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Showing posts from September, 2012

Heading ahead...(600)

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I need to tag in the title that it's my 600th post. Else I lose track. So once every now and then I feel that need to turn around and look back at all the blogging I have done. Usually, it's a milestone or a birthday or simply new year . This year, I forgot my blog's birthday, like I did my sisters, like I did my parents, like my parents did mine, and like I nearly did mine! So apologises to all my friends whose birthday I forgot and congratulations to all those who wished (facebook is very dutiful). Hence, I look back at my last hundred posts (and even older). But when I do look back, it was meant to be a soul-searching sentimental feeling. So as I sat to write this post down I was struck by writers block for hours. I have indeed changed. I haven't lost the capacity to write, just to be overly sentimental. And just like that I could write again. When I look back, I often feel sad that I have changed so much, even though change is the in thing. Looking back to wh

The Channel Connection

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When I was still studying in IIT, and we called up a European alumni for something, her mother said she went to France in the morning for some work, and should be back later that evening. It was so fascinating to me that you can just say you want to go to another country and just go and just come back all in a day and all with no prior booking. So the fascination never left me... till last weekend that it. On Thursday, a friend thought out aloud that it was going to be a beautiful weekend and a trip to Dover might be nice. I thought out aloud that if I go to Dover, I might as well go to Calais ! So I thought I would go on Saturday. But I woke up late on Saturday and no one else seemed interested. Yet it was a sunny day. So I accompanied friends to Oxford Street for some random shopping, more like window shopping with all the live models posing as mannequins and the different kinds of decorations that turn up only in Oxford Street (check out LV window below, oh, and this

The Belfast dAIry

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Belfast is not big and not very old either. Yet you can spend a couple of days with much left to be seen. The city has five quarters, not four. And it seemed to me that each quarter is different in so many different ways! The city has drawn out a few "trails". You can find them at any tourist information centre marked out on the map. The City Hall is by far the most impressive point in Belfast. A massive structure, it has glorious internal design as well. Some of the windows have been commissioned to depict glass paintings telling us of incidents in the history of Northern Ireland. The lawns are dotted with weird cement cows but unlike in Milton Keyes these actually depict people and ideas. You will find a lot of interesting architecture and stories on the City of Merchants Trail including Belfast's very own leaning tower! And the other thing that Belfast is proud of is building the Titanic. The largest ship ever built, and it sank. I read in somewhere tha

Scottish Highlands

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Train to Edinburgh A nearly beautiful journey through the country side of England a bit of Scotland brings you to Edinburgh from London after about 4.5 hours on a train. Waiting on the train for the view to get better and better we fell asleep till we reached. Edinburgh was on the verge of a fest so everything was shut down or closed out and bus stops were changed and worse of all, maps were removed I mean REALLY !!! We found our little hotel behind the castle that looked like somehow they managed to keep it together, but it was really nice inside. A spooky look on the outside was pretty cool... The next day we found Hertz, showed him a license and got a lovely little family car. A car so much like our own that it felt own. A near new Ford Fiesta. And invested well in a good road map. The Loch Drive We started off west towards Glassgow and weaved through the city passing by the Cathedral before hitting for the prettier roads. We drove through the Trossachs and past the all

Towering Museums and Olympic London

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On a splendid rainy Sunday we went to Tower of London. A tower so well preserved but it isn't that old either. It was the first fort/tower/castle sort of thing I had seen. Having been sucked into A Song of Ice and Fire, it felt like the book comes alive. The crown jewels are of course the most important part of the museum. Though we went to see the Kohinoor, what we saw more importantly was the Cullinan I. It was the largest thing eve, as large as an egg and dwarfs anything around it. The wall walk was the most amazing though. To walk around and see the different gates, the draw bridges, the buildings that the walk encloses, it all feels so real! Monday was reserved for a special purpose. London 2012 Olympics. I picked up tickets because I thought it might be easier to get tickets for a Monday, because hockey is the national game of India and we associate it with the Olympics, because an afternoon session does not require you to wake up early in the morning or delay yo