love at first sip…

First weekend in London and sunny days – what else can one ask for? My first destination – Westminster Abbey, the famous church built in the shape of a cross by Edward the Confessor.

Best way to travel in London is the tube (i.e. the underground metro as we have in Delhi and Kolkata!). Best is to buy one oyster card for the zones you want to travel and tubes and buses are at your service anytime anywhere within the zones. Transportation is extremely simple and well documented here. If one understands English, he or she can get around this city without any problem.

So I get down at Westminster underground and head towards House of Commons and see the Big Ben. Wo man! It’s huge and unbelievable piece of architecture. General public is not allowed inside the premises, so I head towards the Westminster Abbey - just a walk from the House of Commons. When it is sunny in London, it is heaven. There is no dust on the roads, no noises, no sweat… I mean superb. 10 GBP and you get to see the Westminster Abbey from inside – worth it. All important people of the Kingdom are buried in this abbey. Technically I was walking over hundreds of dead bodies. But it was peaceful and awe inspiring architecture. I saw the graves of Sir Isaac Newton, Clement Attlee, George Eliot and many others. Especially the grave of the unknown warrior grabbed my curiosity. Dead body of a British army soldier (name unknown, rank unknown) was brought in 1920 from France and buried here. History has always been a boring subject when it comes to reading, but when I come to see it in front of my eyes it turns into a fascinating story.

Since it is the time of the Easter, I get to hear songs quire songs as well, which I cannot understand “at all”. Nice experience though. Next stop – Trafalgar Square, nice place, the Nelson's Column is awesome structure. Every place has an interesting story attached to it. Nice.

Then a Big Mac at Mc D. Well, my first Mc D experience. Had never been to a Mc D in India, only tried Subway, Dominoes and Pizza Hut (in descending order of liking). Took a walk beside Thames and then came the time to fall in love for the first time.

No, no! Please don't misunderstand; it is not the love between a guy and a girl. Guy sees the girl and girl sees a guy and they fall in love. That sort of thing happens to me at least thrice in a day and even more number of times in weekends. It was the time to enter a classic pub and taste the “strongbow” beer (it’s called cider here, but doesn’t matter – what’s in a name… after all!) of London. It was love at first sip. With strongbow and indirectly with the beer of London – there is something very strange about the beer here.

You drink as much as you want, next morning you will forget that you drank beer last evening. In India, it is not the same. First problem is we have limited brands back home – King Fisher, Royal Challenge, Budweiser (which has only recently come), Fosters and those local ones (viz. thunderbolt, zingaroo, bansanti…) which are often used in the initial stages in colleges to baptize a potential boozer into an evolutionary talented drunkard. Then, when I drink a beer in India, I will remember for a week that I drank it. That strange feeling will remain with me. But here it is different. First thing is there are many brands. Till now I have had Guiness, Stalk, Strongbow, Beck and Heineken and there are still many names I can’t even spell. And after drinking them, you will simply forget them as if you drank some juice or water or some mango-lassi. Simply superb beer! They taste very different and very nice.

The place is slowly getting into the nerves. I’ve already fallen for the beer and the Berger. Will be eagerly waiting for the next weekend. Cheers!