The fun month of May..

This 5-days vacation (resulting in more than 1700 photographs that I am still busy sorting) to Italy meant that I had to work very hard next week in the lab to cover for some work that I had planned for the previous week. Plus, the weekend after that (i.e. on the last weekend of May), I had again planned a 3-day trip to Paris, again with Yusuke (yes, I replaced my Japanese ex-gf with a new Japanese friend, whatever!!). After a long time, I finally got to meet one of my friends from IITK – Anirudh “The Chapoo” Syal (girls were gaga over this guy back in college, he has broken so many hearts recently by getting engaged – oh boy!! :P). Jokes apart, he is a really nice guy. Extremely helpful and adjusting, he let us stay in his room, while he slept on a mattress on floor at one his friends’ places. Besides meeting up and hanging out with a lot of friends/new people from IIT Kanpur (and Delhi as well), I relaxed/strutted around rather luxuriously in the one of the most beautiful cities of the world. The walk on Avenue des Champs-Élysées is quite invigorating with breathtaking views, and I don’t mean just the big showrooms and hot girls, but also the architecture- Arc de Triomphe on one end and Place de la Concorde (further lie a beautiful garden called Jardin de Tuileres, and one of the world’s most famous art museums - Louvre) on another. Also stand next to it are Palais de l'Élysée (Presidential palace) and Grand Palais. Venture a bit south of the avenue, and you get to a bridge with beautiful views of Eiffel Tower. The bad thing in Paris, though, for a tourist is that there is not a moment of respite from breathtaking views. You can't just sit down somewhere and think to yourself - let me not look at the city, instead focus on my own failed life!! No, you can't do that. You just can't take your eyes off the beauty that stupid beautiful city offers - whether it's the Avenue des Champs-Élysées, outside view of Louvre, insides of Louvre, Eiffel Tower - in daylight or in the night, Jardin du Luxembourg, Notre Dame, a walk along river Seine, night view of Sacre Coeur, or view of the city from Montmarte - there's so much to take in, to admire, to experience... Paris, indeed, is the most beautiful city in the world, and endless beauty at that.. even the red light district with the Moulin Rogue at an end looks beautiful at night (even though it's a bit scary with 50 yr old guys coming up to you and almost coercing you, in hushed voices, into the clubs - some guy even broke Syal's sunglasses that Yusuke had borrowed and was carrying in the breast-pocket of his shirt).
Well anyway, we spent the 1st day walking around the city, went to Notre Dame Cathedral, Jardin du Luxembourg, Rolland Garros (but they didn't let us in - not even for a guided tour), and then went to Eiffel Tower in the evening... and it was beautiful.. Next morning, we took a 4 hours tour of Louvre (mainly saw the major paintings including Mona Lisa, The wedding party, etc., and Napolean's rooms on 2nd floor), wherefrom I started on a quest to find Hotel De Ville to watch Nadal lose to Soderling on a big screen that they had put up - and got just in time to see the last set of Nadal's dominance on Rolland Garros!! :D
Thereon, Yusuke and I went to Montmarte, where Sacre Coeur stands atop the hill, displaying a rather breathtaking view of the city. Luckily, we also got a glimpse of newly ordained priests coming out of it. It was only after that ceremony that general public was let in, with the precondition that on eis not allowed to take any photographs inside - but if they couldn't stopm me from taking taking photographs at the holy Sistine Chapel, it wasn't gonna work in Sacre Coeur - even as some South Indian asshole saw me take a photograph and started discussing (in Malayalam, I guess) with his friend the need to turn me in. Well, I just quietly sneaked away from the wannabe-true-Christian. We stayed there till the dark set in (even though the young crowd over there was rather rowdy and drunk, and a little scary as well), so as to get some night views of the cathedral and the city, and the photographs uploaded on Picasa are a testimony to the correctness of our decision. Then, we walked around the RLD of Paris, and soon after left for Syal's place. He was supposed to join us at Sacre Coeur, but couldn't for the poor guy's precious iphone broke in the afternoon. Anyway, one of the best experiences in Paris, besides the places, was eating Paninis and Crepés all the time, and gormandizing Dosa, Kulfi and Lassi in the Indian district for lunch on both days.
This was our best trip so far. By the end of it, Yusuke realized that I say "bitch" at almost everything, be it a missed train or garbage on the road, and asked me what is meant by it and how it's spelled. Then, having understood the connotation of that, he also told me how it can be said in Japanese - "Kaso". :D
Well, I plan to go to Paris again, and this time I will see the Rolland Garros, come what may. I also wanna see the Rose Line that Silas dug around in da Vinci Code. :D But next weekend, I am going to Praha (Prague) with Prithu to check out the famed Czech beer and chicks. :D

The awesome Italy trip..

3 days after the last trip to Brussels, i.e. on Wednesday, Yusuke and I went to Italy and were joined by Prithu (who finally managed to catch all the trains this time, despite giving me a few scares through SMS every now and then :P) in Venezia – our first stop and one of the most beautiful cities ever. Yusuke was too sick, so he went to Roma and took some rest, while Prithu and I explored the whole Venezia in boat-buses – the boats for public transport. It had everything - beautiful views/scenery to absorb and photograph; mind-blowing architecture; and beautiful women to stare at (and photograph, if I felt like a pervert enough) – well that’s all you need/want in Eurotrip. Famous places to see in Venezia– San Mark’s Piazza (with all the Basilicas and stuff), San Giorgio Island (great view of Venezia from the bell tower here), Lido, Ponte di Rialto, and ofcourse just riding around in the boat bus is an experience in itself. If you have money and are feeling romantic enough – take a ride in a gondola – I hear it’s soothing and beautiful (I don’t know for myself, neither do I have money nor was I feeling particularly romantic with Prithu).
I hadn’t slept much the night before (unless you call 3 hours much), and fell asleep later that night on the platform while waiting for the train to Firenze (Florence) and slept like a baby in the train as well. But we got off the train and had a funny experience (maybe, to be told another day), and got out into the city. And behold!! By God!! What a beautiful city!! True – someone like me could argue that all they have in Italy are basilicas and churches and Cathedrals – but boy, are they all beautiful!! And Firenze – walking through the city is like walking through the aisles of some art museum. The city is buzzing with history and art – huge replicas of famous sculptures including that of Michaelangelo’s David (yes, the naked dude) stand on a piazza (square/plein), next to a street lined up with sculptures of famous kings, artists, rulers, scientists, and warriors on both sides. Oh by the way, that’s where the famous Uffizi art gallery also stands (we didn’t go in there). We also didn’t go to the famous art museum of Firenze (that houses the original David by Michaelangelo) – 1. We didn’t have time, 2. We don’t care much about paying to look at art that we don’t understand much (and naked men for art definitely don’t attract us that much).
Anyway, having walked about and soaked in the city in 5-6 hours, we caught the train to Pisa – with only 1 place to go to: Piazza dei Miracolli (Square of Miracle). This is where the famous screw up of the world lies (ok, still stands, but who knows): The Leaning Tower of Pisa, along with another basilica and cathedral (boy, am I getting tired of them now!). The guy messed up completely in Civil Engineering (should have got an F in MOS and Fluid Mech – I don’t care, everybody got an F in that and so should have he) and people flock to admire that – weird eh? Well, it’s funny and beautiful nonetheless, and a few corny photographs (pushing the tower further, kicking it from both sides, a novel one – kneeing the tower in what should have been its groin) later, we made our way to Roma. Another few tortuous train journeys to the youth hostel later, we found ourselves in a rather spooky countryhouse/camping ground kind of place where we were supposed to be staying. Oh by the way, Yusuke had already got there and had paid for the room – dude, I’ll pay you as soon I can.
A comfortable night’s sleep and a soothing shower did help recover a bit from all the walking we had done – although the uncountable number of pizzas that we had, besides the adrenalin rush, had already been helping us keep our energy level up. That day, the three of us first went to Vatican City to see San Pietre’s Basilica and hopefully, Vatican museum (although a lying English tour guide scared us by saying that we would have to wait for 2.5 hours each to see any of those places and would have to pay 20 Euros for a combined ticket, while she would be able to provide us with an audio-guided tour with preferential entry for only 40 Euros!!). Well, bitch, it took us 20 minutes after getting into the queue to get into STB for FREE!! (And next day, we entered Vatican museum on student tickets for 8 euros each, this time after standing in queue for 30 minutes in a beautiful weather!!) Then Prithu and I went to see the rest of Roma (while Yusuke decided to stick by to see Vatican Museum before leaving for Napoli the same day, but he couldn’t get in) – Stadia Olympica (football stadium where Barcelona beat Manchester United 5 days later to lift Champion’s Cup trophy), some stupid San Agnes’ castle made famous by “Angels and Demons” (only saw it from outside, looked rather ugly, so didn’t go in), Piazza di Navona (with a really beautiful fountain), Fontana di Trevi (a mind-numbingly beautiful fountain, one of the most beautiful sights to behold – it was majestic.. my linguistic skills, if any, seem to fail me here – it was indeed that beautiful), Pantheon (disappointing, I am sorry, but there isn’t anything about it to deserve the amount of hype it has – also they made us wait for more than 2 hours to get in), and finally the king of all – the Colosseo (or Roman Colosseum, as we know it). We deliberately went at a time such that we got the day view, and by waiting for 1 hour there, got some enthralling night views as well. We didn’t go inside, sort of had an idea it might be too expensive and disappointing to go inside (a view later confirmed by Yusuke, who did go inside to return feeling ripped off for nothing). Anyway, this finished our first day at Rome – an exhausting but extremely satisfying day, wherein we saw almost everything that was there to see. Oh by the way, you know how they say: When in Rome, do as the Romans do! Please don’t! Looking at the sculptures in whole of Italy, my 1st guess is that Romans aren’t the biggest fans of clothes – they like to do everything naked (even play sports naked, see for yourself in front of Stadia Olympica). And the irony is, they don’t let inappropriately dressed men/women into chapels and basilicas, which are, by the way, covered with paintings of naked people!! What’s up with that??!!
Early next morning, we returned to Vatican City, and quickly got into Vatican museum. Ofcourse, you can spend a whole day here or just an hour, depending on your interest. We, however, listened to Buddha and took the middle-path – took 3.5 hours to traverse through and admire the museum, including Sistine Chapel (which was beautiful, no doubt, but they didn’t allow photographs in there – I took quite a few nevertheless :D). Having finished it (some might call it getting over with it), we left for Napoli, and this is where all the fun began. I realized on the train that I had thrown away the paper with the directions to our youth hostel and had no idea how to get there. Thankfully, the original email from the hostel with the directions was still in my mailbox, so now the frantic search for an internet café was initiated. Fun part – nobody spoke/understood much English and Napoli is known to be extremely unsafe buzzing with cons and thugs (we experienced it only a little bit next day, even though Yusuke had gotten into big trouble the night before, and had to literally cry for help to get out of it), especially around the railway station. But we eventually found one internet café with some difficulty, and the guy was nice enough to not charge us unreasonably for using the internet for 10 minutes. Another task at hand – look for Pizzeria de Michele, the best pizzeria in town, recommended by the Italian guy in my research group (Vincenzo, who hails from a Napolia) as well as various websites. After trying for more than half an hour, and asking several people, we found this guy who couldn’t understand us much, nor could we him, but one thing that we got clear was that he offered to walk us to the Pizzeria. Vincenzo had warned us of thugs and hostile people in Napoli, but I have to say, we found only the nicest people there - a guy who gave us directions as accurately as one could and still apologized for not speaking English very well, a lady who helped us out of a jam to help us find the bus we needed to take to airport, and to top it off, this guy who walked us to the pizzeria without any selfish interests. And to my embarrassement, I began to suspect him after a while, and started walking behind him and Prithu to make sure I had enough time to react if he tried to pull off anything, yet he saw us off at the pizzeria, shook our hands and left with a friendly smile. I am sure there are bad guys in Napoli, but I only had good things to say about them.
By the way, the pizza was indeed marvelous. Though it got a little cold by the time we ate it, it tasted incredible even then. Anyway, we took the train to get to our youth hostel in Portici – a small town outside Napoli. The hostel was called fabric hostel or something, and was possibly the most awesome hostel I have ever stayed at. New, beautiful, and very well organized – a complete value for money, and more.
The dinner experience that night, however, sucked – we had to wait for 1 hour to get our pizzas at this pizzeria nearby. A very stupid place, with a rather uncouth, careless and arrogant head waiter – If I ever go back to Napoli again, I would never go to this pizzeria, never ever again (unfortunately, I don’t remember its name, so if you venture into it during your trip to Napoli, you’ll know which one it is by the time you get your pizzas :P). Anyway, next morning we went to Pompei – excavation site of a city which was completely buried and laid waste under lava, rocks and stones when Mount Vesuvius erupted rather violently arnd 24th Aug 79 AD. Now, one can see some of the dead bodies that were found covered in debris, the ancient Roman pottery, their houses, and even their brothels!! :D.. It was quite an experience, even though Yusuke and I had to do a quick 2-hr tour of the site. You know what, I do plan to go back to just Napoli some time, and stay at the same hostel, and explore not just Pompein again, but the beautiful Amalfi coast near Sorrento (I guess), go on a hiking trail to Mt. Vesuvius, even though I hear the view inside the volcano is rather disappointing – no boiling lava on the surface - screw that!! :P

I am back!

Hey..

In the last many weeks that I did not update my blog in, I have done a lot of stuff – mostly traveling around Amsterdam, and to Brussels, Italy and Paris – besides breaking up with my girlfriend, getting rejected by a few girls in Amsterdam, and having come off as a complete jerk in front of my research colleagues by drinking too much in Alex’s graduation party and every Friday night hang out (turns out I even smoked a little bit in my drunken stupor on one of those nights).

I have been on a day trip (on 2^nd week of May – perfect time to visit) to Keukenhof (translated as Kitchen Garden) – an extremely beautiful garden just outside Amsterdam, with exhibition of thousands of Tulips and unfathomable beauty (btw, who grows tulips in their kitchen garden?). I went with Yusuke (a new Japanese post-doc in the group) and got totally crazy there with my camera – took 632 photographs in 4 hours, while Yusuke took another 230. The Saturday after that, I went to Brussels (Belgium) with Yusuke again, and also my Hungarian friend from Utrecht. It was a fantastic day – covered most of Brussels (it isn’t very far and will probably go there again soon – costed only 20 Euros for return journey): Grand Square, Manneken Pis (the peeing boy, I don’t understand the fascination of some artist with the sculpture of babies peeing in public), several cathedrals and basilicas (they all looked alike and I was bored in every one of them, except in one Saint Michelle cathedral or something), had Belgian waffles, Belgian beer and bought some Belgian chocolates. Interestingly, they also had a Gay Pride Parade on, always a fun experience - whether in London or in Brussels. A fun day, indeed! :D

Interestingly, however, 2 of my friends from Germany (Prithu and his friend Shruti) who had originally planned this Brussels trip and were supposed to join us in Brussels were smart enough to miss their train to Brussels, and had to come to Amsterdam instead. Well, I suppose they had a good time in Amsterdam that day and the next – with me, i.e., when we went to Heineken museum, had free beers, saw how they were traditionally brewed and had a lot of fun. Sticking to the tradition of tourism in Amsterdam, we went to the red light district but I didn’t feel any remorse this time – I guess I was ready for the onslaught. This time, however, on the insistence of Shruti, we tried spacecake – cake with weed in it. She wanted to smoke weed but had no experience in smoking so we decided to go with something we had so much experience in – eating cakes! Anyway, she just had a little bit of it while Prithu and I stuffed ourselves with that stuff. It didn’t feel anything for some time, but after an hour or so later, the marijuana started kicking in and I don’t remember how I got home after that – but I did anyway! I do remember eating all the Belgian chocolates I had got the previous day. I assume that's wht happened, because all I saw left of it next day was the empty box. Well, maybe next time I would just give smoking weed a shot, how much worse can it get???!!!!