English Dreams

While most kids of my era aimed to 'grow up' to be an Engineer, a Doctor, a Teacher etc. etc. I was still undecided but said the same things just to be 'cool and accepted' ... and mind you I was a topper in School. (I am hoping my teachers don't get a heart attack when they read the next line!).

Once I graduated from Marvel and Tinkle comics to Mills & Boon at the impressionable age of 12 😇, I found myself gravitate towards psychological thrillers and other similar fiction. By 13, I aimed to be a young writer and had also secretly decided on the name of the book... you guessed it .... 'English Dreams'. 20 years later, I still haven't written a book and probably lack the patience to write one too... but heck why not write a blog! After all, what matters is writing and expressing and my online scribbles could pass off as just that!

Meanwhile, MOTH was getting equally restless at not being able to get me a job interview where he had applied on my behalf. We needed to break the jinx and I, a new laptop .... what better reason to shop. "Chuck online search, let's just go and get the damn thing", said I and lo behold! A new gleaming silver ASUS laptop was placed in my hands.

To do a 'Shubh Arambh', I thought let me write my first blog. Taking cue from my professor who is a prolific blogger and an inspiration , I did what I usually do..... Google! 'How to write a Blog' were the first key strokes and a list of links appeared. BTW, did I tell you, it took me a while to type those first words? Why? Here, take a look and the initiated may guess why ..

For the less initiated, I will reveal in a sec..... Voila! It's not a QWERTY keyboard, it's QWERTZ 😖 plus a load of other French language symbols to distinguish words and their meanings example 'é ö ' (and as I type the two symbols, I have absolutely no clue why they are repeated in the same key twice 😲, haaah bet you missed it too! 😜). We were struggling to get to that damn '@' key till we discovered the 'alt gr' and trust me it had me doing "argggggh  grrrrrrr" the whole time.

I now felt what Columbus must have felt when he reached the Americas and not Japan as intended. Only he must have felt like a hero and I, well you can guess....

Anyhow, having tided over the initial hiccups and blissfully unaware of the ones waiting for me, I landed on the Blogspot page and typed what I thought would be a fancy Blogger's name..'theunitiated '... but that was not available, hmmm looks like somebody beat me to being the uninitiated. Next I typed, 'roywrites'... damn again...some Bengali got there first too. By this time, I was really getting desperate to get a unique name ... till I rolled my 'sleeves and my R's '... and here I am as 'WROYWRITES' and so shall be called in blogging circles henceforth! Ta Da!

It took me a good 2 hours to actually align my thoughts to the slower pace of typing, re typing, punching and pounding the keys and FINALLY there was the fruit of my labour..... My first blog!

After that first initiation and those lessons, here are two more cents
Lesson 4: Hail Google!
Lesson 5: I think I can write.... maybe....

And oh.. I am writing this blog from England, so yeah 'English Dreams' still hold true...

Next up: What not to do in Luxembourg

"Excellent choice, Sir!"

A week after I moved to the Grand Duchy of Luxembourg ensued by all the rejected job applications, it was time to beat the blues and paint the town red. A few debates, discussions and considerations later, the Man of the house (hereafter known as MOTH) exasperatedly says "if you only want to think about saving money and cheap eats, we may as well eat at home". That dialogue works every single time and so off we were to a place he had been to earlier and thought was definitely worth another visit.

We put on our best blacks (our favourite colour, hides all the unflattering bulges quite well and especially in a country where EVERYONE was fit and tall and oh well that rant is for another time....) and off we went to this restaurant which was cheap by no account and whose name sounded more like a type of fish.

First thought, "very nice ambience" and there's live music as well. This will be fun! The place was filled with what seemed like fancy connoisseurs who knew what to eat, drink and smoke. We had no reservation but were happily seated amidst other people. Next to us sat an elderly couple who seemed the jovial kind, then there was a family of 6 - well built men, women, grandpa, grandma et all, and further away there was a group of 4 wherein the women seemed to be more interested in comparing their painted nails and men looked blissfully drunk.

We asked for the menu from an enterprising looking young man and were promptly handed the drinks and the food menu. I needed alcohol for the reason stated in the first line and decided to try the LIT, it delivered what it promised to my happiness. And so it the main course.
Sometimes just asking the right questions makes life a lot easier but of course we are attracted to the hard way... having said that, following 'seemingly socially accepted norms in the culture one now lives in' is another pitfall we all love to fall in and happily that too.

Anyways, more on that later. We order Tapas for appetizer and the 'Poissons - Fruits de la mer' for the main course. The enterprising young man (EOY) mentioned that the main course can be served only for two. Since we matched up to the number plus did read the fine print on the menu card which said "serves two", we nodded in agreement. And that's when EOY said "Excellent Choice, Sir!". A quick mental math told us that with the €32 main course plus 2 LITs and the Tapas we did a pretty good job of selection and would wrap up a fine dinner within € 50. Smug in self satisfaction, we did what we usually do best, me honing my observation skills and MOTH googling away on the phone, occasionally sharing his learnings and I my conjectures.

Food was served in no time (must credit the fast service and the young hostess) and contained a huge plate of 'tapas'. We gobbled away, praising the chef and his sous chefs. Then came the surprise and the main course (they were the same). Two huge portions were placed before us and we found ourselves literally at sea with the 'Fruits de la mer'. We explained to the hostess that she was probably mistaken since we had ordered for a plate that serves two, and she said that is what the menu says and that that was what she had served -  'Poissons - Fruits de la mer' that can be ordered for two people and that it serves two. It dawned upon us, in an instant, that while we had read the fine print, the finer meaning another thing 😅😅. With no choice, we forked our plates and again did a mental calculation of what that meant on the final fine print. Needless to say we could not finish what we started and laid to waste what seemed a fine plate of 'fruits of the sea'.

The check confirmed our thoughts as we took a final sip of our strong LITs and against better judgement decided not to dogypack the leftovers. Again making another mistake of assuming behaviours and cultures in a foreign land.

Final Bill = €110.
Learnings = priceless.

Lesson 1: Reaffirming the saying- when in doubt, ask!
Lesson 2: Assumption is the conclusion of fools (had read this somewhere, makes for a poignant thought when one experiences it live!)
Lesson 3: Beware of the words , "Excellent choice, Sir!"

Next up- My first Blog on my new laptop