The year 2009 has been an eventful one. Period.
Whilst I could stop writing at this, I will go on. Partly because I want to write and partly because I am waiting for someone at lunch and I have some time at my disposal.
The year started in Nottingham where Mansi and I were fresh off getting my bank balance under £500 owing to the shopping in the Boxing day sales. Thats what cultural acclimitisation is about! Boxing day (26th Dec) in the UK marks the biggest sales in the year, with almost all stores on sale, some offering upto 80% discount. The stores that I suffered the most- and Mansi enjoyed the most- at included Marks and Spencers, FCUK and Debenhams.
The shopping, some of it unwarranted, done, we started to look at what we'd do in the UK in the coming months. One of the big items on our agenda was to travel around. We knew that UK offers one of the best windows in the world to explore Europe. The art, the history, the culture is so so cool, we had decided that we would take a dab at it, come what may. We werent sure of how much we'd be able to do given the time, weather and budgetary constraints but we knew that we'll do something.
We discovered that we'd need to have three months on our visa from the date of our return to the UK. Since our visa was due to expire May end, we only had till about 28th Feb to travel outside the country. After looking around we concurred that a tour on a coach (not a bus but a coach- they are very different as our soon-to-be-coach driver, Barry, would enlighten us during our tour) would work best for us. We closed in on a 8 country tour that'd start from London, take us to Amsterdam, Rhine Valley, Munich, Salzburg, Venice, Rome, Vatican City, Florence, Lucerne and Paris before ending where we'd start- in London. It was a whirlwind tour and absolutely awesome. I loved Amsterdam and Rome and was most disappointed with Paris- possibly because it was our last stop and we'd seen too many old, brown and magnificent structures by then. More on the Europe tour another time.
On our return, we started exploring places within the country. Edinburgh in Scotland was a must-see, it was my third visit and the maiden visit for Mansi. The country side to get to Edinburgh was so scenic that Mansi thought that just the beauty on the way was enough value for the ticket! We took a double decker bus tour there and I went to places I hadnt seen the last couple of times I'd been there. The buildings in the city are so brown and the city has been able to preserve its old world feel so well that it feels like a different world. Below are a couple of photos taken in Edinburgh
Whilst I could stop writing at this, I will go on. Partly because I want to write and partly because I am waiting for someone at lunch and I have some time at my disposal.
The year started in Nottingham where Mansi and I were fresh off getting my bank balance under £500 owing to the shopping in the Boxing day sales. Thats what cultural acclimitisation is about! Boxing day (26th Dec) in the UK marks the biggest sales in the year, with almost all stores on sale, some offering upto 80% discount. The stores that I suffered the most- and Mansi enjoyed the most- at included Marks and Spencers, FCUK and Debenhams.
The shopping, some of it unwarranted, done, we started to look at what we'd do in the UK in the coming months. One of the big items on our agenda was to travel around. We knew that UK offers one of the best windows in the world to explore Europe. The art, the history, the culture is so so cool, we had decided that we would take a dab at it, come what may. We werent sure of how much we'd be able to do given the time, weather and budgetary constraints but we knew that we'll do something.
We discovered that we'd need to have three months on our visa from the date of our return to the UK. Since our visa was due to expire May end, we only had till about 28th Feb to travel outside the country. After looking around we concurred that a tour on a coach (not a bus but a coach- they are very different as our soon-to-be-coach driver, Barry, would enlighten us during our tour) would work best for us. We closed in on a 8 country tour that'd start from London, take us to Amsterdam, Rhine Valley, Munich, Salzburg, Venice, Rome, Vatican City, Florence, Lucerne and Paris before ending where we'd start- in London. It was a whirlwind tour and absolutely awesome. I loved Amsterdam and Rome and was most disappointed with Paris- possibly because it was our last stop and we'd seen too many old, brown and magnificent structures by then. More on the Europe tour another time.
On our return, we started exploring places within the country. Edinburgh in Scotland was a must-see, it was my third visit and the maiden visit for Mansi. The country side to get to Edinburgh was so scenic that Mansi thought that just the beauty on the way was enough value for the ticket! We took a double decker bus tour there and I went to places I hadnt seen the last couple of times I'd been there. The buildings in the city are so brown and the city has been able to preserve its old world feel so well that it feels like a different world. Below are a couple of photos taken in Edinburgh
Cardiff was another stop, although besides the beautiful castle, there wasnt much to do or see. The funny story there is when Mansi felt like singing 'Mere Desh ki dharti' in the lawns of the castle and I discreetly clicked a few pictures of her singing, arms outreached et all. I loved it. I do have an embarrassing story of what happened when we were touring the castle- but I'll leave it at that. Below are a couple of shots of the Cardiff Castle.. 
(Mansi singing 'Mere Desh ki dharti')The dark horse though would have to be York. With spring in full bloom, the city was numerous flowers in all colours looked like heaven on Earth. There too we took a bus tour (sense the lazy traveller's trend here?:)) and loved the whole city. The York minster which is a gothic cathedral stood out as a highlight. After that we started getting ready to return to Bangalore via Delhi. Below is a photo from our York sojourn-do I look nice or do I look nice?
On our return in June we came back to what I like to call 'practical heaven'- the joy of having a maid, a chef and our istriwala! In the next couple of months we started to look for our own place and found an apartment that we loved. Both Mansi and I are the youngest in our families to have bought our own pad and its something that all of us are extremely proud of. Though had we known the post-purchase expenses (like curtains cost a freakin 15k, the mandir another 14k!) we might have hestitated in going ahead. But in retrospect I think we did the right thing and are happy to have our own place.
So yes, all in all a very busy and thouroughly enjoyable 2009, 2010 can only be boring from here!
2 comments:
nice post! totally agree with Boxing day. to me that day was like the "every-weekend-sale-on-at-Big-Bazaar" kinda thing. i have never seen so many people all together and shopping like that !! whats with the embarrassment at Cardiff (let's keep this one for Gtalk). and just out of curiosity, has Mansi sung "Mere desh ki.." anytime on Indian soil? :P
@Kartik: Lol, yea,lets keep the embarrassing bit to gtalk..and no, Mansi hasnt sung the song in India.. Guess its one of the outcomes of being away from home. You miss stuff that you wouldnt normally like Glucose biscuits or Parle G, etc! :)
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