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....