Category: Europe

Athens, so many mixed feelings

Athens, Greece

I fully recognized that some of what I am about to write will seem extremely ungrateful, privileged, and may offend some. But the truth is we are extremely grateful to be able to travel and to be able to see different cultures and get a glimpse into their daily lives. Coming up to our departure date, I still had not done much research at all on Athens or Greece.  Besides the lovely pictures of Santorini and the Acropolis, I really knew nothing at all except gyros and “opah”! As we rode in the car from the airport to our airbnb,[…]

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Customer Acquisition Specialist

Istanbul, Reflections, Turkey

We met a very interesting person tonight. We’ll just call him “Mike”. We couldn’t exactly come up with a good job description for Mike, so we made one up: Customer Acquisition Specialist. In my opinion, Mike’s talents are being wasted. Let me backtrack a little. So we are walking the streets of Istanbul and at every restaurant there is a person standing next to the menu board waiting to try to get you to eat at their restaurant. I generally have no problems with just walking by and ignoring someone if I don’t want to interact with them. Meeta on[…]

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Papa Pig vs. Mama Meeta

Spannocchia

Today we took a small hike on a trail behind Spannochia. Meeta had encountered what she thought were wild boars on a previous walk so we were hoping to see some. Inside, I was a little nervous remember reading somewhere how quickly domestic pigs becomes wild and also remembering reading somewhere that wild boars are very unpredictable. So I pick up a stick that I found and hinted to Meeta subtly that I was a little concerned about the situation we might get ourselves into. Of course we don’t want to alarm Avinash or create a fear in him of[…]

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Saturnia

Saturnia

Leave it to us to find the path least traveled. Our most brilliant example ever of this was in Yosemite National Park. We had just arrived at the park with Erica and saw a beautiful waterfall. So we stopped the car and started walking towards the falls. It was mostly knee deep in snow but we were so excited that we forged onwards. At one point, Erica stepped into a hole and went all the way down to her hips. We pulled her out and saw that below there was a running river of water. We kept going, now with[…]

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Discovering the Food Chain

Saturnia

We are vegetarian for ethical reasons and are raising Avinash with the same values. We are mindful to teach him that we made a choice to eat this way and he understands why. Simply, because “animals are our friends.” We also teach him that we are not critical or judgmental about meat-eating. Nam and I use to eat meat.  It is simply a choice to or not to.   Today at the country house we were staying in Maremma, our favorite house cat decided to bring Avinash a present. This kitty befriended us within minutes of our arrival and kept[…]

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Rome, I am overwhelmed.

Architecture, Reflections, Rome, Sights

Rome, Rome, Rome. Rome is by far the most beautiful city I have ever been to.  Not that it is sparkling clean, or smells like roses everywhere.  It’s old, it’s weathered, it aged very well. It is so easy to become numb and overwhelmed by the beauty of this city.  If you were to take any of hundreds of buildings found in Rome and put it in any other city, it would become an architectural attraction in that city.  In Rome, it is just another beautiful building.  I started off by taking a lot of pictures, but that got old very quickly.  If[…]

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Ciao Bella Roma

Reflections, Rome

I’ve got a pit in my stomach. We’ve decided to rent a car and road trip for a month. Part of me is sad to leave Rome, which I truly have fallen in love with. Part of me is nervous about not having the comforts of the long-stay apartments we’ve been calling home. It’s been great schlepping our way-too-many-bags into a place and exploding into it without a care of the usual logistics that come with travelling. The kind I know we will have while road tripping. The other side of me is excited to wander through the country-side and[…]

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Avinash the Dome Climber

Architecture, Reflections, Religion, Rome, Sights

Avinash for the most part has been fantastic about all of the walking we have been doing in Rome. I haven’t had this much exercise since we trained for the triathlon and marathon. While Avinash can be very unpredictable with when he wants or does not want to walk, when he does put his mind to it, he shows surprising stamina. For instance, in London, we found a race track and Avinash suddenly wanted to run around the track. Of course, I wasn’t going to hold him back, so we started to run. He would get tired, but then he[…]

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I’m a sucker for a good infomercial

Food, Rome

We decided to go to the open air market at Campo di Fiore to stock up on some fruits and veggies. Sitting at one of the stalls was this guy who should have his own spot on QVC. He had these contraptions that turned potatoes into pigtail ringlets and zucchinis into flowering blossoms. I was sold. In fact, I was sold not only once but twice. I bought 2 sets – still not sure why. The challenge was on. Could we go home and recreate this vegetable art that this man promised these plastic contraptions could magically do? We then[…]

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Hide and Seek at the Pantheon

Reflections, Rome

We’ve been in Rome enough days that we are kind of ‘settling’ in. Part of settling in is looking for a place to kick back when the day is over. I think that we’ve made the Pantheon that place. We are kind of treating it like our back yard. We had just eaten dinner and decided to spend some time playing with these light up flying spinners we bought from one of the peddlers on the street in the Piazza around the Pantheon. We then decided to play hide and seek around the columns of the Pantheon. We’ve kind of[…]

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Gladiators- The cold hard facts

Rome, Sights

Before coming to Rome I debated whether we should spend time going to the ancient ruins. Not that Nam and I are not interested, but I just did not know how to keep Avinash entertained while looking at deteriorating buildings in the sweltering sun. Today, we decided to visit the Colosseum and Roman Forum. Amazing part of not only Roman History but insight into what people and culture was like to be entertained by gladiator games of animal hunts, executions and battles to the death. I was excited as soon as we stepped into the arena, but I could see[…]

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Rome- Mi Amore, you are wooing me with your Cappucinos

Food, People, Rome, Sights

I have a new cappuccino addiction. At the corner of the Pantheon is a coffee shop, with only stand up counter service, called Tazza d’Oro. The place is filled with locals and tourists trying to edge their way in for the tiniest sliver of space at the counter. The first time we walked in I was completely lost. People were seemingly just walking up to the counter and automatically getting served beautiful cappuccinos and decadent iced granitas. They barely exchanged words but the barista knew exactly what they wanted. I must have gawked for at least 5 minutes before I[…]

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London Musings

London, People, Reflections

London Why I Love it Best public transportation system!  The tube is brilliant.  I have no idea how they figured out this network of tunnels and webs but it works.  I love that we just showed up, bought an Oyster Card,  hopped aboard and were off to see any nook and cranny we wanted to.  It’s a level of independence and stress free transportation that is a travelers dream Cultural Diversity-  London has got to be one of the most culturally diverse cities on the planet.  Maybe I think this because we got to spend so much time on the tube[…]

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Museums- Can we go again mom???

Avinash has to say..., London, Sights

Avinash had never really been to a museum and I was curious to see how he would process them, especially at 3 years old.  When I was about 11, I remember going to the wonderful museums while visiting Chicago and spending days wandering and getting lost in them.  I figured visiting the museums would be more for us and it would be a good first exposure for Avinash. We decided to visit the Natural History museum first.  I never knew dinosaur bones could make Avinash hyperventilate with excitement for hours straight.  He loved it.  The next day Avinash and I visited the[…]

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Gola in Wembley- More Little India

Food, London, People

How did all the Gujaratis take over this suburb of London??  I swear from the minute we walked off the train we were bombarded with smells and sights that made us think we were in India.  The only reason we knew we weren’t is because the roads were a little too clean (but only marginally).  There were street food stalls selling everything from dosas to pani puri to seasoned corn kernels.  But what made me stop and shriek with excitement was the gola stand. Now keep in mind that as much as we love Indian street food we CAN’T have[…]

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Little India in London

London, People, Religion

Little India in London Amazingly, Indians must be the largest non-Caucasian ethnic minority in London. SOUTH HALL We visited South Hall, which is predominately a Panjabi Sikh community.  We got off at the tube station and the signs were in English and Panjabi! There is a Gurdwara (Sikh Temple) just off the tube station and our friend told us that all are welcome.  It was our first time visiting a Gurdwara and I was dusty on my understanding of the Sikh religion.  The temple hall reflected an atmosphere of communal meditation with bhajans playing in the background.  There were no[…]

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