Part 1a
Away from the Grey
Wednesday, 18th November, 2009. 3:30am GMT
I’m stood at the bus station in Plymouth (UK) with a rucksack on my back and a suitcase by my side. Plymouth bus station is kinda weird in that it has 2 nightclubs in it, outside one of which I’ve bumped into an old friend who’s out in the bitter winter weather promoting a night of his which is taking place over the coming weekend. As we stand around chit-chatting while I wait for my bus to show I can’t help but think that this is the last familiar face I’m going to see for the next 8 days, and from this point on every single person I interact with is going to be completely new to me. Instantly there was something really liberating about that – a whole week without idle banter with people to whom you’ve said the same things 1000 times before. A whole week where every conversation I have will be with somebody I’ve never previously spoken to – somebody with totally different points of reference to my own. I liked that. As much as I loved the guy I was chatting with, I jut wanted to cut the conversation short and get on with getting away.
By this time I’d been awake for about 5 hours – I’d been deliberately shifting my bodyclock around a few days prior to the trip, so that by last night (Tuesday) I’d fallen asleep at 4pm and woken up at 10pm, giving me enough time to get all my shit together, and ensuring that if I were to fail to sleep during the journey I’d be exhausted by the time I finally arrived at Camp Spacegravy. I was set to get there for around midnight on the following day which meant, due to Costa Rica being 6 hours behind my current time zone, that my total travel time from now was going to be in the region of 27 hours.
So there I am – stood in a freezing cold bus station about to embark on phase 1 of the longest journey I will have undertaken in my life to date. Those who have been following this will already know that I’ve never flown before, which is kinda weird in this day and age for someone of my mileage (a near-jurassic 35). I’ve barely even left the country before, and if you choose to discount the 5 day school trip to northern France when I was 11 then I’ve actually never properly been “abroad” in my life. To think I was about to pop my travelling cherry with a 13,000 mile round trip seemed to be at least semi-retarded. Why oh why didn’t I break myself in nice and gently with a weekend jaunt over to Paris, or a cheeky flight to Rome? Was I moving up too quickly and playing outside of my roll taking on such an epic trip as my first? Well, there’s no turning back now, so let’s just hope to run good 1 time…
As the bus rolls into the station around 3:45am I go through one final panic procedure – passport? Check. Laptop? Check. International power adapter for laptop? Check. Camera? Check. Plane tickets? Check. Money? Check (ish – does $80 + £60 count??). Fortunately, due to the ridiculous departure time, the bus is far from crowded and is gratifyingly clean and modern, so I get to sprawl out across 2 seats as we roll out of the station bound for London Heathrow airport. A fully loaded iPod and some noise isolating headphones (or IEMs to any audio nerds out there) do their best to alleviate the boredom of the proceeding 4.5hrs of the unchanging, monotone landscape that is your typical British motorway journey, and 6 albums later the squat, grey concrete bulk of Heathrow looms out of the early morning mist. As an ambassador to the UK Heathrow does an appaling job – one of the ugliest, sprawling quick-pour patchwork monstrosities of badly conceived 1960’s planning I’ve ever come across.
Apparently (according to the smugly jolly announcement from our bus driver upon arrival) it’s cited as the world’s most hated airport, and I don’t find it hard to appreciate why. The one thing I’ll say in its favour is that the complex itself is so devoid of aesthetic appeal and has so little to commend it that any desire one may have already had to get the hell out of this country is magnified 100x once you submit to the dirty embrace of this nasty fucking airport.
I was sort of worried that, being a total noob, I was due for an epic fail when it came to checking in. Fortunately, the whole process was pretty obvious, quick and painless, even though it did feel kinda weird to go through airport security procedures for the first time. Standing around with my shoes and belt in a tray and carrying my toiletries in a see-through bag for the world to inspect was a fairly bizarre experience, made even more ridiculous by the sight of scores of other people from all walks of life doing exactly the same thing – businessmen in suits, dreadlocked hippies in tie dye, the blue rinse brigade in track suits and hearing aids, and nervous-looking muslims fully expecting to be “randomly selected” for a full body cavity search at any given moment. If I’d ever felt curious to know what it was like to feel “processed” before, then I need no longer worry as that is now one experience I am fully familiar with.
Once through security I found myself with 2 hours to kill before my flight and desperately in need of a cigarette. Being the silly, naive, handsome little fool that I am I’d thought to myself earlier “well, I’ll just get all this check in and security business out of the way first, then I’ll smoke myself into oblivion before the flight as it’ll be the last chance I get for about 18 hours or so – they’re bound to have some sort of semi-outdoor smoking area around here somewhere.” Lol. Get a brain moran! I went up to one of the airport officials to ask about the existence of such an area, and she informed me (through several layers of foundation and half a gallon of perfume) that I was welcome to go out on the runway and smoke myself silly, but I might have to keep an eye out for passing traffic. Oh, withering sarcasm, how I’m going to miss you over the coming week. % won at showdown vs airport villains = 0.
So, all hopes of a last minute nicotine fix having been firmly dashed upon the unmoving rocks of overly-cosmeticised airport officialdom, I set to exploring the fascinating new world of Heathrow Terminal 4’s international departures lounge. In almost no time at all I started to experience the strangest sense of deja-vu as I ambled along – didn’t I just pass that duty-free shop a moment ago? I’m pretty sure that Starbucks looks familiar. Oh look, there’s that bookshop again. Every now and then there’d be some outfit trying to sell you Gucci underpants or Moschino hand luggage, but by and large walking down the concourse of Terminal 4 was like taking the Groundhog Day ride at Disneyworld.
Eventually, after passing my 14th Dan Brown window display, I found what I was looking for – an electronic goods store. See, I’d borrowed my brother’s camera 2 nights ago, but as he’d just moved into a new place a lot of his stuff was still all boxed up in the basement, and try as he might (bless him) he couldn’t find the charger for the now-flat battery in his camera. There’s no way I was going half way round the world to one of the most highly regarded beaches on the Pacific coast of Central America, surrounded by mountains and all sorts of strange and exotic wildlife without at least firing off a few snapshots as keepsakes. Besides, 2p2 is a tough crowd, and they’d never forgive me if I didn’t provide pics with my TR, so there was only one thing for it – I’d have to pick up a universal battery charger at the airport.
I walked into the store with a huge flashing “sucker” sign plastered across my forehead and headed straight for the photographic section. The moment my feet stopped moving a slick looking salesman with greased back hair and a name badge that read “Sanjay (87/68/inf)” materialised out of nowhere, sporting the kind of smile that said “I hate you”.
“How can I help you today Sir?”“Well, I have this camera here, and the battery is dead, so I…”“So what you’ll needing then is a new battery. No problem. We have just want you want right here. That’ll be £45. Do you want to pay by cash, credit card, or blood?”“Um, well actually I was thinking more about getting a char….”“Ahh so what you’ll be wanting then in which case sir is our universal international battery charger that comes complete with an international power adapter. That’ll be just £60 to you. Now if you’ll just give me your direct debit details so we can randomly remove funds from your bank account twice a month for the rest of your life….”“Well, ah, actually I already have the international adapter thing so really all I need is the charger please.”“I see. And you bought that from us did you sir?”“Um no, sorry. I got it somewhere else.”“Somewhere else. Well sir, we strongly recommend our own international adapters to go with any goods we sell. I can do that for you today at just £15. Would you like the 5 year protection plan to go with that for £349.99?”“Actually, I honestly think I’ll be fine with the adapter I already have. If it’s not too much trouble can I just get the charger by itself please?”“This is most unprecedented sir. Obviously we can’t be held responsible if your current adapter turns out to be faulty and explodes on the plane burning you and 300 other people to a crisp and leaving your relatives with nothing to bury when they finally scrape you off the ocean floor. But, the customer is always right I suppose. DEEPAK, CAN YOU GRAB A CRAPTEL XV694a FROM THE BACK ROOM FOR THIS GENTLEMAN? NO INTERNATIONAL ADAPTER”“Sorry, did you say *no* international adapter?”“THAT’S WHAT THE GENTLEMAN WANTS”“Did you tell him about the risk of death by horrific burning?”“YES, THE GENTLEMAN IS ADAMANT”“This is most unprecedented.”“QUITE. I HAVE ALREADY EXPLAINED THIS TO THE GENTLEMAN. HE SEEMS HAPPY TO RISK THE LIVES OF HIS FELLOW PASSENGERS. IF YOU SEE REPORTS OF A PLANE EXPLODING OVER THE ATLANTIC ON THE NEWS TONIGHT, AT LEAST YOU’LL KNOW WHOSE FAULT IT IS. PLEASE FETCH THE CHARGER FOR THE GENTLEMAN. If you’d like to accompany me to the desk sir then we can clean you out and have you on your way in no time”
And so I exit the store £50 lighter and sporting a brand new piece of shit hunk of plastic that will in time prove itself to be utterly worthless and ineffective. Fuck you Dixons, and fuck you Sanjay.
The ordeal left me with just enough time to nip over to news kiosk #37 and pick up a bottle of water and a couple of packets of gum before the announcement came over the PA that Continental Flight 5 for George Bush Houston International Airport was now boarding at Gate 3. Gate 3 was a little over 4 miles away at the other end of the concourse, so I quickly gathered my belongings together and set off at a mad dash. My mad dash was hampered somewhat by the waddling of a surly Texan couple with matching 76″ waists, his and hers walking sticks, and ankles that could feed a family of 4 for a month occupying the breadth of the concourse, loudly professing to each other how they couldn’t wait to get home to Dallas and to see the back of this crummy little country. My polite “excuse me”‘s as I tried to squeeze past these not-so-happy campers were met with a look of steely derision from 2 identical pairs of eyes set 8 inches back in the recesses of two of the fleshiest faces I’ve ever seen in my entire life. I caught a whiff of them as I somehow managed to slip past them – a tantalising waft of ranch dressing and barbecue sauce. And ass. Oh God, pleeeeease let me be seated next to this wonderful couple for a full 11 hours.
I lucked out and rolled up to the line just as my row number was being called. I handed over my boarding pass and passport for inspection, and was then ushered down the gangway for me to set foot on an airplane for the first time ever. At the entrance to the Boeing 777-200 I was greeted by an orange, gum chewing lady in her late 30’s dressed in Continental Airways attire. I presented her with my boarding pass and said “Hi”. She masticated her “howdy’s” back at me and pointed me toward the back of the plane. I remember getting this weird feeling of claustrophobia as I crossed the threshold into the plane and caught sight of what seemed like hundreds of people and thousands of pieces of hand luggage all trying to cram themselves into somewhere that looked like it was designed to seat 10. Mike (reef2287), had booked my tickets for me, and had really thoughtfully requested a window seat for me, which I’d very much wanted given that it was my first time up above the clouds, and I’d ended up being assigned seat 27a, which was at the rear of the wing and allowed you a view of the ground if you craned your head backward somewhat. I found my seat, discovered there was no more overhead storage space, so squeezed into my designated spot with my rucksack down between my legs. It was a bit of a tight fit, but at least I had a view, and even better – I’d passed Mr & Mrs Texas further up the plane as they were trying to squeeze themselves into their first class seats, filling the aisle with buttcrack as they did so.
After another 10 minutes or so of people bustling around, jostling for storage space and trying to negotiate seat swaps, it was announced that the doors to the plane were being sealed. There was a fairly terrifying sense of finality that accompanied those words, as it was then that it struck me that this pressure-sealed tin tube was, like it or not, going to be my home for the next 11 hours. Half of me was freaked out by this thought, and the other half was completely giddy – this is 100% happening. Right now. No more talking about it, no more “one day”. It was now an absolute given that I was about to be ferried away to faraway lands, and the next time that I set foot on solid ground it would be on an entirely different continent half way around the world. That is, assuming my international power adapter didn’t blow up mid flight and send us all plummeting to our horrifically painful deaths somewhere over the Atlantic. Why didn’t I listen to Sanjay???
Before I knew it the floor had started to vibrate and we were moving. Drama! OK, so we were only taxiing out onto the runway at about 15mph, but cut me some slack – I’m a noob, remember? The plane apparently had joined a queue of other planes all waiting in line for access to the main runway so they could take off, and from where we were I had a full view of all the planes aheads of us accelerating along that strip of tarmac and eventually lifting off and heading to the skies. 1, 2, 3, 4….. still no exploding engines. I was trying to figure out if that was good or bad – good because it was reassuring to see these hunks of metal not randomly bursting into flames, or bad because the fact that they *didn’t* burst into massive fireballs infinitesimally increased my own plane’s chances of being the next news headline. As I was thinking this, we had managed to find ourselves at the top of the runway, and it was now our turn to depart. It was then that the plane’s engines properly kicked in for the first time. At almost the exact same moment my sphincter handed me its resignation, effective immediately. Holy shit, I wasn’t expecting that. I don’t know what I was expecting to be honest, but the sheer force of the engines springing to life was a huge “oh crap” moment. Fortunately, the “do not evacuate your bowels in public” light came on at that precise moment, so I was spared any potentially humiliating body fails.
The take off was a mixture of pure exhilaration and abject terror. Eyes firmly glued to the window, I said my goodbyes to England, and couldn’t help but think that Heathrow looked like a lot less of a shithole the smaller it got……
Part 1b
Life in a Tin Tube
It was a foggy morning, so we were in cloud cover in seconds. As we climbed up and away, the view outside was little more than a wing surrounded by mist. Satisfied that there wasn’t going to be much to see out there for a while, I settled back into my chair to enjoy the sensation of having not erupted into flames. Initial panic/excitement over, I got on with the task of accustoming myself to what was to be my home for the next half a day. I started to get used to the weird noises of the plane (they NEVER make this much noise in the movies), and generally prepared myself for being a good passenger for the duration of the trip.
It was then that my head exploded.
I’ve never had a migraine before, and I’ve never had a headache which has made me make audible sounds of distress, nor had I ever read anywhere about air travel being painful (unless you count blowing up in a huge fireball), so I was completely unprepared for what was about to happen. It’s hard to describe because it wasn’t like a normal headache, but if you’ve ever seen those plasma ball things – you know, those glass balls that you place your hands on and weird electric sparks dance around inside them – then that’s the only way I can describe what was going on in my head. It was like random jolts of indescribably intense, sharp, tearing pain striking at different points in and around my skull. I couldn’t figure out if it was blood vessels bursting, if I was having some sort of aneurism, or even if I’d been walking around with a brain tumour that was just waiting for an altitude shift for in order for it to rupture and wreak havoc on me. Whatever it was, it was fucking painful and scary. Thinking there was a good chance it was altitude and pressure related, and thinking back to some advice I’d been given before setting off to take some aspirin in order to thin the blood, my first request of the orange gum lady as she made her preliminary round of the cabin was for some aspirin and some water. To her credit, as I was visibly in a huge amount of pain and distress, she responded swiftly and mercifully to my request, and in only 25 short minutes of fearful agony she returned with a small sachet of medication and half a cup of water. Let it never be said that the Continental cabin crew don’t go above and beyond to ensure that your every insignificant whim is catered to.
After about another 30 minutes or so, and to my overwhelming relief, the pain began to subside very rapidly, and within another 5 minutes it had all but vanished. Happy that I wasn’t about to die from Randomly Exploding Brain Syndrome any more, I got stuck into some serious hospitality and AVOD abuse. I avoided drinking any alcohol because a) I’d just dropped a bunch of aspirin, and b) each alcoholic drink was $5 (or if you had UK currency they’d happily serve you a drink for just £4, which is about $6.50. Naturally this is only fair and our own fault for using such stupid money). However, if those fuckers thought that they were going to have a single drop of orange juice left on the plane by the time we touched down in Texas, they had another thing coming. I was gonna crush that drink by the half-canfull for as long as they kept pouring it.
We’d broken through the clouds by this point and the view outside the window was now one of crystal blue skies set over a landscape of pristine white cloud. It looked absolutely beautiful. I got bored of it in about 2 minutes and decided to see if they had Airport ’77 as one of the in-flight movies. Disappointed that my search was fruitless I channel surfed until lunch was served.
The next few hours were dull and uneventful (which I ought to be thankful for) – no bad turbulence, no shortage of orange juice, no cries of “Allah Akbar” coming from the front of the plane. I’d bought a couple of books with me, an iPod, a laptop loaded with TV shows, movies, poker videos and ebooks, a copy of Rosetta Stone Spanish, and there was also the in-flight entertainment, but for some reason I couldn’t be bothered with any of it. For the most part I just sat back with my eyes closed, occasionally checking the AVOD system for updates as to which part of the world we were currently flying over.
The route the plane was taking was to skirt over the southern coast of Greenland, down through the eastern side of Canada, and then over into Michigan and through the midwest down into Texas. As we got close to the Canadian/US border the clouds began to clear outside, and I looked down upon foreign soil for the first time. We were approaching the great lakes, and large bodies of water had begun to punctuate the surrounding (seemingly unspoiled from this altitude) terrain. As the inflight computer map indicated that we were just about over lake Michigan, an altogether bigger body of water to all the others that had come before it appeared below me. I remember thinking “wow, that’s a pretty big lake”. I was still thinking “wow, that’s a pretty big lake” as a gargantuan coastline that I couldn’t see the end of drifted into view. That “big lake” that I’d been naively looking at was a puddle next to what was rapidly expanding below me. Lake fucking Mothership. I was completely stunned. I checked the flight details again on the computer – we were definitely inland and this was not the ocean. This was indeed a lake for crying out loud. At this point in time we were cruising at an altitude of 38,000 feet at a speed of 550mph. At that height and at that speed it still took a full 15 minutes before the opposing coastline came into view. I knew the great lakes were supposed to be big, but I had no concept that something could be that ridiculously huge and not be an ocean. I had to totally re-evaluate my sense of scale for the rest of the trip, as it was becoming incredibly clear that what I was now flying over was an order of magnitude larger than the cookie crumb of a rock I’ve spent my life on.
Part 1c
Houston, we don’t have a problem, do we?….
After the culture shock of lake Michigan, the rolling patchwork landscape of the midwest was much easier to get my head around. Sure, it was big and vast, but that’s what landmasses are supposed to be, right? I mean, America is so ridiculously huge, especially for someone coming from a country where you could pretty much drive from end to end in a matter of hours, but it’s still easier to digest the concept of a huge area being full of fields or mountains or cities, and not full of lakes that are almost the size of my entire country. After while, I stopped paying attention to it until we began our descent into Houston. The cabin crew came round with immigration and customs forms for us to fill in, and I finally got the opportunity to confirm in writing that I didn’t have any communicable diseases, any physical or mental disorders, wasn’t trafficking viruses or cultures, and had never been convicted of a criminal offense in the US.
I dutifully filled out all the paperwork, and turned my eye to the window again, as we were rapidly descending and in clear site of Houston. Catching a glimpse of the nearest highway/freeway to the airport, I couldn’t help but notice that every single vehicle on the roads was an SUV.
Touchdown was marginally petrifying but otherwise uneventful, as I was an old hand at this flying business by now. What I wasn’t so experienced in, however, was entry to the US. Off the plane and into the airport, following the signs to immigration (actually, just following everybody else), I was instantly struck by how new and pristine this airport was compared to the sinkhole I was in 12 hours ago. Everything was spotless and efficient. Occasionally a robotic woman came on over the PA to issue some standard warning about terror status being set to orange and to be on the lookout for anything resembling Osama Bin Laden, delivered in a politely formal way but with undertones to her voice that said “and if you don’t it’s straight to Guantanamo for you, you fucking camel jockey”.
Having successfully followed a bunch of other travel weary people over to immigration, I got in line and waited for another round of processing. I ended up striking up a conversation with a friendly official who must have picked up on my accent when I asked him if I was in the right line, and he proceeded to regale me with his stories of the time he spent a week in England. Liverpool to be precise. “Man, those guys are rough, and they sure do drink a lot”. You hit the nail on the head son. Eat it, Liverpool!
Eventually it was my turn to be seen, and I went up past the bulletproof glass and armed guards to the guy who was to process my entry into the US. He took my passport and other documents, tapped a few keys into a computer and then said
“right four fingers on the scanner please sir”.
“Excuse me?”
He looked up from what he was doing and stared me in the eye. When he spoke again, it was more slowly and deliberate than before.
“Please place your right four fingers on the scanner in front of you”
Seriously? You’re going to take my fingerprints?? Really???
“Right thumb”
“Left four fingers”
“Left thumb”
“Now look into the iris scanner for me”
ARE YOU FUCKING KIDDING????????
After being “databased” I had a couple of hours to kill before my connecting flight to Costa Rica. Once again, I used this time to explore the charms of yet another international departures lounge. While largely following the same format as the one in the UK, this one was altogether larger, brighter, cleaner and airier. I decided to ruin myself by eating something I’d never had the chance to eat before, so I found a Wendy’s and decided to order the biggest burger they had. After looking at the menu and realising their biggest burger had about 6lbs of meat in it, I adjusted my goals somewhat and settled for a double bacon cheeseburger thing which was about 1/4 of the size of the behemoth octuple burger pictured next to it. Even settling for the midrange menu item that I did, I could practically hear my colon groaning in protest after I was about halfway through it. I got about 3/4 of the way through and gave up. Hauling myself out of my seat, I waddled toward the gate my flight departed from, my stomach issuing some disturblingly loud gurgling noises with every heavy footstep. I’ll be ready for you next time, Wendy. Oh yes, I’ll be ready……..
The flight out of Houston took off just as the sun was setting over Texas. The plane was a smaller affair this time, but somehow felt more comfortable. Also, the cabin crew (Continental, again) on the Latin American leg of the journey seemed much warmer and friendlier than those on the transatlantic flight. Only 3hrs 45mins long, this flight was going to be a breeze compared to the one I’d just done.
Part 1d
“Hello, my name is Dorothy, and I’m certainly not in fucking Kansas any more…”
The heat hit me the moment I got off the plane.
No, I don’t mean outside, or even in the airport. I mean literally the second I stepped foot off the plane in San Jose, Costa Rica. The wall of heat, even this late at night, was totally beyond anything I was expecting. Hint – next time somebody tells you that you’re heading to a tropical country, expect it to be hot when you get there! Immigration and baggage collection was painless, although the second I left the airport I realised I’d left my iPod on the plane. dfjkdgsfgjkagdsjksafgjkdsgkjsdghafsjkgh!!
Oh well, who cares? I’m practically there. I was starting to get really excited now. I’d been up for well over 30 hours by this point, but the novelty of stepping foot out of an airport to a whole new country in a whole new continent for the first time in my life was enough to brush away any tiredness I may have felt. Stumbling out into the hustle and bustle of the San Jose night, I was greeted by a line of Costa Rican drivers all trying to welcome me into their taxis. At the end of this line though was the most beautiful sight I’d seen all day – an a4 sheet of paper with my name printed on it. A friendly smile broke out on the face of the driver as I made eye contact with him and motioned towards him. His smile was nothing like Sanjay’s.
“Hola. Lo siento, mi Español es muy mal. ¿Hablas Ingles?”
“Don’t worry about that man, I speak English pretty good. You want to go to Playa Hermosa, right?”
Flippin’ sweet!
Once again I have to thank Mike (reef2287) for being totally on it and booking a cab to collect me from the airport. I’d been travelling for a long time, and negotiating a 90 minute trip in a strange land where I could have easily been scammed/driven up into the mountains and force fed cocaine and shipped on the first flight out to Florida wasn’t an enticing prospect, so the sight of my name and a friendly face was whatever the visual equivalent of “music to my ears” was.
The driver was great. On the way down to Playa Hermosa he filled me in on the geography of the country, asked me if I wanted to stop to grab anything to eat, or to get a beer, or maybe a bottle of water. He explained where we were in the country as we went up one mountain then down another, through a small town here and past a tiny village there. Everything I may have heard about the warmth and friendliness of the Costa Rican people prior to this trip was confirmed in an instant by this guy. I’d had another weird head explosion on landing in Costa Rica and noticing that I kept rubbing my head, he fished into his bag and pulled out some aspirin for me, which I took (and woke up the next day with all my organs – bonus!) and he generally just did what he could to make me feel welcome in his country. How often would a British taxi driver do that to a visiting Central American? I’ll take the under.
Finally we roll up to Hermosa Palms, which is where I was headed. As we pass through the front gate we leave behind the darkness of the Costa Rican night and enter a gently lit private “village”, full of palm trees and beautiful houses. Even the smell of the air was different to anything I’d experienced before. The cab pulls up at a house where the front door is already open. I jump out of the taxi and the driver goes to fetch my bags from the back of the cab as I walk up to the door to check I’m in the right place. There’s a bunch of guys inside sat at laptops with Pokerstars tables clearly visible from where I was stood. I’m pretty sure this is the place (ya think?). Sensing someone at the door, the guy at the nearest computer turns round and sees me. He immediately gets up and comes over to shake my hand, and, smiling, welcomes me to Costa Rica.
“Hi, I’m Grayson by the way”
“Mike.”
Michael (reef) runs out to pay the driver and help me with the bags(thanks man!), and after I’ve thanked the driver myself I turn back into the house and get introduced to all the guys. There was Grayson (Spacegravy), Mike, Matt (facestealer), Bruce and Demo. The last two I wasn’t aware of before arriving, but both of them were instantly super warm and welcoming. I was offered food, showers, a tour of the house, and then they took me out into the garden where I saw the Pacific Ocean for the first time – gently rolling in along the beach under a sky with a million stars in it. All worries I may have had at the back of my head about anything completely evaporated within 2 minutes of arriving. First impressions were hugely positive and everybody went out of their way to be incredibly welcoming. It was gone midnight at this point, and I was absolutely shattered. Demo had given up his room for me for the duration of my stay, and had consigned himself to the sofa, which I will be forever grateful for, so after a half hour or so of hanging around, chatting with the guys, and generally soaking up the fact that I was finally here, I headed off to bed, ready to start bright eyed and bushy tailed the next day……
Good read so far,well written hurry up and tell us about the rest of the trip. What sng,s did you get coached in ?
Was it what you expected? What games were you playing before the trip?
gl at the tables jus
This is a great post. Can’t wait to read the next installment.
keith