December 16, 2011

by Kunal Modi in London, England

It is 2:19 am. I hear the raindrops hitting the roof of the ambulance. It is raining outside on some street in East London. It is getting cold inside the ambulace. I am wrapped inside my sleeping bag on the bench of the ambulance recounting my day. Such an eventful day. Literally. I landed at LHR around 10:30am, met Stephen at terminal 4 where Dennis and Mike picked us up. We went in circles for 4 hours to find the UPS store to pick our equipment shipped from New York. Yes, we were navigating without a map, gps and a compass. This story deserves a blog post by itself. We spotted a burger king to access free wifi. We ultimately ended using neighboring store’s wifi. Next stop was Tesco to stuff up grocery for next few weeks followed by an invitation from Stephen’s friend to visit a Budduist center gathering in East London. We are now spending the night in the ambulance. London, again reminds me of Mumbai. But for all the other reasons than how NYC reminds me of Mumbai. The red double decker buses, the signs for the tubes, post boxes, people understand ‘toilet’ rather than ‘restroom’, randomly turning roads, a single narrow road is still ‘two way road’, left hand side drive, trucks literally brush the cars parked by the side of road, there are five way roads meeting at a circle and you hit a circle every kilometer, grams is used instead of pounds. You fill in petrol instead of gas and diesel is available almost everywhere. Taking the ferry to France today. More stories ahead. Stay tuned.