Day 4: London!

We finally make it to London! Oh and no luggage! Remember all of it is still on the Kingfisher flight! M and me had to shop for undergarments and socks and the most important stuff!
Got up late - bugged my sis no end (so much fun to bug her after so long) and had a lazy morning! Brrrrrrrrr.. is it cold or what here! So much fun! Left for London at about 2:30 in the afternoon.. Went to a mall in Brent Cross, my sis wanted a MicroWave and in any case we did not get one because the one she liked was out of stock! Sis wanted o go to Wagamama, but there was a queue and Ijust refused to stand in a queue as I had to stand in a queue everytime we wanted food in Brussels! So went to a sandwich joint had sandwiches and left! By the time we reached Central London (well my sis is in Harrow) was already 4:30PM and getting dark really fast! Started hunting for parking and that was a pain in the butt! Finally found some parking in Soho and she could not parallel park so parked the car for her and started walking around London! Got into the Original Tour. Went around London in cold pouring December rain.. was a lot of fun! Went for dinner at a small Greek joint in Hampstead.. had fabolous food and came back home for a whiskey which was a godsend! :-) Whiskey in this cold is so much more fun! Oh and we got to know that the Kingfisher passengers were ferried across the English Channel by boat.. Shudder to think how cold it must have been! Bloody cold it muct have been!
So much for Day 4.. the walk in London had its own horror which shall be told later! ;-)

Day 2: Still at Brussels!

Went back to sleep and woke up by 8! Went back in the queue to get some food … broke the line – no one figured out I did.. got food in an hour and a half what would have taken easily 3.5 hours! Ate a hearty breakfast, and M and me went back to sleep! Woke up by 10 and called my sister up – poort thing did not sleep a wink figuring out what the hell to do! Checked once again – the morons at Kingfisher haven’t done shit.. for all the customer service crap that Dr. Vijay Mallya spews out while taking off in a video .. we were left to do our own jazz!

So my sis then asked to check if there were flights from Brussels to other airports .. there is no information desk in the area where we were been shepherded like cattle (Damn.. Shashi Tharoor should’ve been on this expedition – He would have given a whole new spin to the phrase “cattle class”!!). Asked my sis to check if there are indeed any airports that are actually operating out of London and poor thing did check and get back that Manchester and South Hampton airports were indeed functioning, she booked M and self on the FlyBe Brussels to South Hampton flight at 5:55 PM! Thought we had to get the tickets from the Brussels Airline counter and stood in the queue for about 2 hours! Standing the queue gave me perspective on why jobs are getting outsourced to India! It takes 15 minutes to book an international ticket in India at the airport counter (did that last year for our Bali trip where makemytrip screwed up for us!) Finally after I hit the counter, get to know that they do not give flybe tickets and that we need to print on our own! Fortunately, the Brussels airport has enough Internet terminals with printers that allowed us to do that. My sis meanwhile (bless her soul) had even called up the Brussels airport authority and checked the gate where we had to egt in the flight! Came back, checked the gate and finally had the first hot meal in about 28 hours at the Bar! Typing this while M is passed out on the table and waiting for the announcement of the flight! Meanwhile, it is snowing here in Brussels and is tremendously pretty looking at the concourse with the planes parked all over! Meanwhile, no word from Kingfisher and even Air India had arranged for their passenger to be moved to Madrid and Jet Airways arranged for transit visas for their passengers and tickets on EuroStar! Talk about customer service! Korean Air, meanwhile, was the ultimate in customer service. They don’t have a hub in Brussels – they actually flew in a crew from somewhere so that they can keep their passengers updated on the status on a hourly basis! KingFisher for all its 5 star experience is shit!

Waiting now for the Flybe flight so that we can start our holiday in earnest! Well.. Flybe also got cancelled! back to the drawing board! Checking a few other options!

Meanwhile the Kingfisher guys showed up and took everyone's passports except ours! :-)

So now we are stuck! Resting for the night at the Brussels airport in a tent bag! :-) Talk about roughing it!

Wanderlust takes me to Wimbledon - Day 2

Day 2 and I had tons of places to see, but another high priority place which I absolutely had to see was the All England Lawn Tennis and Croquet Club, better known to the rest of the world as the Mecca of tennis – the hallowed grounds of Wimbledon.

It was a glorious Sunday, with the weather being absolutely perfect for Wimbledon. I traveled all the way from Slough Station, changed at London Paddington into the district line and got to Southfields. From the Southfields station, it is a good 20 minute walk to the courts of Wimbledon.

Reached Wimbledon and I had 20 minutes before the tour started and so I decided to visit the Museum. You get see relics from a past age about how Tennis actually developed into the sport we now know.

There is an absolute brilliant must-see film about the science in Tennis that was made using a special 200° camera with 5 separate lenses with Maria Sharapova playing someone I don't know. The film talks about the technology infrastructure in Wimbledon, the technology in the clothes that players wear, the science in the shoes they wear, the racquets and the balls used, the science behind the hand-eye coordination required to play tennis. It is filmed in "The Matrix" style and the 8-minute film is awesome!

We were finished with the movie and people started pouring for the tour - There were Americas, Dutch, Japanese, Chinese, British and me, the lone Indian in the group of around 25 people. We had a very knowledgeable guide who was passionate about the sport and took us all around the place telling us history of the place and funny stories about the players - My favourites were the ones about Andy Roddick and Boris Becker.

Wimbledon is a private club and one needs to be a member to play there - The easiest way they say, to become a member is to win a singles title! Non-members cannot use the changing area and it is only open to non-members during the Championship. Andy Roddick refuses to use the members area until he has won the championship and has become a member! I felt for Andy Roddick - I mean, with the kind of form that Roger Federer has been in during the last 4 years, it looks very difficult for anyone, not just Andy to lift the Wimbledon title!

During the Championship, since central London is a distance away from Wimbledon, players prefer to stay in the village, rather than spend time in traffic - So in the 2 weeks of the Championship, the rates around Wimbledon ranges from £500 - £5000 per week! Players such as Stefan Edberg and Martina Navratilova, both past champions, have bought property around Wimbledon so that they can use the facility whenever they fancy! During one such Championship, Becker saw this property that he really liked which the owner refused to let out at any price, and Becker came up with this incredible offer - For the duration of the 2 weeks when the Championship is played - he offered for the property owner to exchange his apartment in Monte Carlo and they would be even - and that was an offer that the owner could not refuse and that is how Becker stayed in Wimbledon!

The guide walked us around the Henman Hill (named after the then number one and the joke was that it could soon be named Murray Mountain - now that Andy Murray is the new British number 1), through the courts and then, to Court Number 1 and as we entered, I could not help myself but smile - This was something that I had seen so many times on TV - To see the place was a high! I am a non-player and I felt so fortunate to be there!However, what Pete Sampras said captured it the best showing us what most Tennis players think about the CHampionship, though I am sure Ivan Lendl will not subscribe to this train of thought!

While I did other things that day, it will be in another post - Wimbledon deserves its own special place!

Wanderlust takes me to London - Day 1

I had decided to see London even before I had landed and that is what I proceeded to do – whatever I could in 2 days which was the weekend! So after researching a lot on the net – I decided that the best option is to buy the LondonPass!

Now the LondonPass is available from 1-6 days – It gives you options and free entry into a lot of places though I will tell you what it does not give you:

Ø Entry into Madame Tussaud’s
Ø Entry into Victoria and Albert’s Museum
Ø Entry to the Natural History Museum

This only means that if you are so inclined, you need to pay to get into any of them! It also does not provide you entry into the National Gallery, but the entry is free there! So as far as I am concerned, the LondonPass is value for money!

Now I had to travel from Slough, where I was staying, to London! I did some research onto what was the best way to travel and what I did was to get myself into a Hoppa – a service that the National Express provides from Heathrow and hotels close to the airport and the Marriott that I was staying at was one of them! For £4 I could travel from Heathrow to the hotel one way. I headed toward Heathrow, having a hearty breakfast and went to the London Underground also affectionately known as the Tube. The London Underground consists of many lines and each line travels in a different direction. Only one of these line, the Piccadilly line runs to Heathrow. So I took the Piccadilly line and got off at, where else, Piccadilly Circus! From Piccadilly Circus, the office of the Britain and London Visitor Center is just a stone’s throw away and the address is No.1 Regent Street, London, W1. The office is where you can pick up the Pass, though they will mail it to your address also, if you book in advance.

So I bought myself one and it cost me £42 for 2 days of sightseeing. Now, one of the places I absolutely had to see was the Tower of London and with the LondonPass, the entry is free!
The Tower of London had been built around a thousand years ago and has been the seat of the government and has been used as a prison to house royal traitors of Britain.

The tower took about 20 years to build and in places had walls 15 feet thick!

This link is extremely useful if you are a history buff:

http://www.twingroves.district96.k12.il.us/RenAissance/TowerofLondon/TowerLondon.html

From the Tower of London, I walked to the Tower pier and had taken some photographs of the London Bridge. I then had an ice-cream a really nice one, while I waited for my cruise ride on the river Thames, which is also part fo the LondonPass. The cruise takes you through the Thames from the Tower Pier via the Westminister pier to Embankment Pier.

I got off Embankment pier and then walked my way on the Victoria Embankment to Parliament square where you will see the magnificent architecture of the Parilament Houses and Big Ben. The sight is just spectacular!

From here on, walked again on Whitehall, where you will pass Downing Street – unfortunately the street was cordoned off and then I walked ahead towards the Monument raised for the Women in the wars, then towards Horse Guards, Admiralty Arch and onwards to Trafalgar Square.

Trafalgar Square is simply beautiful. It has fountains and statues and lots and lots of people sitting all over the place – you see children skating, evangelists pontificating, couples romancing, lots of people just sitting and eating ice creams and a few others contemplating! You will definitely see a lot of tourists – it is a huge draw.

Just ahead is also the National Gallery – the entrance is mostly free unless you would want to see Renoir landscapes and a collection names as Dutch portraits and the collection in the museum is simply awesome. Personally, my favourite was Samson and Delilah by Rubens and the Virgin of the Rocks by Leonardo da Vinci. It also has a prints of a few works and my favourite there was a Monet – The Gare St. Lazare, which was simply superb!

Please remember, to see London – prepare yourself to walk and walk a lot – This time of the year, the weather was glorious and it is easy – I would recommend you to wear easy shoes – preferably sneakers to be comfortable!

This is how I ended my day one – took the tube and train back to my hotel and fell blissfully asleep!

England: Here I come!

So, I have had to visit the UK for work for 2 and half weeks and had decided to make the best use of the trip! Who knows what happens tomorrow, might as well live it up today was the motto and I started with great gusto!

I have been shacked up at the Slough/Windsor Marriott for the duration which is pretty nice place – You actually have enough space to walk around in the room and people tell me that it is a luxury in itself. The company I have come to work with has a deal with the Marriott groups and is offering rooms at £105 and I understand that it is good rate which includes breakfast also. The breakfast is great with good choice, but the food otherwise leaves a lot to be desired! If you are vegetarian – then it you barely have any choice!

Now, I had landed in Heathrow Monday last, because it was a holiday here because of Easter. Started work with gusto, with the thought of me wanting to see the place at the back of my mind.

Do wait for my next article on London and what I did see during the weekend!