Feels funny to write something on Last week after First months blog.. Many reasons among which most important one was my Laziness.
9 Months of my stay away from India is coming to an end. Glad this feeling crossed my mind to make at least few notes on what happened here. My pathetic memory would make me forget everything within no time otherwise.
Looking at the way my days were passing I could never really imagine I would struggle this much to spend my last one month here. Yes it was a little struggle really. In no time my first 3 months were gone, so as my first 6 months. Then... time halted. It was not at all ready to run fast. After struggling a little till Dec end I tried my best to finish January. After knowing that I would return back to India on Jan 31st the time acquired my laziness and stopped.
Started with the biggest trip in first month.Scotland. I had just heard from everyone that it is beautiful. But had never really imagined how beautiful it could be. Before coming here I had just imagined Scotland as only a cricket playing country who wear dark blue t shirts and win some surprise matches in World cups..
Thanks to my roomies that they were planning to go back to India very soon. They agreed to visit Scotland on May.
Bank holiday weekend was ahead and we started planning. I had a friend in Edinburgh so we decided that to be our base location. We had to book early as ticket prices were raising very fast because of long weekend. After long discussion we booked Train ticket to Edinburgh at 100 per head to and fro. That was the cheapest available at that time.
The toughest thing to do before travel was to convince our manager. Who was a typical manager for whom work was priority than anything else. I dint know that we are supposed to support compulsorily till 9 BST so convince my friend to book onward journey tickets at 7.30 in the evening. It would be too late to go on Saturday as the journey was almost 4 hours and we would waste a day. That plan was totally against my managers wish and we had to get a lot of scoldings before starting our journey. We had to carry out our laptop and secure id's in case there was an issue over weekend.
Our manager also warned strictly that, it is the last time he would allow both support people to travel together on weekend. I was almost convinced that my first trip will be my last trip. :P
We were almost late for the train so had to run to catch our train from Kings cross Station. I had always fancied about this station since from my harry potter reading days. So had planned to go early, find out platform 9 3/4 and take a pic there. But thanks to my manager I could only get one random pic on platform number 2 instead.
The train started exactly at 7.30, ran perfect and very fast till 8.30 and then stopped. The view was so great throughout the first 1 hour so I would have really not cared if the train had stopped in some good place. But it had halted on a pathetic place where I could see wall on one side and bush on other side. Reason was some signal failure. We finished all the snacks we had brought and hoped that train would move faster but it dint. Finally it reached Edinburgh at 3.45 AM in the morning 4 hours later than the expected arrival.
We were totally exhausted sitting for so much time and were looking to get back to my friends room asap, but still there was no end to our long night. We had to wait in the chilling cold for a taxi. Finally we reached my friends room around 5 in the morning and tried to catch some sleep.
I was very surprised and happy to see trains work the same way as Indian trains here. :P
As per plan we had decided to roam around Edinburgh on Saturday and had booked a small day trip on Sunday. The city was more beautiful than my expectation. Cleanliness and greenery was everywhere you see. We went to a famous park there from where the view of Edinburgh castle was very clear and wonderful. I could see the a very wonderful thing in that park which made me feel so good and jealous about people of that country. I could see the whole place full of people in weekend dresses with their kids sitting in the park. There were so free and relaxed and i can bet that they would do it every week. Children were playing happily around the park with other children or pets. Elders were sitting on easy chairs closing their eyes and relaxing. I thought I would pay any amount to have a life like that. Will I ever do that in my life?
After taking few snaps in the park near some fountain we started towards Art Museum. I had special interest in this museum just because my friend had told that it had a painting of Tippu Sultan. It was good like any other gallery. We went to see the big Monument built there for some poet. It was called Scott Monument. I learned that day the importance of Monuments and how much respect they give to the monuments. We decided to climb the tall Monument. Ticket was 4 pounds but my friend told that it will be worth.
I was almost out of my breath by the time I was on top, mainly because of the endless stairs. But the view from the top of that Monument blew out the remaining air from my lungs. That was by far the best sight I had seen till then.
We could see the entire city from that tower. It was a typical European city where one side was hill and other side was sea. The sea looked a bit far but it was so serene and blue. We stayed there for more than 30 minutes took hundreds of snaps from all sides and decided to give space for others and climbed down. as many were against visiting the castle we decided to go to a hill top area from where the sea side part of city was visible.
We walked all the way to that garden as we could cover most of the city by walking. We had to note our next day pick up point also. As expected the view from that park was also equally good. It was less crowded, mainly because it was already evening. I just slept on the green grass and kept on looking at the sky for long time. It felt heavenly to feel that fresh air on that hill top. I felt so refreshed that day. I slept that night thinking going to Edinburgh was not a bad choice at all.
The hairycoo trip was about to start at sharp 9 next day. We were already aware that they wont even wait a minute if we go late as timings are followed very strictly there. We reached 30 mins early to the pick up point and our Guide Don started the trip.
Hairycoo looked like a funny name initially but Don told us that it is a very famous animal to be found in countryside of Scotland. As our trip started he asked all our names, we were some 15 people in the mini Hairycoo shaped van. I will never forget one thing he told us after he introduced himself, his exact words were ' - My name is Donald, you can all call me Don, but please do not call me driver because I am a human too even if I am a driver'.
Makes lot of sense isn't it. His words made me think and I had definitely learnt one big lesson that day that, I should respect every work. How small ever it may be. I should never consider any job/person doing it small however small the work may be.
One more which I understood that day was nature of Scottish people. Very self esteemed and proud. Throughout the trip Don kept on telling us things about Scotland, how they became a developed country from no where, their Oil revolution, William Wallace, Anti English views etc.. Being an Indian the most important point among that was how much they hate English. I was surprised to hear that their relation was almost like India Pak even after being part of UK.
Learnt slowly that English had ruled Scottish also earlier and they had struggled hard to earn their freedom just like we Indians. Sir William Wallace was their national hero who had fought bravely against English rule. It could not be wrong if I say, half the contents of his speech was anti British and half was in praise of William Wallace. I felt so dumb for not knowing such a famous name before. Had never watched Brave Heart earlier but thought of watching it the first thing after I went back to London.
With all the stories of Wallace, we had reached first location of our journey, The Forth Bridge. The bridge was one of the oldest and strongest bridge ever built in the world as Don told us. It looked very robust and it was a pride of Scottish people. One of the main reason for building that bridge was to show the world how rich Scottish were in terms of their Metal power it seems. It was completely built using metal. We took some snaps and started for our next and most interesting spot of the day - the Whisky Distillery. :P
We had stopped to visit Tullibardine Whisky distillery. The owner explained us the way Whisky is prepared and showed us the barrels where it is stored for years. The oldest whisky available with them was of 65 year old. Which was supposed to be sent for packing in another year. It was very interesting to see those things. We got to taste a little raw whisky also in the end as it was part of the ticket price for Whisky tour.. :)
On the way to our next destination St Andrews we got a chance to visit Wallace Memorial situated in sterling. We dint have time to go on top of it but got few pics from below. As informed by our guide Don St Andrews was the birth place of Golf. Even before entering the town we could see many Golf courses along the route. Even though small, the Town was very rich. It had a lot of History. It also had a History on how Scotland got its white and blue Cross symbol National Flag.
St Andrews was a very small and beautiful city. Don said we could take a walk over the whole city in just 3 hours on foot. We clicked few pics on the main Golf course just beside the Beach and started our walk. We were not really interested in going inside any museums so directly went to St Andrews castle. It was such a serene view from the castle as view on the other side was a light blue sea which never ended.
Adding to the serenity there were 3 St Andrews University students who were filling the atmosphere with their magical music tunes. That was arguably the best Music I had ever heard. 2 girls and a guy, guy playing Mandolin, 1 of the girl playing violin and the other girl was plating some musical instrument which looked like saxophone. It looked as if they were trying to challenge the beautiful sea in from of them with their music. travellers were confused whether to listen to their music or see the beautiful scenery.
We sat there listening to their music for at least 15 minutes and started our walk back to our base point through the sea shore. On the way we saw St Andrews University, which is one of the oldest and most prestigious Universities of UK. I was so jealous looking at the location of the Hostel and class rooms. the view outside their window was a beautiful blue sea. :)
One more surprise was awaiting as we neared our base point. Two couples were dancing their heart out in a small tent shaped open house. They had music playing out of a tape recorder. The music and dance was equally beautiful. I remembered seeing such dances in old English movies. We too sat down on the benches and watched them for 10-15 minutes and appreciated them. I had really loved the way these people spend their weekends it was so different from the weekends I had spent in my life in India. So fresh and feel good weekends.
We took some of the best snaps on the sea shore and got back into our vehicle return back to Edinburgh. One of the pictures taken on that place has remained my profile pic for at least 8 months now. :P
On the way back Don took us to a creepy looking old church as we had time. The church was very old and also a grave yard. But he took us to a place behind the church where many creepy rituals happen. The place looked very creepy. Although I could not understand everything he told us about the rituals, I got old the point that, people come there and tie different different things to the trees in that place when someone in their family is ill. We took some pics of that creepy place and started our journey back.
The last stop was some port area where nothing much special was there except hell lot of boats. My friends got to eat delicious Fish and chips and I ate only Chips. :) We were back in Edinburgh by 6.30.
We visited Edinburgh castle after so much of discussion the next day, shopped few things and started our journey back to London.
One word for that trip - Beautiful Scotland!!!
9 Months of my stay away from India is coming to an end. Glad this feeling crossed my mind to make at least few notes on what happened here. My pathetic memory would make me forget everything within no time otherwise.
Looking at the way my days were passing I could never really imagine I would struggle this much to spend my last one month here. Yes it was a little struggle really. In no time my first 3 months were gone, so as my first 6 months. Then... time halted. It was not at all ready to run fast. After struggling a little till Dec end I tried my best to finish January. After knowing that I would return back to India on Jan 31st the time acquired my laziness and stopped.
Started with the biggest trip in first month.Scotland. I had just heard from everyone that it is beautiful. But had never really imagined how beautiful it could be. Before coming here I had just imagined Scotland as only a cricket playing country who wear dark blue t shirts and win some surprise matches in World cups..
Thanks to my roomies that they were planning to go back to India very soon. They agreed to visit Scotland on May.
Bank holiday weekend was ahead and we started planning. I had a friend in Edinburgh so we decided that to be our base location. We had to book early as ticket prices were raising very fast because of long weekend. After long discussion we booked Train ticket to Edinburgh at 100 per head to and fro. That was the cheapest available at that time.
The toughest thing to do before travel was to convince our manager. Who was a typical manager for whom work was priority than anything else. I dint know that we are supposed to support compulsorily till 9 BST so convince my friend to book onward journey tickets at 7.30 in the evening. It would be too late to go on Saturday as the journey was almost 4 hours and we would waste a day. That plan was totally against my managers wish and we had to get a lot of scoldings before starting our journey. We had to carry out our laptop and secure id's in case there was an issue over weekend.
Our manager also warned strictly that, it is the last time he would allow both support people to travel together on weekend. I was almost convinced that my first trip will be my last trip. :P
We were almost late for the train so had to run to catch our train from Kings cross Station. I had always fancied about this station since from my harry potter reading days. So had planned to go early, find out platform 9 3/4 and take a pic there. But thanks to my manager I could only get one random pic on platform number 2 instead.
The train started exactly at 7.30, ran perfect and very fast till 8.30 and then stopped. The view was so great throughout the first 1 hour so I would have really not cared if the train had stopped in some good place. But it had halted on a pathetic place where I could see wall on one side and bush on other side. Reason was some signal failure. We finished all the snacks we had brought and hoped that train would move faster but it dint. Finally it reached Edinburgh at 3.45 AM in the morning 4 hours later than the expected arrival.
We were totally exhausted sitting for so much time and were looking to get back to my friends room asap, but still there was no end to our long night. We had to wait in the chilling cold for a taxi. Finally we reached my friends room around 5 in the morning and tried to catch some sleep.
I was very surprised and happy to see trains work the same way as Indian trains here. :P
As per plan we had decided to roam around Edinburgh on Saturday and had booked a small day trip on Sunday. The city was more beautiful than my expectation. Cleanliness and greenery was everywhere you see. We went to a famous park there from where the view of Edinburgh castle was very clear and wonderful. I could see the a very wonderful thing in that park which made me feel so good and jealous about people of that country. I could see the whole place full of people in weekend dresses with their kids sitting in the park. There were so free and relaxed and i can bet that they would do it every week. Children were playing happily around the park with other children or pets. Elders were sitting on easy chairs closing their eyes and relaxing. I thought I would pay any amount to have a life like that. Will I ever do that in my life?
After taking few snaps in the park near some fountain we started towards Art Museum. I had special interest in this museum just because my friend had told that it had a painting of Tippu Sultan. It was good like any other gallery. We went to see the big Monument built there for some poet. It was called Scott Monument. I learned that day the importance of Monuments and how much respect they give to the monuments. We decided to climb the tall Monument. Ticket was 4 pounds but my friend told that it will be worth.
I was almost out of my breath by the time I was on top, mainly because of the endless stairs. But the view from the top of that Monument blew out the remaining air from my lungs. That was by far the best sight I had seen till then.
We could see the entire city from that tower. It was a typical European city where one side was hill and other side was sea. The sea looked a bit far but it was so serene and blue. We stayed there for more than 30 minutes took hundreds of snaps from all sides and decided to give space for others and climbed down. as many were against visiting the castle we decided to go to a hill top area from where the sea side part of city was visible.
We walked all the way to that garden as we could cover most of the city by walking. We had to note our next day pick up point also. As expected the view from that park was also equally good. It was less crowded, mainly because it was already evening. I just slept on the green grass and kept on looking at the sky for long time. It felt heavenly to feel that fresh air on that hill top. I felt so refreshed that day. I slept that night thinking going to Edinburgh was not a bad choice at all.
The hairycoo trip was about to start at sharp 9 next day. We were already aware that they wont even wait a minute if we go late as timings are followed very strictly there. We reached 30 mins early to the pick up point and our Guide Don started the trip.
Hairycoo looked like a funny name initially but Don told us that it is a very famous animal to be found in countryside of Scotland. As our trip started he asked all our names, we were some 15 people in the mini Hairycoo shaped van. I will never forget one thing he told us after he introduced himself, his exact words were ' - My name is Donald, you can all call me Don, but please do not call me driver because I am a human too even if I am a driver'.
Makes lot of sense isn't it. His words made me think and I had definitely learnt one big lesson that day that, I should respect every work. How small ever it may be. I should never consider any job/person doing it small however small the work may be.
One more which I understood that day was nature of Scottish people. Very self esteemed and proud. Throughout the trip Don kept on telling us things about Scotland, how they became a developed country from no where, their Oil revolution, William Wallace, Anti English views etc.. Being an Indian the most important point among that was how much they hate English. I was surprised to hear that their relation was almost like India Pak even after being part of UK.
Learnt slowly that English had ruled Scottish also earlier and they had struggled hard to earn their freedom just like we Indians. Sir William Wallace was their national hero who had fought bravely against English rule. It could not be wrong if I say, half the contents of his speech was anti British and half was in praise of William Wallace. I felt so dumb for not knowing such a famous name before. Had never watched Brave Heart earlier but thought of watching it the first thing after I went back to London.
With all the stories of Wallace, we had reached first location of our journey, The Forth Bridge. The bridge was one of the oldest and strongest bridge ever built in the world as Don told us. It looked very robust and it was a pride of Scottish people. One of the main reason for building that bridge was to show the world how rich Scottish were in terms of their Metal power it seems. It was completely built using metal. We took some snaps and started for our next and most interesting spot of the day - the Whisky Distillery. :P
We had stopped to visit Tullibardine Whisky distillery. The owner explained us the way Whisky is prepared and showed us the barrels where it is stored for years. The oldest whisky available with them was of 65 year old. Which was supposed to be sent for packing in another year. It was very interesting to see those things. We got to taste a little raw whisky also in the end as it was part of the ticket price for Whisky tour.. :)
On the way to our next destination St Andrews we got a chance to visit Wallace Memorial situated in sterling. We dint have time to go on top of it but got few pics from below. As informed by our guide Don St Andrews was the birth place of Golf. Even before entering the town we could see many Golf courses along the route. Even though small, the Town was very rich. It had a lot of History. It also had a History on how Scotland got its white and blue Cross symbol National Flag.
St Andrews was a very small and beautiful city. Don said we could take a walk over the whole city in just 3 hours on foot. We clicked few pics on the main Golf course just beside the Beach and started our walk. We were not really interested in going inside any museums so directly went to St Andrews castle. It was such a serene view from the castle as view on the other side was a light blue sea which never ended.
Adding to the serenity there were 3 St Andrews University students who were filling the atmosphere with their magical music tunes. That was arguably the best Music I had ever heard. 2 girls and a guy, guy playing Mandolin, 1 of the girl playing violin and the other girl was plating some musical instrument which looked like saxophone. It looked as if they were trying to challenge the beautiful sea in from of them with their music. travellers were confused whether to listen to their music or see the beautiful scenery.
We sat there listening to their music for at least 15 minutes and started our walk back to our base point through the sea shore. On the way we saw St Andrews University, which is one of the oldest and most prestigious Universities of UK. I was so jealous looking at the location of the Hostel and class rooms. the view outside their window was a beautiful blue sea. :)
One more surprise was awaiting as we neared our base point. Two couples were dancing their heart out in a small tent shaped open house. They had music playing out of a tape recorder. The music and dance was equally beautiful. I remembered seeing such dances in old English movies. We too sat down on the benches and watched them for 10-15 minutes and appreciated them. I had really loved the way these people spend their weekends it was so different from the weekends I had spent in my life in India. So fresh and feel good weekends.
We took some of the best snaps on the sea shore and got back into our vehicle return back to Edinburgh. One of the pictures taken on that place has remained my profile pic for at least 8 months now. :P
On the way back Don took us to a creepy looking old church as we had time. The church was very old and also a grave yard. But he took us to a place behind the church where many creepy rituals happen. The place looked very creepy. Although I could not understand everything he told us about the rituals, I got old the point that, people come there and tie different different things to the trees in that place when someone in their family is ill. We took some pics of that creepy place and started our journey back.
The last stop was some port area where nothing much special was there except hell lot of boats. My friends got to eat delicious Fish and chips and I ate only Chips. :) We were back in Edinburgh by 6.30.
We visited Edinburgh castle after so much of discussion the next day, shopped few things and started our journey back to London.
One word for that trip - Beautiful Scotland!!!
