You can see the first post of this series here.
First stop, immigration. The orderliness and the way things are managed in these western international airports never fails to impress me (we in India sure seem to be getting there, albeit slowly). There was a slight hiccup at immigration. The immgration officer wanted to double check on Sham’s visa as it has been rejected once earlier. We had to wait for about 5 mins, before the officer came back and approved our entry to UK. And so we passed through the gates into UK!
We had some more time on our hands to admire the airport. BIL was on his way to pick us up and he was still 45 mins away. As we waited, we filled ourselves on some muffins and hot chocolate. Finally BIL arrived, and we stepped out of the airport. As we did two things hit us – plenty of cigarette smoke with people puffing away like chimneys and the chilly morning air. We lugged our luggage some more distance till the pick up area and then loaded it into the car. After the greetings and handshakes, we were all set to head home – Warrington – a three hour drive from the airport.
The drive home was fairly nice. Driving on these freeways, or motorways as they call it in the UK, is not as exciting as driving on Indian roads:). By the way, for those who don’t know, driving system in UK is similar to that in India. The “monotony” of the drive had already put Sham to sleep and I was beginning to feel a bit dazed. So we decided to quickly break for 10 mins and pulled into an exit area. Another few muffins and a coffee later, we were on the road again. We passed Birmingham on the way, the only big city / county that we passed on the way.
Warrington is one of the sub-burbs about three hours from London. Beautiful lanes, manicured lawns and pleasant looking houses greeted us as we reached Creswell Close around 1:00 pm. The second round of greetings – mom and dad-in-law and sis-in-law. And the most exciting of them all – Honey – our very cute 1.5 year old nephew. After the general chit-chat, we freshened up, had lunch and then had a good nap, making up for all the sleep lost on the flight.
Evening I went along with BIL to pick up the car for the trip. The car was to be picked up from somewhere in Bradford, about 30 mi from Warrington. The drive gave more sights of the UK countryside. After we came back, we generally went shopping in the neighbourhood malls, purchasing stuff for the next day’s trip.
We got back around 8 pm, daylight still there in all its glory. Now this is one of the things (for better or worse) about the summer with which I was quite impressed. We ofcourse enjoyed the this aspect even more in the later part of trip. Later on, we finished dinner, finalised the packing for next day, and then settled in for the night….eagerly anticipating day break…
Filed under: Travel, Travel and Adventure | Tagged: airport, Europe, Honey, motorways, summer, UK, Warrington
