I recently went over to the UK on business and took the weekend before to see family and friends. I spent the weekend with Patsy and Anthony and got to hang out with Jonathan and Selena and take a ride in Richmond park as well!

One highlight of the weekend was seeing my old friends from Winchester (we’re known as Wykehamists after the founder William of Wykeham). I haven’t seen most of them since I left school almost 15 years ago, so I was somewhat apprehensive about seeing them all. It turned out that everyone looked much the same and had very much the same sense of humor. So it was one of those nights when you just laughed until your belly hurt!

Between discussing how everyone was doing (4 out of six married, one with 2 kids etc.) and what other people not present were doing, there was much reminiscing about old days and studying and the trouble we got into. My favorite quote of the night (at least for opening up memories that have long been dormant) was regarding our Latin exams that included translating passages from the Aeniad. We ended up memorizing a translation of the relevant passages rather than taking a chance on trying to translate the text directly. But some of the phrasing seemed so much more elegant in latin than english. Case in point: undique oppugnabatur – meaning “being attacked from all sides” (this was the end of the trojan war after all). Yes were were dorks back then too.

It was so refreshing to see everyone is doing well and few are taking conventional routes to success. I was lucky enought to see my Dad and Alison wednesday night before I left as they had just returned from New Zealand by way of Hong Kong. My dad even managed to bring back 4 bottles of wine that we had left in nelson, so those bottles have travelled about three-quarters of the way around the world!