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Monday, August 22, 2005

This past weekend I had the wonderful chance of going to a friend's wedding reception in Richmond, North Yorkshire. They were married in Scotland two months ago and had the reception so that everyone could attend. At first, I was thinking of renting a car and driving down since his wife said that there were no buses out to that area. My roommate had also been invited and did not like the idea of driving down there because UK drivers are barking mad. She was able to find a great way to get there without driving and without many change-overs.

With that out of the way, I made the reservations. Since the wedding had taken most of the town's hotel space, I had to book a room in a place called the Turf Hotel. This brought images of sleeping on a pile of sod but it turned out to be a few rooms over a pub. They were nice enough rooms so there was not a big problem.

We arrived on the day of the reception with a few hours to spare so that we could get cleaned up and ready to go. I had hoped that it would be a casual affair but, alas and alack, I had to go with "business casual", so no converse shoes for me. We walked around beautiful Richmond and saw some of the sights before getting ready.

The reception was at the local cricket club. When we arrived, there was a match on. I asked my roommate if this was a wedding reception or a cricket match. As we approached, I saw kilts so I knew that there was probably a wedding reception going on. Once we were inside, I saw my friend and his wife and I knew we were in the right place.

The reception itself was wonderful. The food was great and the free booze even better. Although, that ended after dinner; the bar was cheap and well stocked so there was no harm done. They had a traditional band who played many songs that I knew from Sandy Bell's. During the traditional, they had country dancing and that is when I noticed that my friend was an accomplished dancer (oooo...foreshadowing). After the traditional band, they had a disco and that is when my friend broke out the John Travolta moves in a kilt, which are a sight to behold I must tell you.

We left about five minutes before the place closed. It was eerie walking through an empty pub before going upstairs to go to bed. Otherwise, we had a great time. Getting free food and drink is always good. The trip home was only marred by a late train and a bag that was left behind so they had to invoke security measures with the bag no more than 10 feet away from me. It was a great trip and I would like to go back to see more of Richmond than I did.


posted by Chris  #8:41 PM | 0 comments |