Dec 22 - Day 4 in London

Today was the day to pick up Mallika from the Airport and so we did not have any other plan for the day. Mallika called me around 12:45pm or so to tell us that she had just arrived at Heathrow Airport. I was taking a nap because I was somehow really exhausted and so I did not pick up her call. I suddenly realized that I was supposed to get a call from her around noon and rightly I saw the missed call message on my cell phone. When I called her, she told me that she was in the plane and that she was going to get down anytime. In the meanwhile, Manoj came in to remind us that Mallika had already arrived. He took us to King's Cross Station so that we could take the train to Heathrow. We took the Picadilly Line to go to Heathrow Airport. Finally, we got there in an hour or so. We did not see Mallika there and so I called her. She told me that her baggage had not arrived and so she was giving all the baggage related info to the airlines. Finally she came out around 3:30pm or so. Then I got her an Oyster Card (for transportation in London by train, bus, tube, etc.) and then got into the tube to Manoj's apartment. We got down at Euston Station where Manoj came to see us. We went to his apartment. Subsequently, he wanted to show Mallika Camden Town. We took a walk to Camden Town and saw the crowded shopping place. This place reminded me of Commercial Street or Brigade Road in Bangalore. I had some Moraccan food ... vegetables with some seasonings and rice. The broccoli and egg plant were not cooked well. Plus they were in huge chunks. I ate most of the gravy part of the vegetables and threw away the vegetables. That is me. I am not a huge fan of eggplant (Brinjals) or broccoli. I was feeling miserable because I was starving the entire day plus my leg was hurting due to arthritic knee and it was cold outside. Finally we took the bus #273 to get back to his apartment. He made a very nice cup of black tea for us. Then we left for the hotel. I left by myself to Ravi Shankar Restaurant around 9:30pm because Komala did not want to eat anything. It was a good 10 minute walk from Travelodge. I had some spicy hot Uthappam with chutney and sambar, Raita and Gulab Jamun. That was a very fulfilling dinner. After the dinner I walked back to the hotel. I brought a few pieces of Jamun for Komala. Then we slowly retired for the night though I was unwinding myself by converting some of the pictures into videos.

Dec 21 - Day 3 in London

Today we wanted to go to Lord's Cricket Grounds but Manoj could not find the direction to this place on Marlybone Road but we decided to go to Madame Tussaud's Wax Museum. It was quite awesome. After this, we came to Manoj's apartment and had our tea and biscuits. Then left for our hotel around 8pm. Then around 8:30pm we walked to Ravi Shankar Bhelpuri House for our dinner. We were pleasantly surprised to see that it was a total vegetarian place run by Gujarati owner from 1982. Very good food. Komala ordered some Mysore Thali and I ordered some Mysore Masala Dosa which was pretty good. Then we came back to the hotel around 9:30pm. I made tea for both of us in the hotel room itself.

Dec 20 - Day 2 in London

We got up around 9:30am and went for our breakfast at the basement. The continental breakfast was pretty good. I had my usual wheat toast with butter and orange marmalade, corn flakes + granola cereal with milk, OJ and hot tea with cream and sugar. It was quite filling. No problem there. Then I called Manoj around 11am but he was just waking up. So, he asked us to come to his place. We walked down there but we could not find his place in the beginning because either us could not follow his directions. Anyways, finally we found his Regents House building and got to his apartment.

I have to add more stuff to this blog... I will come back to this later so that I can write the other later blogs

Dec 19 - Day 1 in London

I had a fairly decent sleep in the plane thanks to some generous leg room in the plane. That was the only thing good about this flight. We reached London at 12:54pm as the VA guys promised us. The flight in general was smooth with very few turbulences. The plane was shaking a bit before landing but it was not too bad.

We went to the baggage claim section right away. We got our luggage within a few minutes after the lights at the belt started blinking. We took our bags and started heading towards the train station. Manoj told us that he would meet us around 4pm or so at Euston Station. Finally, we got the tickets on British Rail on Victoria line. Victoria line was available on platforms 1 and 4. I decided to take 4 but then I found out we should have taken platform 1. It was too late and so we had to get down at London Bridge Station and take the northern line to Euston. This took us probably 15-20 minutes more than what we planned but it was not too bad. We reached Euston Station around 3:30pm or so and was looking for Manoj everywhere. Finally, as we walked out, we saw him walking into the station at 4pm. He took us straightaway to Travelodge where we checked ourselves in. Then we headed off to his apartment which was about a few blocks from our hotel. He made us a cup of tea and introduced us to his apartmates Dan and his girlfriend Jane. We had some nice chat for a few hours. I cannot recall now what we did for dinner. Anyways, we went back to our room by 8pm or so and decided to retire for the day.

Dec 18 - Leaving for England ....Starting Trouble

Today is an exciting day because we are scheduled to leave for London at 6:05pm from Tampa International Airport (by Virgin Atlantic Flight No VS28). We have been looking forward to this trip for quite sometime and we have been preparing ourselves mentally, physically, financially, etc. At least I was prepared for unexpected changes in our schedules and anything else in our trip.

The day started slowly because we knew we had packed everything we needed and so we needed to take care of some routine stuff in the house. I was mostly on my computer doing some last minute stuff like checking my personal and work email, some Excel spreadsheets, some financials, work related documents, etc. etc. I was as usual accused of not helping with trip preparations at home that mostly involved cleaning and rearranging stuff which I don't care about. Well, I did all the meticulous planning and took care of financing the entire trip for us and Mallika and so what else does she want from me ? From my point of view, only thing we needed to do was to pack our toiletry items and drive to Orlando around 2:30 pm and be at the airport by by 4pm (2 hrs before the departure of flight). I wanted to leave by 1:30pm but due to various reasons related to household stuff, we could not leave until about 2:30pm. We reached the parking lot at "U-Save Parking Orlando" around 3:45pm. I left the car and the key with the parking lot attendant and took their shuttle to the airport. Komala and I were the only two people in the shuttle. We reached the airport within 10 minutes (the terminal was just under 3 miles from the parking lot). When we finally reached the booking counter, we got the bad news that the flights to Europe are either getting cancelled or delayed because of bad weather.

Our Virgin Atlantic flight #VS28 was supposed to leave at 6:05pm today but due to snow in Europe (esp. in London) its departure was postponed to Dec 19, 12:05am (6 hr delay). That really sucked big time. Anyways, Komala had packed some stuffed parathas and so we decided to have that for dinner around 7:15pm. Subsequently, we had to kill another 4+ hours at the airport before the flight departure. I was playing around with my iPhone for quite sometime and finally I was exhausted by around 10:30pm and I started dozing off.

Finally, we got the call to board the flight around 11:15pm or so. We got into the plane and finally the plane took off at 12:05. The scheduled time of landing was pushed from 7:05am to around 12:50pm or so.

The food in the flight was a total shit to say the least. We asked for Hindu Vegetarian Meal but what we got was some Chicken Curry. Komala did not even see that. She was almost going to take a bite on it but when I pointed out at what the label read, she stopped. Then we got it replaced by totally vegetarian food which contained some crappy pasta which we did not care about. So, I ate just the fruits and then ate the rest of the Aalu Parathas (potato stuffed Indian bread) Komala had brought. I cannot forgive these British guys for this arrogance. They have known about our culture during their 200 years of their autocratic rule and don't tell me they don't know what Hindu Vegetarian food is all about !!! This really beats me ! Total a'holes ! I will be chewing them up rest of the way from now on. You will get my mouthful criticizing them over and over until you will get fed up because of this incident. Anyway, my respect for English people in general was not good even before but now it is down in the gutter now !

We reached London Gatwick at 12:54pm on Dec 19. Thank God, we got there finally. No problems with immigration for either of us. The English dude at the immigration desk asked a few silly questions to my wife and then let her in after stamping her passport. I, being a US Citizen did not have to go through any of that nonsense. We got to baggage claim area and got our luggage almost right away. Then our task was to find a way to get to Manoj's place by train. My account of our trip will continue in the next edition of this blog ! See you tomorrow !