Introduction and Planning the Trip
Growing up, going on a trip never came very easily for my family. Usually there were multiple factors that would come in the way and such a trip would eventually get cancelled. These would include an upcoming quarterly exam or unavailable simultaneous breaks for me, my mother (who is a school teacher) and my father or just being thrifty as is very common and inevitable in a middle-class Indian family (we always save up for an emergency which might or might not ever come!). So for most holidays we would visit my grandparents who lived in Kalyani, about 150 km away from the city I grew up in, Durgapur and call it a day. But when I met Aniruddha, I have been acquainted with his approach towards taking a break and planning a trip that was more spontaneous. No matter how overwhelming any trip might seem, we have almost never ditched the idea, leave alone cancelling it. In April, 2024 while I was at the peak of editing my PhD dissertation and getting ready to defend in August (I did not even have a job offer then), I suddenly felt an urge to visit a different continent after completing my PhD. In my head, I have always wanted to visit Africa to experience the adventurous safaris or engulf myself in the picturesque architecture of Turkey or feel absolutely wrapped in the artistic finesse of little French cities. Like every other idea, I had to share this with Aniruddha. But before I did this, I wanted to decide where exactly I wanted to go for a two-week break with a tight budget. I called my uncle who lived in Benin, a country in West Africa and discussed with him. He mentioned, from experience, that implementing a well-planned trip for two weeks in Africa can be expensive. He suggested that we could instead visit the United Kingdom. The time frame and the budget seemed just right and there was the added incentive to meet my cousin brother (my uncle’s son) in Manchester and another cousin sister who lived in Leeds. Over the next few days, whenever I took a break from writing, I would look up places I wanted to visit and eventually set my heart on discussing with Aniruddha. He listened to my ideas and mentioned very nonchalantly that there were multiple steps involved for the plan to be executed properly. He was right. There was an impending job hunt, the dissertation submission, preparing for the PhD defense and applying for the OPT (OPT or Optional Practical Training is a benefit available to international students in F-1 immigration status who are enrolled in, or completing, a degree program in the United States). OPT applications usually take a lot of planning, because the time required for the application to be approved by the US Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS) and generate the work authorization card is highly uncertain and case-dependent. I agreed and laid low for several weeks until suddenly it was Aniruddha who suggested we start thinking about applying for the UK visas. Apparently, ever since I discussed the idea with him, he had been reading about it and doing his research to actually make it happen. Within no time, our visa applications were done and by the last week of July, our visas were ready and tickets were booked! We sat down once every two to three days for about two weeks in July, to fix the itinerary. And after that I would head to the lab to write my thesis while he would do all the bookings.
14-16 August (Photo Links: Part 1, Part 2)
On 14 August, we took the 4:30 PM Amtrack train from BWI Marshall Airport, MD to New York, NY – Moynihan Train Hall at Penn Station. We reached the train station around 6:30 PM and there we had some pizza for dinner with a nice lemonade from one of the bars in the station’s elaborate food lounge. After that we took an Uber to the John F Kennedy International Airport. We had booked the cheapest tickets from JFK to London Gatwick on the Norse Atlantic Airlines. (The airline had very stringent rules for the size of bags allowed and we had to pay almost $300 extra because our bags did not pass through the allowed bag-slots of the airline. I would not recommend Norse Atlantic Airlines to future travelers because it was not the most pleasant experience.) After a 7 hour flight, we landed at the London Gatwick Airport on the same day at 1:30 PM. After some lunch at the airport, we took a train to Victoria, London and another to the London Euston rail station. Finally, we took the Avanti West Coast express to Manchester Piccadilly, which was a 2 hour 15 min ride.
On 15 August, we mainly went around in Manchester. The Manchester Art Gallery was first on our list. A lot of the art pieces here had influence of Indian culture because of England’s colonial history. I found myself lost in front of this massive painting called The Chariot Race (1882) by Alexander von Wagner, inspired by Ben Hur, especially because we recently watched the 1959 movie, Ben Hur, at the AFI Silver Theater in Maryland and the chariot race scene was fresh in my memory. The composition and use of colors in this painting captured the speed of the horses in the chariot race and the excitement of the audience in their true form. We took a lunch break at the Armenian Taverna and Restaurant. We loved their Chichen Kiev, Solyanka and Khachapuri. Post lunch we stopped at the Manchester Cathedral. The pipe organs in the prayer hall and the little praying wood angels caught my eye. Inside the cathedral there was a wooden box where you could leave a note on who you were and had any special prayers. I left my prayers in the ballot box, for the empowerment of the protests for justice in West Bengal. Right outside the cathedral was a life-size bronze statue of Mahatma Gandhi that was unveiled on November 25th, 2019 by Manchester Mayor Andy Burnham and Indian Consul General Dr Aman Puri. Choosing Manchester as home for this monument carries significant symbolism since it’s a city intrinsically linked with cotton trade during Industrial Revolution which had direct implications on colonial-era India. We walked around the Manchester City Center and had some bubble tea at the Manchester Arndale. After this Aniruddha put on his ManU jersey and left for the game and I made my way back to the airbnb.
17 August (Photo Link: Part 3)
On this day we visited the University of Manchester and later met my cousins for lunch at the Hip Hop Chip Shop. Post lunch, we took an Uber to Manchester Piccadilly and took the train to Edinburgh, Scotland.
18 August (Photo Link: Part 4, Part 5)
Next morning, we took the train to Old Town Edinburgh and had breakfast with a butter croissant and coffee on the go. As part of the Free Edinburgh Tour, we walked around the city with the hilarious Fraser Horn as our tourist guide! We stopped at multiple stops along The Royal Mile including the St. Giles’ Cathedral, the Parliament House with the statue of Charles II of Scotland in front, the statue of Saint Giles, the statue of the philosopher who believed that causes and effects are discoverable not by reason, but by experience and did not believe in miracles – David Hume and the Writers’ Museum (that celebrates the lives of three giants of Scottish Literature – Robert Burns, Sir Walter Scott and Robert Louis Stevenson). Horn spoke about Scottish history and politics; about John Knox’s Protestant Reforms, his enmity with Mary Queen of Scots, a Catholic and how Mary was abdicated from the Scottish throne. Mary then fled south to England to seek shelter under Elizabeth I where she was captivated for almost 19 years before being beheaded, guilty of plotting to assassinate Elizabeth. We made a final stop at the Tattoo Arena with the view of the Edinburgh Castle in its backdrop. Towards the end of the walking tour it started drizzling and soon the famous Scottish weather was upon us. We walked a couple of blocks and had lunch at a Nepalese restaurant that afternoon. Afterwards, we explored the souvenir shops and was awestruck by this amazing street performance of a Polish guitarist, Bartek Dabrowski! His signature style was such that every time we crossed that area over the next few days, we would always see a huge crowd around his music booth and we would know that it was he who was playing! The Edinburgh Fringe festival was going on and we caught the Al Lubel stand up comedy show Me, My Mother and I. We finished the day off with dinner at Ikigai Ramen and finally took the train back to our airbnb.
19-20 August (Photo Link: Part 6)
We woke up as early as 5AM for the next two days in Edinburgh. We took two trains to reach the Edinburgh Waverly Train Station. At the station we would grab a coffee and a croissant and have a breakfast on the go while walking to the bus stop. Both of these days we were traveling with the Discover Scotland Tours and this bus stop was where the tour started from.
On 19 August we did the Glenfinnan Viaduct, Glencoe & Loch Shiel 1 Day Tour with our guide was Kieran Kane. The tour bus would leave exactly at 7:45 AM and we did not want to be late. We started out at 8 AM and made our first stop at a little town called Callander where we picked up our lunch from the town’s best baker, MHOR Bread that Kane suggested. Our aim was to reach the Glenfinnan Viaduct by 2 PM so that we could catch the view of the Jacobite Steam Train (a.k.a the Hogwarts Express) passing the highlands at 3 PM. We stopped at multiple viewpoints at Glencoe, the stunning area which was also used as backdrop scenery in several Harry Potter films. Kane had brought some Scottish flags as props, to pose for pictures with and we made full use of them all. It rained all along the road but that did not stop us from getting down from the bus at every stop and take pictures. Kane even made an extra rest stop and we got to see some highland cows (a.k.a. hairy coos). My yellow rain jacket from Amazon and waterproof Columbia shoes proved very handy on this trip and were staple to every outfit. We made our way to the Glenfinnan Viaduct on time to hike up to the two main viewpoints. We first completed the one viewpoint that was up on a small hill and would look forward at the passing train. From there we hiked all the way up to the other viewpoint which was one of the most muddy hikes I have ever done in my life. With the rain constantly drizzling and the soft soil turned into a muddy chocolate yoghurt consistency, it was not the most pleasant experience. But once we made our way to the top of the hill so that the viaduct went around us, the view was pretty even though a little misty because of the rain. We waited for 15 mins on that hill for the train to come at 3 PM. While we waited, I was bitten all over by these tiny highland insects called midges. (I wore a skirt with stockings that day and realized only after coming back home that night that I had midge-bites all over my legs and even on my scalp, those midges got through my hair too!) At 3 PM sharp, we heard the train come and as it passed us, I had memories of the first time I watched those Harry Potter movies flash through my head. When we returned to the bus once again, it was time to head back to Edinburgh. We grabbed another ramen dinner at Edinburgh and got back to the airbnb that night.
On 20 August we did the Loch Lomond, Stirling Castle & the Kelpies 1Day Tour . We were back to the same bus stop and ready for another day-long trip in the Scottish Highlands. That day our first stop was at The Kelpies, a pair of monumental steel horse-heads designed by Andy Scott, between the Scottish towns of Falkirk and Grangemouth. From there we went to the Loch Lomond, where we got on the cruise to take a quick twirl inside the Loch Lomond Lake. Our final destination was the Sterling Castle. We did not take the tour inside the castle but preferred to take a stroll on the cobbled stone paths around the various blocks of the castle. Since the castle was on the top of a hill, we got some great views of the the city and a rainbow came out at an opportune moment, making our last evening in Scotland very special. On our way back, our tour guide (I forget her name) made two extra stops, one to get abetter view of the sterling castle and another to meet a some hairy coos. One of the bulls had black hair and its horns spanned a width of almost 1 meter. Mighty creatures! That evening we had dinner at the Whiskey Bar and Restaurant where I tasted the Haagis spring rolls. Haagis is the national dish of Scotland and has a savory, crumbly texture that is made from sheep’s heart, liver, and lungs, minced with suet, oatmeal, onion, and spices, and cooked in the sheep’s stomach. We enjoyed the spring rolls with sides of carrots and peas, mashed potatoes and chowder soup and a whiskey cocktail. The next day we would leave Edinburgh for London and so, we took our sweet time to get home that night and sleep off all the exhaustion from the last few days.
21 August
We took the train to London from Edinburgh Waverly station. Our airbnb was a 15 uber drive away from the Victoria station. When we reached the airbnb I was honestly a little surprised to see that our room was on the fourth floor and there was no elevator. We had a lot of heavy luggage to carry up the stairs and my back had already given up. Thankfully, the airbnb host was kind enough to lend us a hand in carrying the bags upstairs. We went out for dinner that night to an Indian restaurant that took us only 10 mins to walk to. But other than that, we were so tired from the past few days that we spent the next day resting indoors.
22-23 August (Photo Link: Part 7, Part 8)
On 22 August, we decided to walk around the city and cover the biggest landmarks. We started out by taking a leisurely walk around the various food stalls and boutiques in the Leadenhall Market, stunned at the Victorian architecture of the open air market in the heart of London, reminiscing about the scene where Harry and Hagrid enter the Leaky Cauldron in Harry Potter and the Philosopher’s Stone. Apparently, this market was where that scene was shot. From there we walked to the Millenium Bridge which was another HP shooting spot (the scene where the death eaters attack muggles on the Millenium Bridge, on Voldemort’s instructions, in Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince). As I stood on the suspension bridge, I could see the London Bridge and the Tower Bridges on the River Thames and also caught a glimpse of the Saint Paul’s Cathedral. We walked across the cathedral to take a bus all the way up to the Parliament Square and spent some time walking around the Parliament Square Garden. A paved path that ran around the garden exhibited statues of Prime Ministers of UK including David Lloyd George (1916-1922) and Winston Churchill (1940 to 1945, 1951 to 1955). If you stand facing the River Thames at the intersection of Great George Street and Parliament Street, you can see the giant head of Churchill’s statue stooped towards the Big Ben clock with the spires of the Westminster Abbey in the background. On this particular day, Aniruddha was not feeling very well and wanted to spend some time laying on the grass in the Parliament Square Garden. And so he did. I sat with him for sometime and then started walking down the Parliament Street, crossing the Downing Street on my left and the Cenotaph on my way. As I reached closer to the Trafalgar Square, the gift shops were just getting too alluring. After about a good half an hour, Aniruddha came and found me exploring one of the gift shops and we decided to watch a play at the Trafalgar Theater. We booked the tickets for a 7:30 PM show of The 39 Steps. While waiting, we grabbed some coffee and sat down on the steps at Trafalgar Square just staring into the streets of this city in front of us. It started drizzling for a bit, we opened our umbrellas and Aniruddha imitated the way the pigeons walked on these steps. We laughed some and talked some until it was time to head to the theater. I had watched two other theater plays here in the US before; The Death of a Salesman in Norfolk, VA and Beetlejuice at Broadways, NY. But the experience of a parody of the 1935 Hitchcock movie with the perfect pairing of some English comedy made the experience something very unique in my lifetime. The actors were all impeccable in their performances. I thought the use of the same set of actors for multiple roles made their performances all the more funny. The production was quite artistic, including the set design and the use of lights and props. The show went on till 9:30 PM and after that it was a hunt for a place to dine. Most places close down their kitchen about half an hour before the actual closing time and so we ended up at the one Thai noodle place that seemed very busy with a lot of customers. We got a seat right beside the road in the open and had our dinner before heading back to the airbnb that night.
On 23 August, we took the train from London to Cambridge train station. After grabbing a quick snack at a cafe right outside the station, we took the bus to the Cambridge University Library. The library was hosting a free public exhibition to celebrate the 20th century British Crime Fiction called Murder by The Book between 23-24 August. A celebration of the stories of the UK’s most popular fiction writing the exhibition was curated by the award-winning crime novelist Nicola Upson. Nearly 100 of the most famous, influential and best-selling crime novels in UK history, as well as other consequential works that are now long out of print, were on display. Agatha Christie’s typewriter, dictaphone and the typescript of her final Poirot novel, that were secretly stored in a bank vault for nearly three decades were highlights from the exhibition. Among the valuable and rare first edition copies going on display, I found Sherlock Holmes and Dr. Watson’s illustration featured from Arthur Conan Doyle’s The Hound of Baskervilles. A second half of the exhibition, located along the gallery corridors of Giles Gilbert Scott’s 1934 University Library building, explores crime novels set in Cambridge and works of fiction that inspired film adaptations by Alfred Hitchcock. After a quick twirl around the exhibition gift store, we were ready to head out for the Cambridge Botanic Garden.
We boarded the bus that dropped us at the gate of the garden. We collected maps of the garden from the ticket counter and after about 5 minutes of walking into the garden, we came near the lake. Aniruddha sat down to look at the ducks and all the water birds that drooped down on the water for a quick snack. He likes doing that sometimes, watching birds and their habits. So I decided not to disturb him and went forward exploring the rest of the garden on my own. The garden is spread over an area of 40 acres and holds a collection of over 8,000 plant species from all over the world. The garden was created for the University of Cambridge in 1831 by John Stevens Henslow, Professor of Botany at Cambridge from 1825 – 1861 and mentor of Charles Darwin, and was opened to the public in 1846. I found the fountain in the middle of the garden and went past the main lawn to the Glasshouse Range. These greenhouses hold a range of plants from the mountains, the Cape ans Southwest Australia, oceanic islands, tropical rainforests and wetlands, cacti and succulents of Africa and America and even non-flowering plants. From there I headed to the garden cafe for some snacks because I had walked a lot and also decided to wait for Aniruddha there. He came after some time and then we decided to go back home because it would take us about 2 hours to go back to London on the train. On our way back to the airbnb, we picked up dinner just outside the Underground station.
24 August (Photo Link: Part 9)
The next morning, we booked tickets for Stonehenge. We grabbed a quick breakfast of butter croissant and coffee at the Waterloo train station and reached the Salisbury station after a 2 hour train ride. The Stonehenge tour bus was right outside the station and took us straight to our destination. At 1 PM we grabbed lunch at the canteen and started our tour at about 2 PM with the museum that exhibited the history of the monuments. Perhaps the world’s most famous prehistoric monument, the Stonehenge was built in several stages with the earliest monument erected around 5000BC. Two types of stones were used at Stonehenge. The larger ‘Sarsens’ were erected in two concentric arrangements – an inner horseshoe and an outer circle. The smaller ‘Bluestones’ were set up between them in a double arc. The museum tour led up to a yard where Neolithic huts of the builders of the Stonehenge were exhibited and we explored each one with utmost exhilaration. After this, we hiked for almost 30 minutes to reach the monuments that were about 1 km away from the museum. A part of this hike was along the roads, while the other half was through the wheat fields that Aniruddha seemed to enjoy a lot. When we reached the monuments, the scene was very different from what we expected. Tourists had a very different vibe overall. Everyone we saw were taking pictures in weird poses that they were dedicated to hit perfectly. After spending about half an hour taking a twirl around the monuments and mostly amusing ourselves with the tourist energy around us, we took the transit back to the gift shop. We bought some postcards and posters of the Stonehenge monuments at the gift shop, followed by a quick coffee break before heading back to the Salisbury station to take the train back to the Waterloo station. That night we took the bus to the Spitalfields area for a Bangladeshi dinner. After a very satisfactory meal that reminded us about food back home, followed by an after meal dessert stop at a neighboring shop, we headed back home for the night.
25 August (Photo Link: Part 10, Part 11)
The next morning we went to the Borough Market, a wholesale and retail market hall in Southwark, London. One of the largest and oldest food markets in London, Borough Market currently hosts a multitude of vendors of specialty foods. I had a nice cup of freshly made juice along with a Venezuelan bread (called Arepa) that had different kinds of peppers embedded into it. A bought some eclairs and cannolis from the shops and tinned fish for home. We settled down on the seat at the yard where a local musician performed. From the Borough Market we walked to the Tower of London, crossing the Tower Bridge on our way. We did not get to enter the Tower of London, because by the end of our tour we were quite tired. But sitting by the Thames and enjoying the view of the bridge was nothing less than absolute joy. After a lunch of crepes from a food truck, we decided to visit the Covent Garden. Aniruddha wanted to visit a DVD store, FOPP and had a list of blu-rays that he wished to buy. I had a little bit of an accident at Covent Garden. Tired from all the walking, and distracted by the shops and people around me and the rough cobbled pavements beneath my feet, I lost control and fell down on the street and hurt my right knee. It was not too bad by itself although I could not walk much after that. I was still recovering from the intense rashes of the midge bites at Scotland and so this added bruise was not very convenient. After spending about a good couple of hours at the DVD store, we headed back to the airbnb.
26 August (Photo Link: Part 12)
On 26 August, we headed out from our airbnb to Aniruddha’s relatives’ place. Our kind airbnb host helped us yet again to carry the bags down the eight flights of stairs from the fourth floor. Aniruddha’s grandmother (we called her pishi-dida), who was actually the sister of his maternal grandfather, and her husband (we called him pishan-dadu or just dadu) hosted us for the next two days at their apartment before we left for the US. That afternoon, after we reached their place, we had some lunch and then dadu took us for a walk around the premises of the Lord’s Cricket grounds and the famous Abbey Road zebra crossing. Dadu insisted that we cross the road like multiple other tourists and he would take a picture for us. And so we did! After a hilarious couple of attempts to take the right picture, we decided to stop the endeavor and walk to our final destination for the day: 221 B Baker Street. We wanted to end our London trip with a tour of the Sherlock Holmes Museum. The splendidly restored four-storied Georgian townhouse was where Sherlock Holmes resided from 1881 to 1904, according to the books of Sir Arthur Conan Doyle. His rooms have been faithfully maintained to give visitors from all round the globe an insight into the life and stories of the world’s first consulting detective, and a memorable, authentic experience of Victorian London. At the end of the tour and the mandatory stop at the museum gift shop, where I gobbled souvenirs for my friends, we made another mandatory coffee stop before heading back home.
The last two days of this trip were dedicated to home-cooked meals and intense rest. We wanted to spend time with Aniruddha’s grandparents before we left. We went out for dinner on the evening of 27 August and on 28th morning, bags packed, we were ready to leave.
Final Take-Aways
As we boarded our flight back to Baltimore, I remembered how impossible it felt at the beginning of April when I first pitched the idea of a UK-trip to Aniruddha. But eventually, we did it and I was happy to see this evolved version of myself who was not afraid to try new things, go to new places and experience new adventures. There were so many hurdles and at so many points, I almost felt I could not travel for so long and wanted to give up. But Aniruddha’s motivation and push to get up every morning for a new day full of adventures, although got me agitated at multiple times and we did fight at multiple occasions because of that, kept me on my toes and exposed me to so many new experiences to say the least. I am thankful for that and grateful for a partner who helps me grow a little bit more every day and keeps me inspired. As for the trip, we thoroughly enjoyed the beginning of it, especially our days in Edinburgh, Scotland. We even discussed that we would like to come back and try doing road trips ourselves in the Scottish Highlands. Towards the end, however, I got tired. Especially after coming to London, all I wanted to do was sleep all day. I was feeling easily irritated and our last few days in London was not as easy going as I would have wanted it to. It could be because my body was finally trying to give up after the excessive stress of the PhD defense preparation and even though traveling and experiencing a new country was very rewarding, I needed to stay home and get some well-needed sleep. So, we had to find our balance of resting indoors and planning our days out for the second half of the trip, ever since we came down from Scotland to London.
I came to realize that I appreciate how cunning British humor is and how flawlessly and effortlessly the actors in the Trafalgar Theater used it to their benefit! I enjoyed it very much and would like to see more English plays if I ever get the chance. It is also quite ridiculous how the English are made fun of by their neighboring countries like Scotland, because of their colonial history. I grinned every time our Scottish guide on the free Edinburgh walking trail mentioned how the English borrowed a Scottish discovery here, a German discovery there and declared it to be their own! He was mostly kidding and the the English woman in the group laughed along. I also felt that the English culture is quite rigid when it comes to adapting to climate change because English houses are not very well adapted to thrive in the rising temperatures! There were days when the little windows with glass panes that would open only so much to let the air in, proved extremely inconvenient and the non-existent air-conditioning arrangements did not help the situation. I am not exactly a big supporter of centralized air conditioning in households owing to their big carbon footprints, but sticking to house designs of the Victorian era is no solution either (I mean what is the point of circulating hot water in pipes throughout the building to keep it warm, in the middle of summer, when temperatures are close to 35 degrees Celsius!?)
