03/30/03 Sunday

I woke up at 8am and took my shower. By 8:30am, the phone rang and it's Ate Gay, who's already downstairs to "collect" me. I wasn't really ready to leave yet coz she was supposed to pick me up at 9:30am. It turned out that UK is switching to DST that Sunday morning, so it was in fact 9:30am already. I even called up the other guys to remind them about the time-change, just to make sure that they don't miss their trains or planes. 

My sister is married to the brother of Ate Gay. I met her once in the late 80s in the Philippines, when they went on vacation  She drove me back to her place in Thornton Heath, also in Surrey, to meet her kids, Guy (15) and Katrina (12), who looked very similar to my sister's own kids. Unfortunately, her husband, Kuya Jessie, had to work that day and was not able to join us.

We went to a church nearby and then drove east to Greenwich. We had lunch at a Chinese buffet restaurant, which was packed coz this day also happens to be Mother's Day in the UK. After lunch, we drove to the Royal Observatory and National Maritime Museum to see the Greenwich Meridian Line, which divides the world into east and west.

From there, we drove back to their house to drop off the kids and then Ate Gay took me to the Heathrow Intl Airport.  We drove west, taking mostly city-roads, until we got into the M4 Motorway leading to Heathrow. 

We were caught in traffic along the way but my flight was a little delayed, so I got thru immigration just on time. My flight was more than an hour delayed in getting back to Newark but my ever-dependable friend (and my usual airport-car service) Alfie patiently waited to pick me up.

It was back to reality as soon as I got back to NYC, with military guys with drawn guns standing on-guard all over the Newark Airport. And the temperature is below 50's, while it was in the nice 60s-70s in the UK.