We started out our day by stopping in Scolfe’s Tea Room in Boreham Street. Charla had been hoping for a proper English cream tea for days, and we had been waiting for the perfect opportunity to enjoy it. Finally, on the last day before the Rally, we found the pleasant little tea room, dating to 1392; we were the youngest people in the tea room by decades, and the chatter around the room was how these two young Americans wandered into this village team room. Oh, and the cream tea was delicious! After tea, it was time to hit the road. The website for our camp spot had said they were 8 kilometers from Bodiam Castle, and the man in the pub had told us we were 12 kilometers from Bodiam, but in reality it took about an hour of driving to get from Boreham Street to Bodiam; from what people tell us, this is a pretty typical experience for driving in the Mongol Rally. When we finally arrived at Bodiam Castle and drove under the giant Mongol Rally arch, reality began to set in: here we are with a couple hundred other small cars, about to drive from this castle in rural England all the way to urban Mongolia. After all the months of dreaming and planning and hard work, here we were with hundreds of other people equally nervous and excited about this grand adventure. First we checked out the registration tent and started stickering our Panda with the official Mongol Rally stickers; from there, it was off to explore, check out the cars, and meet the other teams! We were introduced to so many people the day was a blur of names and faces. There was the big American team from Arkansas in a tinier car than us, there was the Norwegian Mongol Kart team, the two Scottish guys riding on motorbikes, the man dressed as a chicken, the team wearing only Speedos, and tons more. As the day stretched into evening we actually began to connect with other teams, and realized that we were partaking on this adventure with some pretty cool people! Though the dinner was less than exciting, the post dinner shenanigans proved to be fun. We had spent all afternoon parked in a staging area below Bodiam Castle, built in 1385. By the evening time, the organizers moved us all into the castle for an evening of medieval revelry. The castle was full of wenches pouring cups of mead for all who desired, and there were knights running around the castle sword-fighting whenever they could get the crowds’ attention. Juxtaposed to the medieval chaos, an orchestra was also performing lovely music throughout the evening for us in the castle courtyard. By climbing up the turrets, one could get both an amazing view of the surrounding English countryside and a hilarious bird’s-eye view of the party below. We met back up with Team Innocents Abroad from last night, and also met the girls from Team Long Time No Sea; we loved hanging out with the kilt-wearing Scottish brothers from Ulaanbaatartan, and the B-Team seemed to have it all together with a mechanic and a nurse on the team. The Launch Party was a great introduction to the Mongol Rally, and a great way to see what kind of craziness we were about to embark upon!
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