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The Lake District
This iconic location has been on my imaginary bucket list (which includes skydiving and seeing the Northern Lights) for a while! I’m not sure how I heard of it, maybe one of those Secret London articles? But I was obsessed over the crystalline lakes and the panoramic views from the top of the peaks in the Lake District. I’d tried many times to convince my friends to join me on this trip but to no avail. Until now.. and in the most unexpected yet perfectly fitting way too. At the dinner table last night in Lancaster, I expressed my love of the outdoors to my new mathematician friends and that…
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Maths in Lancaster
This weekend became a surprise trip to Lancaster after an email from the head of the department telling us about an event for prospective maths PhD students run by the London Mathematical Society. Not sure where I am headed, I signed up! Off Friday morning from Euston and a snooze on the train, I reached Lancaster at midday and successfully used Google Maps to get a bus to campus. With a quick bite and a welcome, we were ushered into the world of mathematical research with talks from leading professors and researchers in UK universities. Some of the talks were really interesting, introducing ideas of cloaking, spread of infectious diseases…
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Painshill and the Crystal Grotto
Sometimes you just gotta take impulsive decisions and go. After my friend told me about a Crystal Grotto outside London late at night, we just said yep let’s go tomorrow morning. No planning, no research… Taking a train to Vauxhall, we were going to a place called Cobham & Stoke D’Abernon (even the station’s name sounds foreign). We got there and the place we were headed, Painshill, was a bus ride away from the station. But the way we take buses for granted in London doesn’t exactly work in small English towns. After waiting 10mins for the scheduled bus to come, we decided to just head down and walk the…
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The Return to Insta (& other news)
I am backed up with blog posting so here comes a bunch of disconnected tales at full speed – a short story compilation if you may: A Fishy Experience Many of my foodie posts have been quite sophisticated dishes but that is actually not as often as you may imagine. A blistering hot day in Madinah and having had red meat consecutively for too many days, we went to a fish place for lunch. Now this is no any ordinary place, the shop is located in a major street selling pretty much the same thing! The way it works is you pick out a fresh fish from the freezer, often…
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The City of Light
Mothers are strange creatures – they are hybrid humans with maxed out levels of empathy, care and love. I don’t know any other person who has come to pick up and drop off someome at the airport without actually travelling – for every journey since I first set off from Jeddah. Today was no different and on getting home at 8am, the table was overflowing with delicious dishes to feed 10 and I was only allowed to get up after I gained back an extra couple of kilos. Having not slept all night and now fed, I immediately crashed in my bedroom. Only to be woken a few hours later……
