Based on friends' recommendations, we drove to the Lakenheath/Mildenhall area on Saturday. On our way there, we stopped to see how McDonald's breakfasts are here -- an important item of concern for one of us (I'll let you guess who). Happy to report the Sausage & Egg biscuits taste very similar to those back stateside, although my resident expert declared that the sausage is somewhat less spicy. We both enjoyed it, and I especially enjoyed that they gave us a drink carrier for our 2 drinks (never seen one with less than 4 spots before). It's the little things!
Anyway, back to what I was saying. There are 4 RAF bases in the area: 2 around Huntingdon (Molesworth & Alconbury), where we are primarily based, and 2 others located about 45 minutes to an hour east of here (Lakenheath & Mildenhall). Each of the bases has different amenities, which was confusing to hear about before we arrived. Now that we've toured around each of them, it's much easier to organize in my mind.
- Molesworth: Good for checking the mail, getting gas.
- Alconbury: Getting gas, using the commissary for American food/dry goods (but it a smaller and older store), going to the library (haven't done yet, but will soon!), accessing the housing office, and a few other things.
- Mildenhall: Base exchange is good for home goods, outdoor/sporting goods, kids' toys.
- Lakenheath: Excellent commissary, large base exchange with clothing and a good-sized food court.
So it would appear we will probably head up toward Mildenhall/Lakenheath about once or twice per month, mostly for a large commissary shop. Otherwise we'll make do closer to our new place.
Besides exploring the two bases, we went to a car lot called Air Force Auto Sales. They are very used to working with Americans, and appear to have fair prices on British spec cars. It's also a nice place to purchase a car because they will buy it back when we PCS back to the States (at a depreciated value of course, but it's something we won't have to worry about when we head home). They will also take care of the yearly required inspection for us (through a 3rd party) and have a warranty program where they will cover partial cost of any major repairs if we bring it to them for regular inspections.
When we arrived, we found out that the main salesperson (the place does rentals & sales) was out for most of the day, but another fellow helped us out a lot and showed us the cars in the lot that fit what we were looking for. We wanted a pretty basic car with an automatic transmission -- I'm comfortable driving stick, but Paul is not, and we wanted a car we both would be equally comfortable driving. They have a lot of cars that are considered luxury cars back in the US -- Audis, BMWs, Lexus (Lexii?) -- but we were conscious of the fact that these are older cars and we might have to do repairs... and the luxury cars are notoriously expensive to repair. We ended up considering a couple of Hondas, and settled on a 2003 Honda Accord with a hatchback (don't think these were made or available in the States) and just under 50,000 miles on it. Not bad! It has a tape deck, which is hilarious. We didn't bring any tapes with us, darn it. Paul took it for a test drive while Charlotte and I got out of the cold wind and relaxed in the car with a book and a snack of Cheerios & apple juice. We laughed when Kristen & Mike showed up at the place for their car's monthly inspection!
Since the salesperson was out of the office, we arranged to return on Monday after dropping off our rental car. (The drop-off location was very near to the car lot, and the fellow who helped us out on Saturday came and picked us up.) After discussing all the details of the purchase, they set us up with a courtesy car to use until our new "to us" car is available on Thursday (it's pending inspection right now). Now we're in a Ford Mondeo station wagon (which they term "estate cars") until then. It has functioning headlights ("headlamps") and, although the check engine light is also on in this car, we have been reassured that it is only an O2 sensor problem so we're good to go :) I'm starting to wonder if every car in the UK's engine light is on. Hopefully our Accord's won't be on!
Here's a picture of a typical drive through Cambridgeshire. We've been very surprised to see how green the fields are, even though the leaves are off the trees/hedges.
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