I arrived Saturday morning and Smokie picked me up at Heathrow and took me to an excellent pub/b&b in Wokingham, which I will recommend to anyone (over 35 -- it's a great place for alleged grownups); Saturday night is Karioke night there and you can't even imagine how much fun that was. I'd go back only for that, even if the other amenities had not been as great as they were.
My race week was a tangle of logistics in connecting up with various gangs of people, but everything went smoothly and didn't meet any really impossible people all weekend.
Only in the Media Centre, really, where the English translator went home at 22:00 and left the very tired Anglais with what they could see on the screens and puzzle out of the hourly French updates -- a good lesson for all of us, but at 1:30 a.m. it was definitely not fun. However, we staggered on.
After the race I had to lug my gear from Karting Nord to Pigletville in Maison Blanche, and having been deserted by the crowd of young men with cars where we were camping, this appeared to be a very long trek ahead. Hitch-hiking did not work; however, a group of 'likely lads' as they called themselves, hiking from the Airtrack site in search of a bar, obligingly helped carry my gear to the front gate where aid appeared in the guise of a French taxi. I do not think he has ever been greeted with such huzzahs in his life! Fortunately for him another group at that campsite required a taxi the next morning for a longish trek to Tours, so arrangements were made on the spot for him to return in the morning for them, and he went away wealthier and very pleased, and I had a glass of wine from a sympathetic Piglet and then a shower, popped up my tent and went to bed, deaf to the fireworks everywhere around us.
I too was attacked by the intestinal blight which I am convinced, after hearing from a number of people in our area who had it, was caused by the lack of sanitation provided by the French for the beginning of the weekend. I predict an epidemic of cholera one of these days. If I go next year I will get immunized against that eventuality, I think!
I must make mention of my arrival back in London on Monday night. After Keith dropped me off at Heathrow, I located the Hotel Hopper bus and a bus driver told me (erroneously) that the one I needed had quit for the night. In search of a taxi for the 5 mile trip, an airport employee steered me to a taxi driver who quoted me $125.00 Canadian for the trip! Needless to say, I was not about to fall for that -- and the next day I found that the going rate paid by Brits was $30.00. I lodged a complaint with the airport; working for lawyers means taking note of all the details when you think you have been gouged. Then off to my hotel, which proved to be a 3 star disaster -- the Quality Hotel had no air conditioning and the room was stifling hot. The manager, who was Indian, told me that most hotels in London have no air conditioning, regardless of the number of stars; he opened the window, letting in gnats and flies and the full panoply of noise from the venue (no screens in a hotel with no air conditioning -- normal in London too?) There was also no soap provided, and the high speed internet advertised cost $25.00 extra, which you didn't find out til you signed onto it.
The next morning I met up with a large number of other travellers leaving the hotel early (as I did) who said they had not been informed of any of this either. A group of Australians said they had not slept all night because of the bugs.
And to top it off, we missed one of the best F1 races in the calendar!
