Where In The World Is Sum1?

Merry Ol' England!

Date: Week of November 26^th


Locale: Mildenhall, England


         This week finds me staying in Mildenhall, England while working at the nearby RAF Lakenheath.  It's been quite the experience this week, in more ways than one,


         The class itself was a good one, excellent students and a lot of hands on activities that technicians like this love.  The journey here was quite different, as has been my stay.  Let's look at each of those individually.

         First things first.  The flight here.  All was well, even with a 1.5 hour delay at O'Hare for a minor mechanical problem.  When we travel internationally like this, we have to book our trip through American Express Travel instead of making the reservations ourselves.  A nice added bonus, is that since the total travel time was over eight hours, I could be booked in Business class.  A very nice thing!  Then, reality hit when I arrived.  I had decided not to rent a car, I just couldn't see me driving on the 'wrong side' of the road, sitting on the 'wrong side' of the car!  So I used trains to get me to Cambridge, which took about 3 hours.  From there, a cab to my beautifulspaciousancient, but perfectly 'old world', hotel.  And I do mean old world.

         Secondly, about that hotel.  My parents always said that if you can't say anything nice about something, be quiet.  So I won't bad mouth this hotel, but I will tell the truth.  The room is small, very small.  The TV is mounted on a bracket in the corner, and its screen is barely larger than my laptop.  I've not used it.  The room itself is quite warm, it is clean, relatively so.  Freshly vacuumed every day, bed made, all that.  It's just that there's barely room to walk around the bed to get to this desk.  It too, is small.  Can you tell I'm spoiled by past travels??  The kicker is the bathroom.  A triangular shaped tub, it sits about ten inches off the floor.  All electrical in the bathroom is turned on by one of five pull strings.  Yes, there's even one to power on the box for the shower.  It really is quite the set up. 

         Fortunately, there are several restaurants around town, and the food is good.  So I've not gone hungry at least, though since I'm trying to lose some weight, maybe I shouldn't find them, huh! 

         The awakening moment really came on Monday when I started to head to work.  I went downstairs (no elevators in this 300-400 year old hotel), and the lobby was completely dark, with all the doors bolted shut.  I called several taxi services (it's five miles to RAF Lakenheath), but all were busy on school runs?  I finally found one, and got to work on time.  Still, it was very strange having that much trouble getting a taxi to pick me up.  Luckily one of the students took pity on me, and drove me to and from after that.


         Other than that, it's been a great week! 

In Closing

         I will spend the weekend at home, then be in Chicago for a couple of days.  One of my friends just celebrated his 35th year with Motorola, so the boss is taking us all to his favorite restaurant Wednesday night.  The following week, I'm in Chicago for class. Til next time, be good to yourselves and those you love, and WRITE!



Jim Dorrell