differences and differences...

One important feature, I enjoy during my travel is the differences, just travel for an hour within a country(Italy) and how much differences you can experience.Especially this time, traveling with my brother who lived almost 10 years in North America and showing him the Europe for the first time, it was quite an experience. He freaked out seeing the houses as old as his American towns still happily floating in the Mediterranean sea in Venice, Navigating using the small city map in Rome, well! here the roads not exactly meet at right angles to each other, you are bound to get lost and use that as an excuse to stop an handsome Italian man to ask for directions, (thanks to the confusing roads of Rome). Small scooters rushing in the old stone paved roads of Florance, the church chandelier which inspired Galileo in Pisa. Not just the stones of colosseum, every stone in Italy was narrating the history of THE Romans. Not just this, the types of food, the amount of cheese used (still people are slim?,) the hotel rooms still use the classical keys (No electronic card), no street name in the cross roads (street names are mostly written on the buildings in the cross road),the size of the shower rooms etc. etc. every small things put my brother in surprise. Now that I am bit used to Europe, when I can I see something ' very different'.....very soon, I have to now run to two embassies to process my two visas to two countries in 'Middle East' (are they exactly in Middle East? ...may be..) and then join my friend Alcidio for lunch and hear about his last two months adventures in Africa. Thanks to the differences which still survive in the tough hands of Globalization.

Italy

Be a traveler or tourist, Italy have nice things to offer, check out the photos of two Indian tourists lost in the beauty of Italy. Trip to Italy with my brother.
VENICE ROME VATICAN FLORENCE PISA

Welcome to Europe!

Can you guess how long it takes to go from Paris to its airport? With the train strikes and the rugby final match adding fuel to the fire, it took me 9 hours, from door to door to go and receive my brother from the airport! Well! I didn’t have much time to complaint about it, now that my brother is with me and we are doing a stormy (you can all call it as “quick and dirty” or “a look and feel”) tour in Italy. yeah! that’s the first country he wanted to see in Europe, even before Paris, that too the whole country in just three days! Inspite of all I am having a great time, introducing my brother to my favorite Europe! I will update soon about the “look and feel” trip feels like.

Lot of things!

This Saturday was nuit blanche and the French's fate deciding rugby match. Had a nice Italian dinner party at my boss's house with his very first and latest students, both latest finished and latest ongoing (Anton and Me) watching the rugby match for the very first time in my life and that too I was able to catch my host country winning a very tough game. Humm! for the very first time in my life some events got repeated, Last year I had a stroll in my favorite square with Anton to see it lighted in blue for nuit blanche, this year out of mere coincidence we just repeated that after the dinner, this year the same square was lighted with lamps with fire. Check out the photos, you will not deny that it was taken in the romantic city, Paris. Well! this year too the road was filled with drunken people, even some drunken monkeys went into a museum (which is open over night for Nuit Blanche) and punched some million dollar worth Claude Monet's painting it seems! crazy!

October 08, 2006Nuit blanche Today is Nuit blanche (white Night) in Paris. Every year in October, I guess on full moon night they have this thing called white night, when all the museums are open for free till mid night and many art pieces and installations exhibited in main areas of paris. We went to an Iranian museum, many gold and silver art works remained me of ancient art pieces of India. I felt the same in last week’s Thai expo too. I guess our ancient India had lot of cultural and art exchanges with the neighbors. We just strolled through important monuments...that’s in my favorite square, Place de la concord.. Fountains and statues around the square were lighted blue. People were going crazy in the road,city looked as if the whole Paris was on the street, took a hell lot of time to drive back home, with the drunken teenagers jumping in the streets.

Heureusement que dans vie ...

Heureusement que dans vie certaines choses refusent de changer (Fortunately somethings in life doesn't change).. Like me trying to learn a language. I joined my French class again for the third time, i successfully failed and was happily taken in level one by the Paris municipality for adult education. It was my first day in a cute little école élémentaire (elementary school), sitting in the tiny chairs and benches I started my French classes all over again. Like our parents get us new bags and pencils to encourage us to go to school, Anton sent me this French (Canadian) song, very meaningful, its about how fast things are changing from generation to generation.. I am sure one day in my life I can speak French!