New job

I started a new job this Monday. It is with a startup based in Central London, at a great location (a few blocks from Piccadilly Circus). It takes me about 1 hr 15 mins door to door, which comprises of a 15 minute walk to the train station, a 45 minute train ride to London Waterloo station, a 5 minute walk to the tube station, 5 minute train ride on the tube and a 5 minute walk to the office. Compared to my commute in US, this is a royal pain - I had a 5 minute drive to work there. The train fare is not cheap either - it comes to a total of £380 a month. The largest component of the travel is a single train ride of 45 minutes and I get a seat always, so the commute is not too bad. I can do something productive - like reading a book or catching some sleep during this ride. I should get used to this pretty soon.

Last Saturday, we visited Stonehenge and a nearby medieval city called Salisbury. Visiting Stonehenge is a dream come true - I have read about that since childhood and it turned out to be a great experience. There was a huge crowd out there. We were allowed to catch a glimpse of it from 100 feet away, but it still was worth it. There is something mysterious about 5000 year old stones arranged in a mysterious formation. It was supposed to be a little hot that day (close to 30C), but thankfully, it was cloudy, so it did not feel that hot.

Salisbury is a really old city built around 1200 AD. There is an even older city in ruins a few miles from Salisbury called Old Sarum. It is a hill fort and is few thousand years old. We spent some time there and got some gorgeous views of the English countryside. We then went to the town centre of Salisbury and visited a farmer's market. Then we visited the Salisbury Cathedral. At 404 ft in height, it is the tallest medieval cathedral in England and is 750 years old. It also has England's oldest working clock and a copy of Magna Carta. Then we took a train back home. It was a very satisfying day.