Ola Lisboa !! - Portugal Visit Part 1

So I'm in Lisbon, Portugal. And the experience till now has been amazing, atleast as far as the city is concerned.
For starters old Lisbon is the most utterly romantic city I've ever seen yet. the narrow cobbled paths, the roadside cafes where you can just stare into the mist covering the city, and the colorful buildings lining the narrow streets, makes you want to hungrily absorb in as much as your eyes can take.
Considering that I have office on weekdays, I've taken to touring on the weekends.
What I've seen till now:

Old Lisbon from the top of a tram -
This was the first weekend, where we got out of the hotel, a little nervous and confused, coz conversing in this city is the most difficult part of any sight seeing. Everything is invariably in portuguese, and so once we got onto the bus, we didn't have a clue as to where to get down. the streets are spotted with figurines and gates bang in the middle of the streets, and somehow, they still look so in place.
Lisbon's architecture is a striking clash of the old world and new, the small one-vehicle-at-a-time streets pour out into huge roads, spotted with modern hotels and designer shops alongside cute little pastelarias(pastry shops).
This tour was an architectural revelation and an awesome one at that!!!

Sintra -
This is a little outside Lisbon. Next week, I ventured out, alone to Sintra, a 45 minutes train journey from Lisbon (Train station - Rossio). Armed with 'Lonely Planet ' which J gave me(God bless him) before I came here, and due to my expertise in dumb charades(!) I reached, quite safely, to Estefania.
You can climb up to the castles, or just take the tourist buses that take you around upwards to the castles and ruins that dot Sintra. As soon as the bus starts on the winding road up, you get the feeling of entering Cinderella land. The landscape is a mixture of the wild and the cultured, the pretty and the kitsch.
It's dotted by sprawling parks amidst wilderness. Unfortunately for me, due to some misguided advice, I reached pretty late. So I could visit just one site, that is the Palacio Nacional da Pena.
This is a sprawling and I guess the biggest park of Sintra, the peak of which holds the weirdly beautiful Palace, in pale yellow, pink and lavender turrets.

The most striking thing of the palace is the combination of architectures which you get to see here. Every room is full of art pieces, apparently , because of the fear of open spaces, during the 16th centuries. The rooms are hoarded with art like Messian porcelain furniture, a wall of unfinishe nudes(Dom Carlos I), Ferdinand designed China, Papier mache furniture and glass top holders, Indian and Arabic art, and so on.
In short, this palace looks like the perfect place of pleasure and sin, which is surprising, because the Palace is a reconverted Convent. This is the kind of place which takes you back into an era of high passions, kings and queens, and princesses in ball gowns.
After 3 hours, I had to drag myself out, so that I reached back on time. I hope to go again to Sintra to see the rest of the sites, and this time Im going early and trekking to the top !!

To be continued...

Environmental Products

Save the environment!! Great....so I have been scouring endless sites to find something that I can really buy and reduce the burden on our fast crumbling planet.

All I could lay my hands on were products which were:

1. Too bulky and oversized for a small place like mine (Solar, wind items)
2. Too expensive (Again solar cookers)
3. Too self involved, like this never ending range of herbal skin products, which I don't see how are going to save the earth
4. Irrelevant and environmentally damaging products like wooden toys which would have involved a bit of tree cutting I assume
5. Recycled Paper - good, but its not only very expensive to be substituted for paper, but also very shabbily bound and too unwieldy

And then the environmentalists crying hoarse about global warming wonder why we are not going green and behaving like deaf mutts. Consider all the countries which are really damaging this pretty green earth...hell, consider India...
With a majority of the population struggling for a one time meal, you can't expect them to buy recycled paper for their morning roadside business, or a solar cooker to cook yesterday's leftovers from some restaurant.
So where does that leave us? What other options do we have here?
Maybe tell people to buy lesser cars? Well, for all those egoistic I've-newly-found-wealth IT industry show offs, it's a hard argument to push down their throats. Or in cities like Pune, with a rotten public transport system, I'd rather go anywhere by auto than a bus.

My main aim of the rant being, if any change has to take place, the alternatives should be cheaper, faster, and better than the smoke and toxic spewing instruments we have. They also need smarter marketing than just saying they are environmentally friendly, because even though that sounds like a moral compulsion, people are expert at arguing against compunctions.

After all, the argument of a dying world doesn't click in the brain as fast as anything related to money and convenience does.

PS: Both my homes are now totally bulb free. We've gone in for the CFLs which reduce harmful CO2 emissions. They are expensive but more than make up for the initial cost by having a really long life and also come with a year's warranty. I personally also prefer the white light of the CFLs to the bright yellow blobs.
For more information: http://weblog.greenpeace.org/ban_the_bulb/

2008!!

2007 just ended, well 2 days back...
In keeping with the tradition, we planned a careful menu, for just the 5 of us, 5 1/2 considering my niece too :)
I got to be head chef this year, and also chose the menu....so we spent the morning on 31st buying exotic(read expensive) ingredients, and afternoon onwards to make sure everything including the house, was in order.
As usual, the wine department was with A, while a break from always, I was delegating instead of being the helping hand in the food. So I was extra nervous as to how it would all turn out.
We had a simple menu of greek salad, spinach and cheese pie, and penne arabiata, with the grand finale of a heavily loaded chocolate cake.
The wine was white, Centerra, something A had picked up in Singapore. Wine glasses set, cutlery laid out, and the food, after a few corrections and recorrections to each item's taste(with 3 women tasting it, there's bound to be confusion!), everything rolled out perfect and the wine kept flowing until the last cake crumb. Damn tired after all the cooking, especially Mom and R, but was worth it.
We got our biggest compliment from the smallest member of our family, when she refused to eat her rice, and kept pointing to the pie and pasta. Hmm, she loved it....so did we.. :)

PS: Had a scary thought when the clock struck 12. I just realised I don't remember much of anything worthwhile that I did last year. Maybe an indication of how fast time flies. Some months just merge into one another, and it hits you after a while, that the best part of life was wasted in a blur you don't even remember.

Solstice!!!

Friday Dec 2007

This week has been very hectic….started off with me realizing I have a lot to study (don’t ask for what ;-))

On Friday while I’m going to Bombay, I’m toying with the idea of not showing up at Solstice….have hardly slept through the week, have been through a few setbacks and illnesses, and I’m not looking forward to all the early morning buses and flights…

Friday turns out to be one mad day in Bombay….went home, unpacked, got ready for a meeting. Almost reached late (The road to Lands End is so screwed up). After an hour of talking finance, my brain is totally fried, and I almost run out of there. From there to Nanavati Hospital to meet a relative, then to buy a perfume, from there to meet my dear friend M and then my sister’s place, by the time I’m home, I can hardly talk to anyone.

Still have to decide if I should not go, but fall asleep while thinking…have a nightmarish dream at 4 am in the morning.

Finally I fell asleep, after coaxing my hazed out mind that it was just a dream, and by the time I finally started drifting asleep, the irritating alarm rings, bugged I put it on snooze…3ce!!!

Saturday Dec 2007 – Pre Solstice

When I’m late, everything that can and cannot go wrong does!!

So after 3 snoozes, I’m up, groggy eyed and cursing myself for taking morning flights…in the strange workings of the sleepy “looking-for-a-reason-to-sleep” mind, I decide I’ll go if I’m meant to go, and I’ve hit the bed again, when my Dad wakes me up…

Finally I’m up, get ready, pack my bag, and I’m off, about 20 minutes left for the check in counter to close. I leave the house and catch an auto, and halfway to the airport (which is thankfully close to my house) I realize I’ve left my cell phone home. I retrace, and now my dad is really worried when I show up.

So a minute before the counter closes I’m standing there out of breath, and out of sheer cheek, shamelessly asked her if she could upgrade me, while she’s giving me a “where do these people come from” look!!! Well, the Gods finally decided to put their heads together and make Solstice happen for me, her manager walks in, and with an irritated flip of her head, not only allows me in, but I also get to fly Business class!!…Finally a good Omen!!!

Checked in and ‘securitied’, where I meet a batchmate, we spend an hour in delay, and I’m glad Ive got company at the airport and afterwards. Noneventful flight, except that I was trying hard to sleep, but the nice airhostess with the fake smile insisted on me eating food.

Finally Hyderabad airport, and for the first time in a few days, I’m happy I came, as I see the familiar Hyderabad airport around me. So we wait (interminably) for the luggage, and then on the way, my thrill increases as I see the familiar roads, and as I remember the places we’ve gone to, and the times we had a year back…

Finally we arrive at the “Indian School of Business” gate, and I feel the same awe and silent pride I felt when I first entered the somber campus a year back…

Saturday Dec 2007 – Solstice!!!!!!!!

Those beautiful lawns, the same SVs, and the stillness of the ISB afternoon feels so good!!! Everything as is, as if we never left!!!

I reach A’s studio…chit chat for a while, he’s trying to convince me to register… I’m too lazy to go. Finally I’m off, and I almost run into a jog, desperate to see that beautiful atrium. Meet so many batchmates there…a million hugs and how are you doings…some contact number swapping. This is where I try calling "kiddo" and he gives me some hogwash of coming in an hour….several hours and phone calls later I’m still at the atrium, chit chatting with batchmates, and he refuses to show up….I give up waiting, go to A’s place again to freshen up. Chit chat there with A’s wife (A is apparently playing some games in “Bind Unwind” planned for the Alums) for a long time. Then in true "kiddo" style, he calls, 4 hours later, then gets impatient, coz I took half an hour to reach the atrium!!!

We all attend the key note function. In the main key note, I’m suddenly hungry. We slip out of the Q-A and reach CCD. Its nice to see another coffee shop there, I didn’t go even go inside the Sarovar coffee shop, I’ve had enough of veg puffs over there to last a lifetime!!

Go wearing casuals to the Dean’s dinner, it’s a bit embarrassing, most people have turned up in formals. “Network” a bit, then sample (read filch) food off people’s plates, and wines off their glasses ;)

To cut a very very long story short, we end up visiting the SV I stayed in, the LRC, the ACs, and the whole year comes flooding back, all the memories, the studying, partying, chai sessions with friends…I just realized how much I miss it now!!

Finally attended the Indian Ocean Rock concert and the party afterwards, which in ISB tradition(though the current batch has time restrictions!!) went on till dawn.

Sunday and after…

Good things get over fast – like that one year at ISB, and Solstice J

Went for one last look of the ISB campus in the morning…even though my legs were really hurting after the partying…Left the campus with a heavy heart.

Now I’m in office, recuperating from the excesses, still thinking of a lot of things, people and memories…missed a few close friends who couldn’t turn up…glad that a few others did :D

In a haze...

This year just fled by, last December I was in ISB, seems like a lifetime…

I don’t seem to have done much after starting work….maybe a bit of gymming, a bit of partying, and a few movies on the way, and one or two roadtrips…. Nothing that is memorable, or worth recounting. And that kind of makes me wonder what’s the point of working if the work is nothing even a non graduate can’t do, what’s the point of partying if I can’t recount any, what’s the point of working out, if it’s not exciting and fun?

Or am I still missing squash, going on trips with my family, working as a developer where the logic and code design I made was with my neck on the line?

Maybe I am, or I’m sure I am. Need to do something about it, maybe try some adventure sport, or give some high fundo exam....something that will challenge my own beliefs of what I can and can't do