A Year to the Day

Its been exactly a year to the day since I set foot on the good old blighty shores and such a monumental occasion can not go by without as much as a blog entry. :P So here I am, making a fleeting come back to list my top 5 events of the year gone by.

The Wall

The topmost entry can be nothing else. It was 'The Musical Event' in my musical events depraved life. To think I almost didn't book the tickets trying to find a holiday in the spouse's holidays-free calendar and the exorbitant rates for the concert! And fate was such that, the day I found after juggling the calendar, was to be the D-Day when my fave member of the band David Gilmour also chose to keep his promise to play guitar on Comfortably Numb. Can you imagine that?, hearing him and Waters Live!!! I was in heaven. Then seeing all the remaining band members joining in for 'Outside the Wall', couldn't have asked for more! :)

Its a shame I couldn't manage Rs2500 when he performed in Bangalore. Now after attending the concert, I feel any amount is justified. Watching the concert on the dvd is just not the same. If you are a Pink Floyd fan, even if you are not, you should make it a point to catch this, such is the musical theatrical extravaganza!

Travel

I remember coming here with a sinking feeling that most of my travel was behind me. A Doctor's calendar can make you feel that way. But as it happens little persistence and leaping at any chance you get is all it takes to travel. :) I should admit the winter months were the hardest. Now after spending one winter where you hardly see any Sun at all, I understand how people can easily get depressed here. Beatles' 'Here comes the Sun' becomes so much more meaningful.

• Cornwall

The part of England where I stay in or rather most of the England as such is devoid of beautiful landscape in the sense there aren't any hills, mountains, rivers, forests(you can't imagine what passes off as forests here!). Staying in Bangalore, with its easy access to rivers, falls, forests, mountains etc one can imagine my plight after coming here. Cornwall was my first vacation and it made me realize that England is beautiful. The south west coastal path in particular, I just wish I could do it in entirety once.
The one thing you got to appreciate about UK, is the way they preserve their heritage. If you walk anywhere, you will see things seeped in history. Why, even our own house is from 1800s! So Cornwall with its old fishing towns, narrow roads, beautiful coast, ruined castles on clifftops, renowned pasties and clotted cream was a proper English vacation.

• Switzerland/Germany

Got to envy the doctors' conferences at awesome destinations. I know there are quite a few ones in our tech world too, but either you have to be willing to pay ludicrously high fees and traveling costs or be in a company generous enough to fund you. So I did the next best thing, tagged along with the spouse to Montreux for his conference, which made for an awesome 5 day trip. :) Montreux is an amazing place, with its perfect location on Lake Geneva, lovely colorful houses on cobbled winding roads in old town, the really beautiful long, flower-bordered lake promenade going all the way to Chillon Castle and casino!. No wonder the residents list reads who's who of celebrities. Villeneuve, Vevey, Laussane(where I experienced my first and only European carnival yet), Luzern(with its wooden bridge), camping beside Lake Geneva, first experience of Auto-Bahn and the famed German bakeries were the other highlights of the trip! :)

• Amsterdam

I'm pretty sure there's a saying - 'What happens in Amsterdam, stays in Amsterdam' ;) If its not there, well I'm just extrapolating the Las Vegas one :P

• Paris

The best part about this continent? How incredibly small it is! Every thing is so near, or if it isn't its so well connected that it still feels like its near :) So Paris is still just a night's journey even if you travel by coach. So Paris, 2 days I had is no where enough to see/experience/know Paris. I didn't like it first day started to love it by end of second. It is really the most beautiful city I've seen so far and it will be the place where I found and fell in love with Macarons. *sigh*

• Scotland

Loch, Loch everywhere and Ben Nevis, my first trek in this part of the world.

Almost getting fired

Yes you read right, but no worries I am still here. Looks like nothing can beat my inertia, not even almost getting fired. Guess fired is wrong word, correct term is being made redundant.

Royal Albert Hall

THE Concert Hall. Experiencing Donovan's Sunshine superman and Jimmy Page of all people joining in, what more could I ask for? Pure bliss! :)

Sloth & Gluttony

I'm not sure which will do me in first but past one year of work from home has fueled both on.


Adiós

So Long, and Thanks for All the Fish

I always planned to use 'The End' as the swan song for this blog but alas I already used that up here. Hence resorting to one of the most used goodbye lines ever and in a way its my small tribute to one of my all time favourite book(hopefully 'll get back that book from my friend sometime! you know who you are :P).

It should have ended last year itself but somehow dragged it on for this year. Its not that I am not getting posts ideas anymore its just that they have a very low hit ratio of making it on to keyboard than ever before! For one of the recent ones I'd even thought of a very fancy sounding title (for my standards) - 'A discourse on the limited imagination in the fantasy world of Harry Potter'. Then there was a 'tribute to my friends in B'lore' post, but that also never made it to the keyboard. :(

One of the reasons for this abysmal hit ratio is probably got to do with the combination of my new vice of 'Sleeping' with my ever old vice of 'Laziness'! I no longer see the magical hour of 2-3am which used to be my blogging time before. And with the few waking hours filled with Work, TV etc you see its almost impossible to find time for blogging now! :)

And so with the perfunctory posts mounting up, it just didn't make much sense to continue this for any longer. I will probably continue to write once in a blue moon types, but it just won't be at this address any more. With that I bid you goodbye. Happy New Year to any soul reading this out there.

Adiós

a perfunctory post

Nice Person,

Wrong Planet.

A t-shirt I bought recently.

(Since I can't publish an empty post just for a November entry)

If I am silent,

It doesn't mean I'm angry

It doesn't mean I'm unhappy

It doesn't mean I'm tired,

though on few occasions it can be one or all of the above

but most often it just means that I've nothing important to say.

Green is the Colour

Quickness of the eye deceives the mind

Envy is the bond between the hopeful and the damned...

Arrivederci

Its 2am and in another 4 'n half hours I've to leave the only home I've known in my life so far...

I had initially thought some big senti almost autobiographical thingy for this post, but alas sleep angels are beckoning me... so this is gonna be just a placeholder post for now ...

Arrivederci - until we meet again...

C'est la vie!

Arguments,

Bickering,

Contention,

Disagreements,

Exaggerations,

Fights,

Grudges,

Hassles,

Insinuations,

Jabs,

Knocks,

Leers,

Misunderstandings,

Nicks,

Oppressions,

Peeves,

Quagmires,

Resentments,

Subterfuge,

Tantrums,

Usurpations,

Vandalism,

Weaknesses,

Xanadu,

Yearnings,

Zero-tolerance ...

...

...

C'est la vie!

Note: I had first initially put it up on facebook, some words were later filled in by a friend...