REFLECTIONS

Finally winter gave way to spring and it warmed up in UK! At the onset of spring I decided I wanted to see the cliffs of UK once more and this time without the fog and frozen air. I’m sure some Norwegians, Russians or Americans would be laughing at my description of cold UK considering they are acclimatised to the extreme negative 30 deg. of temperatures in their winters but we Indians are happier when it’s hot… atleast those of us from the central and southern parts of India… and minus 5 deg. is the coldest that I’ve experienced so far. Seaford is a place on the southern coast of UK with the longest range of white cliffs along the coast. They are called the Seven Sisters. The journey to Seaford was long. The rail transport in UK is designed in a peculiar manner. The rail network is routed via major cities instead of creating direct tracks from one place to another. So if you want to go to the south of London from anywhere in the north or west you need to first go to London an

Dover in its entirety has only been captured in my memory. I have not a single photo of it. Reason being, I visited Dover at the peak of March when the spring is still breaking the winter and the fog doesn’t budge. The fog was so thick that we ourselves couldn’t see 10 feet ahead of us. Clicking photos in such weather was absolute waste of time. Dover is a small town in the county of Kent on the eastern coast of England. It is host to a major port and is one of the links of England to France. So much so that the sign boards on the streets of Dover are in both English and French. Despite the trade route, Dover is a small insignificant place. Everything is at a 20 min walking distance. The roads are narrow and the people are simple. Mind you, the city wasn’t laden with fog as you would have imagined but the main attraction of the place was. The cliffs! Dover has chalk cliffs all along its coastline. Formed out of millions of years of deposition of different kinds of sulphates a

Student life in UK is very different from the student life in India. Most students work part time in order to earn their living and very few hang around with friends after college hours on campus. Social life is mostly active in pubs and clubs and no one is bothered about how the others are coping with their assignments. Vacations are used to earn as much as possible or to go back home, by almost everyone. With this backdrop, we Indians from Oxford Brookes University or rather from Crescent Hall (student residence) were planning to go to Cardiff for New Year’s 2013. It was supposed to be six of us including two of my friends from Coventry. So we booked our bus tickets for the 30 th of Dec and our hotels for two nights. There isn’t any direct bus route to Cardiff from Oxford. It goes via Bristol where it changes service. Ironically, it takes five hours to travel from Oxford to Cardiff, but just half of it to travel from London to Cardiff. That’s because the service from London is