Hello All – After much travelling, switches and toil I’ve reached the land of crumpets, scones and double cream. On the flight, I found I was tagged as a ‘Hindu’ and consequently, I was on the receiving end of ‘special’ meals. Translate that as stuff with no eggs or meat. Mostly cabbage and potatoes with salt and turmeric. Yechh! Quickly fixed that and found myself staring at half a parantha, two spoons of lamb and yam on either side of 6 spoons of rice. Hmmm… it was better than the cabbage and potatoes anyway.
Reached Abu Dhabi airport and headed straight for the cafe. Tried a beef sandwich (tough and dry) and a seafood salad. The salad was interesting. Arrange in a thin wide container, it contained prawns in mayonaise on one end, then lettuce, then a mixture of chopped boiled eggs in mayonnaise, some iceberg lettuce and then two thin raw fillets of salmon with capers. After letting them ‘cook’ in some lemon juice, the salmon was quite nice.
The second leg of the flight was uneventful. The hostess tried her best to stuff a turmeric, potato and cabage ‘hindu meal’ down my throat, but I bravely resisted her attempts and successfully received a mound of eggs, spinach, potatoes and a thin, nearly transparent slice of turkey ham measuring about 1.5 inches either way. The meal was called ‘Grilled Turkey Ham Breakfast’.
Caught a bus to Manchester Piccadily. Found a cafe (‘The Zest’) there, serving a full English Breakfast. Since I had 45 minutes before my train to Sheffield, and it was 8:30 in the morning, I gave in to my baser instincts and settled down for a nice breakfast. A big mug of tea, buttered toast, breakfast sausages, fried tomatoes, bacon, baked beans and hash browns later, I caught my train to Sheffield, then a bus to Chesterfield and finally reached Chesterfield by 10:45am.
I’m staying in this place called ‘Hollingwood Hall’. It’s a series of rooms with many common facilities like wireless internet access, pool, gym, video library, library, games like pool, kitchens etc. Nice concept. Wish they had something like it in India.
Breakfast was some ciabatta with coleslaw, a generous portion of brie along with some crisps – all of which was picked up yesterday evening.
My first morning in England and … I’m waiting for lunch.
Sid
I guess there are lots of people who need to be educated about
Indians. Hindus are not necessarily vegetarian should be the first of the prejudices to go.
You can’t really blame them our country is so diverse and convoluted it is difficult to unravel the mystery that is “India”
Angrezi galat ho gayi! it should be read as ” All Hindu’s are vegetarian should be the first prejudice to go”
Ah, so you’ve arrived! Sounds like a very long trip. I hope you brought some warm clothes with you, and possibly a hot-water bottle for your bed?
Let us know how things are and what you get to eat, won’t you?
far from the hot water bottle, having taken the advice of my lovely wife, i didn’t bring anything with a shred of wool in it. I was assured it would be ‘warm and sunny’ and all of that.
walking into asda and asking for jackets brought the reply, ‘its summer mate’.
fortunately, i found a lonely pullover, probably forgotten and quickly bought it.