Paris, je t'aime

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I ❤ visiting Paris. Never worked there and not sure if I would like to that since work life could be difficult. I visited many many times thanks to living/life in luxembourg, paris was just 2hrs train/car ride. its lovely place to visit, so much to do and any number of days are never quite enough.

Bridges lined up with lamps, wicker-chair-lined cafe terraces, tree shaded boulevards, charm the city while the grand public monuments add grandeur to remind you that this is one of the most beautiful cities on earth. Every part of city has story and boutiques, street artists, music are fabulous. specially la Basilique steps are performing stage for very many street musicians and very good way to spend lazy weekend evenings with sunsetting in the background, wonderful diverse globally music, friends by the side.. discovering new meaning for wonderful life..

why suddenly this..! just happen to interactive with someone from paris & spoke to friends in paris triggering my cherishing memories of paris visits.

Out of nowhere...

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one fine day just recently, out of nowhere I got this facebook message from a stranger..

I lived in barcelona once, I love the city. I have a great romance to have such lifestyle to travel around make silly message, videos,..one day.. some day..

Soooo much has happened..

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Yes Iam still alive and so is this blog. so much has happened since I was here last.
In chronologically order..: after my wonderfully georgia trip-
Roamed in Rome.. (title thanks to suggestion from an sweet-soul).., I had spent one summer month in rome, very very hot, half naked rome and too many tourists. but still very nice. I manage to meetup with some wonderful, interesting folks. out n about with my new found buddies, testing all possible italian foods, drinks, talking about all shift under the sun.. and all in the name of "the family"(bank's team)). ya, that has become the stand line.. "all for the family". felt i was part of italian mafia family.. unplanned visit to Vatican, I had audience with pop. while it was nice to say that but it wasn't good facebook status message. I had to clarify that it wasn't very "personal"..;) [/no offense pls..]

faced with yet another relocation in life.. but before, last week in luxembourg, the place has grown on me.. (no i didnt cry))i did felt nostalgic when i was packing my bags. kissing good bye(for now) to friends. for many reason- this past 2yrs has been interesting and luxembourg did played its part...for all the contact & friends i made & for all the new experiences..
took a brief break in london. wow, not many place is so wonderful as london under the sun. I dont know for some reason, London always feel like second home. I was relocating to far east and far away from europe which was my home for past 5yrs.. so it was good bye for now trip to all friends in london.. and to london itself.
couple of weeks break at home.. visited home sweet home..it was very short but memorable for few reasons...
-- wonderful date with two & half women. universe played one wonderful trick to get me in contact with these cheerful souls. I met and continued the conversation as if I knew them for ages.. actually, I do know them for age may be not in conversation way. homemade wine.. my receipe & their hardwork.. yummee.. isn't that lovely gift.

-- then another date with another sweet well-wisher..
-- warming for my investments..
-- adding kgs (like I always do when i go home...;/ and now my BMI moved to overweight category..;(
yada yada yada....

relocation from one tiny country to another.. Landed in Singapore: oh boy.. what a change.. things couldn't be any different... for indians singapore should feel like home but I had culture shock.. took sometime to get used to things here.. finding house: singapore is very organized and easy to get settled but i have to say of all the places I moved to, it was here I find it difficult to fix an apartment. may be Iam biased or may be its still fresh in my memory but It wasn't easy and it isn't cheap. finally, I did manage to find wonderful apartment at river side.
and with some already known names, faces finding my feet in new place was made easier... and one recent weekend- frnd living in melborne transited via singapore..stayed in Marina Sands Bay. wow.. awesome place to stay.. very nice poool.. on 57th floor.. 500$/night is worth it and it was very pleasant to catchup with my mate..

otherwise, manage to hook up with some lovely friends(of friends).. that kept some weekends busy in exploring the places (bars/pubs/clubs/restaurants,/..).. and stumble upon nice hippie crowd(from CSurf) and standup open mike event 1st wed. of every month..by comedy club asia. very nice gig. (if you in singapore, would strongly recommend that). got connected to natural loving walking/hiking group & photowalks group. hope to go whenever timepermits.
and with effect to build healthy lifestyle, embarked on some interesting experiences. cycling my new found love.. singapore has wonderful long bike tracks along the coast. it was very activity to bike for couple of hours.. 25km..hope to do that regularly. dragon boat riding: another new found love. joined a team and practice every weekend..hoping to participant in River Regatta competition in Oct. ya hoping..

past couple of months had been exciting, many first/new things, 'if only' /interesting moments.. (like the past 30yrs..;)

wondering around - in Georgia

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I had 3weeks of excitement traveling around Georgia. I had no idea & expectation about Tbilisi and its surrounding. All I knew was the recent war between Georgia and Russia. I landed there to find country very similar to India. no traffic rules, pot holes, nice people, religions, great food…my god, food is awesome & cheap (do try Georgian cuisine).

My friend decided to join me for 5day long weekend. Tbilisi is relatively small city so we would walk most to places and taxi was cheap anyways. During week days, dinner was at nice Georgian restaurants recommended by lonely planet. Till Friday evening 9pm we had no fixed plans for the weekend. All came together in last minute. Found one nice english speaking guide to drive us around. We went on roadtrip to the country side of Georgian. Sighnagi beautiful hill-town, Telavi wine region, vardzia caves close to Turkey & Armenia border, Caucasus Mountains valley, which I should say is stunningly beautiful. Georgian wine is nice. Interesting very old churches, cave mountains,… many things to see and do. Unfortunate we couldn’t do adventure sports, since May is still too early we were told. Georgian is orthodox country and one of the first countries to become Christian. ofcourse during USSR days, religion was practiced in secret. Second language is used to be Russian but these day many young people are learning English as second language. I never had any language problem.

Some interesting highlights:
• Indian movies are big in Georgian. Most people mention the (old) hindi movie names and actor/actress names. one TV channel (India Tv)show Indian movies & drama 24x7 with Russian voice over. (and taxi drivers all they want to talk about is how good hindi movies are and how good looking georgian girls are,)
• People are very very friendly, everywhere I go.. in underground train, street corner while walking, etc… some people walk up and ask where I am from, talk about india, movies, etc.. offer to help, offer for drinks,.. not just once but this happened many times during my stay. Meet two guys who offer me to take me around places and took me drinks and meet nice wonderful & her cousins for drinks,.. had fun time with those folks.
• Many Indian students are studying medicine in Tbilisi. I meet one such student, a boy(Mr.D) from my hometown. He is been there for almost 4years and had interesting stories about life in Tbilisi, others students & their background, their hopes & straggles. Hearing those stories only make me to appreciate my life even more. D was explain how he miss home sometime but he doesn’t think he ever go back to india and live there because he is gay (and actually he can’t even live in Georgia forever). He is lovely kind soul, interesting fellow, took me around places and to nice Georgian restaurant will live Georgian music & dance. He was sharing his experience of travelling to Iran and talking about people in Iran so kind and generous. So many offered him place to stay, food… for free. Thanks to couchsurfing.org , which is how he pinged me too.
• Took intercity bus ride to Gori, joseph stalin hometown. Bus ride in itself is an experience. And I noticed Stalin still have some sympathizers. And his old house, his train coach, is part of museum where I could sit in the his chair & his bed… and take picture. Ofcourse it was not allowed but I charmed tour guide lady to take my pictures. she said, since I came all the way from India and she never had Indian tourists there before, She will allow me to take picture sitting in stalin chair..:) I noticed for stalin’s 70th birthday, gift was sent from India. it’s a writing on rice. Its no surprise museum was bad maintained (by Georgian govt.) and you can’t fail to notice many young couples sitting in many corners of the museum complex and on the step of stalin’s old house and making out.
• I hitch-hiked. Yap I did.;D) exciting fun. Should I say anymore..;) I thought only mini-skirts blondes will get rides. But thank god I was wrong. Some kind souls gave me the left. I had no plans or destination; I went in the direction I got ride. And landed in beautiful little historical town Gardabani.

And Unfortunate I would not go to Azerbaijan, Armenia, so near yet so far. If I had to find a word to describe my trip…its Excitement.

wondering around - part 1

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As mentioned ( land of music) I did the trip to Austria. Onward Night Train journey introduced me to follow traveler. Yet another random meetup, an interesting travel companion & I decided to explore the place together.

Unplanned day trip to Bratislava, Slovakia. City is pleasant surprise with very interesting sculptures at almost every corner of old town. Walked around on grey day but unfortunately couldn’t catch ferry back to Vienna. while train journey is quicker but i thought ferry ride could have been more interesting.

Vienna – everywhere its all about Mozart. OK I get it Mozart… is important man for western classical music but Vienna is certainly more than Mozart. I was very curious to find about Sigmund Freud and It wasn’t very easy to find any trace. And ofcourse, many locals talked about another popular Austrian-american - Arnold Schwarzenegger. :) And thing which I don’t know before – Graffiti started in vienna. Street art were found in many place and my favorites are at kirchengasse, donaukanal, nashmarkt, burggasse, beritegasse,..

Next stop Salzburg- woke up late, walked up to festung fortress- nice view of the city. Came down, had nice food, relaxing in local café, reading a book. ‘Hello mr’ a voice from behind. Old man asked if am I a tourists!...that was the start of interesting hour long conversation about the city, history, india,.. he offered to play chess on the giant chess board painted onto the ground in old town. I won..oh ya I did.;) afternoon, sound music tour.. that’s a must in Salzburg. Another interesting fact which I didn’t know before- sound of music movie is not popular in Austria.. they have their own (original story) german version of trapp family.
Salzburg Street music


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And OK, Yes I am Indian but cricket does not excite me anymore. but I have to say this IPL T20 season somehow got me. I couldn’t help but to watch last two matches played by my hometown team and cheer for their victory in finals.
now, I heard Indian cricket team went out of world champions with very very poor performance. my message to Indian cricket fan: GET OVER IT.

Let’s start talking

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Growing up I was introvert, shy boy. While I was comfortable starting conversation with some people from common forum (school, university, work place…) but I didn’t feel comfortable among strangers and self-confidence wasn’t my USP. Like most Indians, we don’t always talk to strangers especially to opposite gender. We just look at them from distance and keep wondering should we talk or not.

Somewhere along my journey that got changed slowly. I always had great interest in travelling and I did travel all my life… family summer trip to various parts of India very couple of years from Kashmir to Andaman Islands and I started travelling very early in my career as well but before 6 or 7yrs ago I was relatively new to backpacking experience. I used to share my place-to-visit list, plan trips and would request friends to come along.

Once Me & friend of mine made trip to Romania. This was before Romania was part EU/schengen. He planned the trip and I tagged along. We flew into Bucharest and took train to Brasov. One impressive charming young girl and another gloriously beautiful young girl was sitting opposite to us. And If it’s like in the movies then boy would start talking to the girl and sooner or later song/dance would happen. But we were just two Indian boys still not sure how to start the conversation. 10mins into the journey, the girls started talking to each other in Romanian and we boy was still busy looking at them and imagine song/dance in our heads. 20mins into the journey, one girl saw my friend reading a newspaper. she asked if she would take look. Ofcourse he wasn’t going to deny it. within like 2/3mins later, she returned the paper back. Curious us asked why! and started talking to the gals. Turns out the girls weren’t travelling together. They were strangers to each others. This girl couldn’t even read English well. She asked for the newspaper just to start the conversations with us. so the Charming girl was a teacher(girl sitting left in the photo above) traveling back home and beautiful girl was model(girl sitting right) in Paris. Yes :) 30mins into the conversation, she started showing her portfolio book with all these great photos of her. The girls told us- what to do, where to go, what not to do, etc… by the end of the train ride, we exchanged our contact details. My friend & I kept wondering, admiring how impressive these girls started the conversation with strangers/boys and how we boys suck at it. After wonderful day trip around Brasov, we reached our hostel and noticed we share the hostel room with two young girls from Scotland doing backpacking trip. We are quick earners now we knew how to start a conversations. So started talking- our travel plans, their travel plans, good pubs nearby, etc... And that’s how I started my conversations with strangers.

This experience wasn’t about boys talking to gals. But It was about young Indian boy feeling comfortable with myself to make connects with any strangers regardless of nationality, gender… and making life experience more adventures, interesting & diverse. Since then I was never dependent of any of my friends to travel along because I realized world of full of yet-to-be-friends.

We appreciate our families & buddies for adding colors to our life but we tend to over look those souls who visit us just for brief period- during a trip, in a pub, in hotel/hostels, ticket queues, follow traveler. My life is full of those interesting people, fabulous moments and I am a better person because of them, you, all of you. I will not say thank you since there is no need for thanks & sorry among friends. right!?;)

Land of Music

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As I will sleep in comfortable pullman berth,
night train will bears me to place of worth.
When my eyes open to blissfully sun,
I’ll reach the wondrous land.
No doudt this journey bound to bide content,
as I took heed to make it a wonderful event.

That's My Favourite things too


Raindrops on roses and whiskers on kittens
Bright copper kettles and warm woolen mittens
Brown paper packages tied up with strings
These are a few of my favorite things

Cream colored ponies and crisp apple streudels
Doorbells and sleigh bells and schnitzel with noodles
Wild geese that fly with the moon on their wings
These are a few of my favorite things

Girls in white dresses with blue satin sashes
Snowflakes that stay on my nose and eyelashes
Silver white winters that melt into springs
These are a few of my favorite things

When the dog bites
When the bee stings
When I'm feeling sad
I simply remember my favorite things
And then I don't feel so bad

Vote for Backpacking Ninja

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Travel has been part of my dna. Growing up my dad never missed any opportunity for family holidays to travel all corners of india (and nepal). Every couple of years, we used up his LTC scheme to travel 30/45days summer trip to travel across the country. we started from Kashmir when I was 7/8yr old and his last LTC trip before retirement was to Andaman islands. Traveling was part of my childhood, so it was natural for me to use up all possible to relocate and travel with every possible opportunity i had to explore new places and people. its great liberating experience.

My personality test say i am a explorer type. but frankly for most part i had decent job with possibilities to travel to various countries and I did my pick for 20-30days/year vacation travel. and I even took break from my worklife to explore few corners but minute I got good decent job offer, I came back to comfort-zone.
I always had great admiration for traveler, lonely planet book maker. (Roff's vagabonding was good read and now he is my facebook friend..;))

anyways, point is-I have been stocking Backpacking Ninja aka aparna for sometime now. All I know is- she has passion to explore and courage to let go daily lazy life. That's very admiring skills to have.

Now I hear she is finalist for India Today's search for explorer.

and for me, her story is worth voting for. Ok honestly I am biased even other's stories seems to be cool. but vote for her anyways.;)
vote here @ Titan World

while I was away- part 3

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Weekend before the last, I made trip to Alicante, Spain to catch-up with a friend. I don’t know much about the place. but I thought its good excuse to visit another place in lovely spain. If you don’t know already, I am totally biased towards anything & everything about Spain, my first love.

Alicante,is little coastal town. european commission being the biggest employer, which is were my friend works. I say little but its bigger than luxembourg.;) place to see- castle on top the mountain and nice view on a clear day overlooking the beach one side and city on the other. it was close to 20degrees in mid-november. loved it. Spain like greece typical mediterranean culture, people having dinner at 11pm going out to pubs/bars at 1am..and some bars are opened only at 3:30am. needless to say about crazy night outs. less said the better.;) what's more wonderful..is the interesting people I meet.

friday night..meet Mar, who couldn't speak english..but she kept the conversation with some translation help from my friend. That’s very nice of her. one of many things what I like about Spain & Spanish people...even without the language they always try to be inclusive. their kindness to be immigrates (not just high-skilled but everyone) and their general awareness of the world..very good..

saturday dinner & sunday lunch was at friend's friend place. german guy & france guy was the host us and hooked up with very deserve group..age, nationality, et..food= asian food. they cooked chinese & korean food. host is travelers. they work 6month save money and travel for 9months. asia is their favorite destination..it was nice to take about their travel experience..

I so wish, I could be as content and as free flying bird like them.

while I was away - part 1

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ok..not sure you care about it, but thought I should update the journal.

almost 4weeks back, I went on 9days road trip in south west France with a friend and wanted to write about the experience but it’s so beyond words I kept postponing to post. And I don’t want to write about place to see, things to do since I can’t do better job than folks at lonely plant, tripadvisor, virtualtourists.

Our whole trip was constructed & executed under a week. often the best trips are those which was arranged in last minute. after couple of mail exchanges, me & my friend finalized route map and after couple of hours call time, we finalized hotel bookings. that's it, all done. off we went.

start point- Bordeaux airport, that's were me & my friend met. hired citroen C2, off we go... on the way, we wanted to buy some stuff. we saw carefour and with all the excitement without knowing, we were driving on walking area..;) trip started on perfect note. Our tom-tom(GPRS) name was rooth (its a she..although its driving direction device..;) I am told its because of her voice and so we named our car James(he) just to give her(rooth) some excitement about the trip.

first stop- saint emillion, checked into to big hotel(with not so big rooms..setting the expectation for the whole trip). had nice dinner with local wine.. walking around in moon light was good fun. next day we visited vineyard Chateau La Couspaude run by friend-of-friend's...understanding wine making processes, tasting merlot red,..fabulous and touring underworld chruch.

mr.nice vineyard guy recommended a pitshop at st.Pardon to watch waves from sea thru river famous among local surfers. but we waited for almost an hour but no waves to be seen. we moved out. it seems wave wasn't that big anyways.


next- Cognac,. another tiny town and nice hotel. next day- turned out to be the best experience. via some random friend’s connection, we got royal tour of Hennessey cognac house. Understanding cognac blending process and seeing vintage(1900, 1934, 1800..)ya, 1800 vintage(and best is yet to come.) Met Mr. Maurice Hennessey family member of Richard Hennessey, he explained us history Hennessey ads and talking about Hennessey business during french revolutions & world wars. he took us to Hennessey guest house(/wonderful castle) for very nice lunch and signed off with Fine Cognac bottle/gift bag. off to next destination with evening cafe stop at Brantome.

next stop- Périgueux another tiny town. interesting story here is- McD is banned in the city(which I think is good). and we met another random local friend(of a friend..of a friend). snowing us around and making fun of our sense of architecture (names & brands). Had nice dinner with some strange conversations about capitalism v socialism, life's expectations, how much money required for retirement. needless to say some misunderstanding & assumptions, finally all got clarified.

Next day- based on his recommendation we did pitstops visiting toute la grotte de Lascaux, cave paints of pre-historic men. Well another excitement was- gas was running out. James(our car) had Gas for 80kms, we found one gas stations but I said we can re-fill in next one. And then, heart was beating little/tiny bit faster..wishing & hoping to find gas stations. and we finally did found one after 73km..;)

next day- heading towards Rocamadour. road was blocked due to construction work. But Instead of finding alternate route, I did the brave Indian act, just moved the block sign and drive thru to reach our destinations.;) our stopover was Rocamadour, lovely hilly town.

next was long driving day..visiting Toulouse and reaching Biarritz, another beautiful coastal town. evening we decided to give james(our car)rest. walked sea side. had sangria watching surfers...after nice dinner & drinks. we thought we could walk back to hotel. but ofcourse it had to happen..we got lost..;) called a friend in london to google us the directions..we ended-up in local bar and asked the guy to call taxi for us..;) safely reaching the hotel.

next day..trip to san Sebastian Spanish town of Basque country. most of the day was washed way. so we ended-up having nice Spanish lunch with sangria and ice cream in the rain.
on the way back to biarritz, pit stop at St Jean de Luz bought tasting famous macarons at Maison Adam.

next day- relaxing breakfast at biarittz. pit stop to dune du plya - largest sand dune in Europe. Thankfully no rain so we could have good view from the top and did sand surfing to get down.

reaching our next stop-over at arcachon, another nice coastal retirement town(translation= full of old people). We did long walk in the beach and had nice dinner & wine.
next day..to chateau doisy-daene, a family run classified vineyard(run by friend of..a friend). tasting nice sweet white sauternes..2009 vintage straight from barrel.

Day ended in Bordeaux- it was good bye time to james after 1820km drive. kissed good bye to my friend..

I spent the night walking around Bordeaux city center and took train to Paris next day early morning to met another friend. she recently relocated back to Paris from Luxembourg. so my final day- walking around in streets of Paris. wonderful lunch, watching street artists, evening at Basilique du Sacre Coeur, sitting in steps listening to street musicians who were taking turns to amuse the crowd with lovely guitar music.

Ofcourse I just don't have enough words to explain some of the stranger conversations, episodes, highlights of our trip…like our quest for pharmacy and then finding in very place when we don’t need one, my friend’s addiction to cheese, foie-gras..;), saying “please thanks woof” all the time to every other(mocking english politeness), my music awareness enhanced with introduction of Citizen cope, above & beyond, oceanlab, thirteen Senses, etc...

one of the best travel week of my life came to an end. all good things should end. by product is- exciting memory to cherish.

London

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was in London and it felt like home--almost. Ever since I relocated out of london, for some reason or other I went back every once a while just to keep in touch with one of my beloved city. I have no great reasons but it does feel like home may be because of friends or food,..=)

I landed at 6pm and by 7pm I ended-up in usual places doing usual things. visit to mahalakshmi temple-just for ladoos.) and saravana bhavan eating dosa. sometime doing silly things feels like heaven, this was one of those things. Its bad that the week I was there tubes were on strike and my friends(local guardians) were out of town. I wasn't booked to stay back for the weekend. thanks to few friends, i stayed at their place. friday night we were in local pub taking marriage..and our usual topic of discussion- getting of rat race and doing something interesting. so this time discussion was about business plans for setting-up bed n breakfast outside barcelona. somehow i have good feeling about this. this could happen someday.

Simple relaxing sunny weekend with football(watching only not playing, since i didnt have proper shoes..)) and australia football(rugby).. lunch at pizza express, siesta. thought cricket to Spainish guy & American lady..=) I did well because they understood and were cheering for India against england next day. And dinner at nice french restaurant. sunday was in marylebone summer fayre and manage to catchup with SN talking about the usuals & watching T20WC and took flight back to current home base.

I couldn't catchup with all my friends but that's good enough reason to make trip again.

Everytime Iam london, i ask myself why did i decided to relocate out of london? while life was kind and had great experience since i moved out, i always wondered what would have happened if I would have stayed back.!? may be i dont like comfortzone and want to test myself among unknown places & people or may be iam just crazy. atleast i dont intend to do that for long and someday i would endup in home or a place close to home or a place which feels like home. until then--- I so wishes to be punkrocker...

Keukenhof

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I tried to come up with words to description the beauty & colour at Keukenhof Tulip Garden.
I couldn't, so decided just to share the photos.

Duck Race 2009

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Plastic ducks gathered in Luxembourg City Duck Race, a chairity event is organized. 5€ duck will benefit a charity to support TEO, an association committed to helping children who are suffering from brain tumors or head trauma.

the race was held in the Pétrusse valley,Grund with entertainment, food, drinks all over the place. It was good summer excuse for families to get out of house with kids.

All the ducks were numbered corresponding to a number of the ticket. The first ducks to cross the finish first will receive one of many prizes such as trips, gift certificates, dinners and other attractive prizes offered by sponsors. This year's first prize was a New Twingo car.

for the records- just checked the website for results, I haven't won any prize. anyways it was fun.