Bullets of the last week

I think writing long big diaries is not what many people would consider reading. So here are bullets; bullets of anecdotes which contain in itself a separate story of my videshi life. Here they go :

• Monday(25th May) is a holiday on account of Queen's birthday. So a long weekend for us. The irony is 25th May is just the official birthday of the Queen. The original birthday is on some other day. Long live the Queen. I wonder what would happen if the Queen dies. Will they give a holiday for that too? And what about the new Queen then - her birthday? Will they change this day?
  

• Yesterday was Saturday, to add to our fun, we boarded a bus to Clydebank - the literal meaning of this word conveyed it was somewhere around the river Clyde. We wanted to have a serene walk around the Clyde. There were four of us(Me, Sharvil, Keshav, Rajiv - all from IITD doing internship in Glasgow) and that is what I mean by 'we' in this bullet. But, this Clydebank turned out to be an industrial area. There were malls, docks, shipping area and we had to traverse about 4 miles on foot to finally reach the bank. That too, all on our own with a map. Crossing through the lonely ways, discovering new paths and thinking twice seeing the map every now and then - Are we heading in the right direction?
  

  
  On our way - still on the discover mode!
  
  

  The way seemed more like a haunted path not used by the people around for decades. The mysterious paths gave us some stunning views of how Scottish nature looks like. With small tunnels, to land-dunes to even running meadows, life never saw such a beauty.
  

  
  Swans playing along the bank
  

  Swans lining the bank with their milk-white skin, seagulls decorating the cloudy sky vauntingly with their flag-like wings and ships loading the cargo with the ongoing breeze brushing against my seven-days beard(which is no more than 2-3 cm) brought a strange feeling of Deja Vu in me.
  
  

  The Clyde view
  

  I felt that I had been to this place sometimes ago. I will go to that place once more someday, all alone and sit by the bank and cherish my happy moments. The noise of the gulls and the playfulness of the swans strikes a chord within me and tells me that I am also a part of this nature - in synergy with all it's beautiful creations.

  
  
• The University of Glasgow - It had been my workplace for the last 5 days. I had some amazing experiences being a part of it. I was sitting in the common room doing my work. There were three professors sitting on the adjacent table talking about black holes. I guessed that they were from the astronomy department, which was quite obvious from their talks. Suddenly one of them said, "Last week I had a talk with Stephen Hawking about the quantum behaviour of black holes." I was dumbfounded.

University Campus - View when entering the main building

I feel that I have been transported to another world - the world of giants, exposure-wise.

• Some trivia : The University of Glasgow was the first university campus to be fully lighted by electricity in 1871, courtesy to the pioneering works by Lord Kelvin. It's very renowned across the whole globe.

• Work : In the initial few days I had a really tough time with work. I could not understand a thing. On the third day did I finally have some grasp of the thing what we are doing. I am going to be enlightened into many languages and softwares with my work here. The work being totally theoretical requires me well versed with LATEX, Mathematica, POV ray and Adobe Illustrator. That's a real nice grooming since education out there in India, especially physics is not much centred on computer based stuff. The professor is so friendly, that most of the time I spend with him.
  
  My everyday consist of about 40-50 minutes talk with him. He has arranged my entry into the departmental football team, and also he his planning an excursion for us into an island along the sea on Scotland's coast. Seems fun is coming my way. Plus, he is also pleased with both of us. He always start praising the IIT guys. Really IIT gives so much respect, all across the globe.
  
  Then, we have lunch together with the whole group, and everyone is so fun-loving. They crack jokes, even some naughty ones and I am perplexed whether to laugh or not? I choose to be smiling - that's the best way to control my emotions. My lunch consists of a chicken sandwich, a chocolate cake and a vanilla shake; total worth three pounds. The daily expense here is about 6-7 pounds per head, that too we live too lavishly. Brown bread, soups, milk, ice-cream and 12 cans of pepsi keep our oesophagus packed.
  

• Ph.D Talks : One day, our professor asked us to accompany the group to a talk to be given by the Ph.D students around. There were doughnuts which served as refreshments and were the fuel for such a large turn-up outside the lecture theatre. We went inside the lecture theatre carrying our doughnuts and eating it from all the four sides, to make it's radius short, thereby making it carriable. The inside view was brilliant. The lecture theatre was better than the auditorium of IIT Delhi. Parallel movable boards, that too 9 in number and three white boards - for projection and a big auditorium which can seat about 200-400 people. The Ph.D talks began and as expected we could not understand a thing of what was being discussed. How do you expect us to know about lepton's angular momentum after all?
  
  Even our professor could not understand much what non-optics Ph.D talked about. The ending was sweet. There was a show of hands to choose who amongst the three presenters were the best. The one who would be the best would be given a champagne. And there was a tie, between Ph.D students of optics group and particle physics group. Certainly we thought, this could not be resolved but the magnanimous presenter told that he would give one champagne each to each winner. So, we will be having champagne soon. This concept of awarding seemed very fascinating to me. The incentives adds value to the work and gives a feeling of accomplishments. Nice experience here.
  

• I found so many shops, with cheap goods. I am going to do a hell lot of shopping. The Bus Stands and Railway Stations are amazing - ultra clean and modern.

That's the Railway Station - Overground

P.S. Guys, I had been having a trouble of what to bring back from here. Finally I found a souvenir to bring back for my friends. I am going to bring a peculiar thing of this place for all of you - yeah All. And that is ultra-soft quilts. One roll can be enough to satisfy about 50 people for one of their nature's sacred call.