cottage pies and long goodbyes

two of my best friends, antoni and cari, departed for wales yesterday, which was quite sad, though i was happy for them. antoni introduced me to cottage pie, a delightfully english dish of mince beef, mashed potato, cheese, and vegetables, and taught me more than i'll ever need to know about horse racing, while cari inspired in me a love of beyonce karaoke and drunken dancing.



on monday night we had a proper evening of it, going to a giant chinese buffet and eating more food than i probably tuck away in three days. they brought the food out to you piping hot, as opposed to the traditional buffet-style buffet, and we had squid, duck, ginger seaweed, honey roast pork, hong kong-style beef, barbeque ribs, chicken (of countless varieties, sweet chili being my favorite), and lots of things i can't remember. we had fourteen people in all at our table, and got our own room in the restaurant.

after that we went to a bar and then a club, where antoni and i sang elton john and george michael's "don't let the sun go down on me", but last night i appreciated much more, because we had a quieter evening, going to 'the fox', a fetching little pub in a village down the road.



turns out that the fox is quite historic, and was home to the arrest of the poet william blake for insulting soldiers of the crown in august 1803. you can read about the incident in excerpts from a blake biography here .



antoni, cari, and i had gone to the fox earlier in the day for a little hung-over lunch, where we were all a bit delicate, before going to a bookmaker's shop to place bets on the glorious goodwood horse races. later on, though, we headed back with more people and sat in the pub's beergarden, talking until well after it got dark.



suffice it to say, the fox is easily one of my favorite pubs in england. it's tucked away down a little lane, where all the thatched-roof cottages have window pots overflowing with summer flowers. apparently it was owned (or otherwise associated with) a rogue eighteenth-century smuggler, who brought up his illicit wares along the southern channel coast and the isle of wight. because of this history, the pub has an extensive nautical motif, with old sailing maps, ship rope knots, and faded photographs of sailors lining the walls. an old ship's wheel was balanced precariously atop the bar, and oil-burning chandeliers hung down low from the ceiling. i loved it.



these were the surroundings where i said goodbye to cari and antoni, making it very bittersweet. i'll miss them dearly, though i'll be leaving pretty soon myself, so such departing was always in the cards. i always make a good number of friends on my travels, but rarely too many really good ones, and they were just that.