pigeons, horses & "Mo"...

[Photo: Thames by night]

"My trip to London was a blast!," is what I told Abhishek when we got talking...
And, in response, he said, "Oh, that's nothing... During my trip to London, there was a blast!"
[Prolonged silence...]

No, but seriously - I had fun! :-)
Met almost everyone who was on my list (yes, :-( ... I actually had one), ate plenty of good food (burp!) and watched a 3D-movie ("The Polar Express") at the I-MAX just outside Waterloo station! And I even managed to pull one over the British Government - I travelled without a ticket from Zone 4 to Zone 1!! :-) [International "Khiladi"!]

Did any of you know that the pigeons have completely disappeared from Trafalgar Square? I was a little disappointed but, the way I heard it was that: some important people (after receiving complaints from many other important people) thought that they should 'relocate' these 'rats' of Central London so that they could blah-blah the blah the blah-blah. Apparently, the daily clean-up effort after the pigeons 'did-their-thing' was getting way too expensive...

I suddenly had this image of all the "Trafalgar-pigeons" being put into this high-security facility; they would have to get through a mandatory, intensive 'toilet-training' programme, which would end in a certification exam of some sort (in order to benchmark their new-found skills) before they could make their way back into the open... something like the Java training we had in Chennai when we joined the company ;-)

But, I did see one though - maybe it was 'the-one-that-got-away'! :-)

On Saturday night, we had walked down to China Town from Leicester Square, for an advanced "Mothers' Day"- dinner-celebration. But Mo, our waitress at the Golden Dragon was in no mood to 'celebrate'. Something had ticked her off severely earlier in the evening; I tried to analyse the possible causes... but then, the food was so good that I dropped the idea soon after :-)

Returning to Holland on Sunday was... heartbreaking, in a way. I guess, if I'm still here for a while, I might make another trip to the UK [If I can afford it!].

Meanwhile, back in Breda, my problems at the Amgen-canteen continued. After 3 weeks in The Netherlands (the 'low-lying' lands), I have realized that the Dutch eat most things that move... after they've stopped moving that is. And the tags next to each item are always in Dutch! So... one has to be particularly careful during lunch-hour... :-(

Just thought you should know - horse-meat is a little tough, but very tasty nevertheless! :-))