Back from London

Yippee !!! I’m back ... back to Delhi.

On Tuesday, I went for shopping at Primark (Oxford Street). I heard about this store from few of my colleagues at Delhi. They told me that it’s like Mecca for all foreign budget tourists. Even though I was not too keen on buying anything from London per se, but Divya (she came to London with me for training) was very keen on shopping. Girls ... what can I say ... they are inherently shopaholics. Anyhoo ... I tagged along and got out of the office little early (5:30ish). The store was just outside the Marble Arch tube station and it was really big. On weekdays the shop is open till 9 PM, so we had ample time to shop around. I was just roaming here and there and when I saw some of the good stuff at almost throwaway prices, I just couldn’t resist and bought few gifts for my kid cousins. I also treated myself with a pair of jeans, a white shirt, and a backpack. The cost of backpack was ₤3 ... imagine that. I would recommend any visitor with limited budget to look no further and visit this place. Little by little I bought few gifts and amazingly it all put me back by mere ₤60.

Next day I went to Tesco Metro near Liverpool station and picked chocolates. Took me a while to pick up chocos because there were so many varieties ... most of which I have absolutely no clue of. Anyhoo ... final day came and I woke up early to pack up all the stuff. The cab (booked online by office) came at sharp 8:30 AM and we reached Heathrow Terminal 5 after little more than an hour. At Heathrow, you got to tag your check-in bags at automated check-in machines (before getting the boarding pass). While tagging the bags, the machine told me and Divya that we do not have a confirmed seat yet. That was shocking ... we rushed to the British Airways counter and asked them about it. The person at the desk told me that since there were many flight cancellations in last few days due to bad weather, the flight is over booked. So he gave us 2 options – either go for next flight or wait for an hour to get the status of the existing flight. He also informed us that if we go for voluntary scheme of next flight, we would be compensated with €300 (in cash) or €450 (in gift vouchers) ... EACH. Ohhhh yeah ... my mouth was filled with water ... so I asked when is the next flight and he told me that it’s after 4 hours. €300 cash for 4 hours of patience ... seemed so cool to me. But I said NO ... I wont be going for that scheme and asked the guy to put me on stand by for the current flight. OK OK ... I know it sounds little crazy not to take that €300 for mere 4 hours of wait ... but I did not took that because of couple of reasons – first I knew about the weather forecast ... it was not good at all. I didn’t wanted to take the risk of staying back and then get stuck in snow or thundershowers. Secondly, I am a very impatient man ... I cant wait for anything to save my life ... so 4 hours seemed like 4 days to me (and I really wanted to go home ASAP). So we were put on the stand by list and the helpdesk guy told me to come back after an hour to get the final status about the boarding passes. At 11 AM, when I reached the helpdesk again ... I got the boarding passes ... that was surprising because I remembered the guy telling me that I was 50th on the list. But when I turned around I saw a huge line of people standing in the voluntary zone – mostly Indians – aah the lure of money ...

The flight took off at 12:30 PM (EST) ... after 40 minutes delay (scheduled to be at 11:50 AM) ... due to air traffic. Finally I reached Delhi at 2:30 AM (IST) ... and reached home at 4:30 ... did not sleep because I had to go to office. I was feeling very sleepy so I thought of writing this post ... now the eyes are little open ... opps gotta go ... lunch time. C ya.