A Whirlwind Sight-Seeing Tour of Hyderabad

Monday, October 8, 2018

Hyderabad 

A Whirlwind Singh’s-seeing Tour of Hyderabad

Salaam Aleikum from Hyderabad!

By the time I woke up at 8.00 am, I was in perfect time to eat breakfast. I had been told that it would be served in the Dining Hall from 8.00 am onwards. I realized that I was the only delegate to be on campus already. Most of the others would arrive in the evening. I had slept well and been grateful for the air-conditioning. There was not much time to waste—so I washed, dressed and made my way to the Dining Hall where I was the only person present. Consequently, I had the undivided attention of a host of kitchen staff who had set one table and ushered me to it. Large bowls of cornflakes were on the table with a pitcher of hot milk and bowls of sugar. It had been years since I have eaten cornflakes and, for some reason, it took me back to my childhood and the bowls of cornflakes we often ate before leaving for school.

     Meanwhile, a waiter came up and asked me what I would like to eat. How about an omelette, he asked? I thought it was a good idea and also requested two slices of toast. Fifteen minutes later, I was presented a lovely masala omelette with chilies and coriander leaves that I sandwiched between the slices of toast. As I was eating, I was joined by two delegates: a writer called Rajat Chaudhuri and a professor named Jayita Sengupta who had invited me to give the plenary address at the conference. I visited with them until 9.15 am when my student escort arrived. Her name was Neelima and she was a Ph.D student in English at the Maulana Azad National Urdu University and had voiced her willingness to spend the day sightseeing with me in Hyderabad as I did not feel comfortable undertaking that intention on my own. I was, therefore, very grateful for her company. 

We spent a few moments talking about the places I wished to see and came to the conclusion that it would be best to rent a private car for the day that would then be at my disposal with a driver for 8 hours. Lonely Planet India had suggested that I see the Golconda Fort (which I had never seen before), the Kutb Shahi Tombs, the Lumbini Garden (if the name rings a bell it is because this park is named after the Park in which the Buddha had preached his first sermon to six disciples soon after achieving Nirvana. In fact, Andhra Pradesh, the state of which Hyderabad is the capital, is rich in Buddhist historiography and archeology). This park is on the banks of the vast artificial Husain Sagar Lake in the midst of which a massive stone sculpture of the Buddha stands on an island. This sculpture is called the Buddha Purnima and the area is called Tankbund. Next, I intended to spend time at the famed Salar Jung Museum (which I had seen as a young teenager on a family trip) and then move past the River Musi to Old Hyderabad where its most famous monument, the Charminar (Four Towers) sits right besides its other grand Islamic structure, the Mecca Masjid or mosque that sits right in the middle of Laad Bazaar, a bustling open-air market that has flourished since Mughal times.

So off we went at 10.00 am. Were we being ambitious in intending to cover so much in a single day? Perhaps. But when I realized how far away the university campus was located from the downtown area where most of the tourist highlights are to be found, it made sense to try to finish up as much as possible, even if it meant hurrying through the sights. Little did I realize how fabulous a day I would have. The bonus was that we also managed to squeeze in a visit for lunch of the famed Hyderabadi Biryani in a restaurant called Paradise which has given its name to an entire neighborhood close to the twin city of Secunderabad which lies in the north of Hyderabad. All this became possible because we had an incredible Uber driver who was as enthusiastic as we were to try to tick off all the items on my agenda.

Without any further ado, we made ourselves comfortable in the car and set out.  Neelima turned out to be a superb companion and guide. I hit it off with her immediately and got along with her superbly as the day marched on.

Exploring Golconda Fort:

     Golconda means Round Hill—Gol and Conda. It is the second largest fortress in India, the largest being Chittorgarh in Rajasthan (which Llew and I had visited ten years ago on our tour of India on the famed train called the Palace On Wheels). It is considered the highlight of a visit to Hyderabad and I was amazed that we had not visited it on our family travels (it turned out, as Dad reminded me, that it involved a very strenuous climb up a high mountain which was why we had decided to drop it from our itinerary at that time).

     Long before we reached the main crenellations of the gate of the fort, we passed under a doorway in the well-fortified crenelated walls of the fort. At the main entrance, we were amazed to find hordes of students from various schools on a field trip with their teachers. Like children everywhere, they were noisy and unruly with excitement. We paid the entry fee of Rs. 25 per head and made our way to the main gates where we were accosted by guides in English who wished to charge us Rs. 1000 for a 90 minute tour. As I had my notes from Lonely Planet with me, we decided against hiring a guide. 

     The main gate is set into a massive gateway that is studded with pointed knobs to prevent enemy elephants from battering them down. We noticed that the entrance is being refurbished and stripped off its black algae build-up and being replastered with lime coatings to make the gate and walls more weather-resistant. At the top, high on the wall is a small balcony with holes that allowed the soldiers, as legend would have it, to pour hot oil on enemies threatening to violate the sanctity of the precincts. 

      Just past the main gate, you arrive at a grand portico where the acoustics are so extraordinary that a clap of the hands can produce as many as 24 vibrations or echoes of the same clap. To demonstrate this, guides stand in one spot (said to be most conducive to producing echoes) and clap their hands as if they are insane. What’s more, the sounds of the claps carry all the way to the very top of the mountain, a whole mile away at least, to the Durbar Hall where the ruler held his meetings. This was another form of defense. If guards at the portico clapped, the ruler and his family were well-warned about the arrival of enemies. They took off immediately with their family members through an underground passage that led all the way to the Charminar in the heart of the Old City. Thus, it was that the fortress truly safeguarded the lives of the ruling families through the centuries. 

    The origin of the fortress harks back to the time of the Kakateya kings who ruled the Deccan before the arrival of the Qutb Shahi kings in the 1500s. In fact, in 1512, Sultan Quli Qutb Shah, a Turkoman adventurer from Persia and governor of Telangana under the Bahmani rulers of the Deccan, declared independence and named Golconda as his capital. His dynasty was highly prosperous and successful and Golconda remained the seat of the court until 1590 when it was moved to Hyderabad. They faced defeat when Emperor Aurangzeb declared war against them. After Aurangzeb’s death in 1707, his viceroys (later known as Nizams) abandoned Golconda and made Hyderabad their capital.

     Much of Golconda has remained uninhabited since the early 1700s—which accounts for the fact that so much of it is in ruin. Recent attempts at reinstating it to its former glory are obvious in the newly-renovated bits such as the Mosque whose facade and interior has been replastered with lime. Neelima and I chose to use the shorter route to see the precincts of the fort as the long route involved steep climbing up a very high mountain would have made it impossible for us to continue on our ambitious tour of the day. What we did see on the shorter route was more than adequate for it took us through the Balahisar Gate to the Mortuary baths and Nagina Bagh, a beautiful garden that surrounds the Taramati Mosque.  All the elegance of Moghul Islamic architecture is in evidence here from graceful arches with pointed apex to spacious, well-laid out gardens. The Durbar Hall, way up high, is itself a little gem of a structure with its pointed minarets. The crenellated walls that stretch out both ways from it were reminiscent to me of the Great Wall of China as it snaked its way along the crest of the mountain. The entire establishment must have been so filled with lively activity once upon a time. It takes imagination to recognize this fact today for the vast environs, most of which are empty, do little to give this impression.

      It was hot, really hot. I was in need of a long cold drink and an ice-cold Thums Up in a small shop right outside the gates did the trick. Neelima had a coffee while I picked up pistachio and almond biscuits to keep hunger pangs at bay. 

     Our very first stop had been a revelation. We were stunned by the achievement of Islamic rulers in the Deccan and I kept thinking how unfortunate it is that all the rest of the world knows about Islamic architecture in India is the Taj Mahal whereas there is so much to be found scattered all over the Indian sub-continent from Peshawar in modern-Day Pakistan to India’s Deep South.

Off to the Qutb Shahi Tombs:

     We reconnected with our driver by phone after we’d had our refreshments. He made an appearance, just five minutes later and whisked us off in the midst of highly deranged traffic that obeyed no visible rules whatsoever. 

     Luckily, our next port of call was less than ten minutes away. The Qutb Shahi Tombs are in a sort of royal graveyard that consists of about a dozen mausoleums that house the remains of members of the Qutb Shahi dynasty that ruled from their fortress in Golconda from the 15th to the 17th century. They are graceful domed tombs built of stone and finished with lime that was then stuccoed and decorated with extraordinarily delicate stone work. Centuries of dirt and grime have blackened them to charcoal. An ambitious on-going project in which thousands of rupees have been invested is slowly but surely restoring these exquisite monuments to their original glory. I found it quite impossible to stop taking pictures of these small structures that quite stole my heart away. Dozens of artisans and workers were in evidence refacing outer pediment walls with marble slabs or brushing away at decades-worth of black algea. Again, the thought struck me that such dazzling monuments are sadly known only to the few people who live around them. Few tourists seem to know about these little gems. When they were constructed, they were surrounded by splendidly landscaped gardens. Today, a few stray bougainvillea bushes bring much-needed color to the place. I was so pleased to have had the chance to see these amazing structures.

Lumbini Park, Buddha Purnima and Husain Sagar Lake:

     It was always a relief to enter the cool confines of our air-conditioned vehicle for the heat of these open spaces was purely oppressive. I am certain that I have a very high tolerance threshold for heat when I am sightseeing. Neelima was wilting but I kept hydrated throughout and did not feel any the worse for the high temperature. 

     It was time to make our way through the chaotic traffic of Hyderabad toward the downtown area that is punctuated by a large artificial lake called Husain Sagar. This is the area that is associated with Buddhism for it was here that Hyderabad's Lumbini Park is located. The Lumbini Park (in modern-day Madhya Pradesh) was the spot that gave birth to Buddhism for the Buddha preached his first sermon here to his first six disciples after attaining Nirvana or Enlighenment. It was hard to find a spot at which our driver could park, but he managed to find us a spot from where we could take a picture of the massive stone Buddha, one of the largest in the world, that stands on an island in the middle of the lake. Visitors can alight on the island if they board boats from Lumbini Park. We merely stopped to pose for a picture in the park and then moved on. We did not want to be too late for lunch which was the next item on our agenda.

Biryani Lunch at Paradise:

      My college classmate Anita Reddy, originally from Andhra Pradesh and now resident in Cleveland, had told me that if I was in Hyderabad, there were two Must-Do things I ought to put on my list: A Visit to the Golconda Fort and biryani lunch at Paradise. Well, she would have been thrilled to know that I was able to tick both items off my To-Do List within a single morning. 

     Ask any Hyderabadi where Paradise is and he will take you straight to the flagship restaurant that is in the north of the city on the borderline with its twin city, Secunderabad.  There are now a few branches of this establishment that was founded in 1953 in other parts of the country and now in other parts of the world as well (such as in the Gulf countries where a lot of Andhrites work).

      Paradise in huge. It consists of a long dining hall that was filled almost to capacity with patrons there for one thing and one thing alone—the biryani. Hyderabad is famous for the Dum Pukt Biryani which consists of layers of cooked rice and meat (either lamb or chicken) in a spiced gravy. It is one of the most distinctive of Indian dishes, part of the Mughal-Persian heritage of the Northern Indian sub-continent, eaten on festive occasions all over India, Pakistan and Bangladesh. In Hyderabad, uniqueness was attained by placing the individual layers in a wide brimmed vessel, covering it tightly with a well-fitting lid and then ‘sealing’ the entire vessel with dough that prevents steam from escaping.  In other words, the dish cooks in its own steam—this is the ‘dum’ of the phrase dum Pakht.               

Neelima and I were seated at a table for four and handed two different menus: one was devoted entirely to kebabs—grilled foods (vegetarian and non-vegetarian) and the other devoted to biryani and other accompaniments. We chose to start with fresh lemonade made with club soda—which arrived, somewhat picturesquely, with a maraschino cherry at the bottom. For starters, we ordered the Prawn Kebabs which were simply to die for. And, of course, we ordered Lamb Biryani which came with Mirchi Ka Salan (plain gravy on the side—to be used if you found your biryani too dry or not spicy enough), a serving of raita (which was really too thin for my liking—merely a whey) and sliced raw onions and wedges of lime. I have to say that it was among the best Biryani I have ever tasted. I could smell the fragrance of saffron with every morsel. Although old-timers say that Paradise is highly over-rated and is not what it used to be, I had no dish against which to compare it and found it superlative. For dessert, we had something called Pot Kulfi which was Indian cardamom-flavored ice-cream studded with chopped nuts and served in a tiny earthenware (terracotta) pot. It was not half as good as some of the malai kulfis I have eaten in Bombay. But, overall, this was a magnificent meal and provided more than enough for Neelima and myself. We could have lingered longer over our meal butt we still had a lot of touring to do—and so we cut short our pleasure in Hyderabad’s gastronomic offerings. 

The Riches of the Salar Jung Museum:

     Finally, we headed towards what I considered the piece de resistance of my sojourn in Hyderabad: a Visit to the Salar Jung Museum. I have to say why I was so keen to see it. When I was a young teenager, I had made a visit to Hyderabad when on a tour of South India with my family. Hyderabad was included in our itinerary only because my mother Edith had read so much about the Salar Jung Museum that she was determined to see it for herself. Hence, we did not go to the Golconda Fort but we jolly well made sure we went to the museum. 

     So here is what I remembered it of: It was, at that time, the best museum of decorative arts that I had ever seen. It was vast and was set in a converted palace that used to be the primary residence of Salar Jung III, who was the Prime Minister of the Nizam of Hyderabad who was himself considered to be one of the richest men in the world at the turn of the 20th century  and up to India’s Independence. I can remember going from one gallery to the next in the various Darbar Halls of the palace each of which was jaw-droppingly impressive in the breath of the collection and the sheer number of the items that comprise it. 

     In particular, I can recall perusing the Carved Ivory section where among the plethora of objects, we saw carved ivory boxes that left us enchanted. These made a particular impact on us as my mother recognized that she had a similar box in her possession. She realized that she owned a carved ivory box that she had treated so casually over the years and without the reverence that it deserved. When we returned home, Mum gave her ivory box (covered with minutely carved fish) a good cleaning and retrieved it from the cupboard in which it had lain hidden and gave it pride of place in the living room showcase.  Needless to say, the carved ivory box is now in my possession and the finest objet d’art that I own—not so much for its intrinsic value as an antique but because it never fails to remind me of my mother and the fact that she passed on her enthusiasm for museums to me—a passion that has enriched my own life a thousand fold. Returning to the Salar Jung Museum was an opportunity to walk in the footsteps of my youth when I had been so impressionable. Truly this Museum is probably solely responsible for creating my passion for museums. It was also an opportunity to retrieve shreds of memories that would bring my mother very vividly into my presence again. 

     So Neelima and I bought our tickets—Rs. 25 each. There is an additional fee, should you wish to take pictures. Had I remembered how many pictures I would have liked to have taken, I would gladly had paid the fee. By the time we arrived there, it was 4.15 pm and the Museum closed at 5.00 pm. That left us with just 45 minutes to see it all. There was no time to waste. We raced from the Ticket Office to the Museum and began our exploration of it. 

     As in so many heritage buildings in India, huge government grants are being utilized to renovate and refurbish them to their original splendor. The exterior facade of the palace has been whitewashed and cleaned and adorned with a number of flags that give it dignity and esteem. Inside, the wide corridors that radiate from a central hall into several galleries that take the shape of a fan, are made of spotless gleaming marble. One’s ticket also contains a floor plan that easily provides access to the galleries and allows one to decide how to plan a visit. 

So here are some of the highlights we saw:

1. The Founders Gallery: This gallery contains oil portraits of the dynasty of the last Nizam of Hyderabad and that of his illustrious Prime Minister, the Salar Jungs. There is priceless memorabilia including family mementoes pertaining to this pedigree.
2. Veiled Rebecca: a life-sized marble sculpture that presents the Biblical Rebecca in Oriental garb with a veil over her face. The genius of this sculpture is that the sculptor has managed to render marble transparent. I have seen a similar veiled sculpture in the basement of St. Paul’s Cathedral in London. If I remember correctly, it was one of the few items that remained intact when the Great Fire of London of 1666 destroyed a multitude of medieval items. 
3. Double-sided Wooden Sculpture of Mephistopheles in its front facade and a woman at the back. This is the most unusual sculpture I have ever seen. It was superbly executed on both sides with fantastic attention to every detail—feature, costume and stance. Placed in front of a huge mirror, we were able to see the back of this sculpture through its reflection in the mirror.
4. The Walking Sticks Gallery: At a time when it was fashionable for men to carry walking sticks as an elitist accessory, artisans labored hard to produce specimens to satisfy the aesthetic tastes of their wealthy patrons. Salar Jung has such a vast collection of these items that they are actually grouped thematically in a number of vitrines—one contains sticks with carved ivory handles; another contains sticks with handles depicting animal heads; yet another comprises sticks with handles portraying birds. There are sticks made of wood, tortoise shell and horn in addition to ones made entirely of ivory. I could easily have spent a whole hour in this gallery and I would gladly return to the museum only to feast my eyes on these sticks again. My favorite was one stick handle in ivory featuring the head of a jockey with a whole lot of horses’ heads at the tip. It was simply breathtaking. 
5. Carved Ivory Gallery: This gallery has more sentimental value than aesthetic value to me because it was the one of which I have such vivid memories of my mother making her discovery about her own carved ivory box. In fact, I was deeply excited about spotting the exact two ivory boxes that had sparked my mother’s discovery—one carved with a scene of elephants, another depicting a procession of people on camel back—that I had to pause there in reverence to pay tribute to my late mother. My visit was fraught with nostalgia and I could not help but tear up when I realized how much I missed my Mum and how lasting has been her influence in my life. In this gallery, there were whole carved elephant tusks, depicting intricate scenes of animal hunts, etc. Such items are priceless not only for their aesthetic value but because elephant hunting is banned today and ivory has become a very precious commodity. Looking around this gallery I realized how widespread elephant hunting would have been up to the mid-twentieth century.
6. The Porcelain Gallery: Anybody who knows me well also knows that I have a passion for painted European porcelain and there were loads of it in the Museum.  You name the country and the town and the pottery that created these works of art and they are represented her: from England, Chelsea, Wedgwood (lots of Jasperware including a replica of the famous Portland Vase which Jasper Wedgwood borrowed from an Ancient Greek vase to replicate in his bisque porcelain with cameo overlaid decoration, and which inspired Keats’ ‘Ode on a Grecian Urn’ after viewing it in the British Museum) and Royal Doulton. Among European porcelain, there was Dresden and Meissen from Germany, Sevres and Limoges from France and such exquisite examples of bisque (non-glazed porcelain) from Bavaria that I was absolutely enchanted and took many pictures. It was with much difficulty that I tore myself away from this gallery.
7. The Glass Gallery: Again, variety of color and profusion of examples made this gallery magical. There are whole colored chandeliers from Czechoslovakia, Venetian gilded glass from Murano and cameo glass from such recognizable companies as Daum and Lalique. There was also cut-crystal, tons of examples of it from epergnes  that would have formed stunning center pieces to glass basins that could have been used as foot baths.
8. The Indian Modern Art Gallery: Again, I wish I could have spent more time studying the early oil paintings by some of India’s best-known modern artists in this gallery; but I did enjoy examples by M.F. Husain, K.K. Hebbar and N. S. Bendre.
9. The Flora and Fauna Gallery: Here too there is no one highlight I could single out; but the collection taken as a whole is so enchanting that I was blown away. It comprises carved animals and birds in a multiplicity of material (wooden, ivory, bronze, jade, stone, marble, porcelain). These are so intricately wrought as to be almost life-like. To make them even more appealing they are set within jungle tableau that are filled with trees, branches, vines, flowers, etc. The animals and birds are themselves set into these backdrops to add to their realism. I must say, at this point, that this museum also reveals the work of a brilliant team of curators who have used their imagination freely to make these collections completely appealing.                          

  I had to race through the galleries and I realized that there was still so much I had not seen. Neelima wanted to see a large musical clock toll the hour at 5.00pm which attracts a huge collection of visitors in a large hall. Sadly, because the museum is so vast and so confusing, we took a long time to find the hall containing the clock and ended up missing its tolling by a few seconds. Neelima was much disappointed. 

  As the museum closes at 5.00 pm, we had to leave. But I had seen a great deal of its treasures and although I am toying with the idea of returning here, I am not so sure that I will have the opportunity.

    

Off to the Charminar and Mecca Masjid:

There was still enough light at 5.00 pm to enable us to battle crazy traffic and get into the heart of Old Hyderabad where the most iconic symbol of the city is located—the Charminar which has given a name and logo to India’s most famous brand of cigarettes. It consists of a easily recognizable structure with four towers which can be climbed using spiral stone cases that are embedded inside them—rather like those found in the Qutb Minar in Delhi. The steps were really high and polished by the tramping of countless feet to a high shine. 

According to Lonely Planet, it was built in 1591 by Mohammad Quli Qutb Shah to commemorate the end of a plague in Hyderabad. It takes stamina, especially at the end of a long day, to climb to the viewing platform which provides stunning views of the old walled city which reminds one very much of Old Delhi. 

The Enticements of Laad Bazaar:

From this perspective, one gets a stunning view of the exotic Indian open-air market called Laad Bazaar where one can have a ball buying the merchandise for which Hyderabad is famed. When I was here, years ago, I had used my pocket money to buy a string of seed pearls which I still own and a pair of pearl-earrings (but sadly I have lost one of them), plus strings of necklaces made of semi-precious stones such as malachite, cornelian, agate, rose quartz, etc. I did not find many shops selling jewelry made of semi-precious stones this time round, but pearl showrooms are everywhere. Needless to say, you have to buy from a reputable store because one can so easily get cheated when buying pearls. I wanted to buy a pair of simple large round cultured pearl ear-rings but I was given Italian cards containing pairs of ear-rings none of which looked real.

     This used to be the bazaar in which the courtesans and ladies of the harem did their shopping in centuries gone by. The tradition of shopping in open markets continues and one finds mainly the kind of articles that women would buy such as Hyderabad’s famous lac bangles that are decorated liberally with diamanté and spangles, traditionally embroidered handbags, Chickan embroidered kurtas, highly ornamented sandals, etc. 

     We did not have too much time to see the bazaar (and, at any rate, there was nothing apart from the pearl ear-rings that I wished to buy) and so hurried off across the road to the Mecca Masjid.

Exploring Mecca Masjid:

Mecca Masjid is the second largest mosque in India with a capacity for accommodating up to 10,000 worshippers (the largest is supposed to be the Jama Masjid in Old Delhi). It is not a very attractive building because its drab grey facade does nothing to enhance its typical Islamic architecture. You realize what a difference it made to clad a building with marble as in the Taj Mahal—for right across the Mecca Masjid is a confection of a marble Islamic building that has the typical onion domes and minarets that one associates with this genre of architecture. This building has been converted into a government hospital.

After we passed though the security gates, I was draped with a chiffon dupatta and was told to keep my shoulders covered. It was a very dusty piece of fabric that had me squirming as long as it was on my body. I could not wait to get it off and so we hurried to the main door of the mosque where we were prohibited from entering anyway, as we were women. We tried to find the stone to which Russel had referred—but some people said it was at the Mecca Masjid (not at the Charminar, as in Russel’s memory) and yet nobody could point the stone out to us with any definitiveness.  We, therefore, gave up trying to find it.

     Bricks on the wall above the main entrance to this mosque are said to have actually been made from the soil from Mecca—hence its name. Construction began in 1614 by Mohammad Quli Qutb Shahi (who also built the Charminar) but it was finished in the reign of Aurangzeb in 1687.

    This part of Hyderabad provides a very good idea of what Moghul India was like in its heyday.  It is fascinating that the cultural aspects of this religion continue to flourish in modern India where tourists are the main consumers. 

     And so our whirlwind adventures in Hyderabad came to an end. We re-entered our cab and settled down as darkness fell over the city. I had to admire the expertise of our very genial driver who dodged really awful peak-evening rush to get us back to our university guest house. We were tired and ready to relax but it took us about an hour to get there.  We had hired the cab for 8 hours, but ended up using it for 9 hours—this mean that I had to pay a little more—Rs. 1600 (about $20) for the entire day (which was a steal when you consider that we had an air conditioned vehicle at our disposal for the entire day).

Dinner at the MANUU Guest House:

At 8.30 pm, dinner was served to guests and so I said goodbye and thanks to my lovely graceful graduate student companion Neelima and went directly to the dining room for dinner where a few other delegates were eating. The evening meal that is always vegetarian consisted of freshly prepared rotis, white steamed rice, daal, a mixed vegetable dish, and bowls of yoghurt and pickle. After our rich meal of the afternoon, it was a good contrast. I got to know a few of the delegates over dinner after which I excused myself and returned to my room for a shower and to relax.

     I had to ask someone how to turn my geyser on and despite waiting for a while for the water to flow out and get hot, I ended up with a very tepid unsatisfactory shower. Still, it was welcome and right after it, I made a call to my Dad to let him know I was safe and then returned to bed for a well-deserved rest.

  What an incredible eventful day it had been! And how successfully I had covered all of the highlights of what this historic city has to offer! I felt very proud of myself indeed for having found the means to accomplish my desire. Tomorrow, when the conference begins, I am not sure I will have little opportunity to slip away and explore the place—especially considering the fact that we are so remotely located on this sprawling campus. 

Until tomorrow...