My wait for the thanksgiving season paid off. I got a damn good deal for HP dv7t on deals2buy. It will be arriving around Dec 7th. This might be my last blog using my old friend.

I never expected I would have such a special bday this year. To all my surprise, my colleagues have made a blast of it

It all started as early as midnight 12 India time and did not end till midnight 2 German time ) A very long bday indeed!!

Some colleagues in India office called n wished me at 2400 IST. Then, immediately followed by more wishes from my home. My sister insisted that I should come online at 2400 GST (German Standard Time). They all woke up at 330 IST to wish me again. Meanwhile some dear friends showered their sweet wishes by phone. Next Morning it was Kalyan n Hari! A broadcast mail followed by a flood of mails were awaiting me at office Well, but for a little discussion on the evenings’ party, there was not much happening at office.

In the evening, our colleagues at offshore called me up before they were going to cut the cake on my behalf and celebrate! I was virtually cutting the cake and listening to the bday song )

Just a few mins after I reached home, most of my colleagues, 16 of them, arrived and so did the food we ordered dinner from an Indian restaurant. Actually I cudnot beleive my eyes seeing how neatly our house was arranged!! All thanks to Kalyan (my room-mate) and Kanthaa (another guy here). First they made me cut a special brand cake and gifted me a MP3 player. I was all worried if my new Sherwani (sent from home) would be spoiled during the "cake makeup" session! But then it was fine. Then we all relished the delicious food. It was all going good till there. Now, started the bumps. I should curse myself to have brought in that tradition. And some guyz were awaiting this day for their revenge!! inkEmundi… matash!! They dint stop bashing till it became red hot ( For their sadistic pleasure, they got all this recorded Around 12 they all went home satisfied. Well, it is not over yet, atleast in the US 12th did not come to end. By the time I finished the calls, it was already 2.

Over and out!

Me back from Italy just a few mins ago. Intiki kooda vellaledu, directly to office, so still smelling the air of Basel(switzerland), land of Rome & water of Venice Though the trip was a lil bit risky, we finished it successfully without any problems. I think I told most of you that Praveen (my school/college-mate) was going to India from US and is going to take a 2.5 days break in Frankfurt. And I was ready with a plan to make the most of it. The major adjustment we had to do was to enjoy the sleep in the train rather than in a nice hotel room. That was inevitable, we had to cover large distances and wasting precious day-time for journey is a sin.

The first step of the journey is to reach Rome. After a few hours of roaming around in the X-mas market at the Frankfurt airport, we boarded the ICE (Inter-City Express) to Basel(Switzerland). Actually its just a 45 mins break in Basel . But then, we could feel that we are in switzerland by the amount of snowfall, the chill in the Train station. After taking some snaps, we boarded the night train which travels all through North-eastern Swiss, enters Italy from the top & reaches Rome (at middle of the west coast of Italy). Know what, we did not have to book a hotel all through the trip because of the usage of night trains to sleep, then refresh in the rest-rooms at the Train stations. Yeah, you guessed it right, we did not take bath last 2 days

Rome is not a place of scenic-beauty but one which has high historical & archaeological value (don’t ask me what ). If it were not for a guided tour which we took for the colloseum, Roman Forum & the Palentine, we would not have appreciated those places as we had after the tour. After that we went to some other places listed in the "Must See" of Rome. The other major place was the Vatican city, the smallest sovereign state in world as I have known during my school days and the Catholic world’s heaven on earth as I have know during this trip. Since it was a sunday, the Vatican Museum was closed we had to miss the Sistine Chapel, great art work of Michael Angelo (for which he was paid very little itseems). They say, ‘Leaving Rome without seeing the Sistine Chapel would be a sin’ and there was no option for us ( But then, the grief did not last longer, since we were enchanted (??) seeing the biggest church on the face of the earth, St.Peter’s Basilica. Well, it was very huge, but I was not able to convince myself that there could not be bigger ones. Then we visited the Piazzas - Spagna, Navona, the Trevi fountain, the Pantheon. Believe me guyz, there are better carvings, sculptures, monuments in India. Just that the tourism is not yet promoted as much as it is in these places. The best thing at these places is we have easy accesibility to all the major places, an easy-to-guide map, detailed description of the places, all available for free in most places or for minor charges. Yeah fine, we can discuss this in a seperate thread, for now, I shall continue with the tour description.

We had to take a beating in 3 hotels before we found some good tasty Italian food. And whoever said Italy is famous for pizzas must not have tasted them in Rome. Lucky that we got something good before boarding the train to Venice. Again it was a 8-hr long journey from the middle of the west-coast of Italy to the north-eastern coast. As per our plan, we booked couchettes (posh synonym for berths But we slept peacefully only till 6 in the morning. After refreshing and enquiries we were on the streets of Venice, sorry it should be, on the waters of Venice by 8AM.

It was a different experience in the City on water. There were few streets which we could walk in, mostly which had long chains of wooden benches over the water. If there is a high tide and water level increases in any time of the day, even these benches were of no use. And many tourists preferred using plastic shoes (which covered till the knees) and walk in the water. But mostly people used the public transport, the motor-boats. Yeah, there are boat-stops and mostly non-functional huge old boats are used for this purpose. And almost each house had a boat, rich/middle-class boletho motor-boats and others adjusted with normal rowing boats.

After visting all the "Must See" of Venice & Islands around it, we made it to Bergamo. Thats where we had to take flight back to Frankfurt. From the place we landed, the main FFT airport is 1.5 Hr far and we had to take a shuttle. Actually, at 07:00AM we are at Bergamo, Italy and by 10:30AM, he has to check-in at Frankfurt, Germany. And then, there is this shuttle to main airport. Any delay would spoil his actual trip to India. All went well, and Praveen checked-in quite well before the last minute. Me started peacefully back to Dusseldorf and to work now.

PS: My first sentence had "a few minutes ago". But now, it should be changed to "a few hours ago". Following strict advise of a dear friend, atleast this time I did not want to postpone writing this and eventually skip it.

Just as a matter of fact, the total distance we covered in 2.5 days is:

• Frankfurt to Basel - 330
• Basel to Rome - 970
• Rome to Venice - 567
• Venice to Bergamo - 238
• Bergamo to Fft Hahn - 720
• Fft Hahn to Frankfurt - 114

That makes it 2220 Kms on Train and 720 on Flight )