Chapter 11: My Return to Winchester

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Having spent our entire journey up to this point in the larger and more famous cities in Europe, you might think that going to Winchester would be lacking in something for our grand finale. There's no public transit, no tourist spectacles, no broadway shows and no malls. However, replace all that with cozy pubs, christmas markets, beautiful churches, and people who have been waiting two years to see you again. Winchester has been, to me, a home away from home. It's not often you can walk down a street two years later and still see people you recognize, and who, in turn, recognize you. It's as close to perfect as I've found in the world, and after traveling to Berlin, London, Barcelona and everywhere else, Winchester was the right place to cap off such an amazing adventure.

But first we had to get there, which proved to be more challenging than I had originally thought. So, I'll tell the story as I it happened, though to this day, Jared makes it sound like I screwed up worse than I did. You're welcome to believe whomever you like, but here's how it happened.

Before we left for our german airport to fly to London, and then train to Winchester, we needed to call James and set up a meeting point because none of us knew where he had moved to while we had been gone. However, no one had his phone number, which was problem number one. So, after multiple attempts at trying to solicit a response over facebook from him, which proved unsuccessful, we decided to leave him a facebook message explaining our plan. I did the mental gymnastics and told him that, between the flight to London, getting to Waterloo station, and from there, taking the train to Winchester, we should be at the Winchester train station no later than 8:45pm, and that if we weren't there, then he should just meet us at The Black Boy, a pub which warrants a better description later. Nothing too complicated there...if we aren't there at 8:45pm, go to the Black Boy and we'll see ya there. So we set off from Angi's place with the illusion that we had a well structured plan in motion.

The plane ride was uneventful, though a little bumpy. Anyone who flies with me will tell you that even the slightest amount of turbulence reminds me of the opening sequence of LOST, in which a plane starts with mild turbulence and then crashes on a desert island. Most trips, I'm rocking the white knuckle grip on my armrest. I'm somewhere in between having a fear of flying and just being a worrier. I won't not fly, as it's the fastest way to get around, but I sure as hell don't like it. Anyway, uneventful flight, and we touch down in Luton airport in London. Now, I had taken into account the 40 minutes it would take us to get from Luton to London's center, but did not (and here was my mistake) account for the travel time through the tube to Waterloo Station.....during rush hour.

We ended up getting to Waterloo thinking that we had screwed the pooch on making our 8:45 deadline, and that the chances of a Winchester train leaving in the next few minutes was pretty unlikely. Thats when we looked up at the time board: Winchester train in three minutes. Three minutes isn't enough time to get through the ticket que, have the tickets printed, run to your gate, and hope you can jump onto the train like an action hero as it's already pulling away. But we all knew that to make it even close to the time we had said it was 'go big or go home' time. We bolted to the nearest ticket machine, thankfully free, and tried our best to buy all three tickets on my card. The machine said no go. So then we started the process again, wasting precious seconds trying it with all of our cards, until finally we realized that the machine thought this was a bad call on our parts. With our fourth attempted transaction with the ticket machine, we all bought our own tickets, and waiting wringing our hands as the tickets printed slower than the time it takes grass to grow. We all had tickets, and bolted to the gate as fast as possible. We saw the train in the distance, and to this day I have never run to catch a train as fast as I had that day. With surprising fluidity and poise (we didn't knock anyone over with our huge backpacks), we made it to the train as the doors were lighting up, signaling the train's departure. We stepped on the crowded first car, and 30 seconds later, the doors closed and the train left. A harrowing escape, but we had made it by the straps of our backpacks. With all that we could do done, we waited as the train sped through the night towards Winchester. With no seats available, we sat on our backpacks in the doorway near the bathroom, listening to music and realizing we were gonna have to lug our junk around for longer than we had hoped. An hour later, the train docked at Winchester's train station, a familiar sight. The clock read 9:00pm, so we were only 15 minutes late (which, considering the hurdles we jumped, I wouldn't call half bad).

We hoofed it down to the Black Boy, a 10 minute walk, and took seats. James was nowhere to be found, and we were concerned the plan had changed while we were traveling. We had no phone, no phone number, and only our iPod Touch to check the internet. One can't expect one of the oldest looking bars in an old town to have wireless internet, so we tried, expecting nothing. But, glorious day, Jared had the smallest sliver of internet, enough to just barely check facebook. James had indeed changed the plan, leaving us his phone number, with instructions to call when we were in. It's a small miracle that we had caught that train, but to have the internet to see the new plan was nothing short of the travel gods smiling upon us. I went to the bar and asked the bartender in my American accent if I could use the phone to phone a friend. I explained our situation and, with some hesitance, she let me make the call. 30 minutes later, James was down at the Black Boy, and we spent some time drinking, catching up, and playing cards. We had arrived.

Now, we ended up spending two weeks straight in Winchester, and to detail every moment of every day is something that would 1. Take too long to read in one entry and 2. Won't always be that interesting. In two weeks, you have a lot of downtime. So, I boiled it down to the best stories from Winchester, which should still be plenty (maybe even two chapters worth), but I figured that was the best way to do it. So without further ado, here are the stories.

Story 1: "And you are the ugliest C*** I've seen all night!" -- A profile of the drunks in Winchester

(Warning: This story has a couple instances of strong language. But if you've gotten this far, that stuff probably doesn't bother you).

This story takes place right where I left off. We had just left the Black Boy, packs still in tow, to go to Spoons, a favorite college bar in Winchester known for their pitcher cocktails like the Blue Lagoon and the Fallen Angel. James had some school friends he wanted to meet that night, and all of us were fine with going to Spoons to grab a drink. We all ordered drinks and sat down, with James joining us shortly after talking to his friends. We're all sitting there playing cards when I hear a shout to my left "Oi! Farmer!". I peer left and see a table of college kids with shit-eating grins on their face, all looking at me and waiting for kind of response. Not one to play to other people, I simply ignored them. Obviously, that wasn't the reaction they were looking for as for the next 15 minutes, I was literally pelted with "Oi Farmer!", "Hey Farmer!" and of course, just "Farmer!!!" as they attempted to drive their point home. We all sat there playing cards, sipping beers, and marveling at the amount they must have had to drink. Eventually they conceded, but shortly afterwards, Tori was shuffling the cards. She is very good at doing the bridge shuffle, something I may never master, and she was just shuffling the cards for the next round when we heard a rather amazed gasp come from that same table. A girl was looking right at Tori, and then practically slurred "Howw'd you dooo that?". She stumbled over to our table and looks right at Tori and declares "Thats a magic trick! You know magic tricks!!". Before Tori could confirm or deny this fact the girl comes right back with "Then you must be able to read my aura then! Tell me, it isn't green is it? I went to a psychic with my mum last month and she said it was green because I was jealous. I don't look jealous, do I?". The entire table was trying to keep it together, to prolong this as long as possible, and Tori tried her best to explain that she couldn't read auras and that the bridge wasn't that hard. Then Tori made a solid attempt to teach her which, of course, didn't go so well, as the girl was just barely holding herself up. She eventually left with her clan, and we all sat there laughing for a moment at what she had to drink. Our laughter was short lived as another guy came up to our table. I wasn't ever certain if he was a mate of James' or just a perfect stranger (I would bank on perfect stranger myself), but he went up to our table, listened to our conversation for about five minutes, then declared, loudly, that "You're all boring as fuck man!". He then decided that wasn't enough, and started doling out individual awards, pointing to all of us one at a time and shouting "You're boring as fuck, you're boring as fuck, you're boring as fuck", until he got to Tori, where he then mentioned she was 'pretty cute'. So, with the confidence knowing this guy was a mess, we had a little fun with him. I started with "Wait....how boring are we then?", to which he replied "Boring as fuck!". James followed with "Wait mate, on a scale of 1 to 'as fuck', how boring are we?", to which he replied "as fuck!". Then he whipped around to me, pointed right at me, and said "And you have got to be the ugliest cunt I've seen here all night!". I shrugged it off, thinking that if he wanted to start something, we'd be the ones to finish it, but instead he complained one more time that we were boring, and that should try cocaine, and then he left. Not quite what I was expecting my first night back, but thats just one Winchester story.

Story 2: A 23rd to Remember Most Of -- The Tale of Jared's 23rd Birthday Party

Jared's birthday is on October 13th every year, and this particular year, it fell on our second day in Winchester. Jared only really knew James and Rachel well at this point, but by the end of the night, he would have made new friends left and right. We woke up late and decided to head to the West Quay Mall in Southampton. Between hitting stores in West Quay and just walking around Southampton, we ended up having lunch at Yo! Sushi, one of those places with the food in bowls on the conveyor belt, which I thought was pretty cool. As a newfound fan of sushi, I ate a king's feast of raw fish with Jared, who had different portions of his meal paid for by the various people who had come out with us. We topped the meal off with a very large can of Sapporo beer in a large, study can. We spent the rest of the day preparing for going out that night, for which we had tried to establish a theme (which no one, including ourselves, followed through on.....something like 'crazy hats' or some such nonsense). As the night progressed the guest list grew to about 15 people including James' brother, Ralph, a guy who can make people laugh and doesn't apologize for it. He had showed up wearing a plain white t-shirt, and had asked that we color it in, but with "not gay stuff", which we promptly ignored as we covered his shirt with sharpie.

After a couple drinks, we headed down to the bar Mikiki's (a name that I had to see on a sign to comprehend as I had heard everything from Mikikahs to Wahkikis when I asked people where we were going), a little beyond where the river Itchen intersects the center of town. It was a hangout for the different clubs of Winchester University, including the sports teams (everything from soccer to dodgeball), and various social clubs. We joined a party already in progress as some of the folks from James' dodgeball team in addition to those in his friend group had been there for a bit, ingesting cocktails for which the titular 'cocktail hour' was named. We caught up quickly, and soon, it was a pretty big mass of drinking, picture taking, and rambunctious behavior I'm surprised didn't get us ejected. One of the qualities of 'drunk Jared' is that when intoxicated, he becomes very affectionate. His professions of love are frequent, and he will kiss you, regardless of gender, age, or marital status. So, of course, when you feel a grip on your behind, and you look back, it was generally Jared, though by the end of the night, everyone was doing it. I remember, at one point, we had about five guys lift James off the ground, body surfing style, and toss him into the air. However, as gravity started to take hold of his body, about 6 feet off the floor, none of us seemed interested in the responsibility of actually catching him. So, when he came hurtling back to Earth, about 70% of him came down on me, and I like to think I did an OK job of catching him. It was nothing for the highlight reel, but I did get a big thanks. Later we messed around with the DJ booth, and got yelled at by the proprietor. After a solid hour of drunken debauchery, we headed to our next destination, Spoons.

At Spoons, we all promptly ordered a pitcher of cocktail (mine and Jared's were Blue Lagoons). We talked and reminisced of times past for about an hour, nursing the pitchers, until someone came over and alerted us to the fact that they were closing up shop. This was fine, but some of us had a near full pitcher to take care of, Jared among them. What followed was a group 'slam' of pitchers, where everyone put the drink straw to their mouth and proceeded to slurp as fast as they could. We all finished our pitchers (except our friend Bobbie, who simply just took hers with her), and decided the route home. It had been decided by others that the ladies would take a big cab and the men folk would walk home. This was fine, except that there was an extra seat in the cab, and Jared was in no condition to walk home (he was gone at this point, hanging off our friend Alex for the duration of the walk home), and I'm not sure how the cab pulled away without anyone's argument for this being heard, but such is life. What followed was a cold 20 minute walk back to James' house, highlighted by some drunken quotes including Jared's battle proclamation to Alex: "You and me.......we are going to CHESS BATTLE!", and Ralph taking some liberties with the 'public nudity' clause in England's laws while taking a leak. All in all, an epic night and certainly a good birthday.

Story 3: Back in London -- Our Reunion With Caitlin

With Tori back in our midst since our last time in England, we decided to take a day trip back to London (as Tori had not yet gone since 2008). So, on the 19th of October, we headed back up to foggy London town, but with an added incentive: Our friend Caitlin from Barcelona was visiting up there for a bit and wanted to day trip with us for the day! It was an exciting proposition, as we had all done our own traveling since Barcelona, and we had stories to exchange. We met up with Caitlin at the Burger King in Waterloo Station (as recognizable a landmark as any, I suppose) and we got lunch and caught up. Caitlin had been all over since we last left, including Italy, Prague, and Germany among other luxurious locations. We told her what we had been up to, with our stints in other european countries, and we all had a laugh before heading over to the London Eye. If you can remember that far back, Jared and I had tried to get on the Eye our last trip, but failed to reach the deadline, so we were excited to make it this time. The London Eye, if for some reason you've never heard, is like a giant ferris wheel with a 30 minute ride time before you come full circle. It takes you (and probably, another group of tourists) up to heights unknown in a glass room, so that your photo ops are open for a 360 degree vista of the Westminster portion of London. In an awesome, if somewhat unexpected moment on the Eye, Caitlin pointed at a building and listed off a whole slew of architectural facts and figures about it, taking me slightly off guard. I asked her if she liked architecture much, to which she replied "I FUCKING LOVE ARCHITECTURE" (inside joke from the Barcelona post).

After our ride on the Eye (with good pictures in tow), we headed to grab a decent meal. We walked around Parliament street, until Tori announced that she was interested in seeing the Tate Museum's collection and wasn't hungry, so she took off for an hour while the rest of us went looking for a pub for a proper pub lunch (Caitlin insisted we have a proper 'pub lunch'). And out of all the places in London, we happen back upon the Red Lion from our third day of the whole trip. Naturally, we headed in to make sure the food was how we remembered it oh so long ago, and weren't disappointed. It might have actually been better than the first go around, as I had some fish in lemon sauce with a Stella Artois that seemed to go well together. Tori met us at the Red Lion after we had wiled away the hour with more talk and a few beers, and we headed from there to another location from our first trip, Hamley's Toy Store. The giant store remained much the way we had left it, with ridiculous displays showing off toys bigger than a Ford F-150, people doing magic tricks, and flying remote helicopters around, all the while kids pulled at their parents sleeves, and with adorable accents, proclaimed the varying levels of desire for this toy or that toy. We spent all of our remaining Caitlin time here before she had to meet up with the people she was staying with, so we walked her to the Tube stop she was departing from. We said our good byes, sad though they were, and went our separate ways. In all honesty, I have a strong feeling that our paths with cross again, and I can't wait to see her again.

With Caitlin on her way, we headed to our last destination, a tea shop called the Muffin Man that my parents had been fond of on their last trip to London. They had asked me if could possibly stop there and grab them as much tea as customs would allow me to bring into the US the next time I was in London. So, we all sat down and had a proper tea time (roughly the accurate time as well). Having recently missed out on a chance to go to Devon with a friend (a missed opportunity I'm still kicking myself over), I tried to make amends by at least having a traditional Devon Cream Tea at the Muffin Man. A much debated topic for residents of Devon and Cornwall, I've been told that the proper way to eat one's crumpet (or other tea snack) is to first cover it in cream, followed afterwards by jam, and NOT the other way around. People swear by their version of this tea time debate, so it's important all you out there know the 'correct' way to do things. After a delicious and refreshing tea time, we headed out into what was now pouring rain, and towards the train that would bear us back to Winchester for a relaxed evening.

Story 4: All Hallows Eve Comes Early -- How We Spent The 24th Of October In Costumes

As long as we had arrived, James had been telling us that there was a party in store for us "americans finally making it back over here", and eventually, the idea became that since we would be leaving prior to Halloween, that we should simply find some way to combine both parties into what I believe is called a "Super-Party. We had about a weeks notice to put together costumes, so we all went out in search of what would be some ridiculous and creative costumes. We had all gone to the West Quay in Southampton to grab halloween decorations and costumes at the British version of the Halloween Super Store, and it was there that I stumbled upon that simply screamed at me. I picked it up, and looked at the name: "Super Workman Green". "Cheeky", I remembered thinking, knowing full well what I had in my hands was a Luigi costume from the popular Super Mario Brothers series of video game. Seeing as how I was more willing to pay a flat rate for one costume than trying to pick out pieces at a time to create a costume, I added some white gloves and a mustache to the ensemble and had my costume in the bag. I was going as Luigi from Super Mario (master of the salmon dive, for those of you who play Super Smash Bros).

Tori, as per usual, was determined to make a costume from the various pieces she could acquire and it worked with relatively good results. Last time we were in Winchester, Tori had masterfully recreated an Underdog costume from things in her room in roughly 20 minutes, so the talent was there this time as well, but she could never decide what she wanted to go as. We started the day shopping for objects to complete a "Tails" costume (Tails, of course, being Sonic the Hedgehog's endearingly feminine sidekick who can fly using his helicopter-esque three tails, hence the name), but ended up with a weird assortment of supplies that didn't resemble much. As the days progressed, Tori did eventually land on the idea of going as Gogo, the ball and chain wielding school girl of Kill Bill Part 1 fame. Grabbing a black wig from the nearby party shop, a plastic ball and chain, and borrowing an old school uniform from James' girlfriend Rachel, she pulled the look off. The look was a psychopathic school girl swinging around a menacing looking weapon of course, but nevertheless, it looked well done.

Jared.....well, Jared procrastinated. He had been thinking all week abut what he wanted to go as, but as the days passed, he eventually found his time and ability to create an elaborate costume dwindling. So, the day before the party, he and I went to Winchester's party store to get him a costume. We walked around looking at the choices, some expensive, some less so. But even here, a consensus couldn't be reached as to what Jared would be, so he too grabbed a random looking assortment of pieces, including a perfectly white mask, an axe, a banner that read "happy new year", and some other insane and menacing looking accessories. By then end, I had no idea what he would look like, but I did know that I wouldn't have wanted to meet him in a dark alley.

The morning of the party arrived and it was time for a crazy shopping spree at the local supermarket, Sainsburys, to get everything in order. While there, we all spent roughly 20 pounds each making sure we had the food, the snacks, the beer, the liquor, and the mixers all taken care of. As it turns out, we bought too much alcohol, but we wouldn't know until the following morning. The day was spent getting the house decorated with spiderwebs, the plastic bloody footprints all over the house, doorways covered by dirty looking (store bought) rags that had knife holes cut into them, and all manner of scary apparatus'. We had elected to put Jared in charge of making our punch, which turned out to be a good call. It was a delicious tropical punch with pomegranate and orange juice as a base, with passion fruit liquor to add flavor, and with the added kick of vodka. We all had a taste while we were setting up, and when the snacks were finally set out (gummi worms, gummi eyeballs, bloody looking twizzlers, and then chips) we all dressed up and waited for 7pm to roll around. We may have had more punch as well...

Then people showed up and the party was underway. And it was quite the insane party. To start, the level of effort put into some of the costumes we had there was staggering, with our friend Joe looking as close to a pirate as any of of had ever seen, and everyone had gotten into the spirit of the occasion. Everywhere you looked, you had mad doctors, salty sailors, lawless roughriders, knights of the crusade, and even Hit Girl from Kick Ass showed up. Thankfully, when it comes to costume parties, England has never disappointed me in any possible way. The next notable thing was the punch. Jared had had more of it to drink than the rest of us, but regardless, it was going fast. However, over the course of the night it went more from delicious to alcoholic as, every time I looked over at the punch bowl, there was more vodka being poured into it. This is not to say the flavor was lost, but it was, over time, diminished. However, I don't think anyone noticed by that point, as the beer had been broken out, shots were happening in the kitchen nearby, and All Hallows Eve was in full swing a week early.

We followed up with drinking games whose rules I had never heard of and for which I could only provide educated guesses about. 21 was a game where you were all sitting in a circle meant to recite numbers from 1 to 21 in order, one number per person. However, to say two numbers would reverse the direction of who was supposed to go next, and saying three simply skipped the following person, and of course, if you call out a number out of turn, or happen to be the unlucky fellow who has 21, you must drink, and for a good period of time as well. Of course Kings Cup came up as well as all manner of game. Around 11, some old friends I had invited showed up. Matt and Jack, both fantastic people, came by dressed as a priest and Super Mario (in that order) which helped to complete my own costume. It was at this point where the night starts to blur a little bit.

I know that one poor guy had reached his limit a little early in the evening, and could be found on the back porch throwing up in the inflatable cauldron. I know that everyone was pretty drunk and having a good time. At some point, someone shouted "Dance Party in the kitchen!", and shortly following most of the girls (and the more adventuresome/drunk men) followed in for some good music and dancing. I know we all shot-gunned more beer. And that the party went until roughly two in the morning. And that, while it was some of the most fun I've ever had, the head ache the next morning was unpleasant (though not debilitating), and the house looked like a war zone. The next morning was spent rebuilding the house, and counting how much alcohol had been consumed. The rough estimate, between 20 people, seemed to be about 27 beers, a half gallon of vodka (in the punch), another fifth of vodka, and as always, who knows what people brought in flasks or other containers not counted. Any way you count it, it was one hell of a party, and the best way I could think to spend our psuedo-halloween in England.

Story 5: The Best Pubs in England -- The Story of How I Chose My Next Adventure, and a look at the Black Boy Pub

First of all, if you don't know Amelia, you should get on that. One of my favorite people in Winchester, me and Amelia became friends when I first came to Winchester back in 2008. And theres a lot of back story about our numerous misadventures that I won't bore you about (they are outlined in my first travel stories collection from 2008). However, Amelia is one of the funniest and charming people I've had the chance to meet, and after a couple visits already throughout this trip, she asked me if I wanted to drive with her to a small pub called The Bridge in nearby Shawford. Amelia had just gotten her driver's license a couple months prior and, though a little nervous, thought that I should watch her drive, to which I happily obliged. For all of the things she said about her bad driving, it was a perfectly smooth ride (save for one missed turn), and we got to The Bridge with no trouble at all. Even the parking job was spot on. We went in, and had some delicious crisps and a pint of ale for me and we just sat back and talked. It's one of those moments where the interesting life conversations come into play, and you get the gist of what may be happening when you part ways for an extended period of time (and such was our fate, my being American and all). But then, Amelia asked me where my next trip would bring me, and what I wanted to do with it. I had thought about it before, but hadn't decided on anything. After our whole European excursion, I knew that I wanted to go to Australia because I had a ton of friends down there and a desire to see the island. I also had a strong desire to see more of Europe than I had previously, places like Austria, Italy, and the Czech Republic, as their cultures were bound to be an even bigger departure from the cities I had seen on this trip. But, when I answered, I mentioned a trip I had been thinking of doing when I was planning my first travel writing book, and that was a trip around England, maybe even branching into Scotland depending on how the idea evolves, and finding (and enjoying) the 50 best pubs in the United Kingdom.

Amelia was a big fan of the idea, saying she wanted to join me on it as my compatriot (and she said she would be an amazing driver by then), to which I said 'of course'. So, there is a plan in the works for those of you following my potential future writing projects. And, to be honest, if you suffered to this point through the occasional switching of past and present tense, the typos, and the incorrect grammar, then you are already too heavily invested to give up now. When we departed that day, it would be the last time I would see Amelia until my possible return (to no fault of her own, despite what she says contrary).

Now of course, this was the day following the Halloween party, so no one was feeling quite up to another round of all out debauchery, what with the house finally clean and all. But we were still in the process of seeing people from our first trip to Winchester in 2008, and tonight we were going to the Black Boy to cross Rachel Marie off our list. We called up Matt and Jack, who really, were more or less a bro-couple (despite Jack having a girlfriend at the time) to come down and meet us there for some pints. Now, before we get into our calm night of not doing much, let me go over the Black Boy.

The Black Boy, ever since I've been in it my first time, has been the best pub I've ever been to. To start, when you walk in, you are immediately transported back to the 1600s, as old wooden beams, and brick walls with untold years of wear and tear make up the frame of this small, cozy building. To your left is a fireplace, forever lit and generating the inviting warmth that pulls people off the streets and inside for a pint of ale on cold, winter nights. The decor looks like a mix between a collection of oddball art, stuffed animals (taxidermy style), and antiques. If you head left, you'll see a stuffed camel and seal hanging out. Theres an alligator nailed to a beam, and nearby you see an old school eye testing machine. There are signs, whose words have no impact posted inside a pub, and walls of books that no one will read. There's a wall covered with red buckets, and a jaguar nearby, looking as though it will cut you down in your prime. But the icing on the cake? There is a stuffed monkey, in a kilt, tending to a donkey. This place truly is something to behold. The furniture is worn wooden tables, and the ales are always cold and tasty. It's the perfect place to have a drink, talk with friends, sit down, read a book, take a nap, or while away a night reminiscing with friends, which is precisely what we did.

We met up with Rachel, Matt, and Jack, and just had a couple pints and talked about our trip and the good times back in 2008. To you, the reader, there might not be anything particularly remarkable about people just sitting and chatting, but for all of the crazy things that have happened on this trip, it doesn't hurt to have a story with some normalcy to it.

And those are the stories. We spent our last twenty four hours abroad reflecting on our trip and saying goodbye to as many people as possible (and we had such a cool group photo moment our last night when we surprised our friends Kirk and Tom by bringing everyone over for one last group picture). When at last the time came to leave, we woke at 6:30am, just to be safe. We had to travel from Winchester, to Woking, take the shuttle bus to Heathrow, fly from Heathrow to Philly, and from Philly to Seattle, and of course, you want to be safe when trying to catch a plane in a foreign country. Speaking of being safe, though we had heard that terror alerts were escalating while we were in England, we had no trouble whatsoever of getting safely to the airport, and back to America.

We said our goodbyes to James and his lot. They had been extraordinary to us those two weeks while putting us up, and that favor will not be forgotten anytime soon. And before we knew it, we were in a cab, heading off to leave the country. We made it to Woking, got on the right shuttle bus, and even made it to our flight early. We landed in Philly around midday, where Tori would be splitting from the group to catch a plane to New York to see her sister. We said our goodbyes to Tori.....well, Jared did. Tori was in a rush to catch her plane as it was already boarding, and I was pulled aside by airport security (for possibly the hundredth time this trip), so by the time I was out, she had already booked it for the terminal. Such is life in the airport sometimes. Me and Jared boarded our flight, and it was an unpleasant flight because of the crazy turbulence and the length. I remember thinking it was a miracle that we touched down, but again thats just my dislike of flying. Though the plane came in a lot earlier than expected, my folks had been keeping updated on it's arrival time and were at the baggage claim when I came out to grab my backpack. A (comparatively) short 3 hours later and we had dropped Jared off at his sisters, and I was home.

Finally home. What an amazing adventure.

--Ben

PS: I've got two more, smaller chapter to add to the end, so keep your eyes open for them.

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