This was the third and last weekend I was going to be in England. I had tried very hard to go to Ireland to visit our old friend Jorge and his girlfriend Claire, but it seems I need a frikkin visa to go to Dublin. I cannot even get a visa on arrival, like some countries. I would have needed to drive to London during the week, drop my passport off, wait for 3-6 weeks and pick up my visa. I explained my situation, but no love.

So, my dad was going to operate to London to coincide with my weekend there. I spoke to him on Thursday and confirmed that he was going to be there and that Rajiv, Loren and I could crash at his place. He understandably was hesitant, but I knew if I went to different hotel, I would not see him at all.

I was going to drive to Nottingham train station, pick Loren and Rajiv up, and head south by 1pm. I was going to use Mike’s GPS to get me there. I thought it used regular batteries. Nope. Wrong. It needs a charger and I did not borrow the charger from Mike. As I was getting directions to my dad’s hotel in central London, only a stone throw from Buckingham Palace, I spoke to Ronaldo, the other Guidewire guy who is here with Rudy and Mike, he said that he too would be driving to London and would be happy to give me a ride. I told him that we would have friends with us, to which he said that he’d be more than happy to oblige.

The only problem, he had just bought his car and hadn’t bought insurance yet. So I helped him buy insurance as quickly as I could, then we drove to Nottingham, to go park my car at Rudy’s place. Finally we headed to Nottingham station. As of now we were 2 hours late. We picked Loren and Rajiv up and headed off towards the M1 south. We saw a sign and followed it. It took us an hour to get to the M1 through crap loads of traffic. We , got to London around 9pm and by then all of us were done being in the car. Ronaldo is one of the craziest drivers I have seen in a very long time. He was going down one way streets in the wrong direction, changing lanes and using his middle finger to communicate with others around him. Just completely insane. But hey, we got to London. Now the last mile took us about an hour ‘cause we kept getting lost. Now, I’ve been to this hotel about 3-4 times already, so I knew if we found our way to Buckingham Palace, I would find the place. I was reasonably sure and we did find it. After a while though.

Ronaldo wanted to head back to his apartment, but the rest of us wanted to do some London by night. We walked from St. James Park, where the hotel was to Buckingham Palace, past the Big Ben, Piccadilly Circus to Leicester Square. We had a good time walking around. Rajiv kept insisting at about 2am that we go gamble. Now, I like gambling, but I was exhausted. He just would not listen to me. I told him that I would take a cab back with them, get them another key to the room and they can head back and do whatever they wanted. It was only after I started walking away that he seemed to get it. He’s a smart chap, but he is at a different point in his life than me. I cannot stay up all night and go to clubs anymore. Now, I’d much rather a beer at a little pub with Tricia and maybe some friends. He’s still a party boy. Plus, I wanted to make sure we wake up early enough so we can do things in London. We snuck back in the hotel room and made sure that we did not wake my dad.

Saturday morning… yeah! Who doesn’t like weekends when you’re on a business trip. My dad was up and he had ordered breakfast for the two of us. We ate and read the newspaper and after a while I kicked Rajiv and Loren awake. They took a little while to get ready and we headed off to walk around. My dad was going to wait for his friend’s daughter who is studying at the London School of Economics. My dad gets quite impressed with all these names… I used to too, not so much anymore. I have worked with people from places like Harvard, Oxford, Yale, MIT, Stanford, Duke and the like. Dad is part of an older generation that thought getting into these schools was impossible. Well, it’s not as easy as some other schools, but not impossible.

We did the Central London by day walk. This was mostly for Loren’s benefit. She had been in the UK for 3 months and hadn’t had the time to visit the capital city yet. One thing I must say about London, it’s amazing how old this city is and the changes immigration has brought around. One can see faces of every color and creed represented. I have traveled my fair share across the world and there are only 3 cities I have ever been to with this kind of cultural pot luck; London & New York are predictably the first 2. The third is Sydney. Australia used to be quite a racist nation till the 70’s, but over time the country has allowed non white immigration, which has been focused mostly in Sydney. If you’d walk downtown, you might think you were in an Asian country. It’s quite amazing. But that being said, London and New York are in a league of their own. It always amazes me to walk around in Europe and soak in the history and culture.

I got a call from my friend Ruchira who used to live in Canberra, Australia while Trish and I lived in Sydney. She told me hop onto the tube and head to Notting Hill, where she lives. There is quite a famous antiques market on Portobello Street, I wanted to pick up stocking stuffers for Tricia’s mom, Aunt Kathy and Grandma. We spent a long time walking down this long street looking at antiques and other random things. I had some great Ugandan food on the street. Unfortunately, this street is now quite touristy and the prices have shot up. I found some great things, I thought I’d like to give people, but the prices were just outrageous. I even did my Indian haggling, but I only managed to drop the price by 10-20%. Tricia is quite amazed with the haggling I can do. Hey, I’m the argumentative Indian. If you don’t know what that means, google it.

We headed back to hotel to rest for a bit, hang out with my dad and then head off to where we wanted to go. Dad was just chilling watching ZeeTV, the popular Indian channel. We hung out, had a couple of beers. Ronaldo was getting sleepy, so I kicked him a few times. My dad had a flight the next day so we cleared out and let him get some sleep.

We took the tube to Oxford Circus, from where we walked over to the pubs and clubs. First we went to Waxy O’Connor and the place was just chockers, we waled around for a bit in the place, but no seating at all. So we crossed the street to Waxy’s Little Sister and that place was crowded too, but I saw a sight that said sofa lounge upstairs, so we decided to give it a shot. Predictably it was crowded too. We waited for a few minutes and a table cleared out with plenty of sofa/couch seating. I shouted the first round and we had Guinness’s except for Loren who wanted a Smirnoff Ice, but once she got it, she then wanted a lager… :) We were quite quiet for a few minutes, so decided to play pub games with people. Now we had Rajiv, Loren, Ronaldo, Ruchira and me there. This was the first time most of them had met. Plus I has asked Rajiv to watch what he says in front of Ronaldo since he is my colleague. He sometimes says things that... well, may not be totally appropriate.

After a few pub games, I had everyone loosened up enough to enjoy themselves. Each of us bought a round of drinks. I stuck to my Guinness. After 3 hours at there we were starting to get hungry. Plus the place closed down. We crossed the street to a very Chinese looking Chinese restaurant. You know what I mean. A place you’d see more Asians than others, plus the menu was in English and Chinese. We ordered some good food while talking and laughing. We walked around for a little bit longer, Rajiv true to his personality suggested we head to a club. Now, I hate house as well as most trance and other repetitive music. I used to tolerate it in the day, but that day has passed. Now it’s mostly rock.

We headed back to the hotel and snuck back in the room and just crashed. I was exhausted. It was past 3am again. We had some trouble getting into the room, so I think I woke my dad up, I did apologize to him later. By the time we woke the next day, my dad was already gone. We were up and out by 11am, after a nice English breakfast, we walked over to the Thames, so we could head to the Tower of London as well as London Bridge & the Tower Bridge was going to be out last stop. It started out as a very nice and I had forgotten how long a walk it was from our hotel. But it was a very nice one at that.

After a walk on the Tower Bridge, I managed to get through to Ronaldo, who very nicely had sent a text message earlier in the day telling me that he had already worn all his underwear inside out and now everything smells like balls. Thanks buddy, I really needed that early Sunday morning. I’m heading to therapy now.

Ronaldo told me that he would pick us up in 20 minutes, so I stood in the freezing cold while Loren and Rajiv took some shelter, not much, but at least I wind wasn’t cutting them in half. I stood there for about 40 minutes trying to call Ronaldo, so we could get a status on where he was. Finally he called and said that he was stuck in traffic and that there was no way he could make it in under an hour and a half. I asked him to come to the hotel since it was just so bitterly cold. We took a cab there and it was just so nice to get away from the cold. We waited at the hotel and as he said, it took him just over an hour to get there. We put all our crap in the car and headed back towards Nottingham. In the car Rajiv made some sweeping statements about the auto industry, which I know were incorrect since I follow the industry to a small extent. We spoke for over an hour about the industry, primarily about sports cars. My favorite topic. Loren was quite bored. We chatted though the entire journey. Eventuall Rajiv and Loren fell asleep, so Ronaldo and I were talking about so many things, politics, religion, sex, Brazil (where he is from)… soon enough we were in Nottingham. We dropped Loren and Rajiv at the station where they caught a train to Leeds.

Ronaldo and I headed to Rudy’s to pick up my car and we were going to head back to our respective hotels. Rudy invited us upstairs for a beer and we met his wife. Ronaldo and I were getting tired, so we headed to our hotels. I got to my at 11pm, had dinner, called Trish and went to sleep.

Three more days in England and I head back home. But I won’t meet my babies till Saturday. Makes me sad.