Take some days off

There are few times in my life when I have been left absolutely speechless, the first one was when I got up to the stage for a debate competition, second when I realized my hair are turning grey , third when I discovered  who killed JFK and fourth was today when my Sup. dropped this line on me out of the blue. “I think you should take some days off for travelling Europe to make your trip more worthwhile”. I was so dumbfounded that I remained standing blocking the lift door and almost causing a fire alarm drill for the whole building.

By the time I had convinced myself that this is not reality TV and there were no TV cameras lurking around the corner watching me getting Punked, she was gone and I forgot to ask for some more travel money… if she is in such a giving mood I might as well extract more out of my internship I have already talked to Choco asking for his advice on how to go about it , yes Choco is the guy who wrote a book on “How to squeeze your Sponsor Dry “. So wish me luck as I try some of his time tested strategies on my Sup. tomorrow.

Exercise In Narcissism

If you scroll down a bit and see the lowest widget on the right hand side of this page, you will notice I keep a Cluster Map of Visitors to this site. It shows from which part of the world are the readers accessing my blog. Now I say accessing because presuming that they are reading it might be assuming too much. Nothing really high tech about it, you just have to sign up and give your URL to these people who then track the clicks from around the world.

But its a very satisfying application to say the least. There is nothing like the feeling that not only your gtalk contacts(its pushed down their throats by yours truly) but other people too are actually enticed by this crap. Some might just have stumbled here by accident only to make a hasty retreat, others I guess are lured by the trap of protected posts with the help of an magnanimous friend (read Pande ji) publicising it on their page. Coming back to the map, yeah as you can see I am very papulaar in Europe , well Intern season has its advantages. And thanks to those who are reading this in USA and Canada. Yours truly has also made a foray into the middle east with atleast one reader in Dubai(Sheikh Sanganee), India is expected as most of the friends are there. Down Under there are some poor souls who I guess have nothing better to do and then there are the islanders from Singapore and surrounding areas. Now for the surprise visits - Atleast one Chinaman and two Pakistani guys have paid a visit here.

As of yet the Africans, South Americans and New Zealanders havent bothered. But I hoping they will come around as Good Posts attract Good readers, Crap attracts everyone.

Football Lessons

Euro 2008 frenzy is all around me here. Especially with the dutch kicking ass of the world cup finalists, all Oranje fans are convinced that this their year. I am cheering for the Oranges this time too coz well you know they being the host country and paying for my holiday, it only seems fair. So all was well until I got too excited and decided to test my rusty legs on the football field again before the Germany-Portugal match. I went along with my footballer friend to the field where we met 14 other guys (some dutch , one spanish , 2 italians and one afrikaan). Everybody shook hands and then teams were decided with one side to play with bright green training jerseys. Now I know that football is a round ball that is supposed to be kicked around with your legs , occasionally with your head and you are suppossed to pass the ball to your teammates or put it between the legs of the last guy standing on the opposing side. But I learned a lot more yesterday and the lessons were very painful.

Lesson 1: Unless wearing shin guard ,dont provoke the Italians. I tried and he responded by well placed kick on the shin and thanks to him I am now walking around with a wobbly leg.

Lesson 2: Dont try to dribble for more than 5 seconds. Chances are you will be elbowed in the guts, shouldered in the back or simply kicked in the nuts while you curse your teammate for passing the ball to you. Did I mention there was no refree.

Lesson 3: Never volunteer to be a part of the wall that blocks free kicks. I did and was smacked right in the face with a  lump of smooth rubber travelling at 60miles/hr. Somewhere in my previous posts I mentioned something about a broken nose. Talk of predictions….

Lesson 4: Heading is not a good option if you arent doing it regularly. Apart from being downright ineffective it can also affect performance at workplace i.e. if you are not already underperforming.

P.S- The Dutch have now been knocked out so I m rooting for Turkey now.  They might just do a Greece this year.

Aeroflot - not recommended

So I landed in Amsterdam yesterday at 12:30 pm or so. Well the flight experience isnt one I m going to cherish for a long time. Aeroflot uses one of the oldest -currently in use aircafts among the civilized world. Its called Illushin or sth and the experience is comparable to a haryana roadways bus in the hinterlands of the state.

There is very little leg space , even lesser baggage room and the food is positively revolting. The aircraft itself is antique in every way , the openings for sound messages and air conditioner are the same. So if the captain or the air hostess decide to mumble sth incomprehensible in Russian , the only choice you have is to pick out the safety instruction card and start fanning yourself. See very similar to the bus service. And I was not the only one doing that , the 2 russians sitting on either side of me were apparently used to all this. The russian chick hogging the window seat even gobbled up the seemingly rotten food pretty fast as I watched in awe and helplessness at my own plate of muck that I had been served. The dude sitting on my right probably knew the food quality in advance and feigned sleep while the burly air hostess took our orders. I m planning to do the same on my return flight. So tired, badly slept and feeling nauseous after whatever little I had eaten I arrived in Moscow. Dull and Drab - I would say if I had to describe the airport. Seems the russians werent celebrating the change of guard from Putin to Medvedev. The passport enquiry and security check went off quite smoothly and un eventfully. I waited about 2 hrs in Moscow before boarding the flight to amsterdam. This flight thankfully used the Boeing aircrafts - yup the same one used on domestic flights in India. Familiar territory - I thought and settled peacefully on the aisle seat near the front of the aircraft. The experience was much better than the previous flight. Even the food was worth digging ur fingers into or maybe I was just too hungry. Anyways the short flight landed at Amsterdam and I arrived in Nederlands. Here too, very smooth passport check and verification of documents. The airport is really big and I mean REALLY big. I think I walked for about 25 min from the point of passport verification to baggage belt. But to make the journey easier there were various escalators and belts. The baggage belts were a scene of crowds but not really chaotic as it is in domestic terminals in India. Luckily my baggage came on the belt soon after I came there. And then I made my exit towards the rail ticket counters. In between this , I tried using the pay phone and even electronic rail ticket purchase but without any credit card or usable change I had to give up.

There is a person in amsterdam who is my dad’s friend and earlier was suppossed to pick me up and drop me at Wageningen. But he came to India a day before so I had to take the train. And I cut it really close , coz the trains here are like really on time and fast and fully automated , so no matter how much u want to u cant plead and let the helpful train people open the door for you while u run after it ala Kajol in DDLJ.(btw that must have been some diff train or maybe another one of bollywood goof ups). But as it pans out , the people really are helpful and along the way one lady carried one of my bags (too much luggage) so I could catch the train in time. another time an old man helped me with the proper pronounciation of the city Wageningen - its pronounced Waakhe-ni-gen(with a khrr sound at kh). So I arrived in wageningen and waited for the bus. BTW as soon as I stepped out of the train , I was greeted by this spectacle - Two teenage girls smooching each other very passionately and well I think they were groping too (I m not really sure) as I had to tear myself away from the engrossing view and buy my bus ticket. I got back to wait for the bus and well guess what , the lesbians were still there. Well, the dutch sure know how to welcome their guests , (I know I would anyday trade ticka and flower garlands for the live lesbian action ).

Well the room needs a few essentials like net connection , I wud be sorting that by tuesday . till next post then.