Saturday, March 27, 2010
Landing at Heathrow---Onsite !
After all the shuffling between the docs and lots of hush up,I finally land at Heathrow with dreams in my eyes,with hope in my heart,with new challenges i look out of the AeroPlane window minutes before it was about to land at Heathrow. On my way to Delhi Airport i met a Colleague named as Aditi .She asked me if i knew how much time will it to take at the airport immigration and medical checks so that she could book a cab accordingly, and prompt came my reply to her "This is my first Trip to UK ", she quitely moved ahead and i also unbothered moved towards my seat.
When the plane finally Landed,I was very nervous ,it was mt first trip to UK and i was alone,no accomplice,no friend,no family,just me and my emotions,my dilemmas my fears.
As i got off the plane ,i felt the chill of the cold weather ,not sure if it was cold or i was shivering abit because of my nervousness. As i moved , little did i know where to go, I blindly followed the herd of people who got off with me from my Aeroplane, believe me everyone followed the other and believed they know where to go. Then after all the walking,looking at the surroundings and comparing differences between Delhi Airport and Heathrow airport ( Yes I really have developed a habit to strike the differences between the two countries ! ) , i reached the queue for Immigration check. My turn came and a White gentle man looked at me and then asked for my documents and then directed me to medical department for my medical check. Wondering where the medical department was , i looked around,but my nervousness blinded me and i could not see the medical room which was right in front of me and puzzled i asked an officer :
"Excuse me...Do you know where's the Medical Room ? " , Prompt came the reply from him
" Oh ! Guess where it is !!! " ,that was a sarcastic remark by him and he pointed towards the room. Medical check was a formality and they quickly checked my reports and gave me and Ok stamp on the paper. Then the final check was another immigration officer( A white lady,she was pretty but a bit heavy) , while i was waiting for my turn ,i saw her questioning a boy, who was barely able to understand what she was saying and asking him, frustrated the officer asked "what have you come here for ? " and the boy replied "a a a MBA..." , officer said " when you cannot understand what i am saying ,how will you understand what the professor is saying in the class ? " The boy dint reply anything to her ,i wonder if he even understood what the question was or if he was too nervous to say anything. My turn came and with Inter company Transfers its hardly a formality to check you,since UK Government is not responsible and your company is responsible for you.
After this i came out and moved towards the luggage area ,picked my bags up and moved towards the exit, There i saw an English Men holding a board with name "ANKUR GOEL" on it, that was my cab driver which my colleague has booked for me. The drivers name was Glenn and he was a good person, a nice man with medium built and some who talked a lot, but that was good, he took my luggage trolley and greeted me welcome to UK and we went towards the car.
While driving out of the parking area,he told me how everything gets blocked in parking area in days of high traffic . He timidly asked me the temparature in New Delhi and told me it was much colder here . We came out of the parking area and started our Jouney to Ipswich,he told me it would be nearly 2.30 hours of jouney. Though i was a bit tired but my excitement my curiosity to see my journey to Ipswich and off course Glenn's continuos speaking dint let me sleep and i saw beautiful roads,clean surroundings ,speed checks and Glenn explained me everything about speed checks and how they would calculate the speed using the cameras that were installed on roads at ifferent points , to the average speed of a vehicle. At first i listened with curiosity, but as we continued i dozzed off ,and when i woke up ,nearly 2 hours of jouney was over and we were about to reach 376,sping road,ipswich ! As i woke up Glenn was kind enough to again start explaining me about Tesco's and Sainsbury's and the Bibb Way BT office and this and that :) .
And then we finally reached home, I was excited to see 376, and a bit nervousness though i knedw the people inside were familiar and my colleagues. I paid Glenn the taxi fare and he helped me take out my luggage from the car. I knocked at the door as the door bell seemed to be not working and no one turned up for first few minutes, The situation was a bit odd as my cellphone had Idea Sim which wont work here and i will not be able to call or inform someone that i have reached, but as these thoughts were creeping in my mind and trying to make their hold, i saw someone pee through the window, it was my colleague and he rushed up the room to bring the keys to the door and opened it . In i went ,and saw a drawing room with sofa ,though not very clean, but some how accepted the fact that this is where i will live for atleast next 4 months ,even though it had something i dint like at all " the Yello Bulbs " I Hate them, i like tubelights,they are brighter and livelier. Jaspal cooked me some pranthas realising i was bit tired and since it was my first day he would do the honours for me . I Ate the pranthas ,we call them pranthas biut they are not even near the pranthas, they were some stuffed chapattis which can be heated in the pan and can be eaten with Sauce ! ( Yes you Readit right ) and also use yoghurt though it dint seemed good with these stuffed So called pranthas.
Since Amit was already in the room where i had to stay with Jaspal , i had two options :
1.After flight from India, i could sleep on the sofa ? OR
2.I can lie down on the floor with a bedhsheet on it , in the room with one blanket.
I prefferd the second option and had a good sleep, though the butterflies were still very much alive in my stomach. And by the way i reached on Saturday night so had a full day to recover from my JET LAG the next day ...
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
Wow Ankur...I could really visualize the whole journey..Sounds interesting....Good start...Keep it up..All the best...
ReplyDeleteThanks Yaar :)
ReplyDeleteAmazing work veer!! keep it up!! Next thing i wanna read is... my trip to London!!! JES main tainu london bhej ke hi chadanga :)
ReplyDeletebeautifully written :)
ReplyDeleteThanks Bhai :)
ReplyDelete