A Tale of Three Cities

I spent one of the best weekends of my life in..... Glasgow!

I can’t really explain why I liked it so much... I think it was because Glasgow has a spark, a buzz, a sprightly, lively, young feel that I haven’t encountered since we left Auckland. It actually reminded me of Auckland in many ways with its mash of architectural styles, hilly terrain, inner city walkability and thriving music scene. Perhaps I’m just biased towards anywhere that reminds me of home.

There were some decidedly un-Aucklandy features though, like the sprawling Barras Market with its impressive collection of terrible horror movies, the inspiring art nouveau architecture of Glasgow’s own Charles Rennie MacKintosh, and the necropolis surrounded by cathedrals. (Necropolis is an infinitely cooler term than ‘graveyard’.) Plus, major bucket list item alerts - I have now seen the gravestone of the author who wrote Wee Willie Winkie and the Presidents of the United States of America live in concert. Woot!


The Presidents were on form and hilarious, they even played through their entire self-titled album from start to finish... a great blast from the past.

The pinnacle of Glaswegian fashion, or so the tourists think. Most people on the street actually sport more of a Jersey shore inspired look.


Our wanderings took us through an old necropolis...

The shots here more accurately captured true Scottish weather, somehow all the others ended up with blue sky...

We visited London in a very British way... which is to say we treated it very casually and had a great time without seeing any of the usual tourist attractions. Actually we did manage to fit in two hours at the Tate (and quickly found we needed 2 days). And I’ve seen the Tower of London and London Bridge from about 1km away.

OK, so we failed miserably. We’ll just have to go back...

Our wanderings didn't take us very far...
The Tate however was very... modern

We also visited a little Scottish town called Stirling, and saw a castle.

 

Check out that burger, epic.


The castle is famous for its head carvings, it was all pretty magnificent.

EdinBRRRR

We arrived in Edinburgh at the stroke of a mid-November midnight. An exotically lit castle castled above us and at ground level there were fish and chips and people speaking English! Below us lay abandoned closes where the wallpaper had the power of killing us with a single touch because the arsenic component has separated from the paper component... but we didn’t know that yet.

We luxuriated in Edinburgh’s gothic beauty, haggis pies and horror stories for all of ten minutes, and then busied ourselves finding a home, jobs, bank accounts... it felt great once we got past that stage and on to the luxuriating in the gothic beauty and the dreaming-of-where-to-go-in-Europe-this-year stage.

Our six months there felt like a flash interspersed with an eternity - our time always seemed to be passing either really slowly or really quickly. Some highlights were the Hogmanay street party, playing Spanish fiesta songs at free guitar lessons, seeing weird and riveting movies at the incredibly diverse cinemas, the dreamy morning skies, living life within a grand architectural setting and getting to know the Scottish psyche: they drive left, walk right and are incredibly witty – I could not keep up and am hoping that some of it rubbed off on me while we were there. It’s got to be something in the water...

Capturing half a year in one blog is hard so... time for a MONTAGE!


We came to Scotland expecting William Wallace, awesome architecture and freezing cold... we got it all, and much more of course...


The castle was definitely epic... not quite Jodhpur fort epic but still very impressive.

Some bad weather, but plenty of nice clear days. Which unfortunately were still so so cold....


Cold, sleepy Edinburgh came to life when they won the football.... the lifeblood of any good Scotsman. Whenever I opened the paper to the sports section hoping for some cricket or rugby news, I was always greeted by at least 4 pages of football and (at the most) 1 page of ALL other sports. Dedicated.

Hogmanay was a blast, we laughed our way into the new year thanks to the Cuban Brothers and their unique brand of craziness.

Best way to keep warm in Edinburgh was to get moving, we walked a lot! Our favourite was Arthur's Seat which we climbed multiple times. That's it below looking amazing in the unseasonably warm weather we had for a week in March. For scale, those are people walking at the bottom.


The whole city poured into the parks during that week... was quite a change from the ghost city we were used to!

And as if to mock us, the warm weather came back on our last day in Edinburgh. While enjoying the sunshine we wandered through a Christian fair in the gardens and Sophie (losing focus for just a second) was pounced on and converted... note the flyer and sticker.

Shadows of Forgotten Ancestors

Our next stop was the Selim Hill tea estate where we delighted in the beauty of our accommodation and surrounds. The estate was home to my great-grandmother and her family for many years and being there made me feel so glad for them - that they were blessed to have lived in such a lovely place (although I'm sure there were many challenges... one of the letters from my great-grandmother refers to India as 'that cursed place'!).

We luxuriated in the spacious wooden rooms, white tipped tea and being waited on hand and foot. The meal schedule was tough but fair: bed tea and biscuits, then breakfast, lunch, afternoon tea, evening ‘snacks’ and then once we were able to button the top button of our pants again we would finish with a 3 course dinner. We are not going to be the sort of people who lose weight while in India. 

  
Introducing beautiful Selim Hill - the family estate sits atop the hill above left.

  
  
Dad blended in seamlessly with the local pickers while Kate preferred more of a supervisory approach...

  
 
We did occasionally take breaks from eating to wander through the tea plantations and factory buildings, visit hyper-active Kurseong, numerous other places of historical interest to our family and to check out an excellent ‘forestry’ museum where we stroked the fur of long dead tigers.

Above left is Kurseong which must have the best reception in India and on the right is the gravestone of my great-grandmother's brother who died as an infant. The region was uninhabited prior to the arrival of the British who brought the Nepali people down to work on their plantations. The town has a strong Buddhist feel but is open to more modern philosophies too, such as the Jennifer Aniston quote at the local internet cafe: 'There are no regrets in life, only lessons'. 

  One of the perks of visiting all of the plantations where our ancestors had lived was the free samples!

Time for a shameless plug: the Selim Hill estate has only recently opened as an eco-tourism resort and is in need of customers. If anyone out there is looking to stay at a tea estate in India this one is really fantastic (http://www.selimhill.com/the_hideaway.html).

One day in Delhi

*We interrupt this blog to cover Sophie’s family holiday in India for the benefit of the Dominy descendants. Sadly Dan was not able to come. I know that you will all miss his rugged good looks and photographic abilities as much as I do!*


I was joyously reunited with my family inside a gorgeous Delhi haveli. It was such a delight to be with them again and, as with most close relationships, it felt as though we’d never been apart at all. Soon after we were off on a whirlwind tour of Delhi.   We stirred a vat of curry at a Sikh temple sprinkled liberally with gold and then wove through the traffic to Old Delhi to marvel at the intricate carvings in an elaborate mosque, looking like Moonies while black birds circled dramatically overhead. 

 

Popeye's strength is required for effective stirring! and sister Alex looking glamourous at the Bangla Sahib Gurudwara temple.

  

Meet the team - at the back from left to right: Michael, sister Kate, my uncles Malcolm and Warwick and myself.  In the front: my mother Sharyn, sister Alexis and father Peter.  Above right and below is an imposing mosque.

  


  

We regretfully abandoned our glamourous robes in order to check out the narrow, bustling and chaotic Choux district where the women of Delhi are fitted for their wedding sari’s and jewellery. Entrancing culinary smells mingled with incense as we checked out tweenaged brides-to-be, some truly odd vegetables, tangled masses of power lines and intricate crafts.

 

  

Next we took a bicycle rickshaw to the Red Fort, a remnant of the Mughal empire.  We learnt about the turbulent English reign at the British museum (sometimes being partially of British descent is really embarrassing).

 
Those of us who were templed out stayed at the fort (below left) to check out the Indian museum and those of us who were not left to check out the magnificent Akshardham temple (below right).    
  

The temple is a spectacular spectacle- a mixture of the ancient and the modern where the traditionally detailed and delicate carvings are tastefully highlighted with LED and which features, amongst other wonders, an underground log flume ride in swan-shaped boats.  Like all of the most beautiful Indian places, it was no cameras allowed... sorry folks. 

  

We finished up with an enormous Indian feast (palak paneer how I’ve missed you!) and then fell comatose into our beds, a little like the gentleman below.  It is great to be back!