An Outlet: Part 3

10 June, 2018.

I woke up at 10:00AM today feeling really fresh!

I had my morning dose of coffee and after some biscuits as breakfast, I finally started filling up my physical Travel jounrnal. I had made it in 2015 right before our 10 day trip to Malaysia and had decided to document my travels there. However, I got through only 2 days of it and just couldn't keep up. For months after that I had tried to recollect the happenings of each day of the trip so that I could fill it in my book, but in vain. I landed up just writing small events of the trip in an random manner, instead of my day-wise plan.

I went to Hyderabad in Dec 2016 and even though I have documented that in this digital journal, I still had to write it down in my physical, travel-specific journal. And that's what I did. Actually, I just got through half of the second day and got tired. Boi, typing is much less tiring and faster than writing!

At around 11:30AM, my cousins Scarlett and Parker came to visit us. The whole house came alive cause Scarlett is the most entertaining human in our family and Parker is not far behind. There were jokes thrown around, talks of 'what-the-heck-is-the-local-government-doing-with-our infrastructure' talks and a lot more.

Scarlett (who is a passionate German Professor) has been organising a 7-10 day trip to Germany and Switzerland since last year so she gave me an entire summary of how her trip went. I love listening to such travel stories! Makes you feel like you're a part of it!

Later we had delicious chicken cooked by Aunt P (she had sent it with Scarlett and Parker).

We then went on to play various card games and it was hilarious! We played for about an hour after which we decided to go for a ride.

Scarlett has started driving for a while now so we went out and drove for quite a bit before taking a U-turn, buying some ice cream and coming back to our compound.

We ate ice cream in the meditation area (which is rarely used as one, FYI) and spoke for a while. Scarlett told us about her daring experience of her Dubai trip and somehow the conversation turned to matrimonial sites and tinder. Scarlett is in her late 20s so, inevitably, she has been bombarded with loads of "so are we having a wedding soon?" questions. I frankly will never pressurize someone by asking such questions. Scarlett told us that she was earlier looking at matrimonial sites and was on tinder for a bit but none of those worked out for her. She is looking for someone on her own now. Good for her.

We decided to play badminton and Parker decided to drive the short distance to the clubhouse that housed the badminton court. I was scared at first but he drives pretty well!

We went to the clubhouse and while waiting for the guard to open up the badminton court room, dipped our feet into the not-so-cleaned swimming pool. It felt nice. Since it was sunny, my legs weren't wet for too long.

We played badminton for about an hour. We are all pretty decent with the game so that was cool. With me tho, I can't run too much, my stamina is very low. And I can't back-hand for nuts. The other three, especially Parker are quite good at it tho. We listened to music and played until we got pretty tired.

On our way back home, Alex decided he wanted to give driving a shot. Now I know for a fact that Alex has only driven thrice in his life and that too a year back so Parker and I decided not to enter the car and let Scarlett handle the car while Alex drove and took a U-turn. I swear the car sounded like a trolley from outside.

Alex did a pretty good job at reversing so Parker and I got in and then Alex drove the distance back to our building. I underestimate my brother. He was actually quite good.

Except for a small break right before parking (where Scarlett gasped and Alex got nervous), it was a smooth ride. Parker tried to park (hey-o!) but ultimately Scarlett had to do it. It's alright.. baby steps...that I'm not taking at all.

We came home and immediately started packing our bags up. After some snacks and some more talking, we left for home. Alex and I bought ourselves some KFC burgers and chicken popcorns for dinner on the way and we reached home by 9:30PM.

At one point during our ride home, granddad asked Alex if he could watch a movie on Alex's phone. I was pleasantly surprised. First of all, granddad rarely asks for favours. Second, he is not at all into tech stuff and doesn't even know what the devices do. Third, he actually got so bored of the car ride that he wanted to watch a movie! Hahahaha!

So Alex put on this really old but really funny movie and Alex, granddad and I watched it the rest of the way back home. Alex and granddad even continued watching it after having dinner. But since I had already seen the movie, I decided to continue with my Animal Farm book.

I'm 5 chapters in, which is almost half the book but I have to go to office tomorrow so I can't stay up for long.