Reunited-Day 127-May 17th, 2018

I woke up around 8 AM today with a pretty rough sleep. That is okay though because this is likely one of the last, or the last time I will stay in a hostel. They serve their purpose, but I am over them. I got up at 8 AM and couldn’t sleep in any longer. The office didn’t open until 9 AM so I was hoping I could sleep in until them.

Instead, I packed up my stuff and enjoyed the “continental breakfast”. This was just a bowl of cornflakes with toast and coffee. It served its purpose and filled me up. I still had about thirty minutes until I could check out, so I sat in the lounge area. The TV was on and was playing an episode of the sitcom Frasier. I had never seen this before, but I watched a whole episode while waiting and enjoyed it a lot.

When the episode was over, the office had opened up and I checked out. More importantly, I got my 10 pounds for the key back. The plan for today was to get picked up by Andrew and Sam around 2 at Woking station near Surrey. I had to figure out some things to do until then.

My only real plan was to go to the Crystal Palace soccer stadium, which is a team in the Premier league. A few of my friends at BU are really into the Premier league soccer and as a joke, I claim to support Crystal Palace. Not only were they one of the worst teams, but I literally knew nothing about them. I would occasionally look up scores of their games to break causally in conversations with my friends as a joke. I thought it would be hilarious if I actually went to their stadium and took a picture, especially since I was close by today.

One bus ride later, I was there.

Me at the Stadium

I didn’t stay long and really just took my picture. I got one of the security guards there to take a picture of me. I hopped on the bus again for my decently long ride back. I still had some time to kill, so I went to this restaurant called Nandos.

It is a slightly upscale fast food place in England that a lot of my friends have raved about. I knew I had to try it.

I got four chicken thighs with “chips” and “mash”. It was pretty good, though I must have forgotten to take a picture.

After eating it was time to head the station to meet Sam and Andrew. It was about an hour long trip that involved a bus then a train ride. This went pretty smoothly and soon I was waiting at the station. Before I knew it, Sam and Andrew had arrived to pick me up.

We chatted up and reconnected about everything in the past couple months. We also made a bunch of stupid noises. The area Sam is known as Surrey, area of outstanding natural beauty.

The Outstanding Beauty

We got to his house and it was a very nice change from my hostel yesterday. I introduced myself to Sam’s Mom and gave her the bottle I had bought. Sam, Andrew and I then made ourselves some negronis to have while chilling on the porch.

Negroni Boys

Andrew and Sam

We spent a good while just relaxing until around dinner. Sam’s parents were out, but they left a bolognese sauce for us to heat up. We cooked some pasta to go with it naturally.

Our dinner

After dinner we cleaned up and decided to watch a movie after relaxing for a bit again. About half an hour into the movie, both Andrew and Sam’s jet lag hit hard and they passed out.

I was decently tired too and we ended up all going to bed.