Tales from Britannia – The Unfinished Tales

Some of the stuff I wanted to do but couldn’t –

• Visit the Stonehenge
• Drive a Mercedes (which I could have done if I had gone to Mercedes-Benz World on a weekend instead of a weekday)
• Meet the Queen (I couldn’t have done that anyway but wtf)
• Watch the Champions League final in a Manchester pub (I was in my aunt’s house in Surrey with a bad cold an light fever)
• Go to Old Trafford (I already mentioned that before)
• Watch Eric Clapton live (which was going to happen on the day I landed in Mumbai)
• Stand in the famous overnight queues for daily Wimbledon tickets (I got the ticket without all the trouble … The story of how I got the tickets will come in a later post)
• Buy a guitar (No money)

All this probably next time.

Tales from Britannia – The Final Chapter

My 47 day stay in England has finally ended and indeed it has been an awesome experience. Fortunately enough, my last week there turned out to be the high point of the whole thing and I got to see Rafael Nadal play on Centre Court at Wimbledon. My seat was right behind and to the right of the referee 12 rows behind. On the downside, all the three matches were straightforward sfaairs with the victors not dropping a set. But then again you can’t get everything.

It was also to my tremendous bad luck that I did not get a chance to go to Old Trafford. I made up for it by say 80% when I went to the Enirates Stadium in North London. Why Emirates? Well, skillwise I would say that Arsenal are unmatched in the EPL (even better  than United) and hence they are quite an admirable side. Anyway, the stadium is quite well built. There is a beautiful museum chronicling the history of the Gunners.

The last two days were spent in trying to pack (and re-pack) the horrendous amount of stuff I had to take back with me. The flight back on Friday was very very uncomfortable leaving me stiff for the best part of Saturday. On landing, it felt amazing to finally smell the wet, sweaty and salty air of Mumbai, a moment which was surely the cherry on the icing …