More UK Ramblings

I’ve been in UK for around 3 weeks, from the time I last rambled a lot of water has flown under the bridges of UK.
The weather has been lovely and is one of the many reasons I don’t miss India as much I thought I would. It’s sunny during the afternoon and pleasant in the morning and at night.
I have moved to a completely furnished service apartment in Birmingham, ones with hi-fi security gadgets and all the amenities required for ‘stylish’ and comfortable living.
The coordinator or the so-called manager of these apartments is a pretty English lady with a truly befitting named 'Tulip'(name changed;-)).The apartments are 2 minute away from one train station and about 5 minutes away from the other, with the bus stop being bang opposite.
I have now purchased a railcard and travel by train to and from office. One of my favourite pastimes after reaching my apartment is watching ‘Deal or No-Deal’ a truly riveting game show where u can earn from 1 penny to 250,000£(I now have a Dell laptop provided by the client that has the £ symbol and because of which I locked my email account twice)
I haven’t started cooking as yet, unless Maggi and tea are counted in that list but plan to visit the Soho, the so called ‘Mini-India ‘of Birmingham to buy spices and pulses so that I can put my culinary skills(in case I have any) to test.
Travelling in the cab while moving to my apartment I realised that the cab driver was for the nth time a Pakistani. That brought this thought to my mind that however we curse India or its politicians we are much better off than our arch-rival Pakistan, so we ended up becoming ‘flashy’ consultant while they became the drivers of ‘our’ cabs.
By this time I have fallen in love with the ‘chocolate milk’ of the office’s ‘free-vend’ machine, though the choco-espresso is not bad eitherJ
I visited Heights of Abraham, a tourist attraction about 2 hours away from Birmingham. The place is known for its cable cars and caverns and breathtakingly beautiful views. The tour caves were really amazing and gave a feel of what cave man’s life would have been like. You need to give it to the English people for marketing their tourist places and then making the visit worth the money.
Another place that I have added to the ‘visited’ list is Stratford-upon-Avon, the birthplace of Shakespeare. It is a small town but truly grand and magnificent like the bard himself. Almost every shop in this town is named after a character from Shakespeare’s plays. So while an adult-toy shop is called Romeo & Juliet one that sells sports’ goods has been christened Hamlet.The star attraction of this place ,besides the birthplace, schools and the homes of Shakespeare is the Holy Trinity Church where Shakespeare is buried.
The church is a 13th century one and built on the river Avon, the most beautiful part of the church are the windows, with glass bearing the images from the Bible.
Work has started full-swing and this week we are travelling to Northampton for three days for the process workshops.
So that’s it for the time being. More ramblings soon….so like they say in UK ,take care mate.

UK Ramblings

So I am in the quiet and serene kingdom, quiet as talking here seems to be bad manners and serene(ok lets give it to them on this one;-))

Landed here at 8 PM local time and 12:30 AM IST,it took me more than an hour to clear immigration as to put in the words of the annoying ‘recorded message lady’ security is the priority

The first signs that Asians are as much a part of England as the English themselves appeared when the cab driver who took us to the hotel from the airport spoke to us in silky Urdu n Punjabi(softer than Cadbury’s Silk chocolate)

The weather reminded me of Shimla,cold with the chilly wind poking u like needles(Thank God I was born In Shimla and have umpteen no of woolens)
I am currently staying in ‘Tudor Court’ a beautiful English house, resplendent with English glory, that has been converted into a small hotel. The place is run by an English couple Steve and Jennie, warm(unlike the English weather).My room has an English style bed(warm n cozy ) and a TV on which I watched the true English version of the Sherlock Holmes(loved it)

I was fasting yesterday so couldn’t eat anything(not that I’m a glutton neways) so the breakfast today tasted nothing less than manna, having English breakfast in England is out of the world, baked beans and potatoes, Mushroom (woooooooooo
)
The roads of Solhull(lovely hamlet) are wide, with trees on every imaginable side and people follow all the traffic rules here,99.9 % of the taxi drivers are Pakis(unusually warm) and united with the Asians in England in mocking the locals.
My office here is 15 mts from the hotel, the office complex is built of stone(almost 100% of the English buildings are).

The seating arrangement here is like it is in AHP foundation’s Sjp office ,people sit around a round table in groups of 6,no cubicles ,no walls all in the same big hall..

The pantry has a vending machine that supplies all kinds of ‘free’ coffee, chocolate milk and tea(that I’m still trying to figure out how to add more sugar is another story)

All the new joinees are taken around the office complex by Mandy, an English lady who seems to have become 1 with the walls of the building.

I have already started shopping with the visit to the Pound Store(everything for 1 pound ) that has some really neat deals.