High Wycombe

Sitting in the car, with one of my oldest friends,chuck, and getting high as I possibly could before I got on the plane, I was contemplating this next move in my life of relocating
to a new country,where I knew absolutely no one,except Katrina. ("trine" for short ;-))
All my life, I had always been a loner,or better, yet... an outsider, and I was notorious for just up and leaving just to do something different. To be somewhere different.
All without a single notice to anyone about where I was going or what I was going to do when I got there. But, I had to go.
I remember one time, I was sitting with a friend,getting stoned ( did that a lot in my life) and I decided to do a "burrito run". Munchies had kicked in and there
was a gas station 2 blocks away that was opened 24 hours and they had microwavable burritos. God bless the burrito! The BEST stoner food EVER!
Anyway; I left about 1 am and headed on my 2 block journey for a massive beef and bean burrito and one green chili and cheese burrito.
20 minutes max, round trip. No problem.
It took me 3 weeks to get back.
BUT; I did have his green chili and cheese burrito! So, I DID accomplish my mission! I have never said where I went for those 3 weeks.
Well, not the truth,anyway ;-)
SO, here I am with a man I have known for about 20 years and who access to some of the best weed ever, in his car, sitting in the parking garage of the airport.
He was doing his best to talk me out of this without just coming outright and saying "don't go". He knew me. He knew it was useless. The last thing he said when I got out of the car was; " you ain't even gonna be in the country. I can't come help if you get in trouble. You best stay safe". "A-HOO!!" ( a brother "bark" :D)
Being an old pro at traveling and negotiating airports and travel times, I was still high as fuck when I got to the gate. I was waiting for the plane to catch up to me. THAT is a talent ;-)
Once I sat down, it wasn't long before I realized I was sitting with a family who was on their way to London for the typical 2 week family vacation.
And the dad just HAD to talk to me and there was no way in hell I was going to let him ruin my buzz. When we were in the air, he kept trying to talk to me and eventually succeeded
in getting my attention. He asked how long I was going to London for. Not WHERE I was actually going. He just assumed I was going to London because all Americans go to London.
We just LOVE being tourists,don't we? Eventually, I told him I was on a one-way ticket and that I was moving to the UK and that I was going to avoid London with all my might.
(I hate tourists, fuck if I want to be one). He asked if I had work,wife, etc.... and all that garbage that comes with a "friendly conversation". I told him I was sick and tired of being shit on in my every day life in the suppose-d greatest country on earth and I wanted to be somewhere where no one knew me and I didn't have to put up with "friendly conversation" unless I wanted to start it. He left me alone after that.
7 hours later; I hear "ladies and gentlemen, we will be landing at London's Heathrow airport very shortly, blah,blah,blah...." and I figured it would be time for me to wake up
and get ready for....... Customs and Immigration!. It turned out to be a lot easier than I thought. Or they were dumber than I thought, I walked straight through with a bag of
magic mushrooms in my pocket and no one asked for a damn thing. I figured if I was going to get sent home for any reason. I was going to have a better "trip" back
than the rest of the people on the plane. ;-)
Trine was waiting when I got through all that bullshit and she had her friend Sasha and Sasha's boyfriend, Richard, waiting with her. This was the first time I had,what we call "the european greeting" of kisses on the cheek. Both from Tine and Sasha. Being American, I told Richard if he kissed me, we would have an international incident right there on the floor. He said it wasn't done between men. I was happy. So was Richard.
Once we got in the car, and YES, I knew the brits did everything backwards.. ;-), I was like a kid in a candy store watching everything go by as we drove along the "motor way"(they don't use the term "freeway") and seeing my new world pass and grow all at the same time. It was wonderful to see a new world,and the same world, for the first time.
Even though it was majorly early in the morning and had the jet-lag kicking in, I will never forget the amazing feeling I had of being in this new world.
When we arrived in High Wycombe, I remember driving past my first set of proper "ruins" of "old England". It was the remains of of an old hospital of St. John the Baptist(that was the name,not the real guy) and it was about 900 years old. A short while later, we arrived on Crendon St. Home of Trine's flat. I remember seeing a place called Jenny's. It was a burger joint
and right next door was an estate agents(american translation: real estate office. "estates" are what dead people leave behind) and her flat was on the top floor.
Climbing those stairs was a bastard with all my stuff,jet-lag,buzz-kill and negotiating a stair-well that was NOT built for american sized people( or people with fat asses)!
Then, I watched Trine open the door to the flat with a skeleton key. We don't use skeleton keys in america. They are considered well out-dated and too easy to pick.
But, here I was, in a country where everyone still used skeleton keys for their doors. Kooky,huh?
So. Here I was in my first "flat". I had seen them on t.v and heard the term used in movies and stuff, but, now, here I am... in my first flat. Little did I know that it
would one of MANY to come. Trine showed me around. It was a tiny 2 bed flat, that I miss to this very day. The kitchen was only big enough for one and the fridge.... the fridge :)
I had lunch boxes that were bigger than that fridge! I miss that too. The bedrooms were a nice decent size. They got that right! The living room had a small table right by the window
and we could eat and watch the people go by on Crendon St. totally unaware that they were being watched from above. Hell, most of them didn't even realize the people around them, let alone up above. The bathroom was amazingly small in comparison the where I had just came from. There was no bath-tub. Just a small cubicle with an electric shower.
Now, that was a first. An electric shower. In a bathroom with NO electric sockets( the british government think you are too stupid to NOT blow-dry your hair whilst IN the shower!)
but, you could have an electric shower. Kooky,yet again.
I really did like that flat. It was more like a home than any place I had ever lived before.
I think I was there for about 2 days before Trine took me to Devon. A place on the south-west coast of england that is absolutely beautiful.
We went to visit her best friend, Victoria and her family, who lived in a place called Oakhampton. WE caught the train to Devon. It was my first ride inside a proper train.
(as a kid, we used to hop trains all the time for rides to the mall...or the next state over, but that was freight trains. Not passenger trains.)
Victoria picked us up at the station, (I must add; she was one of the most beautiful women I had ever seen. She had red hair and lots of it! Long curly and wavy. Tiny and petite in build... she was what legends were written on) and drove us to her parents house, which was beautiful drive through the english country side. It was everything my grandmother used to show me pictures of when I was a kid, and even more.
The first thing I noticed was how narrow the roads where.There were no curbs or divider lines, just a slab of asphalt laid right smack in the middle of 2 hedge rows, which were touching the asphalt and they were for traffic coming from BOTH directions! There was room for one car at a time for miles! Where we
supposed to go when a car came from the opposite direction. (Thank fuck we never found out!) When we got to Victoria's parents, I was amazed at the house.
It was a converted cattle barn that was about 300+ years old with a proper thatched roof. I had never seen a thatched roof in person. Only in pictures. This place was the epitome
of a country house. An old world english country house that was a definite example of days long gone. When you looked out back, it was a beautiful site as well.
A green field that went up to a small hill that had a tree right in the middle. Nothing else but flowing green, rolling hills and this one tree that seemed to stand watch over everything.
When we went inside, the first (and coolest!) thing I saw was the dining room table. It was, literally, an oak tree cut in half, about 10 feet long and stained to a dark brown.
It was so massive, there was no way to get it out of the house without either sawing it in half or tearing a wall down(I would have opted to rip a wall out,myself) and it had to weight 500lbs, easily! In fact, this table was so awesome, when Victoria's parents decided to sell the house, the table was a deciding factor on who bought the house. It was a package deal.
Victoria's dad was a hoot! One of the first things he told me about was a bit of local history, and english history, about an event called the "Bible Rebellion". In this story, the king, at the time, wanted to change the Bible and, lo and behold, people rebelled! The part he was getting to was the fact an army of people marched up and over that hill in the back yard, straight down and over to what was to be his home and 300 of them were slaughtered in what is now their front yard. Cool,huh?!
I have to also tell you about Victoria's boyfriend, Dave, and their daughter, Isabella.
Dave was from Scotland and Isabella was just beautiful. Of course, some people say all babies are beautiful, but lets be honest here, some kids are born bat-shit ugly and stay that way.
Isabella was the exception to the rule. She was an angel. Dave, on the other hand, was a bit of a devil. I like Dave :D.
Dave was the first person to get me high in the UK. Well, it was Victoria's parents, but Dave instigated it. Thanks Dave!
Victoria rolled me a joint that was the size of what we call a "jail house pinner" back home. It was skinny as fuck and the weed itself was a brown,grey-ish color.
I thought, "fuck. This is going to be some dirt-weed". Little did I know her parents were old hippies that had been cross breeding their on pot for about 35 years.
I took my first hit,inhaled deeply and held my smoke,as you do, and then I let it out. I was kind of surprised when I felt the right side of my face go cold and them numb.
It wasn't too long before I realized that "cold feeling" was actually the table holding up my head. THAT was some GOOD smoke! I smoked that joint and they put on a dvd of some british comedian I had never heard of before, Eddie Izzard. He was a cross-dresser. He was the funniest comedian I had seen in my life! I laughed until me ribs hurt for days!
(could've been the weed), He was funny!
After dinner, victoria rolled me another joint. She really didn't have to. I lit it, hit it, and hid it under the magazine I was reading. Fuck knows, I didn't need anymore. I went to bed high and woke up high, on that first joint!
The next day, Dave took me out to show me around Oakhampton. Not to mention, to get himself out of the house!
We went to a pub,there was about 7 of them on 4 corners, while he was looking for some friends of his. Everyone there knew Dave. Hell, that place was so small, they knew I was there before I left the train station. The last pub Dave and I went into,we found people who knew him a little too well. Not in a bad way, but Dave had a bit of a reputation as a ladies man.
He was good looking and they loved his scottish accent. And he took total advantage of it and I don't blame him one bit! There was a group of girls who latched straight on to him
and were in curious amazement of the large, shaved headed american.... who looked like a serial killer. I was even asked if I had killed anyone! (I plead the 5th,boys and girls ;-).)
I must admit, these were fine examples of truly lovely english country girls.
They kept pawing Dave and asking him to go "on the piss" with them and constantly looking at me with quite curious eyes and, occasionally, reaching over to have a paw and a smile at me. Dave looked at me for approval with a massive grin on his face.... we smiled and took BIG deep breaths and had to say no. As painful as it was, he had to get back to
Victoria and Isabella and I had to get back to Trine. I had not been in this new country long enough to make a mistake like that. And, regardless of the status between Trine and myself, I wouldn't do that to her. So, we bowed our heads, politely declined and we went home.
That night, there was a huge full moon and not a cloud in the sky. It lit everything up in bright,yet dark, blue and you could see plain as day. I remember standing outside around 1 am, having a smoke and looking at the moon and thinking it was the biggest I had ever seen. I was trying to get my camera to work because, from where I was standing, the moon gave a perfect silhouette of the local church tower(that was about as old as the house itself) and the picture would have been framed my the leaves of tree tops surrounding the tower going up to a blank, dark blue sky with the full moon just slightly off-set to the left of the church tower, with the moon right in the center. Beautiful.
I went to bed, eventually, after staring at that beautiful moon lit english sky for what seemed an eternity...... more to come