Euro Trip 2011

Sorry it's been a while since my last post but I've been busy vacationing! I thought I would blog my favorite photos from the trip since sharing is caring. I picked just 42 of my 400+ snapshots, but I hope you'll enjoy them! By the way, you can click on any picture to enlarge it. I just made them smaller so this page is easier to load.

Dublin

We began our trip in Dublin, which is a charming little city with very nice people. We were pretty jet lagged on the first day, but we found the strength to drink some beer at the Guiness factory. Here's the ingredient that gives Guiness its trademark color and flavor: malted barley.

It was hard getting good pictures from the Gravity Bar at the top, which offered 360 degree views of Dublin, but I did my best.

We were very amused by this T-shirt in the gift shop and were tempted to buy it.

We were able to draw several parallels between Seattle and Dublin, one of which being the oddities of public transit. It looks like Dubliners are as happy with their public transit as we are.

I was advised on the plane ride into Dublin by a nice Irish girl to see the Leprechaun Museum. I thought that this clearly must've been a joke, until we found a pamphlet on the ground outside Dublin Castle as well as this sign on the street (which was pointing the wrong way because a guy turned it, dressed as a leprechaun, and decided to make some money off tourists).

The Liffey!

London

Next up on our trip was London, and our first night I finally had some proper cod and chips at a true neighborhood pub (we were the only tourists there).

The street we stayed on was lined with hotels, but was still very pretty.

We saw the traditional sights (Big Ben, Westminster Abbey, etc), but those are all pretty pedestrian. How about a really pimp hotel instead? (we didn't go inside, but it looked awesome)

The British Library didn't allow pictures inside (though it was a really awesome little museum), but the British Museum did and it was pretty incredible. I loved the entrance design.

Aside from the Rosetta freaking Stone and some really great mummies and stuff, there was plenty of other cool artifacts there.

Tower of London from the Tube station:

Brussels

I'd been to Brussels before (more pictures from Belgium from my last trip here) so I knew there wasn't a ton to do there, but you can't visit Brussels and not get a Belgian Waffle:

We managed to stay pretty close to the main plaza, which had pretty nice views at night.

Paris

I've been to Paris before, as well, and I have pictures from that trip posted here if you're interested. It was still fun going back there though and I saw several things I hadn't seen before, including this tree that I just thought was really beautiful (at the Tuilleries Garden).

We followed the Garden up to the Louvre.

I saw this when we were crossing the Seine and I thought it was really cool because it sounded exactly like the proper Sphinx described in the mythology regarding Oedipus.

We went to the Hotel des Invalides (a Hotel Napolean built for injured soldiers that's now a war museum) and they had a room of really cool models of various towns and cities and such built for military strategy, including a model of the place you may recognize from The Count of Monte Cristo film.

Though I have plenty of Eiffel Tower shots, it was too nice of a day out to not take one more from a different side.

My friends endured my pleas to swing by the Dali Espace in Montmartre and I really enjoyed it - this was my favorite piece that they had on display.

The last time I was at the Arc de Triomphe, they were doing a ceremony so I couldn't get too close to the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier, but I got closer this time.

We saw a pretty decent sized orchestra in the subway one afternoon, and they were really talented. Just not something you see every day!

The last thing we saw in Paris before we left was Notre Dame and it was my first trip to the crypt underneath where they had ruins from Paris that once was, and it was just really neat to see.

Rome

Rome was the last city on our tour, and you can see many pictures from my last trip there highlighting some the big stuff to see there here. We stayed at a pretty good bed and breakfast right in the heart of the area around Vatican City, which gave us a chance to really live like a Roman, and I really took a shine to this particular piece of grafiti because there are so many funny things about it (not the least of which being that he didn't say 'love').

This is the organ at Santa Maria del Popolo, and I just thought it was really pretty how it was designed to look like angels are holding it up.

That church is on one side of the busy Piazza del Popolo, with this being the view from the middle - very symmetrical.

The Borghese Gardens were another new thing I hadn't ventured out to at all on my last trip, and it's basically a smaller version of Central Park. I was really taken aback by the massive trees they had there.

This is just a picture I happened to like that I took at St. Peter's Basilica in the piazza. The lamp posts there were very unique.

We happened to be staying down the street from a great Irish pub (I believe we visited a pub in every city we stayed in) where my friend's Guinness had a child.

Also at that pub we noticed some pretty young kids there. Here's a picture we tried taking without being too conspicuous.

I took this picture from our balcony one morning - it was just a very nice, homely neighborhood.

The most incredible part of our trip was getting a semi-private tour of the Vatican Gardens, which were an incredible preservation of a piece of God's beautiful creation. Nothing terrible extravagant about them, just their natural beauty. By the way, this is the way to go if you want to see the Vatican Museums - you pay a little extra for the tour of the gardens, but you skip the massive line for the Vatican Museums in the process. You just need to go to their website and book at least a month in advance (you can book up to 60 days early).

The castle-like structure in the back of this shot is basically the Pope's guest house for foreign dignitaries.

There's nothing super special in this last garden shot, I just like taking pictures of pathways like these. I think it's a place for gardening to tools at the end there.

This is an unfinished sculpture from the Vatican Museums that I believe was made by Bernini. I just found it very striking - I couldn't tell you why, but something is very beautiful about her.

We saw this horse outside the Colosseum trying to eat the grass in between the stones in the ground. It was too cute/sad to not take a picture of.

This in incredible work of art is from the St. Peter-in-chains church (known for having the chains that bound St. Peter in both prisons he was famously held in) - it's Michelangelo's Moses. I'll let you guess why it's called that.

We paid a visit to the Scala Sancta - the steps Jesus carried the cross up at Pontius Pilate's crib, with 4 spots of trace amounts of Jesus's blood. Really incredible to be there and highly recommended for any Christians.

Back in Dublin

We ended our trip with one last night in Dublin, followed by probably our tastiest breakfast of the trip - a true Irish breakfast (we had that other mornings in Dublin as well, this one was just better).

Alright, that's all for now! I'll post many more photos on Facebook for those of you who actually know me in real life. I'm hoping to have another post up here in the next couple of weeks on actual tech news.

How to Survive a Trip to India

Introduction

I'm afraid that I don't have time to put together a full post this week. I was out of town all weekend on a mini-vacation and, aside from catching up on chores since getting back I've also been setting up a new computer. I finally upgraded to Windows 7 with great 16" Asus laptop and I'm loving it! The keyboard is much easier to type on, it has HDMI out, and it can actually handle multi-tasking. You'd think a Core 2 Duo would be enough for that but somehow my HP Pavillion laptop never understood that concept and would only reliably handle one thing at a time. Even though I've used Windows 7 before this I have to admit that this was an even smoother user experience migration than I expected. I don't get the opportunity that often to give props to Microsoft so I have to give it up now: great job on the robustness. I love compatibility mode so that my old applications can run even if they're not quite compatible with Windows 7 by default. I feel like the instability of one application now is not going to crash my system anymore, either. The combination of this new hardware and Windows 7 is really going to make it a lot easier for me to blog without spending long amounts of time waiting or having to restart my computer.

Anyway, to replace my normal post I thought I'd post a speech I prepared last week for Toastmasters regarding my recent trip to India. I'll be back next week with a normal post. Until then, I hope you enjoy my speech!

Surviving a Trip to India

My heritage is Indian, and yet my recent trip to India made it quite clear that I’m culturally very much an American. I’ve been spoiled by Western luxuries like clean, running water and toilet paper that doesn’t feel like sandpaper. I went to India, for the second time of my life, on vacation in January with my brother, his wife, her sister, and a friend of ours. What we discovered that India is an incredible country where a rich culture meets modern society, which means that you’ll look out of one side of your cab to see a guy on his smartphone and out the other side to see a cow stuck in traffic. But I still haven’t said a single word about the abundance of affordable, exquisite food. I stand before you today to encourage all of you to consider making a trip to India yourselves, and there are a number of things I learned during the course of my trip that I wish I had known before I left SeaTac. Since my time with you today is limited, I’m going to cover what I consider to be the big ones to help you survive your trip and understand some of the local customs.

As your high school shop teacher probably once said: safety first. You should check the Center for Disease Control, or the CDC, website for what immunizations they recommend and get them taken care of at least a month before your trip. They actually have a list of travel clinics on their site, and the easiest thing to do is to give your closest one a call and set up an appointment. They’ll usually charge you a nominal fee for the consultation and set you up with everything you need, some of which may be covered by insurance. I actually ended up getting a stomach parasite on my trip and was so glad I had visited a travel clinic and gotten the medication I needed in advance. The pharmacists, or chemists, you find in India often aren’t very well-educated and have no qualms about giving you prescription medication over-the-counter. So if you visit one and come back to America with hair growing on your palms, you’ll know why. In addition to seeing your travel clinic, be sure to stock up on pain relievers, fever reducers, and antacids, at the very least.
One of the other shockers we encountered there is that public bathrooms rarely have soap in them. The pollution can get pretty heavy in the big cities and in your sightseeing and shopping, you’re bound to get your hands dirty, so be sure to bring plenty of hand sanitizer and moist towelettes to use before and after your meals, and, of course, bathroom runs.

Speaking of food, make sure you only eat at clean restaurants. Avoid getting food on the side of the road. When you see a guy wipe his nose with the same hand he uses to make your Bombay Burger, you’ll quickly lose your appetite. There is no Health Department in India, so you’re on your own. No matter where you eat though, definitely don’t drink the tap water. Unlike America where our water is processed assuming that it will be consumed, Indian water isn’t really filtered and only the most iron clad stomachs can handle it. Bottled water isn’t that expensive, so buy and drink plenty of it. Dehydration isn’t uncommon for travelers, especially in the South where it’s hot year-round. Another reason you’ll want bottled water is for brushing your teeth - some travelers get sick from brushing with tap water.

For your day-to-day expenses, you’ll need plenty of cash. In a country with over a billion people and fraught with small towns and villages, it’s not too hard to understand why credit cards are unpopular. I recommend using a money belt so that you don’t risk getting pick-pocketed. Additionally, I discovered why frugality runs in my family. It turns out that Indians are used to bargaining for literally everything - from meals to clothes to hotel rooms. Even being brown I was immediately recognized as an American by everyone and so the prices pitched to me were always ridiculous by Indian standards. You’ll get better and better at reading how low someone is willing to go on a price as you shop, but don’t be afraid to walk away because they’ll often end up ceding to you. If you’re traveling with friends then you can almost always get great bargains by buying multiple things – kind of like shopping at Costco but without the free samples. Unless you see the words “fixed price”, just assume that you can bargain.

Prices aren’t just cheaper there for tourist trinkets and food though, domestic travel is also much cheaper. Trying to drive around there yourself is like trying to drive on I-5 blindfolded – it’s just not a good plan. We were able to get a driver for a van for less than $40 a day. If you take a rickshaw, the vehicle of choice in Mumbai, you can expect to pay about $1 for a 30-minute trip across town. Of course, being in a rickshaw has the added bonus of letting you see your life flash before your eyes numerous times as your driver weaves in between lanes and gets within a couple of inches of huge trucks.

While I recognize that some of my tips may have been a bit intense I hope that I haven’t discouraged you from considering a vacation in India. It’s a great break from the cold in the winter, many people there understand English, you’ll discover the most delicious food you’ve never eaten, like vada pav, and there’s great beauty to be explored all around, such as a marble Bahai temple shaped as a lotus flower. There are some more common sense things you can do to prepare for your trip, like getting a visa, packing sunscreen, and bringing extra toilet paper, but I think I’ve given you the bare minimum in order for you to make it back home in one piece. You can [post a comment] if you’d like to learn even more about traveling to one of the most amazing and unique countries in the world.

My Trip to India

I plan to have a normal post up early next week, but until then I thought it would be fun to put up some of my favorite pictures from my vacation in India, where I visited Mumbai, Goa, New Delhi, and Agra. This definitely doesn't cover all of my trip and is simply my favorite pictures (not necessarily my favorite memories though), which provides a pretty decent cross-section of the trip. Even though we were slumming it at times, it was definitely a lot of fun. It's definitely an adventure to be out of your comfort zone and experience a different culture. Even though my parents are Indian and some of that culture seems through, it's incredible how different life is there even compared to Indian communities in America. If there was any doubt that I was 100% American, it was definitely eliminated on this trip. I saw some things I always wanted to see, got to spend a lot of time with some great people, and re-connected with family members I hadn't seen in a very long time. Without further ado though, let's get to the pictures (you can click on any of them to enlarge, by the way).

We all flew into Mumbai and on one of our first days we visited Elephanta Island, which is World Heritage Site and was cooler than I thought it would be. However, it was also our first taste with a common theme in India: the people do not take care of the culture like people in other parts of the world do. It's sad to see trash like this at caves that are centuries old:



Also at Elephanta were evil monkeys. This monkey here is holding a bag he attacked a woman to get:



We went to Leopold's in Mummbai and the food was really good. It wasn't the best restaurant we'd eat at, but the butter garlic shrimp was pretty insane. Anyway, they served a pitcher of beer in a very fun way:



In Mumbai we took a short walk on Marine Drive at sunset. It was a very nice view of the city, and the water:



I think the beach we went to that same night was Chowpati - it was closer to the center of town:



This post wouldn't be complete without a nod to Bademiya. It's an absolute must-go if you're visiting Mumbai. It's basically Indian street food done right.



My cousin got married in a nice chapel on a hill in Goa, and the ceremony ended near sunset. It was hard to get a good picture of Goa from this hill because of the way the lighting worked out, but I did the best I could:



The wedding reception had really neat hand-made flowers:



On one of our walks near Colmar beach in Goa we ran into a water buffalo. Apparently he had an owner, who was giving it a bath:



I was surprised I got this shot, but I managed to get it without any people in it. This was at the entrance to the Qutb Minar area in Delhi:



The Qutb Minar was pretty incredible and very photogenic. Here's a few more shots I really liked from it:







Afterward we saw the Lotus Temple, which is an incredible designed Bahai Temple. It was more impressive on the outside than inside, but still tastefully simple and elegant on the inside. The lotus flower is very important in Indian culture and represents purity. The outside structure was really something to wonder at:



We couldn't get too close to the India Gate, but we did our best with as close as we could get:



We saw the President's estate from afar while we were in New Delhi, and I'd like to think I made the best of a foggy shot:



In Agra, I was actually more impressed by the Agra Fort than the Taj Mahal because of the ridiculous detail all around. I mean this right here is only the archway to a room that they used as a temple:



The room where Shah Jahan was imprisoned by his son:



Of course, you can't go to Agra without seeing the Taj:



One cultural oddity we discovered is that straight men (and women) freely hold hands, and even pinkies, over there. It's not considered gay at all, it's just a sign of close friendship:



We got to visit the grave of Gandhi, which was a really cool setup:



Given how much good food you can get in India, I can't go through this post without showing you one of our favorites. This was a Murg Musallam Lucknowi, and we pretty much scraped the plate clean:



One of the trippier things we saw on our trip was a cowboy themed 50th birthday party in Mumbai. These were strangely hanging all around from the ceiling:



The menu was really cute:



Also pretty trippy in Mumbai was Crawford Market, where you can get whatever your heart desires if you know where to find it and are willing to bargain:



If you're Facebook friends with me then you'll probably see more pictures go online tomorrow. Anyway, hope you enjoyed these shots and I hope everyone has a great weekend!