Eurotrip

It was the summer of 2007. My year in India with Satyam had come and gone. An additional month of travel and goodbyes, and I was on a flight back. As Europe was the midpoint of the 20+ hour flight to Canada, I decided to spend a couple of weeks in France, Belgium, and the Netherlands. My cousin was staying in Paris, so I enjoyed his hospitality there. He met me at Charles de Gaulle International Airport and located me with surprising ease. Together we lugged my baggage from the airport shuttle to the metro, through the railway station and the narrow streets, and up to his apartment. I deposited my luggage there, stripping out the essentials into my duffel bag and continued my travels.

Bart, one of my roommates from Hyderabad, met me in Brussels, Belgium. Over a whirlwind weekend he showed me as much of Belgium as possible.

• Brussels
• Bruges
• Ghent
• Oostende
• Ypres
  

Five days had been allocated to seeing the Netherlands. Here my premier guide was Stein, one of my roommates from Bangalore.

• Amsterdam
• Delft
• Den Haag
• Eindhoven
• Maastricht
• Rotterdam
• Scheveningen
• Utrecht
  

The lion's share of my time in France was devoted to wandering around the City of Love.

• Paris
• Mont St. Michel
• Versailles
  

My Eurotrip began and ended in Paris, one of the most captivating cities I have set foot on. After travelling through Belgium and Holland without a moment's rest, I returned here for a bit of relaxation before making my triumphant return to the Gateway to the Pacific - Vancouver.

Puerto Rico - Isla del Encanto

I went on a weeklong vacation to the island of Puerto Rico with my parents. Situated in the Caribbean, the Commonwealth of Puerto Rico is a semi-autonomous territory of the United States of America. Its capital and largest city is San Juan. Originally, this city was known as Puerto Rico ("rich port") and the island was San Juan (named after John the Baptist), but the nomenclature was swapped somewhere in its history, perhaps due to a cartographic error. Almost rectangular in shape, the coastline of the small island is dotted with beaches while the interior is composed of dense jungles and hilly terrain.

 Renting a car is the best way to see all that Puerto Rico  has to offer. The driving skills of the Puerto Ricans match their grasp of the English language, making it relatively easy to both communicate and commute across the island. We used the oceanfront community of Condado in San Juan as our base, and made road trips across Puerto Rico. Our itenarary was packed:

Day 1 - Arrive in San Juan
Day 2 - Northwestern Puerto Rico - Arecibo Observatory and Rio Camuy
Day 3 - Northeastern Puerto Rico - El Yunque, Loquillo, and Palmas del Mar
Day 4 - Old San Juan
Day 5 - Southeastern Purto Rico - Rincon and San German 
Day 6 - Southern Puerto Rico - Ponce and Tibes
Day 7 - Depart San Juan 

As the local license plates boast, Puerto Rico is "La Isla Del Encanto" - the Island of Enchantment.

Indian Weddings

Three of my Satyam colleagues invited me to their weddings. None were taking place in Hyderabad or Bangalore though, as they all hailed from different areas. Due to scheduling conflicts I was only able to attend one of the three weddings. The first one was in Murudeshwara, a city in Karnataka on the coast of the Arabian Sea that is famed for having the tallest statue of Shiva in the world. Another was in Thanjavur, an historic temple town in Tamil Nadu. The marriage that I was able to attend was in the district of Erode, also in Tamil Nadu.

No two Indian weddings are alike. They differ from state to state, from region to region, and from religion to religion. Whereas Western marriage ceremonies follow a relatively standardized formula, the rituals and ceremonies that take place in an Indian wedding vary dramatically in length, order, pomp and circumstance. In this particular wedding the reception was taking place on a Saturday evening, while the actual ceremony was scheduled for before dawn on Sunday.

After attending the wedding of a friend from Canada in Chennai, and then relaxing in Pondicherry for a few days, I caught a train to Erode. I arrived early in the morning and my coworker picked me up, put me up in a hotel, and introduced me to a few of his old friends. His friends subsequently proceeded to introduce me to the local brew. After lunch we fell into deep slumber and got ready just in time to make it to the reception. The bride and groom to be were sitting on a pedestal in the center of the marriage hall, and all the guests were coming over to congratulate them. There was not much song and dance.

Several other coworkers had also made the journey from Bangalore to attend the wedding, so once the ladies were finally prepared we rushed to catch the tail end of the early morning marriage. Afterwards, it was time to feast. With hundreds of guests, rows and rows of tables and chairs had been set up in a hall. Everyone was provided a banana leaf as their plate, and servers made the rounds placing different items onto the large leaves. No utensils were used, only hands and mouths. After I was finished eating I rolled up my plate and threw it away, leaving a very low ecological footprint with zero non-biodegradable waste generated. We bid farewell to Erode after a brief temple visit and took several buses back to Bangalore.

Fleeced

During my grueling two-and-a-half hour daily commute to and from work, I spend a considerable amount of time on the SkyTrain. Since I leave my home before dawn, I don a blue fleece jacket to keep me warm as I wait for the sun to rise. The exhausting walk to the SkyTrain station leaves me drenched in sweat, and I remove the fleece from my bodice. At night on my trek home through the chilly streets, I again rely on my blue fleece to provide me with warmth as the moonlight illuminates my path. In the morning, I stand for most of the journey as there are no seats available on board the train. One day I was fortunate enough to get a seat, so I sat down, relaxed, and let the jacket slip from my hands...

When I reached my office I noticed my blue fleece jacket was no longer accompanying me. My coworkers suggested I go to the Lost Property office at Stadium SkyTrain Station, as they had successfully retrieved lost treasures from there in the past. I checked with the office and they told me that all lost items that are found by staff or good citizens are collected at the end of the day and then delivered to them the following day. Lost items are systematically logged into a database. The most popular item available on the lost and found shelves is an umbrella.

I gave a detailed description of my lost belonging, but it could not be found by the staff member on duty. I was asked to identify when and where I had last seen my jacket as well as provide a thorough description (material, size, colour, brand, etc.) of it. I tried again the next day, but the answer remained the same. My lost fleece had not been found. I checked eBay to see if it was being auctioned off to a collector of prized memorabilia, but it was not posted there either. Perhaps one day, it will return.

*****

"Memory is not the same thing as intelligence. Some of the smartest people are the most forgetful people." -  Peter Graf, memory expert

The View From The Top

At the pinnacle of the 177 meter high Harbour Centre building is the Vancouver Lookout, containing an observation deck that gives a panoramic view of the most livable city on Earth and the Top of Vancouver revolving restaurant located directly above. Completing one full revolution per hour, it made for an ideal lunch outing. For patrons of the restaurant, the elevator ride to the top is free. Although entry to the viewing platform is not included with the meal, the prices on the menu already reflect a built-in premium to compensate for the unobstructed views it affords of the city, the mountains, and the waterways that make up the region.

I shared a mozzarella stick appetizer with my friend who was accompanying me on my high altitude journey, and completed my cheesy experience with some lasagna as the main course. Through the angled windows I watched the SeaBus ply its route across the Burrard Inlet from the Vancouver Waterfront to Lonsdale Quay, while several helicopters landed and took off near the rail lines and the Port of Vancouver. As the restaurant slowly rotated the 360 degrees over 60 minutes, I saw the Simon Fraser University atop the peak of Burnaby Mountain, and then Vancouver City Hall and Vancouver General Hospital, before seeing Vancouver Island in the distance, and the downtown core from up close. I noticed someone walking around on the rooftop of my office building and I was intrigued. The tennis court on top of the Holt Renfrew building in which I had encountered Liz Hurley was also unexpected.