Wednesday, April 30, 2008

Travel Spree


Life, as they say takes you places. And recently, it has been taking me places where I never expected to be and that too geographically! In the past few months, I’ve set foot in four different continents, six different countries and a hell lot of cities. The experience, well minus the work – fabulous! From the oriental Asia, Uncle Sam’s territory to exotic Egypt it has been quite an experience and a big number on my miles and more card. I’ve seen lakes and deserts alike where they span endlessly seeming to meet only the horizon. I’ve spent days on the shores of lakes big enough to drown cities and oases with Nile as the only source of water. I’ve stayed more in Hotels and service apartments in last year than time spent at home. I’ve spent enough hours on flights, airports and cars and subway trains than all the hours of flying earlier put together. Questions asked to me have morphed from “When are going?” to “When are you (Finally) coming back?” and to even the dramatic ones “Are you coming back at all?” Across the towns the staff at half of the Subways’ and pizza hut know me and at star bucks instead of asking, “What will you have today”, they say “The usual?” Over the time, I’ve become platinum member for Marriott, Gold member for Hertz. Well, I’m still working on my Lufthansa miles, though. This is what I think I almost always wanted - To see the world and live the good life.

Sunday, April 27, 2008

Cairo Landscaping


Not that I blog that often but whenever I do I try to put in a pic or Two. And with the recent discovery of mine of the fact that I can embed slide shows from the Picasa Web in my blog, I decided to be more exploratory and presentable with slideshows in my blog and not just pics. And I’ve always been a shutter bug of sorts.

So when I blogged about The Necropolis and not about anywhere where else in Egypt, people pointed it out. Of course, there’s more to Egypt than the pyramids but unfortunately for those expecting more and me obviously, I spent all my time being a pendulum between my work place and my hotel. So I am putting all the other pics (presentable if any) on this blog and album and hope those visiting Egypt through my blog like them.

Most of the pics are taken from my hotel room. I was staying at the Semi-Ramis Intercontinental Hotel which looms over the Nile River. Lucky for me, my room was Nile Facing on the 17th Level which made the view breathtaking. Some of the pics are from the drive from Cairo to Giza. Again quite a few are of my hotel which has been taken from the street, a couple of them at the Museum of Natural History at Cairo and a number of them are from the streets of the Old Cairo.

Cheers!

Saturday, April 26, 2008

The Findlay Trip

I’ve always had a thing for travelling and almost any reason’s good enough for me to step out of my neighborhood. So when I got the chance to come and work in Findlay, I was more than just being enthusiastic about the whole deal. For one, it’s been some time that I’ve got decent work to do and I was quite seriously bored with my Arse squat in Bangalore and more significantly, a new town to visit.

Though, I’d expected it to be a town somewhat smaller than the ones visited by me earlier in the Uncle Sam’s territory, it unexpectedly came out to be as a refreshing change to be in somewhat quiet place. With the onset of Spring I was counting on a lot of outings and outdoor stuff. Though the weather till now hasn’t been quite on my side and somewhat deary, things have started to look brighter now.

Haven’t been able to locate a lot of places of interest in the near vicinity yet (with considerable intervention to the weather too) I plan to do a little more excursion in my free time. I’ve been able to locate a couple of local bars in the neighborhood of my hotel and for now they’re keeping me satisfied.