The Long overdue 2009 travelog

It’s 6 months into 2010 and now I’m racking my brain to recall my travel in 2009. I spent my 30th birthday in Hyderabad in April with my folks and grandma and relatives. Looks like I’ll be ushering all my birthdays in peacefully. Gone are the wild parties and endless orgies. Sighhh!
There were weekend trips to Wales and Lake District. Too much hassle getting visas processed to go anywhere else! Lake District serves the best lamb shank. I believe I had it everyday! Both places have similar countrysides – sprawling farms dotted with sheep. Wales had lovely seaside scenery while Lake District had…yup you guessed it…lakes! Going to such places always makes you reflect on why you’re living in a tiny apartment going through monotonies of city life year after year. Couldn’t I have just one stupid skill which I could utilize to make me some money to live by and then I could actually go and set up my little café. The charming little café which closes for season breaks so that the owner can go travelling and collect little artefacts from all the interesting places and sells them.

The menu would look something like this:
- South Indian crepes (dosas), with a choice of fillings – spinach and ricotta cheese, spicy lentils, sweet potato, mashed chilli potato, mozzarella cheese and peppers, ham, mushroom and cheese, white cabbage with toasted chopped peanuts. (Sree, you can add your ideas as well!!)
- In season grilled asparagus wrapped in parma ham with shavings of parmesan cheese
- Idlis delicately flavoured with ginger and dotted with mustard seeds and curry leaves served with coconut chutney.
- Potato and pea cakes (veg tikkis) served with watercress salad and dressing
- Roasted chicken wings marinated with lemongrass and bird chilli
- Mixed leaf salad with mango chutney and avocado.
- Wild rice sautéed with pine nuts and sundried tomato chilli paste served with carrot raita.

Slurrrrp, drooool! I’m getting carried away with food as usual! Back to travelog.
Now where was I? Well besides that was a day trip to Dover to see the White limestone cliffs and a faint glimpse of Calais across the distance and another lazy stay a bizarrely decorated BnB with a real fireplace.
Yes finally the long overdue, over planned and under prepared trip to Greece happened with the girls in Sept-Oct. After fights and huffs and shows of cool independence we reached Athens. So much history in every corner, don’t understand how people who visited there previously told us we could not spend more than 2 days. We spent 4 – at least KD and I did and moved on to Olympia on a very long winded bus journey. B & P managed to spend more time in Athens and saw some nearby islands. Olympia is a lovely town and we were lucky to stay at a very hospitable Best Western. Saw the ancient site on a quiet evening, a Bugatti convention and a friendly taxi tour for the day. We returned to Athens by an express bus this time driven by a most cranky driver who didn’t allow anyone to eat, drink, bring luggage put feet up in the bus. Well it was clean at least. We headed on to Mykonos the party island and landed up in a hotel which had gauze for curtains and was run by Punjabis from Jallandar! It had incongruously placed translucent blue rocks around the premises and salty sea water in the pool. I never got to hire my scooter but we had a wild time navigating our way in a car driven by P. (Schumacher)! I got to finally swim in the gorgeous Aegean Sea – cold though it was – a liberating experience, in more ways than one! Santorini came next and by any logic it should feature in anyone’s trip to Greece. We stayed in Oia and could not get enough of the spectacular volcanic crater landscapes. B, P & I did a long hike across the length to the town center and luckily managed to also see the Red beach. The dramatic black and red rockface against the brilliant blue green sea is one of the sights that would stay imprinted. The day cruise to the volcanic centre was a new experience. I don’t think any of the pictures I took did the sight justice. It was a wonderful 2 weeks after all. I think we all had different expectations which probably we couldn’t communicate to each other properly, but I guess we each left with so many great memories of time spent, myriad sights seen, reflections on history and culture and people and tastes.
Well that’s about it for now folks.