In Venice now...

over the past couple of days i visited the leaning tower of pisa, the ufizzi (a museum where a lot of famous paintings are - i.e. "birth of venus" by botticelli, raphael, rubens, etc), and the accademia (where "the david" is). I am so amazed by the amount of emphasis that was placed on the arts in this region. I heard that 60% of the western worlds art is in Italy. I have to admit though it was overwhelming. Some areas just didnt do a great job in presenting the art. At the Vatican there is just too much to see and it was presented like an art maze leading to the Sistine Chapel. It was just too much to really appreciate one work or a few works at a time. I really enjoyed seeing the David however because of the way it was presented - and by its grandiose nature and by michelangelo's vision. There were the statues of the slaves which led right to a large atrium where the david was. It was inspiring to see because it came from one large block of marble and took 2.25 years to complete. I wonder what michelanglo was thinking as he made it - did it turn out the way he envisioned? did he like it as much as people like it now? did he mess up? how many times did he fail to get this outcome? Now we are in Venice - which is such a unique city. We took a boat ride along the grand canal to the hotel - felt like a decrepit disneyland. In hindsight, I wish I had taken a trip like this before I started working - i really feel like having a better global perspective would have helped me. This trip has had a lot of first's for me - first time on this long of a vacation, first time in all of these countries, first time being in a place where i didn't know the language, first time going this long without indian food :) - first time being so far away from mitu... I am really looking forward to paris now...

Amalfi Coast

In Amalfi now (just past Naples) and have to say this place is so beautiful. It has a great view of the mountains (including Vesuvious) and meditteranean (i am probably spelling all of these wrong). We also went to pompeii today - it was very different from what I had imagined or remembered from grade school film strips. I thought it was going to have a ton of preserved human life and more ash covered areas. Instead it has been very much excavated with most of the main items in museums. There were a few bodies that were enclosed in glass that were preserved in a huddled up position - i thought it was very interesting and scary. The other thing that was surprising was the fact that pompeii is so big - the area that was excavated was huge. Also Vesuvious is pretty far away - so the volcano erruption must have been very big and fast to get to this area. Onto venice tomorrow!

London

Tube advertising in London

Fountain - lots of fountains in Europe...

Food

We are in Italy now!! It has been a crazy two days of traveling to get here. We left Barcelona a few nights ago and took the overnight train to Nice. We spent the entire day in Nice - going to the beach, eating lots of gelato, having caffe lattes (espresso with milk), sight seeing - the french riviara is amazing. It was the first time I was in a country where I didn't know enough of the language to fully communicate. That was an awkward feeling to get used to. I didn't really anticipate how that would feel until we were on the train and two random French men boarded our cuchette (sleeper cart) and tried talking to us. It didn't take us long to understand basic conversation (through hand gestures, etc) but it was definitely an experience. Then we took another overnight train to Rome. I am really impressed with what I have seen thus far on our trip. What has impressed me the most is the food. I am usually a person who is somewhat picky about food and likes to be consistent with the food I am eating. (chipotle! - though it's getting harder to eat there all the time now - terri is probably jumping with joy since I have finally admitted toThough I like to try new types of food - I am generally the one who will get a safe dish and let Mita get something new. Anyways - the food in Spain and Italy has been surprisingly extremely delicious. We have been trying new things left and right. In Spain we went out with some friends who took us to some amazing restaurants. They had this bruchetta ham (very thinly sliced) that was good and we also had traditional dishes (piella, seafood, croquetas, omlette con patatas) - all very tastey. In Nice - it was back to the sandwiches again. Mainly ham sandwiches on french bread. Didn't really like that too much since they were cold - but still decent. Italy has by far been my favorite when it comes to food. I usually don't have the best time at Italian restaurants in Chicago but Italy's Italian food is sooooooooooo good. I can't get enough of it. So far I've tried a tuna pasta, lasagna, steak, pizza, seabass - all very good. I can't wait to see if the rest of Italian food is just as good (since we have only eaten in Rome) Though the food tasting has been great, I have to admit seeing and sometimes eating at a McDonalds in each of the places has been comforting too. (I actually found the McDonalds in each country very interesting - I must say that they have branded themselves in such a unique way. They are really consistent throughout the world. I decided to take a picture of their menus which I will attach to this post at some point). In London the McDonalds meals were smaller - in fact I even heard a man complain about getting a large fries when he ordered a medium. One of the main sandwiches was a Chicken Tikka burger - I later heard from people that their national chicken dish is the indian dish of Chicken Tikka. In Spain the McDonalds was very trendy - they were giving out fashionable belts with a purchase of a meal. They also had people talking orders from a pda. Size of the orders were more similar to Chicago. In Nice (France), the McDonalds also had an "indien" sandwich. Italy was more or less the same. As far as desserts go - chocolate is amazing all over the world! I love all the different flavors of gelatto - who wants to open a gellateria in the states? Let's get one started...

barcelona!

first off just wanted say - thanks for all the messaging and calling to check up on us. We are doing fine. it is very weird that we were on all these trains the day before. it´s interesting how londoners are reacting to this terrorism vs. new yorkers - there is a stress on remaining calm and civilized in london. more so than in theUS. but my favorite british headline was "BASTARDS". I met up with one of my college buddies who now lives in London and he was able to take us to the airport (so we stayed away from public transportation). We are in barcelona now and are having a great time. Some how we were upgraded to the ¨la torreta¨ suite which means mini tower that resides on top of the hotel. it is amazing b/c it has 360 views of barcelona. I wish this blogger thing worked better b/c i posted pics but they aren´t showing up and the formatting is horrible when its published. the people here are so nice and they have so much night time energy. we met up with some locals here for dinner at 11pm and didn´t get done until 1:30 or so. the food was amazing and no tip is required! that is definitely the best part (i believe in tipping when service is great not when it is mandatory)...then we went to a few different clubs. the indian movie star thing didn´t work here - i am not as convincing in broken spanglish plus the locals i was with were laughing at my attempt to get in. hope things in the labs are good..i heard they raised the alert for trains there too. i also heard acn stock went up 10%! tarko - i saw a silver dollar guy here that will blow away the silver dollar guy in chicago...they don´t mess around here...i will post pics when i can...

Update

Just wanted everyone to know that we are ok - we are just staying in our hotel room and hanging out. Kinda scary to hear all the news and to know the attacks are so nearby. We are leaving here tomorrow to go to Spain hopefully everything will be normal from now on...

Day 2 - money money money...

First to answer all of your questions...(thanks for responding) 1. Not being racist - it was just an interesting observation. dont worry white people still dominate the world :) 2. I was here when they announced the Olympic results - people here were really excited to win. and as far as sandwiches go...they are freakin everywhere! in fact i had sandwiches for breakfast, lunch and part of dinner (we had a late afternoon "high tea") 3. yeah it sucks to be robbed or inconvienced by random events... 4. I wasn't trying to sneak in...I am traveling with Ravi's sister afterall...after telling Ravi more about what happened - he was laughing and couldn't believe she wouldn't let us in even after he spoke with her 5. foot massages are in virgin upper class only...we were in economy next to some annoying old lady...we had her moved to a different seat :) thats another story as far as locations to hide your valuables - I already sent a new turban design to india - they now come with a cell phone and pocket pc holder... 6. OMG, all sandwiches are filled with mayonaisse or butter...you definitely get sick of it so today's revelations... the US dollar sucks...everything looks like its priced normally. A brownie cost 2.00 in pounds but b/c of the dollar we are basically being ripped off since the xchange rate sucks...I feel like london is the place to make money so that you can spend it everywhere else. Since i have always been in the US i never have known what it feels like when your dollar is weaker (i.e. how my relatives in india feel when they travel) its pretty depressing and scary when everything here is double. saw some cool things today - big ben, trafalger sqaure, the lion king musical, st. pauls cathedral, the tate modern, harrods (where mita spent $10 on 4 pieces of chocolate!!!!), natural history museum.... interesting observations...people here are skinnier than in the US. food is served in moderation not like supersize huge meals, london is more accessible than other big cities, london is more green - has many parks, trees, etc, the buildings are colorful and refreshing but the weather is gray... and everything is hella expensive hope all is well

Not so great start...

This is my first post of my european excursion. For those of you who don't know - I am on a three week tour of Europe - going to London, Barcelona, a variety of places in Italy and finally Paris. On July 4 I flew out to NYC to meet up with Mita and also take some pictures of the Virgin Megastore in Union Square - yeah it was work but as we all know I definitely want to get this Virgin thing going... Anyways, when I boarded the flight to NYC, I was forced to gate check my bag (b/c the continental plane was soo small). Once I arrived, I got my bag and met up with Mita and went into the city. I checked my bag for my digital camera and guess what??? I was robbed! Someone jacked my cam - i only had it for 3 months! I couldn't believe it! A $500 camera along with memory sticks, etc - gone and to make matters worse - continental doesn't cover stolen electronic equipment. So I dropped 7 hundo and picked up another one...that sucked! We then flew out on the Virgin Atlantic flight to London. Along the way I tried using Mita's brother's business card to try and get us into the VIP Virgin Club but was rejected. It was crazy - the lady even talked to Ravi on the phone and still wouldn't let us in. I don't think she realized she was talking to the CFO until I took her name down...:) Well my first day in London has been quite interesting. I spent time observing differences in behaviors - mainly between the U.S. and the U.K. There is a lot more advertising done here - all over the cabs, the Tube, etc. There aren't that many people with dogs and people seem to say "to be honest" quite a bit. I also don't really feel like a minority here - as soon as I got off the plane there were 10-15 Sikhs working at the airport. It was crazy - I didn't expect to see indian people everywhere...imagine the size of the mexican population in the US and the number of mexican immigrants you see daily - that is same for the number of indians here. We seem to be a large chunk of the minority population here. I couldn't post my pics at this internet cafe but will try and do that for the future posts. Holla back with some comments... -preet