The Perfect Pub

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Our saga starts in the sleepy Mexican town of San Carlos. I had an “Executive” (first class) bus ticket on the Tufesa to Phoenix leaving at 11:30pm on Friday. This bus trip was designed to deposit me at the airport in time to catch an afternoon flight from Phx to Mia and then on to Spain. I got packed early and Dana and I decided to kill the 2 hours before my bus left in an air-conditioned bar with internet access. As we were sipping beers I looked up my flight info to see exactly when my flight left. In horror, I almost spit my beer out as I learned that I wasn’t on an *afternoon* flight. I was on a 7:35am flight that *arrived* in the afternoon. With haste we left the bar and headed to the bus station with the hope of catching an earlier bus. I exchanged my first class ticket for a coach ticket on a bus that left at 10. If the trip takes the 8 hours it should, I could arrive at 6am and be to the airport at 6:30 - just enough time to get checked in to my flight and life would be good. It didn’t take me long to realize I was making a lot of assumptions. Assumption 1) My bus would leave on time. Come on - I should know better. I mean - I *live* in Mexico and as a country, it’s not known for its promptness. My bus pulled out at 10:40. Now I switched from being optimistic to being insanely hopeful. I started thinking about how the bus might be able to do the trip in 7.5 hours, or how I might still make the plane if I showed up 30 minutes prior to it leaving, or how the plane might be late. Assumption 2) The bus could make an 8 hour trip in, well 8 hours. Silly me. The bus was stopped 3 times and on two of the times everyone on the bus had to get out. It took us a little over 10 hours to get to Phoenix. My plane was in the air for over an hour already when I arrived. I called Amex and was told that since I was changing the first leg of my trip, the new ticket price would be several thousand dollars more. Not what I wanted to hear. I decided to call the American Airlines Platinum Advantage Desk. Apparently I had some Karma points in the bank as I the agent graciously put me on the same flight the next day for no change in fare. I do love Platinum treatment. I killed the day in Phoenix with a trip to Fry’s Electronics shopping for crap I didn’t need but couldn’t live without. I eventually caught my Miami flight and finally made it to Spain

Spaniards are crazy. This being my second trip to the “Gateway to the Medditeranian”, I knew a bit about what to expect and decided to throw myself into the action head first. To those who have never been, let me explain. In Spain, restaurants don’t open for dinner until 8 or 8:30. I heard about this the first time I went, but mostly ignored it as a trivial, quaint detail that, “Some Spainards eat late.” As an American when I get off work around 5 or 6 I’m looking to eat pretty soon thereafter. It can’t be done. Seriously. The hotel room service doesn’t even start until 8:30 and no restaurant I found or heard of was open any earlier. And if you are dining at 8:30, you are eating alone in the restaurant. Our host in Madrid was Giancarlo, the Security Sales Lead in the area and undisputed king of the “Marcha”. More of this later. Giancarlo had planned a dinner for us almost every night at a different restaurant. These dinners were schedule to begin around 9:30 or 10. Most nights we didn’t leave the restaurant until around midnight. Midnight is considered “early”. I have business cards from bars proclaiming “Happy Hour” from 10pm till 12:30am. Most places don’t get really hopping till around 2am. We’re talking about Tuesday night here, BTW - not the weekend. When you party until 3 or 4 (the US equivalent to going home at 10pm) and have to work the next day at 8 or 9 you’ve got to start asking yourself - “When do these people sleep?” Apparently there is something called a “Siesta” but I never talked to anyone who took a nap in the afternoon and went back to work. The mystery continues in my mind. After my first night out, returning in time to catch the opening of the hotel’s breakfast buffet at 7am, I fell into a pattern where I slept from 9am till 5pm. I would then get up and do some work till dinner around 10pm, party till morning, eat breakfast and repeat. While this worked for me it did make for a rough day of work (the one day that week I had to work). Eventually the fun in Spain ended and I made my way to the UK.

Traveling to IBM London is always a bit of an adventure as the London office really isn’t in London at all. It’s in Hursley, a little hamlet about 80 miles southwest of London proper. The office itself isn’t really near any hotels either with making a rental car a necessity as taxi service is neither reliable nor cheap out there in the country. Most rental cars in Europe are standards. Now - imagine if you will, piloting a car with the steering wheel on the wrong side, down the wrong side of the road shifting gears with your left hand. Now imagine doing this at night, in the rain on one lane windy roads. Not a very pleasant vision is it. That’s why I chose to take the upgrade to an automatic with the NeverLost gps, hoping that IBM would approve the expense but figuring that, even if they didn’t, it would still be worth it if it kept me from killing myself trying to shift with my left hand, reading a map with my right and steering through roundabouts with my knees. My automatic Mercedes, NeverLost and I headed off to find the Marriott Meon Valley hotel at about 3pm on Sunday. I was told that the trip should take about 1.5 hours. The freeway driving was fine and after about an hour I exited the freeway for narrow two lane roads (one each way) littered with roundabouts. I have mixed feeling about these features, forcing motorists through never-ending merging exercises at the savings of untold millions that would have been spent on traffic lights and the power to operate them. On one-hand, they do seem to work pretty well, although I’d have to see some traffic-accident statistics to be totally convinced. On the other-hand they are… well, “Britishly-annoying”. Enough said. During one of these circle-jerks, I took the wrong road. “No problemo,” I thought, proud that I even *think* in Spanish these days, “my GPS will guide me back on track.” Apparently I missed the option under “Settings” that reads, “Switch to ‘Scenic Route Mode’ upon missed turn.” Either that or my GPS decided I need to see a bit more of the English Countryside, as I spent the next 1.5 hours driving on over 30 miles of one-lane farm roads so narrow that passing an oncoming car requires both autos to swerve into the bushes lining the skinny blacktop. I won’t be shocked when “Hertz UK” charges my AMEX a couple hundred bucks after those scratches don’t buff out. The journey’s redeeming value was found in mile after mile of pheasant-filled farmland, furnishing fond memories from childhood. After 2.5 hours of tension-filled driving I finally reach my destination where I am treated with all the respect and deference a Marriott Platinum member should receive including adherence to my profile’s wish for extra towels and pillows, and a high floor. The joke is on me when I discovery that my 4th floor “penthouse” room has no elevator access.

On Monday I drove in to Hursley and set up my class. I was not looking forward to Tuesday as I was scheduled to fly to Paris for the day. As I was commiserating with Pat, my co-worker who lives in the UK, about how horrible it is to have to drive back to Heathrow early Tuesday morning to make a 6am flight and then drive back to my hotel in the dark at 10pm. Pat (my savior) let me in on the little known secret that is the Southampton Airport in all its 4-gate glory. She tells me she knows for fact that the fly direct to Paris from this little gem. Quick as a flash I get my AMEX rep on the phone and trade my business-class Heathrow ticket on British Airways in for a 100-dollar cheaper ticket on a Brit Air (not the same) puddle jumper. Tuesday was pretty grueling, but did contain a bit of success at the customer (although he refused to see me) and was certainly made easier by the 15 minute drive to and from the airport instead of the nightmare 2 hour drive in each direction to Heathrow.

Wednesday found me teaching 30 students for the day. The class went as well as could be expected however, it left me pretty wiped out. My goal, for my last night in the UK, was to find an authentic British pub with a fireplace and wild game (hopefully pheasant!) for dinner. I had also painted an old, plaid-jacket-wearing coot, smoking a pipe and nursing a beer in the corner, into my vision, but felt that he was an optional component of the evening. Although I inquired of a few people where I might find such a place, I decided to “discover” one myself by driving the back-roads to my hotel. I set the GPS to “Pedestrian Mode” which avoids the freeway and takes you the absolute shortest route. The route it chose for me included some road called Church Lane. Church Lane was closed. For the next 20 minutes the GPS and I wrestled over how I should get home. Regardless of the setting I chose or the route I took, NeverLost kept bringing me back to Church Road. I finally gave up and simply started driving southwest, ignoring the gadget’s repeated commands to “Make a authorized u-turn” 5 minutes later I passed a pub with the lovely name of “The Dog and Crook”. I had pretty much given up hope for finding my dream and was going to be happy with “bangers and mash” and a beer anywhere. What I discovered was a little slice of paradise. The pub was a bit more upscale than the one in my vision; however it had every ounce of charm I had hoped for. I think my plaid-jacket wearing guy was even there amongst the gaggle of locals gathered at the bar. I chose a corner seat and Aaron, who owns the place with his partner Nick, brought me a scotch and provided me with the internet WEP security key so I could get on the internet. The phrase, “Hog Heaven” came to mind more than once as I sipped my single-malt and surfed while being entertained by the American country music drifting down from the pub’s speakers. Once I got settled in Aaron brought me the menu board. Alas, it contained no pheasant dishes. I asked Aaron if they ever served wild game and he told me that they had just got a fresh side of venison in - hadn’t even made it to the menu yet. He and Dan, the chef, had a talk and I was told that they could make me a venison filet dish with mushrooms, potatoes and fresh veggies. While that was being worked on, I ambled over to the bar and asked Aaron if he had a wine list. He did - as I was looking it over, he explained that he had a couple of bottles from his private reserve and proceeded to open them and poured me a couple of tastes. It seemed like the most natural act in the world for him to be sharing a taste from his private collection with me and I wondered if he knew what a rare gesture it was. He went on to pour me 4 more tastes before I settled on a Spanish Rioja. About that time Louise and (Tara?) showed up for work and took over serving duties. They soon brought out one of the most breath-taking dishes I had ever seen. The venison filet was cut into succulent two-bite morsels and mixed with a mushroom and wine sauce atop some kind of wonderful “hash-brown” patty. Along with the main dish came a bowl of vibrant veggies - yellow baby corn (not pickled), green peas in the pod, and orange baby carrots. The carrots were really beautiful - not at all the way baby carrots look in the US. These had an exaggerated v shape - very wide at the top - a great “carroty” texture, and looked like they had been pulled from the ground that day. I took a bite of the venison and literally giggled it tasted so good and had such a tender texture. I saw Dan peek out and told him he had done a great job. This was one of the top 10 meals I have eaten in my life - and I have eaten some good meals. I wallowed in the perfection of the meal for 30 minutes and when it was finally over I topped it off with a cheese board so generous it could have been a meal in and of itself. I thought the glass of port I had with dessert would top the night off, but I allowed Louise to talk me into a “Floater Coffee” which is a coffee (with booze if you like) topped with fresh cream that floats on top. She even provided me with a mini French press to top it off. As I settled up my bill (less than 40 Pounds!) I told Aaron that he wasn’t charging enough, so if you pay a bit more when you visit, you can blame me. Eventually the night and trip was finished and I flew back to “The Colonies “and they refer to us over there. Those Brits and their sense of humor.

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