Missing a flight and that too an International one is the worst thing that can happen to any one. I realized it the hard way when I missed my 10:05 a.m flight just because I reached the check out counter 5 minutes late. Then I had to rebook my flight for the evening which came at an expensive price tag of 222 pounds or the Indian rupee equivalent of 18,200 bucks.

Of course the mistake was completely mine as I miscalculated the distance to the Heathrow airport. Here I need to specially thank the pakistani cab driver Zafar who shaved off about approximately an hour of commuting. The only problem was the traffic hold-ups in between. However in the end it all counted for nothing. Imagine waiting for the whole day in the airport as you're next flight is only at @ 21:05 hours. The only relief was I had some good co-passengers for company.

The security @ the Heathrow airport was so stringent that even water kept in the bottle was disallowed. One has to empty the contents of the bottle. I walked in through the metal detector and it triggered an alarm. This made the plain clothes officer suspicious and he told me to unbuckle my belt. He put his hands around my waist and checked me thoroughly from head to toe probably looking for some concealed explosives :)

Also we had to take our shoes for being x-rayed. I guess it's the John Reid effect. That's the man who wanted to trigger an explosion aboard the plane with explosives planted in his shoes.

Now I am back home atlast and looking forward to the long weekend before the hard grind ahead...yeah I am talking about getting back to work from Monday :)

It was my final working day in London today. But what a day it was...for a moment or so I was a bit of nervous wreck. I had to get the final document signed off by the client however the time taken by the client to review the document was making me a tad nervous. The problem was my ticket to India is booked for tomorrow and if I had to stay back for another day it would have been too late to reschedule the departure date. Thankfully as the saying goes "All is well that ends well" and things just evened out.

It's been madness for the past 4 days (excludes saturday & sunday) :) What I am surprised is that I exceeded my own expectations. I had to handle calls from my Project Manager in India and the big boss apart from interacting with the clients onsite. In the end it's been worth it. This has been my first exposure dealing with on-site clients directly. I agree it was tough, there were times when I thought of "Fight or Flight" but I am glad I chose the former. It has enriched my experience and that should stand me in good stead in the future.

I will miss the London tube, the daily morning English breakfast made of toast, butter, delicious cornflakes and warm milk. Who can forget the accomodation which was nice and sleeping cozily in the bed with the heater to warm up your room. The only thing which made my life miserable was the drastic fall in the temperature. Constant sneezing and wheezing has left a toll on my nose. It looks more like a joker's nose now...just kidding :)

In the evening my final port of call was the Mahalakshmi temple located @ East Ham station. For dinner, I visited Saravana Bhavan (Chennai's famous chain of vegeterian restaurants).

My Jet Airways flight departs tomorrow @ 10:05 a.m and hopefully I will be reaching India in the early hours of thursday morning. My experience with Jet Airways has been nice so far and it's nice to know even Indian airlines can give good competition to foreign airlines :)

Yesterday i.e Saturday the first thing I did in the morning was to visit the Ilford shopping centre. There were a couple of things on my shopping list. The first one was to get a pair of formal shoes. I had brought along my formal clothes however I forgot to bring along my shoes. Now that put me in an awkward situation when dealing with the client.

It was a trifle embarrassing to put on formal shirts and a sneaker. The only apprehension I had in my mind was how much will the new pair of shoes cost. As with most Indians I was used to the math of converting the British pound into Indian currency. So say for example I need to spend £ 2 on a chocolate bar, at the back of mind it implies I am spending around INR 160 bucks which sounds crazy. But is it really...what we forget is that your rupees don't count for nothing when you're in another country. So if you earn in £ pounds or have $ dollars with you, you can only spend in that currency.

Luckily for me there I found a shop where the discount sale was on. I got a good pair of shoes for just £ 8. Now that was cool. The other item on the list was to purchase a travel adapter. This one was a real pain as I had to go from one shop to another but couldn't find anything which conforms to Indian and UK electrical sockets. So the next time, when you leave the shores and have to charge your cellphone or use it for any other electrical gadget purchased in India, you need to be sure of purchasing a travel adapter before hand. Lessons learnt the hard way :)

After the shopping, I visited the "Tower Bridge" , "Big Ben" and the "London Eye". Now here's something interesting. People mistake the "Tower Bridge" for the "London Bridge" which isn't right coz both are completely different structures. The one thing which I really admired was the "Big Ben" and the "London Eye". Both Big Ben, London Eye and the British Parliament House are located near to river Thames. It was nice standing on the bridge and viewing the ferry ships transporting the tourists on river Thames.

Sunday saw a very wet weather and that kept me mostly indoors. I spent my time going to the Laundrette, preparing notes, watching television, ironing my clothes and getting ready for the busy day tomorrow. 17th March, is my birthday and sadly I will my miss my family a lot on this special day. I can't wait to get back home.

It's been 3 years since my last trip overseas. I am currently in London for a short business trip barely lasting a week. I will be holding discussions with one of our clients. From the day I reached London, I had to hit the ground running.

It's been so hectic that I indeed forgot I was away from my country. So far no time to visit any of the tourist hot spots. The good thing about London is the tube. People in London are lucky to have such an excellent transport facility. I hope we have something similar in most cities across India. I took a 1 week Oyster pass for 34 pounds. Its so cool I can travel unlimited number of times on the tube, overground trains and ofcourse the bus.

Traffic as in any western country is very disciplined. The only sore point is the crappy weather. I am put up @ Hotel Banks, Ilford.

It's a weekend tomorrow and I am hoping to visit places like the London Bridge and London Eye, stuff which I could only watch in movies so far :)

What is it, that happens to a person when they get behind the wheel? This was something which was plaguing me when I have been driving to work for the past couple of weeks. Sometimes I have done crazy things like overtaking vehicles when the road is narrow and just about saving my life by avoiding a head-on collision with the on-coming vehicles.

That day @ work I kept wondering what had seized me for that particular moment? I meant how could I do this. I keep harping on how road users here don't have traffic sense and look here I was doing the same stuff which I detest. How does even a sober person lose his patience when he/she gets behind the wheel. Anyway just as a sort of self inflicted punishment I felt like slapping myself and which I did.

Anywayz the weekends @ home are a far cry from my movie filled weekends when I was away from home. These days I am more focussed on doing "Home Improvements" There was the absence of a wardrobe since a long time and finally after 2 weeks of work its all set to be ready in the next couple of days. The downside... it did burn a hole in my pocket.:)