Stafford, UK

We headed up to Stafford, UK, next via train for the event that was the entire reason for this trip--Trina & Joel's wedding.  Joel was one of my closest buddies in high school, having taken the bus home with me every day after school.  We would have these insanely long philosophical discussions about "stuff" (and girls) standing ouside by his apartment.  After high school he went to Penn State (home of the Nittany Lions) for Aerospace Engineering, then to the UK for his Masters degree, and managed to find a job in Manchester, UK.  We kept in touch sporadically; certainly more so intially during undergrad when we were in the same timezone.

Stafford is a very small town north of Birmingham.  It even has its own castle (which we didn't get to visit).  We walked through the city core in about 15 minutes.  'twas cold.

Our hotel included breakfast, but they also offered a "breakfast in bed" option for free that we took full advantage of.  You checked off everything you wanted on a door-hanger and hung it outside before 4 AM, and in the morning they delivered everything you asked for on a massive tray.  It wasn't anything special (plain and fruit yogurt, toast, cereal, tea, croissants, etc--full english breakfast for an extra £3), but having free room service was really something.  They also delivered the morning paper (any paper I wanted; I just got the Times) to me complimentary.

Joel & Trina got married at Sandon Hall, in the All Saints Church.  Joel had arranged a couple shuttles (driven by an older couple) to ferry people from our hotel, the Swan Hotel, to the estate just outside the city limits.  The ride took about 15 minutes due to the winding roads and roundabouts.  Sitting in a stone church was pretty cold.  Watching a wedding from a very small, twelth century church is quite something.  Standing outside while people are taking picture of the couple while a cold wind blows is quite chilling.

We were eventually shuttled to the Hall, where there were some really good sandwiches and desserts.  The éclairs and macaroons were really something; normally I don't care for either.  I was the only representative from Joel's high school years, so we didn't know anyone.  Holly chatted up an aunt of Trina's, and I wound up talking to her husband, who is from an area north of London and whose name was also Richard:

Me: Hi, I'm Richard.
Him: <...> Richard. <...>  Echo.
(Note: <...> may have contained other words in a British accent that my mind couldn't process quickly enough.  To be fair, other people were talking in the room so it was somewhat noisy.)
Me: Echo?  Wow, what an interesting name.
It took a while before I realized the guy's name wasn't "Echo" but was the same as mine.  o_O

Dinner was pretty fancy.  They alternated dishes between people (like, for the entrée, duck for one person and roast pork for her neighbours), so there was a bit of swapping between people.

Afterwards there were some good speeches, then dessert (fruits, chocolate), and the dance floor opened.  We were pretty tired so we caught the first shuttle back to the hotel in town.

We got a slightly later check-out in the morning, and when I got to the front desk to check-out, I found out that the bride's father had taken care of the bill for me (well, everyone left).  Wow!

We trained from Stafford to Birmingham, where we took a flight to Amsterdam.