The Tourist- Part 2 - Paris

One can never go wrong with Paris, with so much of history behind it, natural beauty & soaked in beautiful architecture , it has always been a travelers delight. 

Unlike my last trip, my current trip to Paris was planned in advance . All bookings including hotel & travel were pre booked.

This was to be my fourth visit to this beautiful european city. So far I had only travelled to Paris as a bachelor but this time it was along with my better half.

The trip was for three days & in order for us to maximise our time , we started planning early.

I had bought the trusted National Geographic travel guide book of Paris, fortunately for me , this book was on sale , so got it in the cheap.

I was tasked to be the planner by my better half , so read through the book and made up a plan . We were looking forward for the trip.

The journey to the French capital was by a coach . As is often said, nothing actually goes to a plan.

The first thing that happened early on in the trip was that our coach journey was extremely difficult , unlike our previous coach  journey to Amsterdam , this coach had smaller leg space & we suffered quite heavily due to lack of space.

We arrived on early Friday morning , weary and tired . Our bodies were aching , I had anticipated that we would be tired , hence had booked an extra day for our stay which will enable us to rest ourselves and tour the city .

Just as we were looking forward to check in to our rooms, we were told by the hotel staff that our booking had been cancelled, however there were rooms available for the next two days covering our itinerary , we had no choice but to book the rooms but could only check in at noon.

We had about five hours to spend before check in time, we decided to put our belongings in a locker .

We did just that and we went to nearest train station. Once there , we purchased a three day travel card which gave us unlimited travel in the city.

Our first port of call was Opera , this is where ballet and great operas take place. However it was too early for it to be open, so we had to do with few snaps from the outside. From there we made our way to Starbucks to kill some time, fortunately they also had free WiFi and we made optimum use of, little did i know , how decisive knowing this startbucks would be later on the trip.

We then made our way to Place Vendom, marked in the history , this place has a central tomb and is a visitors delight.

From there we made our way to Jardine de Tuileries , which is a beautiful garden near Rue de Ravioli and it's known for it's arrangement of the trees and it's beauty .

The Trees gave way to the Concorde palace and the beginning of Champs Eleysee, we walked across to Les Invalides , the army museum , everything was just beautiful.

Then we made our way to Arc De Triomphe , the arc of victory . Exhausted we had a brunch consisting of cappuccino and sandwich , toughest part was making people understand the concept of vegetarian, which was a tough thing to achieve in this trip. Post visiting the Arc, we made our way back to the hotel to check in and refresh ourselves, couple of hours of rest and we were raring to get out again.

We toured the length and breadth of the city , starting at the two islands, Ile de la Cite & Ile Ste Louis,  formed by river seine , this was natural beauty , we walked across key points of the islands as explained in the national geographic guide, we were blown away by the natural beauty of the islands and to top it all the architectural marvel of Notredame, which was the highlight of the day . The Notredame was simply stunning, it was architectural brilliance at its very best.

Three hours later , we were at the end of the second island , from where we made our way to Bastille , where the central tomb carries the victory flame , am not so sure what the significance of this tomb was but certainly looks very important given it's place in centre of the city. 

We then made our way to Gare Du Lyon , one of the biggest railway station in Paris from where millions of people make connections to other European destinations year around.

The next on our agenda was Effiel tower but before that we had to finish lunch , it was already 18:45 pm and we were starving .As usual there was no vegetarian food , even in Mcdonalds, we had to do with two croissants.

Post our walking lunch , we made our way to Effiel tower. I had been here before and climbed the tower & watched the light dazzle the spectators before , however for my wife, this was an experience , which she isn't going to forget, it was magical.

Exhausted we made our way back to the hotel , as the hotel did not have a attached restaurant, we had to do with a veg burger & potato chips from Mcdonalds , the burger was nothing but fresh bun and lettuce .

We both crashed to reenergise ourselves for the following day.

Next day was a beautiful day , started off with a solid continental breakfast at the hotel and then we made our way to The Louvre.

We spent four hours in the Louvre , going through art, architecture and artefacts from the past . The Louvre , one of the largest museums in the world boasts of some of the impressive collection .

The collection is not limited to European history but also ancient Asian, middle east history .It also contains paintings of Leonardo da Vinci , sculptures of Michaelangelo  , Napoleon Bonaparte collections just to name a few.

Just when everything seemed to be going so well, we had to cancel our next intended plan to visit Luxembourg Palace due to travel issues and cancellation of metro in that route, this was decisive in what followed next.

Instead we revised our plans to visit Ronald Garros , one of the circuit that make up the tennis grand slam.

I was so happy at this turn of events , the tour of the tennis court was a blessing as we made our way into players interview rooms, the media centre and of course to the court itself.

With a joyous mood , we made our way back from Roland Garros to Montmatre , the place of Sacre cour .

It was drizzling and we climbed the mountain to see Sacrecour , we left in a joyous mood and wanted to make our way back to our hotel as it was 20:00 hours . Just when everything seemed to be picture perfect , someone stole my purse in the crowd.

My wife spotted some one pushing me and by the time I could realise that something was wrong , everything was over. In the rain and in a land where English isn't even a second choice language , i struggled to make people understand what had happened , it was so difficult to get my point across about complaining to the police. 

I gave up in vain , between i had to ensure that money was safe in my account , I immediately took the necessary steps to deactivate all my cards and used technology to check all was ok.

It was a beautiful day marred by such a silly incident.

I did learn a couple of things due to this incident.

1 Never put your eggs in one basket

2 How important it is to never write pin numbers anywhere ( fortunately I hadn't)

We made our way to our hotel distressed , confused and bitter . We couldn't do much , we consoled ourselves and slept.

Next morning I was too nervous to go out but took courage to venture out to few places before we left .

Just as am finishing up this journey , time and again am reminded that travel teaches a lot of things and this trip hasn't been an exception.

It's been a learning , there were fantastic moments , some dull ones and one extremely bad incident which has left a scar on the trip .

Life has to move on and there is still more travel to do. The Travel Continues ..... next up ..... keep guessing ....

The Tourist - Part 1- Amsterdam

The Tourist is the apt title for this blog.

Part 1 ? Yes this is the start of my interest to travel around , I have always had the notion that travelling teaches a lot of things . Now that I have a companion in my wife , the tourist experience is elevated to a different level.

This is the start of my tourist journey . What better place to start the adventure than the colourful and historic city of Amsterdam.

Named after the river that flows through the city , river Amstel. Amsterdam the capital city of The Kingdom of Netherlands is known for many of it's historic museums, tourist friendly people and not to forget the liberal mind set as the Dutch were the first to legalize Euthanasia & Prostitution.

No better place to start the journey.

My travel to Amsterdam wasn't planned , here the logical mind gave away to what the heart was saying . I had already visited Amsterdam about five times, logically I could had to chose another destination but Amsterdam it was for two reasons; one it was the first ever foreign city I had visited ever in my life and two i had fond memories of the city.

Decision was made in a spur of the moment as I had booked the tickets and hotel only on Thursday night for a Friday departure , I was lucky to get both of them albeit a touch expensive due to last minute booking .

I was all set to travel to Amsterdam by bus aka coach service. The coach would go all the way from central London & cross the north sea via Dover port to Calais in Paris en route to Amsterdam.

Just at the Dover port we had to complete the border control formalities.

The biggest surprise to both my better half & myself was the sea crossing,where our coach sat in the hull of a ship and we were asked to be on board the ship while we crossed the sea. Being in the middle of the sea and on the top deck to get a glimpse of the clear sky and the sea around was purely magical.

Once we crossed and entered the French border , we were again on our way to Amsterdam on road.

We reached the historic city of Amsterdam at around 05:30 local time on Saturday morning . The city was quite and the metro station close to where we had arrived , it was completely deserted. The first metro to central station was at 06:35.

We killed our time just by walking around the station and also toying with the Ticket vending machine.

We took the metro to central station. As such we could not check into the hotel as hotel check in was only allowed after 14:00 , we asked for a early check in without success . However e hotel did allow us to refresh ourselves . Once refreshed , we were proper tourists , ready to explore.

We had purchased a day card which entitled us to travel through out Amsterdam. We decided to have breakfast first, one of my good friend and colleague had suggested that we try out a boutique restaurant near Museumplein called " Brasserie de Joffers " , true to it's description this place was awesome. Very friendly waiters and a great ambiance.

http://www.brasseriedejoffers.nl/home

We had a full Dutch breakfast sans ham & egg instead were offered fresh tomato soup.of course no Dutch food is complete without cheese , we got our fair share of cheese and butter .

Once we completed our sumptuous breakfast , we walked around Museumplein , then took tram no 5 back to Central station.

A trip to Amsterdam is never complete without a cruise around its canals, Amsterdam its believed to have canals running for over a 100 Km. We did the honours by taking a one hour cruise themed " 100 heritage places " a tour operated by the travel company Tui.

It was great to see both modern "Nemo" building in tandem with the old , the djiks. It was a treat to our eyes as went through canal after canal.

Once we completed the trip , we were in a dilemma on which museum to visit, as there were scores of them. 

We rightfully settled to visit two of the both famous , one " The Van Gogh museum " & " The Diamond Museum".

Both of these were worth the money spent be it elegance of van gogh's painting strokes or the exquisite diamonds .

We also visited the coster diamond factory explaining the diamond cutting and polishing art.

After an exhausting first half of the day, it was time for us to have lunch . 

During my second visit , one of my good friends , Sathish T S  found a shop which gives you falafel in a pitta bread but the uniqueness was that the filling was unlimited and for a vegetarian follower, this was a blessing in disguise.

During this trip, i searched for the same shop, after a few hassle i found the shop , rebranded as" Maoz vegetarian" . 

After a solid vegetarian lunch of falafel and salad filing , it was time for us to check into our hotel.

Once we checked in and were ready again, we walked around the city . We first took the tram from central to Leidseplein and from there we walked across to Vondel Park. By now it was dark so we started walking back trough Koeiningsplein where we stopped off for coffee at Starbucks, somethings never change where ever we go. The coffee was same as i have tried in other parts of the world.

From there we went to shop at Etos , a supermarket where we bought few necessary items .

Then we started to walk back to the next tram station from where we got our way back to hotel. By now i was completely out of touch with the world. I had to connect and see what's happened, fortunately we were provided with access to hotels business centre where i was able to log into facebook to see what had happened.

We closed the day with a quiet dinner and crashed to bed.

Next morning we checked out and headed again to Brasseire de Joffers for breakfast. Once our breakfast was complete , we headed out to Dapper Markt & Albert Cyup market both of which are very famous , only to find that both of these were not open that day, what a shame.

We then decided to go from one end to another end . From Amsteldijk tram station, we then started to walk to Wibaustrat metro station, one end of the station was closed and we were put to map reading test which we failed miserably and got to the wrong end , fortunately not long after we were corrected in  our direction by two haughty women in their 60's. 

We took metro 54 from Wibaustart to Biljmer Arena , which was just another arena where a football match had just completed and was completely full with people.

Two hours later , we took another metro back to central station where we completed our lunch and headed back to boarding our coach back to London.

We left Amsterdam in a good mood , knowing fully that we did not even explore 1% of the city . We took heart to the fact that in 1 1/2 days that we had , we put the time to full use . Specifically we were happy this trip was completely unplanned.

There were many highlights of the trip but one the best that we enjoyed was a WIFI connectivity in the middle of the sea where i was able to finish about 80% of this blog on my iphone , isn't that cool!

Back in London and finishing up this blog , am already thinking where next !

The Tour continues.....

Innovation Distinguishes a Leader & a Follower - Steve Jobs - R.I.P.- Dedication

This post is a dedication to " The Most Famous Maestro of Micro- Steve Jobs" .

The quote at the start of this blog " The Most Famous Maestro of Micro" was a famous line in 1982 Time Magazine and that line was dedicated to the man who was instrumental in making personal computing fun . That same year and in the same issue was when Time named "Personal Computer" as the man of the year , a title shared by very eminent persona of the world. 

I was one year old kid in 1982 and even at that point in time Steve could see years ahead , he could anticipate the PC & Internet revolution . Am 30 now and we are still speaking about him , such is his sheer brilliance.

I was inspired by three things in Steve Jobs

• His charisma in making people listen to him , putting persuasive & market skills to its best use

He told John Sculley, former CEO of Pepsi co this famous phrase " Do you want to sell Sugar Water for rest of your life or do you want to come with me to change the world". This made John to make up his mind and join Apple , such was his persuasive power.

• " Stay Hungry , Stay Foolish" - http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UF8uR6Z6KLc

I do not want to comment on this , i would leave it up to you to decide after watching that Video.

• Not to forget the mind blowing products that he helped design

They were simply brilliant and were always a generation ahead & always caught competitors napping, some videos that show why he always looked a generation ahead

1. Apple Macintosh 1984 ad - http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OYecfV3ubP8
2. Ipod - http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kN0SVBCJqLs
3. Iphone -http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vZYlhShD2oQ

He really was an inspiration , he has shown the world to think beyond traditional boundaries , the products he helped create has shown what that means .

He did not only inspire ordinary people like me but he even inspired extra ordinary people like Bills Gates and Mark Zuckerberg.

He did not go without fair share of criticism. Whatever being said , Steve was an inspiration to many and has been credited to have left this world a better place to stay.

You certainly have done something wonderful to this world Steve.

May your soul rest in peace.

"Iam in the toilet at Home " said one Facebook post!

That comment drove me nuts & thankfully gave me a subject to blog about this week.

Social Networking sites are we using it responsibly?

If you take world events in the past twelve months , roughly the answer would be divided between Yes & No.

Why do i say the answer is divided , lets take few examples in the recent past.

The first explosive use of social networking site like Facebook & Twitter were put to best use in the not so long ago issues that had occurred in the middle east , the use was so optimized and powerful that long running dictatorial regimes were bought down and peoples voices were made to be heard , it was first such use of the new age technology use with resounding success in the political arena . This was also a classic case of using , social networking for social causes and positive outcomes, which is expected to drive the future of middle east and other countries as more and more people start using social networking.

On the other hand just about a month back , riots in the UK exacerbated due to the active use of social networking sites , of course blackberry messenger was blamed but it goes without saying the trigger was social networking sites .

Both these events shook the world and world leaders took note of the power of social medial very seriously.

Having followed both these events, i see that social networking sites are tools for us , not so dissimilar to other things that have evolved over a period of time and its up to us to use it to benefit the human kind as has been demonstrated in the middle east .

So to say , its all in the users hands how the tool is put to use , my strong view is that the tool has to be used responsibly and not to be used to update status such as " am in the toilet at home ",world doesn't need to know when one pees , people have better job to do and can use their time little more fruitfully.

Lets not be preposterous in using the tool irresponsibly , lets use one of gods greatest gift to us i.e. The Brian and use the tool more sanely.