Routemasters in London, history of women travellers and chocolate cake

A Routemaster on London Roads (Courtesy- www.overground.org)

Yesterday I decided to get on a bus and travel from north to south London. I had to go Trafalgar Square to see the an exhibition on women travellers at the National Portrait Gallery and then meet Aj at Canada Water, which is in south London.

Hopped onto one of the buses - a routemaster - which is apparently on its way out. It is making way to more modern buses. Personally, I prefer the routemaster double decker. Reminds me of the double decker buses in India- where people can hop on as and when they like, and make the most of traffic light and get off when there is a red light!! The new buses are all locked up with only the driver having the option of opening the doors. How irritating!! Whatever happened to freedom of choice? Anyway.

Trafalgar square was full of action- a large screen was showing the Olympics as part of the city's bid to host the Olympics in 2012 . A whole lot of tourists were enjoying the weather and the place. It is an impressive area of the city, surrounded with impressive buildings dating back to many years. Pretty similar to the other cities I have seen in Europe. Saw numerous Indians busy taking group photographs and talking loudly!! What fun. Heard Tamil, Hindi and Punjabi in bits and pieces.

Went to see the exhibition and it was wonderful. I am all for women taking life by its horns, and making the most of what is thrown our way. So to see that women have been doing this for the last three centuries by travelling made me feel so damn good. This link will gives a good overview of what the exhibition was about.
India features quite a bit as a destination for many of these women. But what is impressive is that these women dared to defy conventional role models of their times and ventured out- dressing up as men, insisting on learning local culture and wearing local clothes, learning new languages, writing about their experiences positively, and at times making considerable scientific and academic contributions (one of them, has a species of fish named after her!!).
Coming away from there, many of my decisions I took in my life regarding my professional life (which I have doubted in the past) seemed to be right. Reading all these women's stories made me realise that sometimes, one has to hold on to their dreams against all odds.

From there I got on to the wrong bus and almost landed up going to the southwest of the city when I was supposed to go to the southeast. So, took the tube and met Aj.
Bought this really heavenly chocolate cake and ate it- a two layer choc cake with choc icing in between......heavenly!! Just for the day I forgot the calories and enjoyed every crumb of the cake. Sometimes, the simple pleasures mean so much.