INTRODUCTION TO ENGLISH ROUNDABOUTS

We arrived to Heathrow 40 minutes late and waited on "Other Passports" line to get our little stamp. Behind us, were a bunch of scrawny dope-smoking NY'ers with unruly hair and bitchy men. This strange looking group wore only red and black and the women were carrying all of the large pieces of carry-on luggage. The sissy men were complaining about their flight delays and how horrendous the British food was. Erm...Brits may not be known for their food, but it's not as though you're entering a 3rd world country with no clean drinking water, ya know!???

Moreover, one of the whiners was trying VERY hard to impress us that he worked on Wall Street.


Yeesh, talk about surrounded by some really characters on lines. First we have the old British gent w/o any humor and now we have a bunch of negatively charged hyenic males from Wall Street.

Then I hopped down the escalator and grabbed the only red luggage on the nearest belt. Uh-Oh...WRONG belt Linda! Ching couldn't understand WTF I was doing...when I finally got to the right belt, I didn't see my suitcase on the belt. I started having convulsions assuming that it might've been lost. I searched through a bunch of suitcases on the floor and it wasn't there.

I was shittin' bricks.

So I took a deep breath and did what I always do: Go through it a second time.

It was in the midst of the other suitcases on the floor that other Americans were poking and prodding at. I think when I gave it a looksee the first time, someone had removed it from the bunch and tried to determine if it was theirs.

So off I go!

The airport looked like a worn subway station. Half of it was under construction and the rest reminded me of an armory. When we exited, I was looking around for Richard, Chie's friend. Quite honestly, I wasn't at all worried since it would pretty darn EASY for him to pick us out...I mean, c'mon, how many Asians are there?!?!?!?


When I finally met up with Richard, the sod was ridden with anxiety and drenched in a pool of his own sweat. It was quite horrendous. He had been up half past 4 in the morning and was probably dying at the arrivals gate waiting for us. When we were at the carpark, he tried to pry open a silver Volvo Passat when he actually drove a Mazda T2. We meandered/zigzagged through the entire level looking for his rental car. Because of the weight of my luggage, I found it absurd to look every other silver colored car. So, I morphed into a princessy snob and insisted that until he found the RIGHT car, he can drive it up to the standing area with the both of us. I was getting mighty tired from trying to squeeze myself between vehicles with my 26" luggage only to find out that it wasn't his car. Aiyah.

I guess this is why he thinks I'm obnoxious.

And there's a really good reason why.

According to Chie, Richard has a penchant for Asian girls. Ugh. Usually it makes me cringe, but because he's harmless, it didn't bother me as much. Plus, he's never been in a real relationship, nor does he know how to conduct himself amongst women in social situations. Based on that note, I left my "Bi-otch Mode" on standby just in case. I didn't need any of that sort of madness during my ultra-special holiday.

Although Richard is a thoughtful chap and his heart's in the right place, he appears to carry an aura of emptiness around him. He may have hobbies, interests and whatnot, the lack of his own personal being makes him more of a mouse than a man. Worst of all, he also lacks a chunk of confidence which sets him back even further. He publicly displays his clinginess towards us (more Ching than I, since I'm obnoxious - according to Richard) which also means that he doesn't have a whopping load of friends either.

Unfortunately, Richard upholds the English stereotype of having bad teeth. His lower jaw is so crammed that one of his teeth is displaced on the center row which causes him to speak in a lisp. I spent most of the time nodding away at him and had to politely ask him to repeat himself. Between the Brum accent and the lisp, it was hard enough for my ears! Aiyah.

And...he has one really bad, bad, bad attribute: Body Odor.

It's undeniably abominable.

Imagine having to sit in the front of the car for 3 hours going from London to Birmingham.

Well, the speed demon made it to Brum in record time of 2.25 hours and I felt obligated to keep him company. After all, he did wake up at some ungodly hour in the morning just to come and fetch us. Ching had passed out in the back and I was left with entertaining a sod who mumbled while he spoke. He must definitely think I'm a snob because I insisted that the air conditioning be turned up high. Women. Fricking high maintenance. If it weren't for that, I couldn't think any other way to control his BO! Oy.

We grabbed a bite at some restaurant in the mall and I could tell that he wanted to show us more of Birmingham. However, I was dying to see Sarah and could give a rat's ass about seeing his birthplace. It's an industrial and dirty little city, so it didn't strike my fancy since it wasn't at all picturesque.

So onward to Tamworth!

When we reached the exit, Richard handed me directions printed off of Multimap.com:

• At the roundabout, take the first exit onto A5 Watling Street for 0.3 miles
• At the roundabout, take the third exit onto B5080 Pennine Way for 0.1 miles
• At the roundabout, take the first exit onto B5080 Pennine Way for 1.2 miles
• At the roundabout, take the first exit onto B5000 Glascote Road for 0.2 miles
• At the roundabout, take the third exit onto Mercian Way for 0.2 miles
• At the roundabout, take the second exit onto Mercian Way for 0.5 miles
• At the roundabout, take the first exit onto Woodland Road
• Turn left onto Juniper

Because we got terribly lost with the roundabouts (called rotaries up in New England) and I was stuck with severe bouts of motion sickness, we went sightseeing around Tamworth. Here, you'd find a mix of suburbia, town and country thrown in. After a slew of phone calls and pit stops at the gas station, we finally got to Amington. Richard later modified the driving directions to this:


We were greeted by the boys in their front yard. Sam, Ben and Joe had grown up so much since I last saw them 7 years ago. Ben caught sight of me and yelled over to his parents to announce my arrival. Excited, I ran out of the car and was greeted warmly by Sarah and a bear hug from Andy the Studmuffin. Andy went over to meet both Ching and Richard while grabbing my bags. Now that's man with proper manners! Richard oughta learn a lesson or two from Andy.

As we entered the porch, Evie, their youngest, threw a fit right then and there - face down, hands and knees on the floor. Andy nonchalantly picked her up from the back of her overalls like a piece of luggage, carted her over to the kitchen, allowing her to resume her tantrum, while we all entered the house. It was all very amusing.

We had Chinese takeaway that night with the Ridgards. It was lovely.