It has been long since I visited my blog, and the reason for that is - I have been in the UK (primarily London) for the past few months.
My stay has been very pleasurable to say the least. However, I did miss writing. Or Did I?
Well, here’s a compilation of the emails written to my family where I have tried to capture some of my most cherished experiences during my first ever visit to a foreign country.
4of 4 - Bexhill-On-Sea: Wednesday, 23rd November 2011
Hey there!!
Hey there!!
How’s everyone been? And if I had to ask you the same thing here in London, I’d say : “ You, alright?” Well, It took me a while to understand that ‘You, alright?’ is the equivalent of ‘How are you?’ In the early days I remember wondering to myself if I looked confused/lost enough to make people ask me that question. I realized later, that it’s a way of speech. It is used to say hello to people or get the other person’s attention – say you are in a queue to pay for your grocery and you haven’t realized that the person standing before you is done and therefore it’s your turn – the person at the counter would grab your attention with this line! ‘Hey, you alright?’ :P
Well well well, if you think you are gonna have another long email about things about London and other places in the UK – you are damn right! :P However, I am not going to bore you with lifestyle details anymore and shall try (the key word is ‘try’)to keep this email short and sweet. I always used to score less marks for exceeding the word limit in school; guess old habits die hard. Or, like in my case, may be they don’t die at all, they hang onto you till the end!
Soooo, It appears that it’s been really really long since I wrote. But I hope everyone’s had a good time – considering it was the festive season (Dussera/Diwali/Bhai Dujh etc). Also, I imagine all of you had a fantastic time during Diwali! I got to hear some excerpts from Vikram – and it did sound like a lot of fun (no surprises there!). So what next? Have we started planning for the next bash yet??
Time seems to have flown pretty fast for me, with my return date and the much awaited Vikram’s visit to London, approaching rapidly. I am glad that the weather has been (surprisingly) pleasant throughout my stay so far. But secretly, I am hoping for a slight bit of snowfall, just for the sake of having a white Christmas!
I have bought a lot of winter wear but like I said , it’s been pretty pleasant and therefore I haven’t really gotten around to use most of it. While I see most of my Bangalore/Mumbai/ Hyderabad colleagues wrapping themselves up in mufflers and jackets and gloves- I am pretty ok to walk around in just an overcoat. Guess, that’s my experience of having spent time in the winters up North India speaking for itself. The air is so fresh, I quite enjoy walking up to office (whenever I am in London) in the cold!
Hmmm, life hasn’t been much different since I wrote the last time. I am getting more and more used to the weather and the people here and it’s been pretty comfortable.
As for travelling, here are some quick updates from my side. I went to Scotland for a backpacking trip and it was a very pleasant experience. With just a couple of pairs of clothes and bare minimum necessities, staying in a hostel and making the most of the daytime until late evening visiting places till we were bone tired was quite exhilarating . While any travel book would tell you what places to visit in Scotland - like the Castles, High Land tours, Loch Ness, the Whiskey making factory et all, and we did all of that! ;
What I want to share with you all is this creepy once in a life time experience that we had of a ‘midnight ghost tour’ in Edinburgh! The tour typically starts at 11.30 in the night and lasts about 90 minutes; It is a guided tour where the group is taken to the famous underground vaults of Edinburgh. I didn’t realize until I was in Edinburgh and attended this tour, what a gory history a beautiful place like Scotland has.
So we all started following this lady tour guide who was dressed in a gothic style gown and was walking very fast. My colleague, Anupama, and I literally had to run to catch up with her. And to make matters worse or may be better (cause it helped set the ambience) it was drizzling! She would lead the entire group with scheduled stops at places like an Old Church, parking lot (which apparently was the crematorium or rather just a place to dump dead bodies when Plague hit the city) and old buildings finally making our way to the vaults.
The vaults were these building structures divided into rooms/compartments built underground (spread across the entire city of Edinburgh) by the tradesmen to store goods. But because they were made of Limestone which is porous in nature and therefore cannot stand the fury of nature like rain, which Scotland is very prone to, these places were abandoned and shut down thereby leading the old, poor, helpless and the downtrodden of the society to seek shelter in there. There were dozens of people sharing small rooms – because the vaults were not enough. Lack of proper sanitation, no air/sunshine etc lead to a lot of diseases, deaths and crime, witchcraft and ghost stories!! Some very very creepy stories :P
When we were led into the vaults it was pitch dark and just so we could get our vision adjusted our tour guide was holding the torch right under her chin for a while. And that was turned off too for these creepy stories to sound even creepier!
It was during that time when the tour guide cracked a joke – she said, apparently in one of her earlier tours when she was holding the torch under chin which illuminated her face in the dark making her appear even paler, there was this 14 year old boy who had asked her “How long have you been dead for?” :P Naive kid thought she was already dead and has turned into a ghost!!
There were some unexpected screams, laughs and experiences when we were inside the vaults which did get my heart racing, body sweating and throat drying but at the end of it all- the experience was worth it!
Finally towards the end of our tour we made our way out of the vaults and made our way into a pub for a Vodka shot each (sponsored by the tour) to get us back to reality! #:-s whew!
So in case you are visiting Scotland, I would highly recommend this tour. If not scared you would definitely be amused! And if I imagine Kavita and Guru going for this tour ever – I know who will get scared and who will get amused for sure!!
The dungeon was fun too and a must visit for Arhaan and perhaps for a grown up Aarav!
As for some other experiences – recently there were a few protests in held in London, One was by the students against the rising tuition fee – and I was returning from central London that evening when I saw of lot of police patrolling the St. Pauls’ area and boy was I surprised to see them on horses! Each horse appeared healthier than the other and all of them were made to wear the bullet proof glass! I wanted to take a picture but didn’t want to risk being mistaken for a journalist so I gave up the idea.
St. Pauls’ seems to be the place for campaigning and protesting – the recent protests about ‘the Occupy Movement’ are also held at St. Paul’s. I was there one evening and saw the tents they have put up. Everyone seemed to be in a merry mood with singing, playing musical instruments and football and smoking! But given all of that, I personally feel London is still a very nice place to live in :)
Anyway, I am at Bexhill –on –Sea for the time being, which is another beach place in the South Western part of UK. My client, apparently, is the only employer is this entire town. So most of the people in the town either work at Hastings (my client) or have retired from Hastings and the rest of them who do not fall under either of the earlier mentioned categories are tourists/have retired from other places and bought a house near the sea.
I am living in a sea facing guest house myself, which is an old English style house converted into a B&B (Bed and Breakfast) by this very adorable Old English couple, who insist that I have a double fried egg with two super size sausages for breakfast every morning – while I am happy with one of each, mixed with cereals, hash browns and some mushrooms.
By the way the food is absolutely amazing – especially the sea food. I had my first experience of eating clams & mussels here at Bexhill. The dish is called ‘spaghetti allo scoglio’ (I looked up the name of the dish in the restaurant’s menu on google ! ;P)
Oho, also I went to an Indian restaurant (again at Bexhill) and that turned out to be run by Bangladeshis :P It was nice chatting up with them in Bengali (although their accent is quite different from what we speak). Apparently all the waiters and the owner/manager were chatting up with me except for the master chef who was busy preparing my dish! The entire restaurant was empty – the reason for their undivided attention to me. It is a tourist place and is busy only during summers because of the beach, that’s why the emptiness!
I was quite amazed on being offered a drink (on the house) by the owner/manager, which I politely refused, – considering all of them were Bengali Muslims! At the end of it, a lot of Bengali-Bengali and India-Bangladeshi bonding!
I am going to stay put at this place for about two weeks now and am I exciting about various restaurants that are on offer to explore.
And oh my God, see I just cannot write a short email now, can I?
Right, so one last thing before I wrap up – the shops are flooded with Christmas gifts, I really cannot decide what to buy and what to leave. Just to make my job easier, can I please ask you to let me know in case there is anything specific you would like from London :) I have already made a note of Kavita’s, Meeta’s, Neetu’s and Purba’s requests [although. Ladies, that shouldn’t stop you from writing to me about other things that you would like]; but it is the men that I am worried about, absolutely no response!
@Neetu: You would totally love the cosmetic range here!! And I think I am going to pick a little something in the cosmetic section for everyone. But still if you have any specific thing on your mind, don’t hesitate to let me know.
@Meeta & Kavita: I hope ‘Medium’ is your T-Shirt size, if not - then I am guessing you will write to me:P
@Purba: I shall make sure that whatever I buy for you fits me perfectly!
@Everyone: In case, anyone wants shoes – I would need the correct shoe size (as per India standards)!
Ah, so that’s all from me! I guess this probably will be the last mail that you would be receiving from London (unless something drastic happens and I can’t wait to share) cause after this I am going to be home soon!! And I shall fill you in with all the details once I am back.
Until then, have a great time and take care!!!!
Lots of love and regards,
Dee :)
