Which all places
would you visit in a new nation you are landing in? Set a day aside for
planning what to do. I did. I used sygic
travel website for planning which places to visit. Used tripadviser to see if
those places were worth visiting. And my plan was ready with which places to
visit on which day, at what time, what entry fees were, the GPS coordinates of
the location and the location on a map. Sygic travel is awesome, do check it
out before your next trip. Well, what about travelling tickets you will need
daily? Did you check if there are passes for tourists? I did. I tried buying
the royal Edinburgh ticket which had access to 3 main attractions - the royal
Britannia yatch, the Edinburgh castle and the Holyrood palace. I tried, but the
plastic was rejected, so had to buy it at the Edinburgh airport after reaching.
Conference was on
21st, but I went on 19th. Why? Because it was the first flight of my life,
first international travel and I wanted to get adjusted to the surroundings
before entering the conference venue. I had booked a hostel from booking.com.
Reached Edinburgh and the hostel then. Within an hour after reaching, an
acquaintance of mine, Ratnadeep Reddy, who is a friend of Praful Khandalkar (my
B.Tech. classmate), came over to see me. Looking at the hostel's condition, he
took me to his room at Saughton. His flatmates - Sumit and Rohan, and Ratnadeep
became friends soon! It was nice hearing some stories of each other.
Here I was, so far,
I had never thought. I wanted to roam around, and had an inertia. So, I took
tickets for a two day hop-on hop-off tour (25-26 August) and a one day tour to
the Highlands (27 August). Kept 28th blank for exploring for myself. 21-24 was
the conference. 19th eve and 20th were days to get acquainted to the city's
transport system. The city's transport system is extremely well developed and
you can have trams and buses going to all the places you wish. It is too clean,
well-organized, on-time, with people respecting each other. A small touch and
people will apologize for that. People make queues for getting into buses. You
can buy a day pass to travel unlimited in a day. 20th - I spent just walking
around the streets. Being Edinburgh festival, I watched some street shows. And
then I packed some things in order to move to Heriot - Watt University the next
day.
21st - the
conference workshop start at 3pm. And I need to checkin to the accommodation
provided before the workshop. So, I reached at the Heriot - Watt University at
2.30 pm. I was handed over the keys, and it was a beautiful room. You could see
a nice garden outside. The room had a small study table, a radiant room heater
(hot water being circulated through it), a mug, a small bathroom-toilet, a bed,
a cupboard and a small water heater to make tea. Tea - coffee - sugar - skimmed
milk were provided. It was a very nice well-furnished room, I was supposed to
stay for 4 days 3 nights. So, dropped the luggage and was ready for the
workshop.
Oh! That I forgot to
mention the reception. At the university's reception, I was given a map of the
university, pointing the locations of my hostel, checkin/checkout desk, the
conference venues, canteen, etc. That's professionalism I wanted. Just my type!
The conference's reception, I met the woman who tunneled my conversations to
the conference - Lisa Waters. It was because of her timely communications and
diligence that I was a conference assistant. The conference bag had the
conference schedule, a book containing abstracts and a USB stick with all the
papers of the conference. And the conference began!
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