Barely had I got back from Germany, just a couple of days later it was time to hit the road again. This time destination: England.
Things started in a typical English fashion upon my arrival – the sky was decidedly grey, and the rain was drizzling down… Surprisingly though, my flight was 15 minutes early – that’s quite unusual for Heathrow. After a rather busy day at the office (lot of catching up to do, always…), I headed out for the first “social evening” of the week – Guildford. The usual crowd showed up at the Star (this wasn’t as straight forward as it may sound, since I had invited everybody to the Crown – thankfully there is no pub going by that name in Guildford!) – Simo (whose twin brother Sami gave us such a warm welcome in Ulm), Nick, Phil and Bruce. Great to catch up with everybody again – and this time there wasn’t even any pub quiz humiliation to spoil the mood ;-). Simo surprised/shocked us all by drinking coffee and coke... We finished the evening with a quick visit to the White house and a very healthy dinner at the Best Kebab House in Guildford (not sure there are more than one, actually?)
The next day, the social festivities were taking place in Fleet – this time it was time for a team dinner. I decided to stay at the Hotel Lismoyne this time – cheaper than the aviator (a real bargain at “only 100 pounds”). The hotel was a rather typical English hotel – with long, winding logics, illogical room numbering (why can’t the first digit of the room number indicate the floor, like in every other country in the world?), carpets everywhere, non-working Wi-Fi/internet etc. I don’t want to be entirely negative – the place does have a certain English charm with its fireplaces, period furniture and all that. The team festivities started with beers at the Oatsheef, and continued with curry at the Gulshan, and finished with some more drinks at Propaganda (which wasn’t quite as happening as usually, apparently). “Team festivities” has to be rather loosely here – the only participants were myself (who works in France), Perttu, Matti & Martti (who work in Finland), Allan & Alan (who do work in Southwood). But, nonetheless, a good time was had by everybody methinks.
Wednesday was London night (I shall concentrate on evening activities as I suppose they are marginally less boring than my daytime activities at the office). Things kicked off with a couple of beers with Ed near Waterloo station. No ride in his Maserati this time, since I was next heading off to Richmond for dinner with Adrian. We chose a rather nice Pizzeria right in the centre of Richmond called Rustica. Nice Italian food and good value for money (not always a combination you hear in London). All in all, a quite night out – definitely needed by yours truly…
Thursday was the big night out – in London again. It was a kind of pre-birthday party for Louise, whose big night was on Saturday. Thankfully Louise was organizing the night out – when I organize nights out in London it all tends to be very improvised and very last-minute. We had quite a good turn up of folks from various countries and walks of life. There was the usual work crowd (myself, Louise, Sinhung, French David), Nick and his sister (who lives in Bali, of all places!), our Finnish guest workers Matti and Martti as well as Martin, Franky and Ian from DeLoitte (a nice bunch I met at Aki’s wedding in Finland last autumn). We were supposed to meet up at Las Iguanas in South Bank, but Sinhung (of course) wasn’t happy with that so we walked around, trying to find another place. And naturally ended up in Las Iguanas anyway – but outside! (no seating inside). Well we were three Finns and one Malaysian (guess who suffered?).
We then headed over across the Thames to Embankment, where we popped into the Prince of Wales for another couple of pints – we were joined there by Louise and David. We then made our way across to the Mint Leaf, our restaurant of choice for the evening. We met up with the rest of the crowd and started with a couple of cocktails. This was followed by the tasty meal – a sharing menu, Indian style. And plenty of wine, no cheap table wine either I tell you. We had a brilliant time, but it wasn’t what I would call “affordable”. In spite of the numerous cocktails and bottles of wine we consumer, 90 pounds a head seemed a bit out of proportion, really… I suppose that’s London for you…
And that brought an end to my rather busy week in the South-East of England. Nice trip, great to catch up with everybody – the weather was even pretty nice. But I was quite happy to be back on the Cote d’Azur at the end of it…
Things started in a typical English fashion upon my arrival – the sky was decidedly grey, and the rain was drizzling down… Surprisingly though, my flight was 15 minutes early – that’s quite unusual for Heathrow. After a rather busy day at the office (lot of catching up to do, always…), I headed out for the first “social evening” of the week – Guildford. The usual crowd showed up at the Star (this wasn’t as straight forward as it may sound, since I had invited everybody to the Crown – thankfully there is no pub going by that name in Guildford!) – Simo (whose twin brother Sami gave us such a warm welcome in Ulm), Nick, Phil and Bruce. Great to catch up with everybody again – and this time there wasn’t even any pub quiz humiliation to spoil the mood ;-). Simo surprised/shocked us all by drinking coffee and coke... We finished the evening with a quick visit to the White house and a very healthy dinner at the Best Kebab House in Guildford (not sure there are more than one, actually?)
The next day, the social festivities were taking place in Fleet – this time it was time for a team dinner. I decided to stay at the Hotel Lismoyne this time – cheaper than the aviator (a real bargain at “only 100 pounds”). The hotel was a rather typical English hotel – with long, winding logics, illogical room numbering (why can’t the first digit of the room number indicate the floor, like in every other country in the world?), carpets everywhere, non-working Wi-Fi/internet etc. I don’t want to be entirely negative – the place does have a certain English charm with its fireplaces, period furniture and all that. The team festivities started with beers at the Oatsheef, and continued with curry at the Gulshan, and finished with some more drinks at Propaganda (which wasn’t quite as happening as usually, apparently). “Team festivities” has to be rather loosely here – the only participants were myself (who works in France), Perttu, Matti & Martti (who work in Finland), Allan & Alan (who do work in Southwood). But, nonetheless, a good time was had by everybody methinks.Wednesday was London night (I shall concentrate on evening activities as I suppose they are marginally less boring than my daytime activities at the office). Things kicked off with a couple of beers with Ed near Waterloo station. No ride in his Maserati this time, since I was next heading off to Richmond for dinner with Adrian. We chose a rather nice Pizzeria right in the centre of Richmond called Rustica. Nice Italian food and good value for money (not always a combination you hear in London). All in all, a quite night out – definitely needed by yours truly…
Thursday was the big night out – in London again. It was a kind of pre-birthday party for Louise, whose big night was on Saturday. Thankfully Louise was organizing the night out – when I organize nights out in London it all tends to be very improvised and very last-minute. We had quite a good turn up of folks from various countries and walks of life. There was the usual work crowd (myself, Louise, Sinhung, French David), Nick and his sister (who lives in Bali, of all places!), our Finnish guest workers Matti and Martti as well as Martin, Franky and Ian from DeLoitte (a nice bunch I met at Aki’s wedding in Finland last autumn). We were supposed to meet up at Las Iguanas in South Bank, but Sinhung (of course) wasn’t happy with that so we walked around, trying to find another place. And naturally ended up in Las Iguanas anyway – but outside! (no seating inside). Well we were three Finns and one Malaysian (guess who suffered?). 
We then headed over across the Thames to Embankment, where we popped into the Prince of Wales for another couple of pints – we were joined there by Louise and David. We then made our way across to the Mint Leaf, our restaurant of choice for the evening. We met up with the rest of the crowd and started with a couple of cocktails. This was followed by the tasty meal – a sharing menu, Indian style. And plenty of wine, no cheap table wine either I tell you. We had a brilliant time, but it wasn’t what I would call “affordable”. In spite of the numerous cocktails and bottles of wine we consumer, 90 pounds a head seemed a bit out of proportion, really… I suppose that’s London for you… And that brought an end to my rather busy week in the South-East of England. Nice trip, great to catch up with everybody – the weather was even pretty nice. But I was quite happy to be back on the Cote d’Azur at the end of it…
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