The Long Drive for My Graduation Ceremony:
I was packing my baggage on Friday December 15th to Sydney from Melbourne Southern Cross Railway Station. I arrived in the last few minutes to the station. Thanks to the excellent "right time" driving by my friend karthik. It was my other friend Preethi who helped me get to the train I need to board. This was my first long travel on a train to another city. I arrived in Sydney for the first time next morning at 7am. Nattu alias Natraj picked me from station to his place. I had high notions of Sydney before I landed in there. I was bit down after seeing the railway station and the nearby places. It did not strike any difference between Chennai or Mumbai and Sydney. I liked Melbourne much not because I moved in there currently.

Graduation day-Adelaide,December 20th 2006

My previous blog about Melbourne stands up prior to Sydney. Over population has created such a thought in my mind. I had a great breakfast with Uppma and yogurt prepared by Vinodha, Nattu's fiancee.The same day Hari or Harry(to his colleagues) or Nari(to me alone!) drove from Wollongong to Sydney to pick me in his brand new car Holden VIVA(not to forget the name!). We had a great lunch at Janani Restaurant, a Srilankan Cuisine which had specialist cook for Dosas. Finally said goodbye to Nattu and started with Hari to Wollongong. We reached there by 2 hours. It was a beautiful town across the Pacific belt with not much population. Hari was buzy with his official stuff and I stayed in this beautiful town for couple of days. Then on Monday the journey began. We both drove to Canberra(my first ever visit to the Capital city). I was not able to view the Parliament as it was dusk. We reached it by 11pm. Gary or Giridharan or Guitar joined us from there. It was back again with the same old friends. Both guys drove the entire 15 hours with a couple of breaks. We had a gala time mocking each other and cherishing the old memories when we all shared landing in Australia 2 years back. The road was dry and was such a hot day springing up to 40 degrees.By the time we reached Adelaide, our hub it was around 2 pm on Tuesday. It was fun to meet all the old buddies and stayed in our good old home. My room was now shared by the new inmate friends. Anand and Prakash were the ones who were expecting us, mainly Hari.

Next day was The Day for us. It was a "funny" and "cool" experience wearing all black suits and gowns on a very hot day. Thiru the professional Photographer did not let our spirits down and took marvelous pictures on the most important day of our life.

Special thanks to him. We actually owe him more. "singam" Prakash was posing with all the graduation awards evoking laughter around. Trust me! We miss all those fun times we spent the whole week. We all returned back with heavy hearts after the whole week. Even I postponed my travel once to be with them. Now getting back to the normal life, makes me feel nostalgic. At times we need a special boost up at every quarters of our life like this. Though it was short, was a memorable one.