The past two weeks have been an emotional one for me, with the spectre of separation looming large upon the best friendship I have built up so far here. As I have mentioned in previous posts, my friends from Spain - Ovi and Martha - are heading back home after their stint here in the U.K. Although they are looking forward to heading back home, I can’t really put into words how much I will miss them.With the weekdays occupied with our daily duties, it was the weekends that were left to us to spend our final moments together, and we decided to stretch it out as long as possible. It is frightening to stand up against time and realise there is so much to do in a limited amount of time.
Anyhow, we kicked of last weekend in the true English style of getting together for a session over a few drinks. Only that instead of heading for the pubs, we chose to go to the University students union, which is a pub of sorts which acts as the canteen by day and a disco by night, run by the university for its students.
The student union is most active on the weekend nights, with the activity level gradually picking up as the night progresses, until finally at around 2 AM, it gets crazy enough to be closed.We had to find a relatively quieter spot in a corner to make ourselves audible over the blasting music and in between frequent escapades to the dance floor, our international group of friends (Spanish, Austrian, Latvian, British, American and of course the lone Indian- me) managed to chat the night away until the place closed for the night.
With barely a day to recover from the previous night, we once again got together at Ovi`s place. This time it was to watch an ever accumulating collection of movies, while continuing the blabber. To add to the cosy lazy mood, we gave up plans of cooking and decided to live it out on two massive made to order Pizzas which came with a buy 1 get 1 free offer! After what seemed like more than the actual 4 movies that we watched and with no track of the time, we finally had to call it a day (or night) and head back to our respective homes for another busy week ahead.
This week it was once again get together time to share a meal of spaghetti...which unknowingly turned out to be an all Italian meal with Italian pink wine and Viennetta ice cream. Ovi and Martha have plans to visit India later this year and I guess my stories about good old India have added to the fire. They in turn have invited me over to go to Spain. I hope both of these can be worked out soon.
The final get together along with our American friends Megan and Matt happened yesterday for a last supper. This time we decided to go for something more exotic and the best we could come up with was a Japanese restaurant in town called Yukisan.
Japanese food is really popular in most western countries, and the most popular Jap food is of course the Sushi… for those that are not aware Sushi is a food made of vinegared rice combined with various toppings or fillings. The most common toppings are RAW seafood! (my friends in Japan, please excuse this !) O.k..I know exactly what most of you are asking now…yes I did eat it.What bothered me most was not that it was raw, but all the food poisoning issues linked with raw food that I had accumulated in my brain over the years of microbiological reading. Anyhow, my sense of curiosity prevailed over my fears and I decided to go ahead and finally taste what this famous food stuff was all about.
I ordered “Suzuki sushi” simply because the named seemed the most familiar to me. When served, the sushi turned out to be that made from the vinegared rice, topped up with raw pieces of Sea bass (a fish). Together with it came the accompanying condiments… soya sauce..called Shōyu, a hot chutney type stuff called Wasabi and a sweet pickled ginger quite unlike any other called as Gari. After a bit of struggling with the supplied chopsticks, I gave up and asked for a fork, and decided to put aside my reservations and have a go at the sushi. So, as instructed I mixed the wasabi in the shoyu and dipped the rice and fish in it and popped it into my mouth. I was half expecting my sense of taste to revolt, but I must admit it was rather appealinng in taste…the rest of my serving went down with relish replacing the curiousity. My verdict..good enogh to try once..especially with all the accompanying hype..but its not going to be on my list of favourites for sure. To compensate the raw taste I followed up the sushi starter with a deep fried tuna with sweet miso sauce..must say it was good…while my friends followed up with more helpings of susi..with raw salmon, raw shrimp, raw red snapper..and raw god knows what.
When we finally finished an enjoyable meal, I kept waiting for symptoms of food poisonings which fortunately never occurred. We then headed over to the Plymouth Hoe to enjoy the late evening sunshine before the destined hour finally arrived when we had to bid each other farewell.
By the time this article is published in my blog, Ovi and Martha will be on their 18 hour ferry ride towards Spain. I wish them all the best for their future and I`m sure we will be meeting up again somewhere..the world is getting smaller by the day. Farewell my friends..until we meet again!
