Curtains down on 'Day 4'

Its 6 o'clock in the evening now and its already pitch dark outside. After a brief chat with my friend and a double-entendre comment on buzz, i am here to blog. Come to think of it, blogspot has become my personal diary now. Wonder if mine will become the new-age Anne Frank diary, i mean only the fame bit of it.

Friday I went to work, my first day in the Ladbrokes office - all suited up and smart(have a slightly high opinion of myself after wearing the suit).


It was a tough first day, a real tough first day.

• First of, i was introduced the team, and what a team it was. 2 Greeks, 1 Italian, 1 Chinese and 1 Brit. Well, the introduction did not go as expected, my managers back in India would have been a tad bit disaapointed with my performance. I was clearly told, again and again, to get introduced and hand-over my business card to the client. I had mentally rehersed meeting each stake holder individually and handing my card to them, but with the whole team around me and with their Friday dressing and their cool, jovial attitude and with the introductions happening on a first name basis I just could not slip my hand into my pocket to pull out my business card.
• After the introductions I had nothing much to do except stay put in my place. I just acted busy, all serious in the face and all suited up below the face.
• The lunch I picked seemed to have tiny pieces of something stuck all around the pasta. Sensed something fishy, or rather chickeny, and left all of it.
• It was soon 6 PM and it was a Friday. Friday nights in Ladbrokes are the 'Village Inn' nights, a pub just 200 mts away. So, off I went with the team and downed a couple of glasses of beer. A Carlsberg and a Guiness. The greeks in the team were totally amused by me being vegetarian and all conversation with me revolved around it.A couple of hoours in the pub and then we called it a day.

Clearly, a very difficult first day.

The plan was to go and check out houses on Saturday. An eager beaver that I was, woke up early and started looking at the ad's in GumTree.com. A bit of Monica creeped into me, I created an excel with color coding to make of list of houses that I would check out and the I would not and so on. The excitement did not last very long - most house-owners did not in recieve my calls, and the ones that did wanted me to check out the house on a weekday. Such a waste of a weekend I thought. Finally, one guy invited me for a viewing. A sri-lankan with 2 persian cats in the house and a strong smell of something not very nice in the house. I walked back dejected. A lil while later Ageesh decided to drop by to my room for drinks. We went to the nearest Tesco(huuuuuuuuge) and grabbed some beers and chips and drank away to glory and then the day just ended. I survived yet another day in the alien land, but had still not seen snow.

Today was great. Quite simply, I found a house in a street right behind where my office is. The rent just what I was looking for. The house very clean. The owner, a very sweet sri-lankan lady. So what if the room is tiny, every room here is tiny (reminds me of the Munnbhai dialogue about the hostel room - 'Bhai yeh room to shuru hote hi khatam ho gaya'). Grabbed some rice and chole and had a good lunch. Saw some stupid shows on TV. Had a nice relaxed bath in the tub(hope I don't used to the tub, definitely wont find one in India). Will now read a book and go to bed. A nice day of solitude.

Wonder why I keep playing the 'Careless whisper' in my mind...

The journer so far

I can barely stay awake, fighting hard to not fall asleep. And the music I am playing does not seem to help either, Sonu is yelling in the 'Jaane nahin denge' from '3 Idiots'. Nearly 26 hours after I entered the BIAL, I reached London. 26 freaking hours.

From the past 1 month my getting to London was an uncertainity. First it was the client approval, then the VISA which took close to 3 weeks and when everything was settled and I walked in to BIAL I realized the Emirates flight was delayed by 4 hours. Missed my connecting flight as well. The next flight from Dubai to London was 7 hours after I landed in Dubai. My initial tensions gave way to a sense of happiness, the delay meant that Emirates would provide me with hotel accomodation and a transit VISA to stay in Dubai. Though I did not get to roam around Dubai, I did a few firsts in my life. Like for instance taking a relaxed bath in a hot tub, it was so soothing to my bruised body and soul. And a few more firsts I cannot mention in the blog. Checked-out of the hotel 4 hours in advance and went all round the Dubai Duty Free and finally boarded the flight to London - hoping for an uneventful flight, the final leg of my journey to London.

The short stay in Dubai made me decide one thing - that I wanted to work in Dubai at some point in my life. The damn place was literally a melting point of cultures. I probably saw people from all races and countries and ages and religions. I read somewhere that people from over 100 countries stay at Dubai. Never before had I seen such a mix of people, and all this in just the airport. Everybody seemed to know every language (except for the white robed dubai natives of course). And at every turn I could hear the all familiar Malayalam :) The airport and its environs looked so beautiul at night. In spite of the delays I experienced, I will take the Emirates again just so that I can go via Dubai again.

Todat at 7:30 AM GMT I stepped out into chilly London. My cab driver Eduardo, an Italian was already waiting in a Mercedes Benz. This was again a first, getting a ride in a Benz. Eduardo was non-stop, we covered quite a range of topics - from IT in India to his sick pet dog and how bad his health insurance was. The first thing I noticed as the cab went past residential areas was that every house looked the same. Every single house. In fact it reminded me of the Privet Drive from the Harry Potter movies. I even noticed a few houses with the world famous Mangaluru Hanchu.

After settling in the hotel, I decided to go out and explore Harrow a little bit, just so that I don't fall asleep in the room. I took the world-famous London Underground and man was it a let-down. After having travelled in the spanking new Delhi metro last year the London Underground looked so antique. As I stood for my train, a girl in pink tights and pink shoes and Orange nail polish came over to me and asked for directions, she also had a pink bag I believe. As I looked around I saw that a lot of girls were in pink, I rather expected the entire town to be dressed in black and grey. The first thing one would notice in Harrow is the Indian community. 50% of the population was Indian. From Gujju hotels, to punjabi hotels to Mughalai to even a Saravana bhavan on Rayners lane.
I also experienced the famous, unpredictable London rain. One moment it was raining and the next it was gone and then again it appeared outta nowhere.

My first day in London has been quite exciting till now, looking forward to work tomorrow. Time to tuck myself in and have a good nights sleep, its been close to 40 hours now since I had proper sleep..YAWN!!!!!!!