiz venue, which is the George Abbot these days. The normal stalwarts; Phil, Nick and Maxime, showed up (Stephane would of course normally be present, but has made the strange decision to immigrate to San Diego – I mean how could California possibly measure up to Guildford – too hot there right?). Lauri also joined us, only slightly worried about all the booze he had just bought and stuffed in his car (kind of typically Finnish – the shopping list his friends had given him included 1 bag of toffees and 15 bottles of Whisky ;-). We did OK, marking 32 points out of 40 – but not enough to snatch a top 3 spot though. We decided we’d to celebrate our near-success in Fahrenheit 55, though (and there I was thinking I would finally succeed in spending a Fahrenheit-free week in the UK – well I came close).
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