A little bit of pesto…a lot of rum

I’m off out in a bit to Colaba Causeway with Indrakshi and Karen, but before I go I thought I’d let you know all about my last day at Grazia and my awesome night last night!

Before work Skandita and I went shopping to Asiatica. Asiatica is a department store near Churchgate station which specialises in gifts. Skandita took me to help me pick out some cards and chocolates for the girls, as it was going to be my last day in the Grazia office. I picked up a couple of cards, one for all the girls and one for the editor, Nandini, to say thank you. I got a huge basket of chocolates with a massive bow on them and a big box of choc chip cookies for the girls, and then I got a small basket of chocolates for Nandini.

I arrived at the office and everyone was really sad I was going, which was nice. We ate tonnes of biscuits and did some work and made multiple runs to the coffee machine as usual. I discovered my new favourite snack, some might say a little too late; soya szechuan sticks. Now they don’t sound very nice, and they look like something that was born in a Holland & Barrett’s bin, but I absolutely love them, and am bringing a bag back with me to ease the pain of leaving this amazing country!

I had a nasty fright the night before last when I spoke to Ben who’s already at home. He told me that on his return check-in they told him he was only allowed 20kg of luggage. This is ridiculous seeing as we were allowed 46kg on the way in! He told me that the airport had tried to make him pay £200 for extra luggage, and I started to panic. Luckily he argued his way out of the situation, but I was already mentally mourning the loss of my clothes. Of course, I’d worried for nothing, my ticket clearly states that I can carry 46kg back with me, which means I can still buy my wicker elephant today, without paying through the nose, or trunk.

Thursday night I successfully finished my case study, which took me until 4am to finish. It was horrific, I literally spent all morning in work wandering round like a zombie. My first trip to the coffee machine was rather horrendous, I felt as though someone had rubbed cotton wool over my contact lenses I was so tired. Luckily, the amount of concealer I was wearing covered my dark circles! The tiredness was outweighed by the fact that I’d completed the whole project and could now be more carefree.

Me and the girls decided for my last day that we would order a ridiculously large Chinese takeaway. Not even twelve of us could polish off what we ordered! We had chicken fried rice, szechuan prawns, kung pao chicken and a variety of other dishes. Chinese food here in India is so much nicer than British Chinese. It’s more flavour-some than greasy and it’s actually natural colours rather than bright orange!

Our chinese feast

Me and the girls spent the last half of the day messing around and taking pictures, swapping numbers, adding each other on Facebook and planning the evening ahead. It was really sad when I left, Nandini said a warm goodbye to me and was really grateful for her gift. I’ve got into such a work routine it’s really hard to imagine how I’m going to survive without the rat race in Cornwall!

Me, Pasham, Indrakshi and Ekta.

Me, Indrakshi and the flat plan!

I went back to the guest house to freshen up ready for the evening. Me and the girls met outside Mondy’s and decided what to do. Some of the girls that had already eaten, wanted to go and see a DJ in Bandra, about 45 minutes away, so we let them go and said we’d meet them later. I’m glad I said bye and got hugs ‘incase I didn’t see them later’, because we had such a laugh in Leo’s that me and the others didn’t make it to Bandra in the end.

Me, Karen, Sonam, Mamta and Indrakshi went to Leo’s upstairs bar where we shared two of the biggest bowls of pesto fusilli I’ve ever seen and baskets of garlic bread with cheese. We washed everything down with cocktails, me opting for my favourite- long island iced tea. They played really old school dance there, like Robert Miles’ Children that got us all reminiscing. After a few drinks we hit the dancefloor and Karen taught me how to dance like I was making chapattis. It was hilarious, we got a lot of strange looks from the people in there but we didn’t care. Karen then showed me another routine that was supposed to imitate an Indian man doing laundry! Watch out Remedies, when I get back there are going to be some brand new moves in town!

Italian feast

Me and the girls upstairs at Leo's

We left Colaba in the early hours of the morning and I flopped onto my bed still in all my clothes after saying a sad goodbye to Mamta and Sonam. Me, Karen and Indrakshi made plans to see each other today and tomorrow, so luckily I didn’t have to say goodbye to too many people!

After a while of dozing in my clothes, Skandita came home. We sat up having a girly chat until who knows what time, and I slept until so late today as a result! Luckily Bombay never sleeps, so there’s no rush for us to get out to Colaba, all of us are feeling a little worse for wear, and at least we’ve missed the mid-day heat!

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