In order to better transition some of my work to my UK teammates, I traveled over to the UK for 4 days of face to face meetings. I left Denver at 6:30PM Saturday evening and arrived at Heathrow at 10:30AM Sunday. I took a taxi to Milton Keynes which is just over an hour North of London. I was completely delirious and was nervous I was going to get car sick but instead I passed out for the entire drive. I checked into the training center, took a nap, and headed to the mall of course. I bought a few things for the baby – the main thing being a massive stuffed sheep for the nursery.
I worked out of Kent Hill for Monday and then traveled another two hours North to Yarnfield where we have a training center. I stayed in this gorgeous bed and breakfast in this quaint English town near Stone. I kept commenting how gorgeous it was and the boys kept saying “it isn’t gorgeous – it is normal”. The brilliant green country side had beautiful farm houses with sheep and cows, gorgeous Tudor houses, stones covered in moss, and the friendliest people you can imagine. Everyone is extra nice to the American lady with the “bump” as they like to say.
The food here is very “interesting”. White pepper repulses me and it seems to be in everything. On the first night my dinner was completely coated in it so I just had chocolate cake. One lunch, my co-worker had a baked potato with a scoop of tuna salad on top of it! I was horrified and when I told them we put sour cream, chives, cheese and bacon bits on our “jacket” potatoes they were completely grossed out. They drink horrible instant coffee all day and the boys eat crisps (potato chips) for breakfast. I really enjoyed my rhubarb flavored yogurt, Twirl chocolate bars, and of course salt and vinegar crisps. One night I had fish and chips with mushy peas in an old English pub and a few spoonfuls of a traditional English desert sticky toffee pudding. I am guessing it was the sugar but the baby was seriously doing painful aerobics for a several hours!
The trip was very productive. It was great to finally meet my three teammates whom I talk to on the phone several times a week. We were able to accomplish a lot of work and it was nice to get to know the guys on a personal level. Their English sense of humor is so fun and being able to show them how to do things in person made such a huge difference.
On my flight home I managed to have three seats to myself so I was able to keep my legs elevated the entire flight. This helped to minimize the insane leg swelling I had on the flight out. I had no jet leg on the way to the UK with the exception of the first day being a disaster. I am interested to see how I recover on the return flight….
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