Day 1: Easton, Winchester, Larmer Tree Festival

The lovely thing about knowing people in the places where you travelled is that you feel so welcomed into a place! My friend Kerry met me at the airport, along with another American friend from Beijing, Trip, who had arrived just shortly before I did. We drove straight to the village of Easton, in Hampshire, to have supper and stay with our friend Chow and his parents. Chow's parents live in the most charming country home, actually old stables converted into a house, with a thatched roof and beautiful gardens, surrounded by fields and cottages. It was probably the perfect introduction to England! David's (yet another good Beijing friend) brother and his wife were also at the Mezgers, and we grilled burgers and sausages for dinner then Chow took us to the village pub, The Chestnut Horse (my first real English pub!) before we put our flight-weary selves to bed in the "chicken wing" (part of the house that used to shelter chickens back when the whole thing was a barn).
The next morning I woke up extra early (I always do the first few days on vacation), but Chow's dad wasn't far behind me. He drew me a sketch-map of the fields and footpaths in the area and I went for a nice, leisurely stroll in the morning sunshine. In retrospect, I'm really glad that I took advantage of the good weather, because it started raining around 11am and carried on the rest of the day and most of the next night!
Anyway, after my walk and breakfast with the others, Trip and Chow and I all squeezed into Kerry's little Daewoo and we drove out to Jude's Ice Cream for a tour of the factory. Jude's is the ice cream company that Chow's dad started and where he worked before moving to Beijing. Dave's brother James also works there, so we said hello to him again. Free samples were part of the tour, and they were very, very yummy.
After the tour, Chow escorted us on his motorcycle to Winchester, where we saw the Winchester Cathedral and the townhouse where Jane Austen spent her last days and died, and the 700-some year-old chapel where Chow was christened. Then Trip and Kerry and I continued driving through the rain to the Larmer Tree Festival, near Blanford, where we covered ourselves with ponchos and wellies (I had to borrow a pair that were far too big for me, but did the job) and saw local and international artists, including Paloma Faith and Joss Stone. We camped in a muddy field with Trip's friend Josh and his family, in their very well-outfitted tent full of food and drink. :-)
How's that for a good first day in England?