Daily-dallying

London town

Was completely different from what I was expecting.

Looking back now, it was amazing.

But at that time, it was disappointing.

Especially after the amazing cities like Prague, Barcelona and Pariiiiiiiii(said with a beautiful french accent and flutter of the eyelashes)

Yeah, so London is quite amazing by itself...

V and me stayed with one of my best friends. And we had a blast. :) A tiring end to the fabulous Euro trip of ours...
Needless to say, I shopped ;) and pub-hopped. 


More on the trip, one day....


I am welcome.
No, you are sorry :P
(ok thats me being random) ignoreeeeee! hehe.... 

The Brazil Series -1: Rio

Copacabana Beach, Rio

Ah, travel!How much I love you.
These are some gorgeous pics and memories from my trip to Brazil in 2007. I had quit my first (and worst) job out of boredom and thirst to do something new. And boy! Was it new :)
I went to Brazil to intern at a knitwear company. Which I did. Kind of. But I ended up travelling a lot more :P


So my companion was a dear friend of dad's who became my friend too... her name is Ana and she's a real sweetheart. It was such amazing fun.... We started our wanderings from Sao Paulo. Flew up to Rio and Salvador (in Bahia district) and then to Fortaleza. More pics coming up!

That's Ana with the famous Christo

The Christ or Christo or locally referred to as "Corcovado"( the letter R is pronounced as H, so it would sound more like Cohcovado)  is probably the most famous statue of Christ in the world. Most recently seen in Twilight: Breaking Dawn where dear newly-weds Edward and Bella go to Rio, on route to some exotic la-la land island belonging to his mother! :O  Vampires are rich, I tell you! I watched this movie twice already by the way.

  

Streets are filled with this kind of graffitti

Some serenaders by the Copacabana beach. They taught me how to samba as well!

That mountain behind Ana is called "Sugar Loaf" or locally known as "Pau de Azucar" It really does look  like it!

 
What else did we do there?
Umm.... nothing much really! It's such an amazing city to just chill and do nothing (except have lots and lots of beer) and crash some amazing parties happening on roads, beaches and parks and every possible place!
Below are some pictures of a party we crashed ;)

Not only do they graciously welcome shameless foreigners into their gathering, they are amazing musicians! I wish I had a good quality video to upload here! And everybody in Rio knows how to samba! In 5" heels. Men in flats of course :P


I have probably never felt as tom-boyish as I felt there, because the women were SOOOOO hot! I am a girl and I felt it. No wonder, the reputation of Brazil :)


Even the view from the top, on route to Rio looked like a freakin' tiny bikini! God bless Brazil!

I miss you Brazil!
Also Ana and all the lovely people I met...
Waiting to write my next series! :)


Beijos! :-*

My travelogue begins :)

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Toned , stoned and Barceloned

No I don't mean 'that' stoned, though I wish we were... haha!

Things to do before going to Barcelona :

1. Make sure you're toned. Or at least half way there. It reaaaallllllly matters how the legs look in those short shorts. Oh yes they do.
 2. Make Gaudi your God. Yes, worship him.Or at least google him and his famous works so that you don't feel like an idiot visiting the most mind-freakin'blowing architecture that you will see (made by a human).
3. Beware of the La Ramblas... Its supposedly the most 'happening' street of Barcelona. But all it had to offer was lousy touristy objects(which are must-buys of-course :P), a bunch of tourists and a whole bunch of fellow hindustani shop-owners who will give you special discounts as you're Indian.
4.Learn some spanish. Nah not really. Can manage just fine without it. But learn it anyway as its a beautiful language.Though I prefer the South American Spanish to The Spanish spanish.....

Things to do once in Barcelona :

 Become a hippie.Roam aimlessly. Its really easy once you're there. The vibe just got to me.... Sadly we were there for a very short while :(  But then I bought whichever trinkets (see my right hand) which took my fancy and consoled myself... sigh!!

Go to Zara! ( well, we have one now in Bangalore too, but who cares!)

Must buy this season: The coated pants!

Go to the Desigual store (only if you want) as you're in Spain. Or not. I didn't. No, really. I find it over the top, garish and in-asthetically loud. I'm sorry if I'm hurting sentiments here, but that's what I think :P Maybe this point should be called "What NOT to do in Barcelona"!

 All of Gaudi's masterpieces are completely worth going to and gawking at. For hours... My favorite-favorite was Parc Guell. 
 

 Sagrada Familia (the famous still-under-construction church/monument ) is definitely the biggest and the most ambitious piece. What I love about it the most is the contrast between the outside and inside. Depressing vs Divine. Structured vs Flowing. Obviously, I loved the inside. How did he manage to carve such crazy intricate things in stone!

The tree trunk - his inspiration

The pillars inside Sagrada- his creation

Have the Sangria or dieeeeeee! I mean seriously. Sangria is the most delicious, mouth watering wine punch ever made. And make sure you have a litre- pitcher. The pitcher works beautifully in making all things blurry... Sangria made me talk super-fluent Hindi as well!  :)

Walk around.  And see how beautifully the whole city resonated Gaudi's aesthetics in beautifully crazy way. Initially I thought the word "gaudy" comes from Antoni Gaudi's surname, but that's not true. Though the souvenir shops seemed to have taken "gaudy" too seriously, we did manage to find some beautiful mosaic trinkets :P

Tourist in my own country

Just the week before last I went to Delhi on a work trip.
I've been to Delhi zillions of times. Okay not zillions, just many many times. But this time it was different. I had a new found love for our country. And for tea. Had some wonderful cutting chai on the streets as well as some yum adrak wali chai (ginger flavored tea) made by the caretaker in my guest house :)

Why, one might think have I suddenly find awe in the mundane... Well for starters... We(Viv and I) did a mini Euro tour in September... Four cities. Wonderful cities. And that's where my tourism began. We absorbed the beauty, design and every inspired nook and corner of the cities like sponges. Also, these countries market their cities really well! Every just about every stone and pillar was a monument. We obviously didn't fall for the stones and pillars, well maybe a few :P And all I could think was, I wish I could do something like this for India.

So, when in Delhi, I was really amazed. It's the most fabulous city of India, if I may say so.
It's huge, has got wonderful infrastructure, and some very well-developed fashion catchment areas. More about fashion later, but what really got me was the city itself... Spacious, modern India and hmmm surprisingly amazing weather :)
Here are some pics of me being a complete tourist...
 The beautiful Qutub Minar.

This is just a glimpse of what I saw, but this made me really proud. And happy. And nostalgic. I have probably been to the Qutub once with my family as a kid and then once with my college friends as a teenager :) And this time as a (ahem) grown-up :P

Where else would you find the coolest garbage bin in a National Monument, other than India? :)
Yay for India. And yay for my new love of tourism, thank you Europe!