Mom & Dad's Trip to UK/US 2006

When Mom and Dad agreed to visit us here in England and New Jersey in 2006, we agreed that it was time to take the opportunity to meet up with Marisol's side of the family for the first time and arranged for a trip to pain in the middle of the intended stay in England.

However as it turned out Spanish Visas were harder to obtain then anyone would have expected and this meeting of the two families never happened.

As it was we had to postpone the trip from the initial May-August timeframe to a September to November one. American Visas required a lengthy wait and then the UK visa was only just obtained in time.

One of the first experience for Mom and Dad was when Virgin decided to upgrade the first leg of their journey to Upper Class. Apparantly Mom did not think much of the seats in Upper Class, as they made each individual sit or sleep in their own little world. She wanted the seats in the Premium where Mom and Dad could at least sit side by side! In the end the stewards were able to entice Monm with a fully flat bed, and according to Dad she slept all the way to Heathrow.

Most of the trrip remained uneventful apart from a few falls for Mom and a few trips to see Art Exhibitions with Marisol & I, because we were participating in the 2006 London Biennale.

Other notable good things were the arrival of Manjeet & Almu from Madrid, and a surprise visit to England by Bro Paramjeet. Fancy meeting him in London!

In the US Mom & Dad did a lot of entertaining in the capable hands of Jasvinder and Birinder and when I arrived to accompany them on their way back we had a wonderful reunion with Satinder and Harry, Spencer, Jessie and Vanessa, who made a trip over from Austin. We had a wonderful dinner with Arlene at a beautiful restaurant in North New Jersey overlooking the New York Skyline.

Apart from the Virgin staff who made us sweat at Newark airport with even a hint that perhaps we had not fully paid for the tickets, did nothing to dampen Dad's spirits, who could not wait to get back to Delhi t cash in some of his Sagar Cement shares which had almost doubled in value during his trip, to finance the purchase of a new car.

That and the more than 100 Kilos of goodies that saw their way back to Delhi must have been a sight for sore eyes. However as luck would have it Mom got ill soon after arrival, and at last report making a miraculous recovery. We wish her god speed in recovering totally.

Thanks for coming over Dad & Mom!!