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Monday, November 07, 2016

Family vacation in the UK, October 2016: Day 1 - Arrival and overnight

Nishrin, Inas and Hannah flew out of Mumbai on the early morning of the 30th of September via Turkish Airlines. After a few hours' stopover at the Ataturk Airport in Istanbul, the next TA flight brought them into Manchester the same evening at around five p.m.

I rented a car (a white Vauxhall Insignia 2000) from Enterprise Rent-a-car, Blackpool, the same afternoon and drove it to Manchester airport. I was waiting in the arrivals lounge of Terminal 2 when the family made their appearance. It was so delightful to see them all! They were equally pleased to meet me.



We drove uneventfully all the way back to my rooms at the hospital in Blackpool. It was a weekend, and we would be starting our country-wide drive the next morning, so I convinced them to stay overnight with me.

After they had all freshened up and Nish had had her tea (boiled tea, not with tea bags), we all set off for an evening out. The reason was that Blackpool was having its last display of fireworks on the Promenade tonight.

When we arrived at the promenade, the fireworks display was still an hour away. Hence, we first went to Nando's for dinner. This was my family's first dinner in the UK. There would be many more, but this, the first one, would be special. They had to like the food. And they did.



As soon as we finished eating, we proceeded to the promenade, where the fireworks display was just starting. It was part of an inter-town competition that had been running since the past six weeks, today was the final performance, and the participating town today was the home town, Blackpool.

The display was fantastic. It lasted about 20 minutes, and everyone on the promenade was staring at the skies in wonder. Here are a few pictures we took:













And that's pretty much it. I will continue with the next day's journey in the next post. Thank you for reading. 

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