Being fair-skinned in Pune...

Yesterday, I took my co-worker's wife, who is visiting Pune with him, Saree shopping. She had been to Shopper's stop and similar places and had not really been able to find a saree that she liked. Last time we went together for dinner, I had suggested that they should go shopping with me. Helps to have a local with you..

Paul called me and asked me if I had time. So I took Carrie to Lakshmi Road to buy a saree. I figured that no American would venture into that part of the city by themselves. Most of the times, they went to MG road (closer to the Osho Ashraam). We tried to get a Rickshaw outside the hotel and the guy looks at Carrie and goes 60 rs. I was like, WHAT???. I told him (in marathi, of course), that I would pay by the meter. He said no. I was like whatever and we walked away. About 5 feet away, we got another rickshaw and who agreed to charge by the meter.

It took us 21 rs to get to Lakshmi road. The kids who beg at the signals, would come running and want to know where she was from, whether there was something in her mouth (Her tongue is pierced!!!). Gori Gori..Angrez, they would yell. Carrie had learnt the art of ignoring them and not asking me questions on poverty in India. She had been in India for 2 weeks now. Here I should mention that she has grown up in Nebraska in a city with 68 people. :) And has never been to NY/Boston.

We went to Shagun, one of the older stores that I am familiar with. I, myself, am not too fond of sarees. More of a jean person. The guys at Shagun were quite excited to have a "gori" buy sarees at their store. Carrie was even more excited to have several sarees draped around her. She was very impressed with the Banarasi Shalu's that they showed her initially thinking she wanted to buy one of those. Finally armed with a beautiful green and gray saree, we walked around buy a matching blouse and "petticoat". People did stare at her, but not as much as a pair of Americans!! :) Their eyes almost lit after seeing her walk past them. "Good Evening" they wished each other..and I almost felt like I was back in Fort Collins, CO :), forgetting the dug-up roads, poverty and paan stains for a second. The rickshaw back was easy as well.

Later, I taught her to drape the saree. For once, I felt like I knew more about sarees than the person I was with :)...After I left the hotel and merged into the traffic, I was almost grateful to not be stared at....

Born with a silver spoon..

Why is that something that is always abused? Getting something easily seems to take away the fact that it was not something that everyone gets..definitely not as easily. And yet, this is something you forget and start taking everything for granted.

Appreciating what you have is so crucial to make sure that your feet are on the ground. Unfortunate is a person who has lost touch with reality..

Anyways, Wish you all happy holidays!

Dear Shamala and Shiva.
Wish you a very happy anniversary..and many more to come..

Love,
Ketaki & Neeraj..

For who don't know, Shamala is my best friend..known for the past 10+ years.

Dealing with change...

If I could change the world....I would be the sunrise in your universe...

Actually, No, I would not change anything. I like to be comfortable in my own little zone. That's me. Neeraj gets restless when things get too comfy..I crave to get comfy..and yet, leaving the jobs that we both have grown to love was hard for him and is hard for me. Although technically, I am not leaving, I will just join back as a contractor, I almost feel lost again..like that first day at work..the lost puppy...I have made some of my best friends at work, so although I will still work with them, and I know nothing changes for my co-workers, yet so much feels weird...Almost like an alien...I just need to log in on Monday, know that all my accesses and my email addresses are the same to feel better...till then, I guess the queasy feeling continues....And I had so long to prepare for this, and yet, I guess I will never be too comfortable dealing with change...

Want Vs Need...

As I typed my comment for Ketaki's blog, set me thinking..Does want overpower need when you are presented with an offer you can't resist? When I found the pair of trousers in GAP that I had drooled over for a long time, on sale, I bought it. Question is, Did I really need them? Probably no. Did I want them, heck yeah!!

Do we really need the IPODs, Blackberry phones, laptops, dozens of pairs of jeans and shoes, diamonds and portable DVD players?? ;)
Probably not. A friend, after a shopping binge, showed me her wardrobe and said, "Look at all the stuff I have, and I always wanted to live a life with minimum material footprint as possible" True, and yet, we seem to hoard up on all the stuff we dont really need and definitely want.

Whats worse is, the tendency to judge people based on what they have. So having the stuff you have, that you don't need, but is good to have, is an indication of how happy you are and how much happier you could be.

If we all just lived a life with minimal materialistic, would we all be happy? Would there be no struggle to make yourself "happier"? Would life be boring then?

Relaxing weekend

Went to Konkan for the first time. Spent two idyllic days at the beach..loads of food..fish and more fish..6 couples. Now I am working at 2 am :D

Will try and post some pictures of the trip..

When is opinion too much opinion?

Recently, I came across a conversation about someone where the person seems to have passed a very opinionated comment on something very irrelevant which hurt a lot of people. And I agree that the comments were a little under the belt.

Is it fair to pass judgements and opinions and advice just because? People usually are tuned with other peoples sentiments and yet, while passing a comment on something, it almost seems like they are bypassing any feelings or tact. What is the point in passing comments which you know do no good, spoil relationshops and make everyone uncomfortable? Do people usually do that out of a superiority complex or the other way, to avoid feeling inferior? In which case, it is usually silly, because they make it so obvious...

There I go making a judgment..and yet I like to think of myself as fair for most of the time..

Some plane observations..

Please note that the plane is deliberately misspelt. It is a precursor to what this post is all about. After a journey of 36 hours, I am back in India. The flight was long and tiring and having 32 kgs in each bag along with 20 pounds in carry on was no fun. I have never had my arms ache after a long journey. But this time, they are still hurting.

Observation 1: When you wish for something really hard, you don't get it. Hence never wish that you get an empty flight so you can stretch out and sleep.

I was hoping that since I was flying on thanksgiving day, it might be a fairly empty flight. Its the time to be with family, enjoy good food..blah blah. Indians don't care about thanksgiving and so there were tons of people and as usual the fight was fully booked. And there are several others who think like me!

Observation 2: Even if you fight for an aisle seat, it is no good if the guy sitting next to you is a 6 feet 5 inches tall american guy.

This is the third time this has happened to me, too many times to believe that this is a co-incidence. It is a conspiracy. So although, I managed to get an aisle seat, I was quite uncomfortable.

Observation 3: Every person thinks that its the other person's luggage which fills up the overhead compartments and so they look at each other in utter disgust.

How is it that everyone carries atleast two huge bags (pushing the definition of "reasonably" sized hand bag) and once their bags are in the overheard cabin, sit smugly in their seat and pass comments at others. I once heard an Indian air hostess pass a comment like " look at these Indians with all this luggage, they don't understand only"..so not happening.

Observation 4: Every person seems to think that they have been travelling the longest and have the right to express loudly, very loudly, how tired they are.

Strange, because the flight comes from US and almost everyone has been in the flight for the same amount of time. The funniest was when last year, during the last leg from Singapore to Bombay, we had some lady with a kid who joined the flight from Perth, who complained how sore she was from the 8 hour flight in a very fake australian accent. Neeraj and I were so tempted to turn around and ask her to shut up. :)

Observation 5: Every one seems to think that they are the experts in "foreign" travel and are willing to give advice (sometimes unwanted) on the ways of life abroad.

This is not an observation in flight, but seen commonly otherwise also. However, the effect is more pronounced in air. Its better to bury yourself in a book and not socialize too much on flight :D

Observation 6: Singapore airlines rocks. (This a personal opinion).

I have always seen the SIA air hostesses smile, make special effort to make you comfortable, help in every possible way, including hoist the heavy hand bags in the overheard bins. Cathay Pacific air hostesses, on the other hand, refuse to help passengers, even when there are old parents and women with kids, and if you do ask for help, look at you as if you are a pain. This is not a one time opinion, its built over time and each trip on Cathay seems to make this opinion stronger and stronger. Why is it that they can't smile?

As you can see, I had a fairly long flight and lots of time to make some plane observations :)

My big fat greek dinner..

Discovered a fun and quaint little greek restaurant called Athena Grill http://www.athenagrill.com/ . The place was full of the restaurant owner's greek relatives. While we were about to leave, they started some greek movie. It was fun to see some 50+ year old folks, about 20 of them, having a great time. We lingered longer at dinner than we meant to just because they were having so much fun!!

Highly recommend the stuffed capsicum (this is not on the menu) and the hummus. Fun place, you could go out on a date or with family :)

Going home..

After 4 months here in US, I will finally go back to India this Thanksgiving. Tons of stuff to do and no Neeraj to do it for me...:(( LOL.

Its going to be crazy, and yet very exciting. Looking forward to visiting Hong Kong in the layover. Slowly inching towards visiting all the countries in the world. :)

However, for now its crazy and load at work is not helping...HAAAAAAAAALP.

I have still not colored my hair...

But I did sell the car!!! It was crazy but I did it!! :)
Almost as crazy, the Habanero night at The prince of Wales Pub in San Mateo.
http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?file=/chronicle/archive/1999/07/11/PK72876.DTL&type=food

The habanero burger there is reputed to the hottest in the world. Folks at my company used to take new hires there earlier. However, these days its just on our own. I had missed about three opportunities to eat there. Heard ten million horror stories! :) Finally, I had to eat it. After all, want to make most of being 28. Refer previous post...

Its a really dingy place from outside, but once you get in, there is a "small town" feel to it. With funny posters, placards all over the walls. Our group of about 25 ordered 7 burgers in all. We shared one in hour and six other people had one each.

Its one of those common sense defying things that you do once. I tried the sauce with a fry and my mouth was flaming. Wasn't sure why I was eating the thing, but I guess its adrenaline, peer pressure and sheer stupidity. The first girl, ate it with much ease and we were like, hmm, maybe it not that bad. However, a few minutes later, she was sweating a lot. But she still seemed ok. The next guy had 3/4th and then the last bit was the worst. He was sweating, crying and in pain. When it came to us, I quickly grabbed the smallest piece and then it began. The first couple bites are where it is hot, but you are okay. And then it strikes. You don't stop, don't drink water and don't think, for sure.

I did the last thing for the last bite. I stopped for a second. I could not get my hand to put that piece in my mouth after that. Everyone was cheering and I did it and drank about 1 pitcher of water. The next 10 minutes were the worst. The heat of the chilli sunk in and it was sheer torture.

It took about 20 minutes to settle completely and I ate and ate after that. I figured the more I ate, the more it would dilute in my stomach and then make things easier the next day. However, I dont even want to think about the guys who ate just the burger for dinner. Poor guys!! :)

I think I can write this off as one of the craziest things...and something I will never do again!

You will never be 18 again....

Today morning I noticed one of my first white hair!!! It was not the partially white or golden. It was white. And I thought, well, as a child, I had certain things I wanted to do as a teenager and as a 21 year old. Those years zipped by and here I am today, with one ominous white hair, a precusor to many more...maybe not anytime soon..but there sure enough..And I realized, I am never ever going to be 18 again. Which means I will never be 28 again...D-uh. So, if there is something I wanted to do as a 28 year old, I better get my act together. So here you go..

1. Wear an evening gown kind of dress and attend a formal party. (Missed doing that last year). Maybe sometime in future.
2. Visit a lot more countries :)
3. Streak my hair...

Well the first two are not that easy..the third one is...lets hope I gather the courage to go do it!!

Himalayan Dawn.

There is something about Santoor and dewy mornings with the riot of colors at sunrise that just calms you. Listening to Pt. Shiv Kumar Sharma and its just amazing. Indian classical music brings the kind of peace like no other music can. I wish I had taken my mom's advice to heart and learnt classical music, I wish I could understand this art better than to just appreciate it. I wish I could tell you right now which raaga it is based on, so you all could nod and go, yeah we know what you are talking about. I can only assume its Bhairavi or Bhatiyar and these are only names to me...and for now..its a beautiful Diwali morning...

Wish you all a very happy diwali...

Enjoy all the pharal, phatake and new clothes..

- Ketaki & Neeraj

I have made myself proud....

I drove all the way to south San Jose (about 21 miles from my place) all on 101 :). People who know me, know that I avoid 101 because its just too crazy on my nerves. But today, after a lot of doubts and staring at the route at maps.google.com, I just did it.

The 26 minute drive took me 50 minutes, but only because once I got off of 101, I was lost. I think the map had a mistake. Because I stared at it so long, I do not think I could have gone wrong. But well..finally after making a couple of wrong turns, I reached my destination. On the way back, once I reached Santa Clara, although I could have gotten off at Lawrence, I actually drove all the way to home on 101, immensely proud and thrilled and in 26 minutes...shut up (too much 'what not to wear' :))

Things I learnt..
Always stay in the lane next to the right most lane, that way, no surprise exit-only lanes and stick to the car in front, even if they are driving 5 below speed limit :) That way you dont get honked at for driving slow....

Last name change..

After reading Ketaki Karpe-Kolgaonkar's blog, I realized its something that I have been struggling with as well. All my life, all the people I know, know me as Ketaki Kalgaonkar. The last name is unique enough, so this name is me, very me. However, I know that after I go to India, I will eventually start using Neeraj's last name.

It is going to be painful and I am going to struggle with giving up my maiden name. Maybe I won't...AAAHHH..why are things to complicated?? :)

Its not any feminism or girl-power thing. Its just that I don't associate myself with any other name. In my sis-in-law's wedding invite, when I read Ketaki Apte, I was like, who is that?? When I get emails from friends back in India, sometimes, I am like, who is that again? And then, it strikes me...hmm. I can't imagine that happening to me.

This Monday, I met a desi guy, who did not know that a name like Ketaki is Indian, complete and not some nick name. So, when it came to telling him my last name, I gave up and just said Apte. And he got it...thats it!!! Phew....it was simple...but yet very difficult....

Favorite food items I can eat any time in US


1. Rainbow trout cajun style at Fish market in Santa Clara.
2. Potato burrito at Big City Burrito in Fort Collins.
3. Clam chowder at pier 39 in San Francisco.
4. Tandoori chicken at Kabab and Curry, San Jose
5. Thai Pizza at Sierra Sam's in Sunnyvale (surprised? :))
6. Jamaican Black pepper shrimp at The cheese cake factory.

Made you hungry?

A little about me...

Long drive..three tired friends...what do we talk about. Not work!! :) So the conversation drifted and floated around topics that seem profound when you discuss them. One of them being 'what is your strength? and what is your weakness?'

So here it is:
I have been told that I would have made a good lawyer. So I guess I can talk to people. :)

weakness:

I can talk. :)

What do you think?

What really happened to my eye....

Just to get it on record. And for people I did not explain this completely to. :)

One Saturday morning, I woke up with a line in front of my eye. It was floating in front of my eye very close to my eye. It did not seem normal so I called my friend G and asked her to come over. She drove over and during the time it took, I tried to wash my eyes, but it did not help. We decided to drive to the ER. While there, they tested my BP which was normal and I was not showing other symptoms. I would like to stress that I was not feeling any pain or anything. They asked me if I had hit my head or picked up anything heavy. I had not done any of that. It just happened when I woke up.

The doctor in the ER said that it was not normal for a person of my age to have a floater, so she called the "on call" optometrist. The eye doc dialated my pupil and said that she could see bleeding behind eye, on my retina. One of the blood vessels had popped. She wanted to rule out brain haemorrhage and so she had me go for a CT scan. The tests came out normal, and finally, after about 9 hours in the ER, I was sent home. I was asked to be very careful and to return if the symptoms worsened.

After 10 days, the blood had been absorbed considerably and they dialated my pupils again and did not find anything wrong with the retina as well. After another 7 days, I had another test to test any loss of peripheral vision. Since everything was normal, this case has been closed.

The blood is almost gone and now I can see it only against a white background and if I move my eye. It can take upto 6 weeks to absorb completely.

I am fine now....hopefully this incident is behind me now.

So many things change...

Today, as I sit and talk to friends I haven't spoken to in quite sometime, I realize, there is so much of you, you leave behind as we grow older. So many things you cherished, so many pleasant memories, so many good conversations, so many common interests. In this high paced life that we lead, its so easy to leave behind delicate memories and friendships.

Only once in a while, you stop and look back and try to gather all you have left behind. Sometimes, when you pick up this lost thread of conversation and catch up, you realize that nothing really changed! You just did not look back....

England...

The bus ride was about 8 hours long and it was funny to see the driver switch sides after we crossed into UK. The ferry ride was fun, and we were famished. So it was a relief to get good food in the cafeteria including mutton curry and rice. With the lemon pickle. Finally back in UK, we were happy to get new clothes, eat home cooked food and have family around!!

In London, we went to Trafalgar square, a little over-hyped. The change of guards is fun! They did not play "the James bond theme" as my nephew expected! But its a fun event, though you have to go there and find a good spot. Also, the guards are a little rude. They are not too friendly in telling people not to stand on things. We also went to Hyde Park, which was more of a place to rest. The Tower of London was fun, especially the walk up the tower.

Madame Tussaud's was nice, except I cried when we tried to go in the "house of horror". Totally freaked me out!! Some of the statues are very real, like Morgan Freeman, lady Diana. The desi ones were not real at all. Its very small and very topical. They plucked Jennifer Anisten out of Brad Pitt's arms and put Angelina Jolie in. :)

We also spent a couple of nights in Poole in South London in a caravan park! This was fun with all the 2 pence slot machines, games, the Monkey park. The small misadventure was that my wallet got stolen at the West Minster bridge. I guess, its just us. Almost on the anniversary of the Alaska theft. Next year, gotta be really careful!! Also spent time in Hamleys, but its too small as compared to toy stores in US.

London's tubes, the bobbies, the stiff upper lip, loved it all.

This is the end of the travel blog...We will always cherish these amazing memories forever and ever...

An evening in Paris ...

Or 4 days! :) After a very fulfilling meal at "Samskara" we set out to do all the touristy things in Paris. First thing on the agenda was Sacre Coeur. Here I must pause to tell that I learnt French for 5 years in school but I really sucked at it. I had to use all the words I remembered to buy the cold medicine. The walk up the hill to go to the Sacred Heart church was very nice and we took frequent stops to sit and enjoy the city. There were people playing music, just chatting under trees, eating ice-cream (I was not allowed, but Neeraj had amazing Rum & Raisin icecream that I was just allowed to lick a bit! ). There is a place behind the church where there are painters who paint and sell of their art there. These are the times that I wished I could paint or do something creative. The folks are so talented. And expensive!!

Not that we would have bought it, especially since we spent a fortune for a painting we bought in Florence. The view from Sacre Coeur is nice though a little smokey. We were not able to see the Eiffel Tower from there. The church is nice and we did go in. However, we did not spend too much time. After that, we just walked back and on the way stopped at a grocery store to get some water, tissue and fruits. We just came home and I slept again since I was really tired by then.

The next day I was feeling a little better and so we purchased a three day pass for the subway and then made our way to the Eiffel Tower. The Eiffel tower is beautiful and huge! The line was huge and so we decided not to go up. Also Neeraj wanted to go up in the night. From here we just kind of walked around up to Champs Elyses and spent time there and eventually made our way back. We had come to realize that the hotel was very primely located, and by then we had also moved into a better room.

The next day we rushed to go to the Louvre considering how long it took to get into Uffizi. Surprisingly, it took only a few minutes. Finally we were going to see "the Monalisa" ..The museum lets you takes pictures ..read, Neeraj went crazy. :) The first thing we saw was "Winged Victory of Somothrace". It has this musical beauty...almost as if you can see the lady standing at the helm of the ship. And then finally we saw her! We were not prepared for the number of people who were there considering how the other stuff was not busy at all. Its almost like the "darshan" at Tirupati. Where poeple push you to move the minute you see her up, close and personal. But she is beautiful!

After that we walked around all day. The Egyptian gallery, the Islamic gallery, the sculptures, the paintings, the Persian gallery, Greek, Etruscan, and Roman Antiquities. Its like all the beauty in this world was put together in this one museum. As if thats not enough, there is Napolean's apartment which is like a mini-palace. Exhausted, we walked out feeling very happy.

In the evening we went to the Eiffel Tower and went up at 11 pm. Its beautiful up there and it was a quiet night with no wind at all. Every hour, they light up the tower for about 1 hour starting 9 pm. Up there, there is a gallery with the distance in kilometers from there to various cities, including Delhi, Bombay, San Francisco. Pretty exciting eh? Almost like a sign of how much more we had to go. :)

The last day, there was so much we had not seen. So we made a plan to go to Muse l'Opera which is worth buying a ticket and going in. The theater is covered in maroon velvet, everything in gold. We even managed to peek in when the artists took a break. Then we spent the time walking around eating crepes, icecreams, while the city of gardens. Late at night, we went to the l'Arc de Triomphe. Sat there in one of the cafes while waiting for it to light up. Its like being in Manhattan. As the lights came on, it dawned upon us that it was the last day of the vacation. Finally it was sinking in...

After the lights came on, we just sat there for a few minutes and then decided to make our way back. However, we were very close to the Lido show auditorium and when we asked them if they required formal clothes. When they said no, we went in. We had heard so much about it, but we had also heard that its a black tie event. However, there were all these people in jeans in tee-shirt.

The show was good, once in a lifetime...only ONCE!!!!! :)

Next day morning, we said good bye to Paris, and boarded the bus to London...Au Reviour Paris...

Into Paris...

The flight from Treviso to Paris was more than amusing. There were all kinds of people, loud Italian people, oh-so-prim British people, the fashionable French folks, the eternal backpacking American with the Rei bags with the shoes and water bottle hanging on the sides and then us!! Since we spent several hours at the airport, spent a lot of time observing these people.

One thing was clear, we were again going into the land of the well-dressed people. I, at that time, was too tired and feverish to feel dawdy. :) On the flight, there were was a group of loud French people. They were laughing, drinking, standing up on their seats. In general creating a big comotion. We got to see the beautiful snow-covered peaks, however, everytime the plane changed altitude, my ear hurt so much. The landing was the worst I can remember. My ear hurt so much that I almost cried, much to Neeraj's chagrin.

After we landed, it was still not clear where we were with respect to the city. Also, since I was going from one Shengen country to another, there is no immigration. However, the rude guy at the airport refused to answer me because I spoke in English. Amazing isn't it? In India, people talk in English to impress others, here, they look down upon them.

Finally, I was like, its their problem if they dont check if I have a visa or not. Turns out that this airport was outside the city and we all needed to buy bus tickets to get to the city. We had no clue how far it was and it was about 9 pm. As we sat in the bus, we both feel asleep exhausted. When we woke up, it was almost 10:30 and we still were nowhere close to the city. Again, worried, because we had no maps!!

Finally, at about 11:20, we reached the city center. It was not really quiet, there were still people, but we did not know how to get around. Having been warned about people not responding to English, and with my previous experience, we considered checking into one of the 5 star hotels we were standing near. We saw people on the bus getting cabs and so we decided to try our luck.

The other issue was that we had only 50 euros and if the cab ride was anything more than that, we were in deeper trouble. Finally we hailed a cab and got in it with a very watchful eye on the meter. The guy spoke good English and were a bit relieved. Asked him how far was the hotel and he said it was about 15 minutes. He was even nice enough to offer some tissue since by then I sounded hoarse and was sniffling like crazy.

Luckily, it was about 10 Euros. We tipped him generously and checked into the hotel. As bad luck would have it, it was an attic room with half the ceiling sloping and at 3 feet from the floor. So only when you slept on the bed, you could go to that side of the room. We were paying good money for half a room. But at that time, we cared less. Slept fitfully till about noon the next day.

We asked for a change of room and were promised one the next day. By then, we were sick of trying different food and just wanted waran-bhat. We looked for a net cafe, hunt down a desi restaurant and ate chicken tikka masala, naan, papad and rice and feeling very very pleased with ourselves, set out to explore the city..

Do labzon ki hain dil ki kahani, ya hain mohabbat ya hain jawani....

When you listen to this sond, close your eyes, what do you see? I see Venice. Fortunately the hotel in Treviso was a 4 start beautiful hotel with the largest room we had seen in the entire trip. Even the restroom was huuuuuuge. It was extremely comfortable. However, by this time, my nose was clogged and I think I had fever. Neeraj was just getting over this cold and I was fast getting one. I spent a very restless night, waking up every few minutes or hours with my nose clogging up.

So, the next day morning, I was so not in the mood to go anywhere. However, we were going to Paris that night and this was the only chance we had to see Venice. The hotel had a very filling breakfast buffet and we hogged on breads, fruits, cereal, omlettes.

We took the train to Venice. This was more like a bus, believe me, the train I am certain had bus engines. You could also hear the gears. :) Once we reached Venice, we had to take a bus to go to the "water" section of the city. Once we got out of the bus, we walked around this city of canals, gondolas, masks, people singing and playing accordions. I wish I was not feeling so sick. At one place, I just sat while Neeraj went around taking pictures. There were typical streetside cafes, only here, they were canal side. the water however is very unclean. Unlike Amsterdam, where you can get a glass of water out of the canal and its really clean.

The water buses are busy and very crowded. Its very crucial to make sure you know which one to take. We took the wrong one which was the slow one and that took us around the city. We did not have the time since we had to come back and catch a flight to Paris.

I got very paranoid thinking that we were going to get late. I made Neeraj hurry up and we rushed back to Treviso and inspite of the hotel folks telling us that the only way to go to the airport was to take a cab which would cost 60 Euros, we found a bus that took us back for three each :)

We had to wait at the airport for 3 hours. 3 precious hours we could have spent getting to see Venice better :(

Florence

The hotel we were staying in was away from the main city in the residential area. We had breakfast early and then set out to discover Florence. This is where my cold started showing its first symptoms. However, at that time, it was something that seemed very strange. My left eye kept on watering constantly. Believe me, I must have used up several hundreds of tissue on it.

We walked around the main church, but did not go in. The area around it was full of people and it was really hot. After the beautiful church, we went to this place like a courtyard which had replicas of the famous status including, the famous statue of David. The beauty just overwhelms you. We had made up our mind to go to Uffizi Gallery so we did not spend too much of time there. Once we reached it however there were about 200 people ahead of us. However, we slowly realized that this was not moving as fast as we thought it would.

At Uffizi, its a good idea to book tickets online since there is no wait there. The people in line were telling how the typical wait is about 3-4 hours. Since this was the main thing we wanted to do, we decided to wait. Made a few friends while waiting, a french couple from Canada, a girl from Korea who had come all the way to see the "birth of Venus". The reason it takes so long is because they allow only 30 people in at a time. Also, the constant eye watering was not helping.

We drowned a lot of coffee and lunched on the steps eating some Paninis. Finally once we got in, we were told that we could not take the camera in and so Neeraj was totally bummed out. I think he lost half the interest once he found out that he could not take pictures. We went around looking for the famous pictures like the "birth of Venus", a couple of Michelangelos. The paintings are beautiful. However the lack of knowledge of Christianity made things very confusing. Whenever there was a good picture, we stood next to the guided tour guides to understand more. We also purchased a book about Florence, so we knew the key paintings to look at.

Once in, we again had some coffee on the terrace and then headed out. We probably spent less time than average people. But Neeraj was getting impatient and my eye was driving me nuts.
When we came out, it was past 5:30. We took the bus back and picked up our luggage and came back to the train station to go to Treviso.

We were going there only because there was an airport there and it was close to Venice. Florence is a city that you need to give time to do justice. It has so many things to do, like the house of Michelangelo, museums, galleries. We will defnitely love to come back and spend idyllic time under the Tuscan sun....

Leaning tower of Pisa...

Once we made our way back to the Railway station, we purchased tickets to go to Pisa. It was about 3 in the afternoon. Pisa is about an hour from Florence. Once we reached Pisa, we ran to the Pisa Tourism Office. The lady gave us the map and asked us to hurry to make it to the last couple tours. As we set out, a British guy in his 40s asked if he could walk with us. As we got talking, we were amused by some of the things he disliked, Internet, cellphones, emails, online banking. Things Neeraj and I swear by. :)

As we made our way into the narrow alleys of Pisa, we did not have the time to stop and glance around. It seemed like a very pretty city, in our frenzy! Finally we were there. It was right in front of us and it was magnificient..and very much leaning!!

We purchased tickets to climb up. Never thought I would ever climb up the leaning Tower of Pisa. There was about 20 minutes and we roamed about taking pictures of the beautiful buildings. Finally, the tour started. We had to leave the camera bag in a locker. The climb up the tower was tiring!! It was a narrow winding staircase that was difficult to climb for one half and easy the other. This went of as we went up in circles. The only issue is that there is really nothing like a railing to hold on to. So it can be a little scary. Finally when we made it to the top, it was breathtaking. Only thing was that there was really nothing to hold on to but it was very hard to be scared. We had to climb another small staircase and finally we were at the top. It was so awesome!! Except that you are at the top of this leaning tower. So one way you are acutally walking downwards and you can't see the ground below...Weird!

After about 15 minutes and several photos later, we made our way down. This was terrifying and I was almost praying all the time!

As usual, when we got down, there was a frenzy to get to the train station, catch the train back. On the way, we caught a Lamborghini in one of the streets and Neeraj drooled for a few seconds!
We got train tickets and made our way back to Florence. Still could not believe we had been up the Tower of Pisa....

Train to Florence....

The initial plans were to rent a car and drive to florence. However, since we dropped those plans, we made our way to the railway station to book the train to Florence. We had been warned about thefts in Italy and we were atmost careful with our luggage. We bought two tickets on the Eurostar for the train starting at 11:35 and it was 11:15 at that time. We ran to look for the platform, needless to say language was a big problem. We found a guy in a uniform who looked at the tickets and said that it was running an hour late.

Finally we looked at the board with the timings and our train was actually going to Milan and there were two columns, guessed it was real time and delayed time.

We were still not very sure and there was a Eurostar office right where we were standing. I went in and the lady there was SOOOO RUDE. She was like "says on the board that the train is late? So its late." Unbelievable. Be warned!!.
Finally at 12:35 the train did not show up. The 12:35 train showed up and left. Since we were extremely handicapped with the language restrictions, we decided to stick to our train. Finally the train showed up an hour late and in the meantime, we (read Neeraj) found a Pizza place which was like MacDs. They served pizza by the slice with a drink and a fruit bar. I am really sorry to say but it was so bad ...never expected to find bad pizza in Italy however after the bad lunch, finally we were on our way. The train itself was quite nice and the A/C was a welcome. Neeraj had a Dan Brown for company and I had myself. I kept on falling in and our of sleep and finally to keep myself awake, I made my way to the pantry car and back balancing two cups or amazing coffee.

When we reached Florence, (we had the directions to get to the hotel for a change), we purchased the tickets for the bus to go to the hotel and with our small but heavy bags, stood in the line. It was sheer madness, there were people all over, it was hot and finally when we got on the bus, there were about 25 more people on the bus that there were places for them to sit. The streets of Florence are narrow and full of people on foot. Neeraj and I were standing right at the front of the bus and several times, I had to close my eyes when we got too close to a pedestrian or a bike. After about 15 minutes, we did not know where to get down and got very nervous.
I asked a lady behind me and it seemed like she knew the hotel and told the bus driver someting. He nodded and continued driving. At a certain place, the lady started talking to me in Italian and with some hand gestures, we figured that she wanted us to get down. We got down and started following her.

With broken English, we understood that she had her own restaurant, close to our hotel and that our hotel was not too good! :( And then she asked me if I was Spanish..!!!! I have been asked if I am Spanish, Indonesian, Persian and Canadian.....

Finally we reached the hotel and though we were extremely tired, we wanted to go to to Pisa and decided to make our way back to the train station.

Roman Holiday...

By the time we reached Rome, our jetlag was almost gone and we got up fairly early. Our hotel had a breakfast for 10 euros per person. But since we knew that we could get a fairly cheap dinner just outside our hotel, we skipped that. Once we stepped outside, we were hit what looked like a flea market, the oppressing heat was the other thing. It was hot and a little humid and it was not even 8 in the morning!!!!

We stepped into a coffee shop which was buzzing with activity. We tried to order cafe latte. However, the Starbucks training we get in US led us to ask us for Latte. The lady kept on repeating "latte latte??" and thought we kept on saying yes, she was asking again and again. Finally a guy who looked like an Asian, asked us if we wanted a latte and finally the lady shrugged a little and went into the kitchen. A little later she returned with two steaming glasses of milk and a big question mark on her face!! Latte really means milk in French (italian as well must be). Sheepishly, we drank the milk and stepped out.

We walked back to the train station and found hundreds of tourists, locals all waiting in a line for a hop on bus. We did not know what that was all about, so we thought we would be able to manage with a map and unlimited day pass like we did in Amsterdam. However, we were soon proven wrong. The chaos and the heat just did not make it worth it. We joined the several others and bought the day pass for the double-decker open bus. I think that was the wisest decision. They take you to the top 10 tourist destinations and you can hop on and off whenever you want.

The first few places were that we saw were the Piazza Venezia, another excavation site, an old market kind of building and then finally we reached the Colloseum. It was the one things that I was absolutely excited about being in Rome. You have to be aware of the several tourist guides who will try to get you to pay for the tours. We had to wait in the line to get in. People cut in the lines, and you just have to wait patiently. We got a guided tour where the guide rattled off how it used to be covered in marble, how there was hierarchical seating, where the clergy sat.

After that, we saw the king's palace, which is a bit of a let down and then headed towards Vatican city. It was amazing. No other word. Its beautiful and strangely peaceful. The only problem was that it was HOT. Fortunately the Romans made sure that there is fresh drinking water fountains. From there we went to the church with the face (remember Roman holiday?). But it was closed. I was not going to stick my hand in it anyways. :)

Finally we went to the Trevi Fountain which was breathtaking. After a very very long day, we found the perfect Italian cafe where we rested our tired legs. Finally we rushed to catch the last bus back and went to all the places again by sunset and night. The bus stopped at Vatican again and just waited there in the night..so peaceful!!

The next day, we stopped by the only thing we had missed, the Spanish Steps. It was okay. The thing that strikes you about Rome is how much its like India. Yet the charm that it exudes almost makes you think like you are a princess who has run away from home to have the time of your life....

When in rome...

The flight from Geneva to Rome was pretty uneventful. I think we fought about something..I fail to remember what it was about. Must have been quite irrelevant. :)

When we landed at the airport, I almost felt like I had left Europe and reached Mumbai. The weather was hot, the airport was more like airports in India, no fancy stuff. The orderly fashion in which people stand at airports in US was missing. It was a mad frenzy to get the bags of the belt into the carts and whiz past the others like you were the first to arrive.
Again, we just vaguely knew where the hotel was. You would think that by this time, we would have learnt a lesson. But nope. We were in for the adventure. :)

We had actually booked a car in Italy as well since we were getting a real cheap deal. But everyone had warned us about driving in Italy and no one had warned us about Geneva. So, we decided to do a "no-show" at the car rental. Fortunately, there was no credit card needed to book the car. When we came out, we were hit by the warm weather and sheer number of people...I almost thought that someone was going to say "chalo chalo sawari baith lo...gaadi paanch minute mein nikalegi". There were several buses waiting and for about 13 euros they take you to the city center. It was past 8 and we were worried about how we were going to get to the hotel. We knew it was very close to the train station, but did not where. The bus journey took us to places and streets that were slowly getting deserted. After we reached the train station, it was completely deserted with just one newspaper stand open. We didnot want to start walking in any direction since all the streets looked similar. Again, we did not know where to find the street names. To top it all, we had no maps.

We asked the newspaper guy and he did not know the hotel, but knew the street. He pointed us in the direction and we started to walk. On the way, there were a few stores open which looked like the typical grocery stores back in India. There were a few internet places open, but the place looked quite shady and we were too worried to get in. Finally, we found our hotel which was on the second floor of one of the buildings. It was a pretty old hotel but functional. We went down to get dinner. For about 10 euros, we got pizza, salad, panini, soda.

This was the only place which did not have an A/C. I guess booking online sometimes has its drawbacks....

Zurich and back..

We left Interlaken quite late in the day and then drove to Zurich. Again, we did not know where the hotel was, so we had to do the difficult task of looking it up in the map. We were hoping that it would be better than Geneva. When we reached the city, before we knew it, we were drawn into another maze of streets; only this time they were called Strasse. The German influence on this side of Switzerland is undeniable. However, at that moment, again, we had to look for the hotel. Fortunately, for some blessed reason, we found ourself going around the railway station. We had a book of maps, which was very hard to read. We found a parking spot, and then went inside the railway station. We purchased a map and tried to pore over it to locate the hotel. Just as we were about to give up, we found a huge map on the wall with the names of the hotels and leds. We had to press the name of the hotel and the led started blinking. Miracle!!

Fortunately, this time, we drove around for about 30 minutes and then found the hotel. Again we set out to look for dinner. By this time, we were quite bored with all the baguettes, quiches, paninis. We called a few Indian restaurants (there are quite a few in Zurich) but they were pretty pricey. 40 CHF per person was not justified. So again we went to the railway station and found a Chinese restaurant which had a cafeteria kind of a feel. We ordered some thai curry and rice and then again, after getting lost a few times, went back to the hotel.

The next day, we decided to start early as we wanted to reach Geneva by 5 pm to catch a flight to Rome. On the way back, Neeraj's cough and cold was pretty bad and so we decided to not make too many detours. We went to the UNO building, but there was a line to get in and Neeraj was simply not upto it. So we drove to the airport and Neeraj read his book while I walked around for sometime drooling at the beautiful watches.

By then, we had were feeling a guilty about how much we were spending and so we both resisted :). Finally after immigrating, we sat in the departure lounge where mind you, people can smoke inside the terminal. Sad :(

Exhausted, but in love with Switzerland, we headed to our next destination, Rome.

I believe I can fly....

After a breakfast of fabulous coffee and all kinds of bread and cereal, we asked Chris about paragliding. He told us how he did it once and was so hooked that he went and bought the whole gear. He said he did it for quite sometime, until one of his friend had a terrible accident and was in rehab was over a month.

Not very encouraging, since I am quite scared of hurting myself. But since Neeraj really wanted to do this for a long time, I decided to go along...They are all experienced people, Chris reminded. He also booked the tour for us. Neeraj and I decided that since both of us had spent plenty of time in snowy regions when we were studying, we would spend the money that people spent to go to Shilthorn etc, and spend it on paragliding.

The ride cost was 150 CHF including a hotel pickup. There was another Indian family with a 10 year old girl who were also going to paraglide with us. Once at the main office, they explained the rules and safety precautions. Also packed the backpacks video camera's in a trunk. They would also take pictures once in air for 20 CHF extra. What the heck? You do it only once, so we went with it. Neeraj carried our Sony elph with which you could take a short clip of about 5 mins. They then piled all of us including the pilots in one van and we set out. After introductions, they told us to pick the pilots. Pick someone your size :) Yeah right :) We drove up the moutain for about 20 minutes and then walked to a cliff, though not that steep. The pilots immediately set to work. They unrolled the gliders and set them on the ground. I was with a quiet but tall guy called Patrick. Once every chose the pilots, they handed all the gear. We had to wear windbreakers, a jacket which had a seat at the back. Then the pilot hooked the parachute and himself onto the jacket and explained that during the take off, keep on running for as long as you can. Avoid the temptation to sit!!

Patrick and I were third to take off. Since Patrick was so much taller than I, my legs were lifted within a few feet and even before I knew it, we were in air. Just like that. There were lush green mountains, the ice-capped peaks, the two lakes, the city....it was just so amazing. Patrick took several pictures. The only sad part was that on a warm and clear day, there is not much breeze and you don't stay in air too long. So the whole journey lasted about 10 minutes. As we got closer to land, Patrick explained what to do when we land. Again, keep on walking..don't sit or else I will fall on you, he reminded.

The landing was smooth and it almost seemed like it was all a dream. Neeraj's pilot did a few antics like the spirals and circled a tall hotel building, but since I was terrified initially, Patrick was very cautious. I was almost jealous of Neeraj for being able to do that. After the pilots all packed the gear, we walked back to the main office which was right by the meadow we landed on.

After that, we had a choice to be dropped to the hotel, but we did not want to go back. We went to this restaurant which had the menu written outside in hindi. I almost thought like I was back in India. There were busloads of Indians everywhere. Later we found out that Interlaken is a favorite place for Indian tourists.

I tried the German sausage and Neeraj had some Thai curry like dish. It was alright, but at that time, even a feast would have made no difference. We were too excited. :))

Later in the evening we drove up the mountains and just drove and drove for a couple of hours. For dinner, finally, we tried the famous Cheese fondue. Unless you like cheese and really love alcohol, I would pass this one. It had a fairly large percentage of alcohol. We were not impressed at all.

The next morning, we were to start to drive to Zurich. We had heard that Zurich was not a very fun place, so we decided to spend the morning and a good part of the afternoon in the moutains, stopping to have coffee or munch on something. We took the gondola up to one of the carless villages up in the mountain. The gondola ride was like the cable car ride in lake Tahoe, but you can never stop being amazed by so much beauty and peace. We found the best pasta in the whole trip in one of the villages. After we came down, with a really heavy heart, we said goodbye to beautiful Interlaken and its beautiful people....

Up in the alps...

Interlaken is an extremely charming little town with very friendly people. Chris and Ursula recommended that we go take the cable-car or cog-rail or drive up to atleast one of the peaks. Hurry! she reminded. But first lunch..We found a mall with a food court with fairly good and cheap food. I hada quiche (again) and coffee.. Gotta love the milk coffee there..It was about 3:45 by the time we were done with lunch and the last cog-rail one up was at 5. So we hufffed and we puffed and ran (in the beautiful meadows) of Interlaken...:)

The journey up the cog-rail was unbelievable, it took about 10 minutes to go up. It was a little like the cable car ride at Heavenly in Lake Tahoe. Except that I was not that scared. :) Once we reached up, the view was simply amazing. You can actually see why that place is called Interlaken. Its in between two lakes. The calm green of the lakes, the whiteness of the Alps. One can't simply help but relax.

We spent about half an hour up there and then took the last rail down. The interesting part is that there is another car which goes in the opposite direction. By this time however, Neeraj cough had turned pretty bad. We went to a local pharmacy and got some aspirin. Note to ourselves to always have basic medicines.

For dinner, we just got some cup noodles, Ursula graciously provided some hot water, forks. Neeraj was sick but still thinking about paragliding.

Interlaken..

We started early in the morning to pick up the rental car, again..:) this time we got a modest peugot 206 (something like that) and it was such a relief to drive that car. We started off well on time and soon hit the highway towards Zurich. Interlaken is about halfway and the whole drive can be completed in about 2 and half hours. We immediately fell in love with the countryside although we have heard so much about it. After some time, Neeraj, who had a bad cold and cough by then, needed a cup of coffee. We pulled over at a gas station and found a place called "stop and go". This has usually has very clean restrooms, grocery store and a cafeteria-like place where you can get several things like bread, quiche, pizza, soups and of course, coffee!!

We skeptically ordered the veggie soup only to be pleasantly surprised since it tasted more like the gravy of veg-korma :)That with garlic bread was just divine!! Also, this place had free internet, where you could send emails. To read them, you needed to insert coins. For a couple of CHF, you got 15 minutes. We determined that even if we stopped at every place we liked, we would still make it by lunch time! Then we fought!! :D for reasons undisclosed :)

Even when you are really upset, Switzerland entralls you with its beauty and peace. And friendly people. One thing to be aware of though, is that there is plenty of road construction all over the highways, you have to be really careful when driving on a single lane road.

The approach road to Interlaken is simply breathtaking, although I must add, having seen the Colorado rockies and Poudre Canyon, it can seem alike, if not that gigantic. The hotel we were staying in again was a B&B owned by the friendliest people we met in our entire trip(Chris and Ursula). It was called Rugen Park and was a little on the outskirts of Interlaken. On the outside it looks like any other building, but once you step in, you are greeted by a huge but harmless dog and Chris/Ursula with a warm concoction while you complete the formalities. Chris even offered to help us carry our stuff up. This time, we had a shared bathroom and W/C. It was fine, since we were the only ones on that floor at that time.

Ursula offered tips on what to do while we were in Interlaken. Ursula is a native of the region and Chris is an American. And then Neeraj set his eye on the advertisement for Paragliding....

Shopping in Geneva..

After spending the day in Geneva City, we were going to rent the car back the next day and drive to Interlaken to spend three days and two nights in the mountains. After having spent two years in beautiful Colorado literally steps away from the Front Range and Rockies, we were aware of how easily the weather can change. Because of the luggage restrictions on the airlines, we had very limited clothes and definitely no sweaters and warm clothes..Another reason to shop !! :)

Looking at all the smartly dressed women in Geneva, I wanted to see what the stores had to offer! We found a Bata shop (which had more than just shoes, jackets, purses...:)), a C&A and another store called EPH. Having heard so much about C&A from my mom, I wanted to check it out. The store was cheaper than the average Macy's and JC Pennys. But as much as I love to shop, I am a very finicky shopper and can take forever to shop. We walked into EPH and found that the store had a major closing down sale..upto 70% off. We did not really want to buy any warm clothes and found just the right pair of gloves for me. Also, they had a decent grocery section. One thing I must mention is that two things are strangely expensive, water and tomato ketchup. Mac D's etc charge .50 CHF for ketchup which was so weird. We found a bottle of hunts ketchup for 1 CHF and 2 liter bottles very cheap. We also found a whole lot of swiss chocolates.

At the last moment Neeraj bought a sweater and thats when they announced that the store was closing. We were on the mens section and walked over to the cashier to pay. She almost yelled at us, saying that we could not pay for my gloves on that floor. D-UH? So Neeraj rushed down to pay while I paid for the sweater. In that rush, Neeraj took all the swiss currency with him and I had to pay in Euros!!

After reaching the hotel, we found out that the water was sparkling water (with gas as its locally known). We were stuck with 4 liters on gas water to take to Interlaken. By then Neeraj had a fairly bad cold and cough. We were grateful for the Ricola and cup-o-noodles. The sweater Neeraj bought was one size small. :) So much for warm clothes...

Geneva..the "timebound" city

After we checked into the hotel, we slept for the next three hours exhausted from the whole driving experience. was a B&B called "hotel Cental" aptly named for its location. It was located on the main street in Geneva on the sixth floor of a building that had offices as well as shops. Although they had an option of using a shared bathroom, we paid a little more and got our own bathroom. It was a tiny room with a tiny TV and a table on the side. The weird part was the room door opened into the bathroom which then opened into the room. However, at that time, we were too tired to care.

After we got up, we set out to get food since we were famished. Neeraj loves Italian food (anything with cheese and I dislike it). So the dreaded moment had arrived. We were surrounded with italian restaurants, sandwich shops and all sorts of shops. We walked around for a reasonably priced restaurant and it seemed like all the restaurants were quite expensive. Finally, we found a Chinese restaurant which looked like the spring roll-fried rice-kung pow chicken places. The owner ushered us in and immediately we saw dozens of people smoking. Politely we asked to sit outside. We ordered tom yum soup, chicken sweet and sour and rice. The food was alright and once our stomachs were full, we broached upon the delicate topic of the car.

It was costing us about 171 CHF per day to keep the car. Since street parking in not allowed for more than an hour, we had to leave it in the public parking which was another 24 CHF a day. We called the car rental company and told them we wanted to return the car and then rent another car (smaller) the day after. Thankfully, they agreed to do it. However, we would not get the internet deal, and the smaller car would cost almost the same as the bigger car. But it was smaller and we did not have to worry about it for a day!!

We grabbed a quick sandwich at Mac Ds , carefully read the map and at about 9 in the night returned the car at the airport and sat in the public bus which brought is back to the hotel in about 10 minutes and 6 CHF :)) The next day, breakfast was served in room which was coffee, orange juice and two kinds of bread, butter and marmalade. We set out to see the wonders of this city...

We spend considerable time at the Geneva Jet d'eau (Jet of water). Once we reached it, thats where it hits you that this is the city of Time. There are hoardings for almost all the watch companies all over. By noon, we were quite bored of the jet and were heading back to the hotel when we saw the tourism offices on one of the bridges. Grabbed a free booklet and map and found a list of top ten things to see. Turns out that the undergroung parking was right by the famous Flower Clock. Just that we were too hassled to notice. Also a couple of statues that were listed in it were right by the jet and we had seen those. That left us with six things to see. The lady in the office said they were about 5 minutes walking distance behind hotel Central. :) We again patted our backs for the wise decision of returning the car.

It so happens that all the places we saw the previous day, were these places. Just that we did not know. :) We walked up the hill-like roads which were cobbled which lead to a cathedral. Below the cathedral was a real archeological site which we paid 8 CHF to see. But they let us take as many pictures as we wanted. It was so spooky to know that there was an entire catheral and parts of the city under the existing cathedral. Definitely a must see. We spent plenty of time there, peeped into the cathedral for a few minutes. It was quite spendid and first of many in our trip. The walk around the cathedral was oh-so European!! I have falled in love with the cobbled streets. There is an administration building which was quite artistic, the place where there were some cannons. There was a garden where there were chess game boards marked on the ground and almost life-size pawns. People were actually lifting them and walking to change places. Very funky!!

Also, Smart Cars all over the place...They grow on you!! :) I hope they decide to launch 'em in India. Had dinner in one of the open air restaurants in the middle of the streets. Had pizza, finally!! :) Just a little one too many sparrows...I think I amused everyone by ducking everytime a sparrow flew my way...The street side musicians playing accordians and singing typical European music was so enchanting..I can still close my eyes and hear them play music..

We managed to see about 9 of the 10 of the items. This changed our opinion about the city. It is a city with character and history..just that it is hidden under a "chronological" life...

Driving in Geneva...

After we took off from Amsterdam, Neeraj and I were very excited about having rented a car in Switzerland. Also, since we booked it online, we were able to rent a Mercedes or similar and we were extremly eager to see what car we got. Obviously we did not get the Mercedes :) however, the "or similar" was a Renault Scenic. We were paying considerably more than we anticipated because of the insurance coverage but driving in new country, you are better off with the full insurance. If we paid 20 CHF more each day, we would have been able to get an automatic instead of a stick-shift. But I am not fond of driving and I like to navigate...(or so I thought)

Here is snippet of conversation shortly after we left the car-rental office.

K: I hope this car is worth the money we have paid.
N: Don't worry..Enjoy!
In the car:
N: Cool, there is no key, just press this card in and press the start button.
K: Hey we don't know the way to the hotel
N: I am sure we will find it.

Few minutes later
K: I am lost
N: Wow..this car is soo nice...No wonder we are paying so much.
K: I need some help with this map, it's all Rue d' and Rue de la...
N: I thought you learnt French
K: Ha Ha..you have not seen my marksheet
N: Here is how you read this map. Read the name of the street from the list behind, then locate the Y co-ordinate on the grid in the map, then fold the map so that the X marking show up and then locate the street...simple!!
K: HUH??

A few minutes later..
K: Careful, we could easily miss an exit and go to France. We do not want to do that..my visa is valid of 15 days only!!!
N: Don't worry..we are doing fine..see the sign to Geneva city?
K: yeah!! :) You are so good with directions

I sit back and relax..the map shows a long way to the city center
K: Careful!! Don't you think this car is a little big for these streets..
N: Hmm..No, its fun to drive a powerful car...its new!!
K: It almost seems like a city in India..but cleaner..wonder where we are...WATCH OUT FOR THAT bike....the traffic is also a bit like India
N: hmm..why don't you locate us in the map?
K: I think its a long way..whats the name of the street we are on?
N: I thought you knew where we were..
K: Relax..I am sure we are on the right road..I just need to find the street name, locate it on the map
N: Okay, hey this car has some anti-lock gear first gear shut down (this is where I tuned out:))

A few seconds later, Ketaki visibly panicked..
K: What is the name of the street...why does it say Geneva city 3 km? how could it be possible? What is the scale of this map? Where is the name of the street? I don't like this at all.
N: Relax! But where the heck are the street names?
K: Whats that little thing on the side of the buildings with small letters?..Rue de...Oh No..Those are the street names??
N: Are you serious? Do you know where we are on the map? I wonder if that sign means we are supposed to stop? or maybe slow down?
K:We should have never rented this car. We should have never rented a car..I can't find a single street on the map. By the time I find one, we have gone past it long back. The scale of this map is not like what I thought. I don't want to navigate
N:You are not helping by panicking. Why don't you focus on the map?
K:But I can't!! You think its easy? We should have printed directions before we attempted to do this. Are we on this side of the river? I don't think we crossed any bridge?
N:No we didnot. Do we need to?
K: I don't know. Stop this car. I can't do this. This car is too big
N: Okay, it is, I am doing fine..Okay?..So where do we want to be?
K: (Sulking) The other side of the river.
N: As far as I know, there is not river in Geneva..
K: But I see it on the map!!!!
N: Ok ok..Here goes the bridge..Do you see a name?
K: Okay...now I know where we are..now we need to turn right..then left...(looking up) Now where are we?
N: I thought you knew where we were..Should I keep on going straight?
K: Yes...should buy us some time..why are we going up these cobbled streets? Do you think we are allowed to go here?
N: Well, I can't stop in the middle of the street. Anyways, looks like the rules are not as strict as US. People seem to drive as they please.
K: Hey, I think I know where we are..turn around now..
N: I can't ..the streets are so narrow...I think the car is a little too big...

A few minutes later, Neeraj pulled over and read and explained the map to me.
K: Okay...however, I think we made a big mistake.
N:Lets first get to the hotel.
K: I think we are lost again, how did we cross the river? I mean the lake?
N: Okay, I need to find a way to turn..I wonder if its our right of way? I guess it is (zooming and going to the other side). Wonder how many laws we have broken?
K: Not funny...lets try and get to the other side...
N: Okay, I am trying to...
K: We are going towards the airport again..
N: I am trying to turn...Okay, here we go...
K: by the way, we are driving on the tram path..I don't see any more cars ..Are we allowed to do so?
N: At this moment, I don't care, lets get to the other side of the lake first..
K: Finally, I know where we are..
N: Have I heard that before or what?
K: Okay I am lost
N: I think I have heard that before as well!!
K: Turn left ..turn left...don't cross the river again...
N: I have to ..I am in the turn-only lane..
K: I don't think it matters here.
N: Okay..here is the main street..The hotel should be on one of the cross-streets.
K: (sinking feeling) I think we just went past it.
N: Okay, then I know how to get there.

Finally, this continued for another half an hour, and we found 'Rue du Constantipole" and the hotel. Neeraj waits in what seems like a no-parking zone, while I run up to the reception. The girl there tells me that we cannot park on the street below, but need to park in the public parking, below the lake...She hands me a paper.."follow these directions, and you cannot get lost". Yeah right..It been two and half hours since we set out.

K: Okay, we need to park under the lake..
N: What?
K: Just listen to my directions..we can't get lost
N: Okay...here we go..
K: Hey we were not supposed to cross the river!!!
N: You did not tell me that...

After about half a dozen wrong turns, we finally found the public parking, gladly got out of the car, and walked towards the hotel thinking...Maybe the car is too big....

Amsterdam part 2

The twilight tour was in a small low boat with glass windows and dinner table. The one we took was a candlelight tour with drinks only. The boat with the twilight, with the tiny red candles was quite romantic. There were about 8 other people in the boat. The served free nuts and we just bought some pepsi. The tour guide was multi-lungual speaking in english and french. They took us around 6 of the 100 canals. Extremely cute. Showed us the twin sisters and twin brothers( two similar buildings in front of each other). People in Amsterdam in the olden days, paid their taxes proportional to the width of their house. So people built their houses slender and tall.

Also the buildings because of all the water, move and shift little bit. Sometimes even gaps of aout 6 inches between two buildings. They showed us the unassuming Presidents house, Anne Frank's museum( from outside), the point where we can see seven bridges in a row all light up, and the infamous "red light area". I was not prepared to see two girls in the show window gesturing to people. I instictively turned the handycam off, much to Neeraj's amusement. :)

The tour took about 90 minutes and by the time, the main city center was very quiet. The next day we went to Kukenhof Garden. It takes about 60-75 minutes by rail and bus to get there. We were armed with 1 handy cam and two digital cameras. Nothing could have prepared us for the sight. Although it was then end of the season, the various colors, shapes, sizes, textures drove us mad..We went clicking like crazy. The handy cam battery died within 2 minutes and after that was just a bag to carry.

A lot of the flowers had been plucked or were being plucked. It gave us an idea of what we missed :) There was also and Orchid and Lily competition which made up for the tulips slightly. We ate something like a burger called croquettes (shaped like the cutlet in Deccan Queen). We were really sad to leave, it helped a little to know that anyways after two days, all this would be gone.

Since we had a light lunch, we decided to have a proper dinner. Desi was out, we had just left US. :) Neeraj wannted to try Indonesian food (Indonesia was ruled by the Dutch and there is a lot of influence in Indonesia). We found this place that seemed reasonable. We did not realize that the fact that people can smoke in restaurants in Europe can be such a nightmare. Women seemed to smoke more than the men. To top it all, I had my own bottle of water, the guy in the restaurant pointed out that "its not considered good to get your own water". Not like US!! :)

The food must have been good, but the smoke was so terrible, that we almost wanted to walk out. The one hour that we sat there, I almost felt like the smoke chopped off a day from my life...WHY?????

Neeraj started feeling pretty sick after that and that continued well into Switzerland. However, at that time, our clothes were stinking pretty bad. The next day we asked about a cab to the airport and we were told to take the tram and train which works out cheaper and faster. Who would have thought the tram would breakdown bring all the trams to a standstill!!! It was quite a sight...We got off and walked the way to the station..
All in all, we loved Amsterdam and enjoyed the people, the food and the sights there...

Out of US..into Europe..

The flight to London was quite uneventful, except the fact that Neeraj and I had to sit apart. Aparently, everybody books seats online..we were left with none. :( Fortunately, it was only a 6 and half hours flight and I had some work to do :)

After landing into London, the immigration was quite smooth, we were going there just to drop all our stuff. No point in lugging around 4 suitcases 25 Kgs each everywhere. Moreover, the luggage restrictions are stricter withing Europe. Way too strict!!

We had booked most of the Europe trip on easyjet or Ryan Air. We were pleasantly surprised that EasyJet allows no restrictions on hand luggage. (Within reasonable limits :)). These flights are cheap and are very basic, make Southwest airlines look like a luxory! The other thing is that there is no food served on these flights ..not even soda and pretzels. Well in an hours flight, it does not really matter. Also these flights usually do not use the main airports, but the ones that are out of the town or not so well connected. Luton is one such airport. Neeraj's bro-in-law had to drop us off at 5 am and it was almost an hours drive. The taxing in Luton takes so long, that you almost feel like this plane will just drive its way to amsterdam :)

When we were close to landing in amsterdam, we could see a few fields that looked red, but having been told that the tulip season was almost over, we were skeptical. After reaching amsteram, we realized that the entire printout of the iternerary was missing. Neeraj forgot it at the check-in counter in Luton. Then began the mad rush to find an internet cafe only to be old that there are none and we had to go to the city. It was about 8 in the morning and we immigrated, bought tickets for KuKenhof gardens and then bought the rail tickets to go to the City. It took about 20 minutes and was quite crowded with British teenagers. I simply could not understand their accent. !!

The train stops at the centraal station which is in the heart of the city. It was crowded with commuters, except that they were on bicycles. :)
It was still too early and after getting the information for the nearest internet cafe, we set out to drag our bags on the oh-so-European cobbled streets. We needed that to get directions to the hotel although we vaguely knew where we wanted to go.

After walking about 20 minutes, we finally gave up and asked a local. He asked us to get on a tram and we did. You can purchase a one-time ticket, though we purchased a day-pass. These need to be validated, that is the date and time is stamped. After a few minutes, we did not know how long to wait and asked the train-conductor. He told us that we had passed Ramada long back.
We immediately stepped out. The other problem is that not all the stops were marked on the free map we got. There was no way to know how far we went. Once we got off, we walked over to the other side to go back. A desi, mostly software, guy smiled at us and asked us if we were staying in Ramada. Out of the blue!! He said he was living there was two years and it was about 20 steps away from where we were...thank God for small mercies.

The hotel is in a residential area, away from the city center, however neat and clean. The rooms are small but functional.
We crashed and went off to sleep and woke up only at 3 pm. Then we set out to look for lunch. We took the tram back and found a money changer to change the travellers checks that we got from Neeraj's sis. Its a good idea to get these from US, since 50 Euros = 45 Euros. You lose some in conversion (not exactly conversion)

We found a place which looked like mediteranian food and went in. I ordered Falafel and neeraj ordered something like a satay. Mine was sufficient with one sandwich and one round of salad. You have to buy water and a small bottle cost 2 Euros. We decided to keep this bottle for the rest of the trip and stepped out.

The city was still not very bustling. Night-life in amsterdam is famous (or notorious ;)). We booked a twilight tour in the canals and walked along the canals waiting for the tour to start...

Chi-town

The landing in Chicago is pretty dramatic. Midway is not the main airport and it shows. The runway is so close to a freeway that you almost feel like you are going to scrape the cars on the road. I have seen plenty of places where the road is close to the runway, however this was the worst.

The flight itself was uneventful, or so I think. I feel asleep even before the engines started to hum and woke up right before we landed. I can easily fall asleep..anywhere..anyhow. As I child I hated to sleep. However, a night full of physical work for enough to knock the lights out.

After we got all our luggage (all 8 bags of different sizes, weights, volumes), we got our rented car (a nissan Sentra), stuffed the back seat with the luggage and headed to the hotel.

The hotel we had booked was very close to the main airport, O'Hare. It was a good 30 minutes drive. Again, after making several trips to take the bags up, we headed out to find dinner. Elk Grove is a really small suburb and the only place that looked decent and was open was an Italian restaurant called 'Avanti'. It had several pictures of movie stars, sports people etc. Had Gnocci which is a pasta made out of potato and Neeraj had a sandwich. Both were good, except that the sauce was very sour. I am not really fond of tangy stuff and I am extremely worried about finding food in Italy.

Anyways, came back to the hotel and slept for the next 11 hours. We meant to wake up at 7 am, we did, only that the alarm went off at 7am PST :). We missed the free hotel breakfast, so had to go to Dunkin Donuts to get coffee and a bagel. On a side note, I think California misses a lot by not having Dunkin.

This Dunkin, like our hotel and many other places around here, is owned by desis. Apparently a lot of the places are. The drive into Chicago downtown is just like any other, except that even on thursday at 11 am, there was traffic. Parking that was safe and cheap was hard to find and eventually, we parked close to Sears tower. We immediately went up the tower. It was an amazingly clear day. You are on the 100th floor of this 1700 feet tall gigantic building. You can see the flat terrain as far as the eye can travel. The Michigan lake is a sea. There, I have said it. After years of teasing friends who called it a sea, I agree it is a sea.

After we got down, I shocked Neeraj by suggesting pizza for lunch. Found a place called Giordino's which had a long wait for the single person serving of stuffed pizza. I am not a pizza lover, hence I won't do justice to the pizza by commenting on it.

Then we walked around millenium park, the diamond cut building. The strange thing in Chi-town is that security guards and cops go around on Segways. Pretty cool. We rested our feet at Navy Pier which was quite quiet as it was a weekday. We sat there, watched the sun set and then treaded back to the car park. Here is when it got a little scary as it was getting quieter and lonelier. We kept on telling each other that next block we get into a cab. The problem was that we did not remember the exact cross street where we parked. After a few fights, wrong ways, we made it to the car and rushed out of the city. The only place we found open near the hotel was a DQ. Had a really awful sandwich and worse fries.

The next day, I saw one of the worst thunderstorms. Luckily, our flight was one of the few not cancelled or delayed.

Chicago is clean (cleaner than NY), its multi-layer downtown is different and confusing. I think I did not see all the better parts of chicago, so it seemed just like any other big city. The lakeshore drive, the navy pier, the skyline and most of all the weather were what I enjoyed the most.

Ketaki's Guide to moving to India

Hmm..so much has happened. We are on our way back to India for good! It was something Neeraj and I wanted to do since the day we met. We finally got around to it.

We left bay area for good on the 9th may with not a minute to spare. We were packing (mostly Neeraj ;)) for over a week. The last weekend was a crazed rush to get the apartment empty. The ambitious plan was to get it spotless...

We shipped about 150 cubic feet of stuff on Friday. We hugely underestimated the amount of work left after that. We fortunately were able to give away a lot of the stuff. However the time it takes to get the stuff out of the apartment is huge. We ran out of trash bags, plastic bags, brown paper bags, boxes to throw out stuff. We even ran out of space in the trash cans in the apartment. We even used up the two trashbins futher away. We made countless trips to the donation center for almost an hour at 3 am in the morning. Fortunately, the guy who lives below, was not at home.

The best part about doing this at this unearthly hour was that I was able to throw out stuff that I would have to clung to had I been even slightly more awake and in a slightly less in a "don't care" stage.

As luck would have it, early in the morning (or was it late in the night :)), I realized that I was not able to log into my laptop. I drove to work at 5 am in the morning and sorted that out while poor Neeraj was still throwing stuff out. Its just unbelievable how many things can find nooks and corners of the aparment. Almost seemed to defy all laws of physics :) Think about it this way, there is a huge pillow stuffed in a fairly small box. Imagine you pull it out and now try to put it back in...seems impossible..So how in the world did all this stuff fit into our one bedroom apartment?
Bad anology...but I can't think of anything better.
Ah yes, and there was stuff that should have been shipped to India, but was inadvertently left behind. We had to post it to Neeraj's sister in Boston, or leave it behind with friends ...you know who you are...we really appreciate it!! :). Fortunately, another good samaritan came with coffee, bless her...and more trash bags :)

Amongst random things we left behind, theres my car, some clothes, my hair dryer...

Finally, at 11 am in the morning, we handed over the keys and left the place that has been home for almost three years now. We will always cherish the memory of our apartment.
Now we shall live in and out of bags, hotels, homes of relatives for the next one month. We are going to the following places:
1. Chicago (done)
2. Boston (here right now)
3. UK
4. Holland
5. Switzerland
6. Italy
7. France

The next few blogs will be travel blogs. I will write them regularly..post them when I can...

adios ...

Going to NYC..

It is one place I just love. I went there once last year and always wanted to go there again. I just love the hustle-bustle. I think its a place which has vibrance like no other place. Its like the city is alive ..of course, I should I add that I spent all my time in Manhattan. Oh well, I loved it and so going there back again!! :)

Went to the tech museum with the smartest guy on earth..daddy!! :D I think he would have enjoyed going with Neeraj more since they could have had a technical discussion, but he was stuck with me..And I had a wonderful time. We also rode the Segway. It was more fun to see the guy there struggling to discuss it with daddy. One of the things that daddy asked was.."Why Segway?" And its true, after all, what can it do that a bike can't. Apart from all the technical comparison between the true, the one thing he mentioned was "Status symbol". Amazing, aint it?

Also going to Chicago in May. Am going places or what?

Unprofessional...

Why is it that some cultures have more unprofessional people that the others. It is almost sure that when you deal with people from a particular culture or geographic location, they are almost surely a pain to work with.

Its frustrating when people do not want to do their work and come to expect that others will do it for them. This post cannot continue without getting politically incorrect. Hence thats all I have to say..

Travel anxiety....

Is there a word for people who have a phobia of travelling? I have recently discovered that whenever we go somewhere, I get nervous. A little voice in me constantly screams. Its screaming right now..we are off to Lake Tahoe...

British accent..

rocks..listening to Bridget Jones Diary the edge of reason. It is soo funny.

Happy new year...

Wish everyone a happy new year.

Not a very joyous beginning to the new year. The brain numbing events in Asia, the death, the fear, the apprehension. Just last year my dad left Indonesia for good after having lived there for over 8 years. I have spent plenty of summer vacations in Indonesia. Beautiful country with the most amazing people. Its unbelievable that this should happen there. Its like the country just does not get a break :(.

I have been to Chennai as well. My best friend just moved from there to B'lore. Can't imagine the places I have been to and loved are gone. Just not fair....This is not something anyone can be blamed for, makes it harder to vent out..whom do you hold responsible? Population, religion, political beliefs, heard them all..ridiculous explanations. What if ..looms over the mind of ever Californian.

May God give peace to the people whose life, love has been washed away...