Southampton, UK Part I

I arrived at Southampton Airport around 5:45 pm and Sam Parker (the General Manager of Powerwaves) was waiting for me. I was so grateful that he picked me up and took me to the hotel after a long day traveling. He gave me a short tour of the historic highlights in the local area as we drove from the ariport to my hotel, Jurys Inn Hotel in Southampton. I learned a few things I did not know, for instance that Southampton is the place where they made the famous combat airplanes of World War II “The Spitfire” . I have to admit that I’m an airplane fan. Actually, there is a Spitfire set as a monument on one of the roundabouts near the airport. The route from the airport to Southampton is very beautiful as there are a lot of green fields and natural parks. Before we went to the hotel, Sam took me to Southampton city centre and to the docks and he showed me the pier, where I have to take the ferry to go to the office. Yes, I have to take a ferry to the office!!!!It´s very different from how I go to work in Madrid! After the brief tour, I finally arrived at the hotel and Sam helped me to check in. Then we had a pint of beer in the hotel bar. Sam was very welcoming and kind to me. By this time I was very tired, so when he left the hotel I had a cup of English tea at the restaurant and I went straight to bed.

Before Sam left, he told me he would pick me up at the hotel at 08:30 am the next day to take me to the office. I set my alarm clock for 06:30 am., however I woke up even earlier than I had planned because I forgot to change the time of my mobile clock and there is one hour time difference between England and Spain, so I ended waking up at 05:30 am. It was not so bad because I had enough time to unpack my suitcase and put my clothes in the wardrobe. After I got ready, I had breakfast and then Sam picked me up to go to the office at Hythe Marina, where he kindly introduced me to my new colleagues. Everybody was so kind and friendly with me. We had a staff meeting with the events team – Sam, Melissa, Amy and Phil are the members of this team – and I took advantage of this meeting to give them all the souvenirs from Madrid that I brought inside my “Interchange Gift Box”. They were very happy with all the presents.

All the members of the team had arranged a surprise for me and Amy (“my buddy”) was in charge of giving me that surprise. She drove me to Brokenhurst a town 15 minutes away by car from Hythe’s Marina, where they managed to find a second hand bicycle and some accessories (bike night lights) for me to go everyday to the office (I love riding on a bicycle and they knew it from our correspondance before I went to the UK). Beaulieu was another lovely town in the New Forest area that we passed by on our way and Amy kindly drove me to a beautiful place call The National Motor Museum, property of Lord Montagu a famous personality in the UK.

After lunch, I joined a meeting with Melissa and Christelle (a Sales Executive of an international hotel, resort and conference destinations brand), who was visiting the office from France. Melissa is thinking of including one of their hotels in Chantilly, France for one of the proposal programmes for a client. At the office I started working on a Barcelona and Madrid proposal for the same client next year.

On Wednesday morning, Sam picked me up at the hotel and drove me to the HRG’s Head Office at Farborough, a town 1 hour to the north from Southampton by car. This town is famous for the airplanes exhibition that takes place there every year.

There, we went to a meeting with Stewart from the Human Resources department, who by coincidence is going to participate in the Interchange Program in two weeks time to China, so he is trying to learn some basic Mandarin before he goes there. The main purpose of the meeting was to point out the skills, that according to the Manager of the HRG Event team (which in this case is Sam), which each member of the team needs to be the best in their area. Sam finished filling in some forms and he introduced me to some members of Human Resources department and other HRG departments, then we went out to get something to eat.

After we got our sandwiches, beverages and snacks we went to the train station to get the train to London because we were invited to a conference. We arrived at London Waterloo train station with enough time, so Sam took me for a walk around some places of interest in the city like Covent Garden, Leicester Square and Piccadilly. When we finished our walk, we attended the conference that was organised by a company , who had invited some personalities of different areas in the UK such as sport stars, sailors, teachers, writers, etc who gave speeches and presentations of how they managed to solve all the problems and barriers in their specific fields to finally end up with a successful career. The company that invited us provides this kind of activities to companies who want to have events or meetings to encourage their employees. I really enjoyed that conference.

The next day - Thursday - I was in Canterbury, Kent. I had asked Sam if I could have the day off to be in this town very early in the morning, so he gave me the day off and I took the coach to Canterbury on Wednesday evening from London’s Victoria Station. I arrived at the town around 9:30 pm and walked to the backpacker hostel that I booked the night before. It was very funny to stay in this kind of accommodation, specially sharing room with younger people than myself. I have to confess that I was very worried about annoying the rest of my roommates with my loud snores but I found out that there was a guy who snored more than me in the room.

The reason why I had to be in Canterbury that day very early in the morning was to meet my best friend Ivan, who is working in a cruise ship that stopped in Dover, Kent. It had been more then two years since the last time I saw him, so it was very nice to see an old friend and include it as part of this Interchange experience. Our meeting had a delay because a tree fell down on the train tracks, so the train arrived late to the station. After he arrived we went to visit what perhaps is the greatest tourist attraction of Canterbury: The Cathedral. We also walked around the town until my friend had to get his train back to Dover at 2 pm. At the mean time I got on the next coach to London and then back to Southampton. It was a long day because I got stuck in a traffic jam for 2 hours before the bus could get into London’s outskirts, but in some way it wasn’t so bad because I had a sort of coach tour of London (the coach was going very slow) and it is the first time I have been to Heathrow Airport (just the outside) without having to get a flight.

Thank goodness it is Friday! – I am tired and trying not to catch a cold because my throat is starting to bother me due to the English weather. When I arrived at the office this morning, the first thing I found on my desk was an email from the Interchange organisation, asking me if I want to participate in an article of SPIRIT magazine and guess what is going to be my answer: yes! It is going to be my pleasure. I have been writing this report during this morning after 2 days out of the office and I really want to say that working in this lovely office, located in a beautiful and peaceful marina and in addition with a very English clock that rings its bells every 30 minutes reminding me the famous “Big Ben” in London, is quite a luxury!. This afternoon Sam is going to tell me how to get the ferry at the pier near to the Hythe’s Marina, so next week I will be able to get my own way to the office – I will tell you more of how my bicycles adventure goes in the next report!

For now this is all from Southampton.