Little Swiss Miss - Part 1

OK - so you knew this was a-coming, so no surprises on this post. But now - about the Switzerland. There are 2 major things that come to mind now once we are back in good old Deutschland. The Swizzies - have a lot of cash. A lot of it. And sadly, they do expect the junta who go there to also have a lot of the afore-mentioned cash. Messieurs Chopra and Johar obviously meant that whole spiel about 'transporting' Indians to a place they could never go to ... because it is clear that even though they didn't need to, they had definitely looked at the prices on a menu card in a Zurich restaurant.

Point two. Gorgeousity. I don't think I have anywhere physically put down my camera because I was tired of clicking. Here's a shot, there's a shot and everywhere's a scenic shot. There are lush green lawns that look good enough to chew the cud on, fluffy white clouds that envelope strong mountains and inviting lakes that beg to be jumped into - and I'm totally unromantic and far from being a poet. They just have this wonderful abundance of natural beauty which they have obviously done their job in taking care of, and the end result is this picture perfect postcard. Even the cows look coordinated with the the landscapes. And yes, I'm referring to those B&W cows that look like pinup models for butter and milk ads.

But now on to the pictures - needless to enumerate, we had a fabulous trip.

We got off to a 'different' start by flying into Zurich from Cologne (explanation in my previous post) and then hitting the Zurich main station.

They had a volleyball ??! match I think happening when we were there (Yes, inside the station - they just add sand, seating areas, beer and crowds. Voila.) Which is the blue enclosure you can make out. The bus type thing is actually a restaurant, and the flying well-endowed example of femininity is utterly random. I guess they think it looks aesthetic. You got me.

So we stayed at a smallish hotel (we were on a tight budget - I know cheap tickets and cheap hotel - but TIGHT ok?! Just stick with me on this) called 'easyHotel'. Of course it was kinda snickeringly ironic since its a stone's throw away from the Zurich red light district. Tons of easy ___ ahem, ahem ... moving on, this is a family blog. But this hotel is designed in the same vein as the indian 'Ginger Hotels' - affordable, nothing fancy and very business-like in feel. It in fact had the same color scheme as well. I tell you these Tata chors ...



We ate at the restaurant above - Raja Bongo ... I know, ha ha and all that. But you won't be laughing when I tell you how much Mr Bongo and Co looted from us for what one can only describe as a modest Indian meal. 1 aloo mutter, 1 vegetable biriyani, 1 raita and 2 beers = close to the Indian equivalent of 4000 bucks. Highway robbery ... in fact I would say Expressway robbery. It was though slightly comforting to see Kingfisher Beer on the shelves, manufactured in the UK and imported by the Italians - now that's an international beer!

So our plan for day 1 in Zurich was to head out of it. We took up a tour to Mount Pilatus (around 7000 ft) - most famously believed to be the resting place of THE legendary Pontius Pilate (the judge who presided over Christ's trial, and more notoriously ok-ed his crucifixion). Of course nothing to prove or disprove the same - but interesting nevertheless.

The bus ride started at Zurich, and went through meadows and some other pretty Swiss towns (more notably in them - Kussnacht, which is supposedly where the famous William Tell shot an arrow through an apple on his son's head and did some other cool Rajnikant-type stunts), before finally reaching the pretty town of Lucerne.

Isn't that puhrtey?

Lay ee odl lay ee odl-oo!!!

A traditional Swiss house in the smaller towns ...

At Lucerne, the order of the day was to see the famous Lion Memorial - a really quite imposing statue of a dying lion, dedicated to Swiss soldiers who lost their life while they served under the French ... for most Swiss, it is more a memorial of a really bad time, when they, who usually are neutral, were forced to send their sons to serve under foreign kings just for the money.

Bata Zindabad!!! Mera Desh Mahaan and all that :-)

From there we wandered around Lucerne a stumbled upon a .... flea MARKET!!! And once exposed to that irresistible word starting with 'M' and ending with 'K', it was necessary to do some looking around. We did find quite a few oddities ...

Did you know they sold the Matrix Trilogy in a box set like this with a FREE cool Neo doll??!! DUDE!!!!

There was tons of stuff to see around Lucerne as well (Did you know it was the 5th most popular tourist destination as figured by Tripadvisor? So there!) ... so sights with brief intros below ...

This is the biggest draw at Lucerne - the Chapel Bridge with some fascinating spooky artwork on the panels above. Check it out!

The view of Lucerne from Chapel Bridge. Quite nice, really.

Not that this is the most preferred form of transport ... but it just seems to fit right in!

Main Bhi Spiderman.

Lovely old facade to the buildings - this used to be a government house, a storage house and all kinds of things - today its a hotel.

So phew. Already hit a record number of pics and I'm not even through half a day yet timeline-wise. I continue in the next post ...

Cheers
Sush

Germ of an Idea ...

We just got back from a weekend in Switzerland. Although this is not a travel post, I thought I must let the common populace know about a fascinating arrangement that a local low-cost airline has developed to fill their flights.

OK - lets think about your standard spur of a moment weekend trip. You know when you need to go and and when you need to be back, you usually have an overall budget that you're willing to extend your airfare upto (this is assuming that the place you want to go is out of bus-able or train-able range, or unless the distance is such that you will be able to just make the train / bus to and fro with time thrown in for a sandwich at your destination). Most of the time (at least in my head), I am mostly iffy about the destination - I don't mind going to something a little out of the ordinary ... or maybe violently touristy ... the point being - I really don't care where I go as long as its an interesting place. And of course, I am not willing to pay Rs 5000 for a one-way ticket to say ... Amritsar. And although I know a lot of people who may disagree with me, I think most places in India have things to see and places to eat at that could comfortably fill up a weekend. So your costs are fixed, your dates are fixed. Its your destination that isn't.

And that's exactly what German Wings (low-cost airline - that is TRULY low-cost ... Spicejet & Go - you are low-cost - you cannot charge 300 rupees lesser than a Kingfisher / Jet flight) Seriously - AUKAAT.

So they have this fantastic thing on their site called 'blind booking'. Now in blind booking, you get groups of 6-7 cities, all under different banners, such as 'Shopping' or 'Culture' or 'Nature' and the like. So umm ... in 'Shopping' you could have cities like Milan, London, Barcelona, Berlin etc. So you choose an overall banner, fix your dates and then make your payment. Now, your payment is also fixed - its 20 euros one way per person (approx Rs 1200, so a return ticket is 2400). You also have the option of 'removing' certain cities from the banner you've chosen - so for example, we removed 'London' since we'd need a visa, and 'Bologna' since we weren't interested. This happens at a really modest cost of 5 euros per removal. And soo ..... after you've made your payment, they then tell you where you're going! So until you finish the booking, you don't really know where you're going - fun but at the same time, not too wild since you have some kind of idea of the destinations you may get.

So which is how we landed up with return tickets to Zurich - trip details to be enumerated in next post. But I thought it was a simply fabulous idea, and especially for airlines to fill up their empty flights, and people to make random trips. I hope SOME airline / online agency comes up with this soon - if anyone thinks there's already something like this ... do let me know!!!

Cheers, and pics in the next one.
Sush

All For Post, and Post For All.

This is a first for me. Well, not the blog - but especially this blog post. Whats so special you may snarl? Well, its been rattled off an offline blog editor called MarsEdit, which definitely may be a small to almost unnoticeable step for womankind but is a giant technological leap for me. Also its a first since I am currently at a laundromat waiting for the clothes to get done. As in not the fact that I've ever got my clothes done at a laundromat; the idea of doing a blog post while waiting for ... you get the idea.

Right - so a picto post was promised, and just like the governments of most downtrodden nations, I do keep my promises. So here goes ...

The trip to Maastricht in the Netherlands was not planned out of any larger idea to include another city in our 'done' list, but more because its the closest city which has movie theaters which run angrezi films. Its also the closest Dutch city to Aachen. (The closest German city is Cologne) But once we were there, a friend of Gaurav's who had studied there took it upon her delicate shoulders to give us the 'Maastricht in 24-Hours Tour', and by the time we got around to watching Inception, we could have as well have written a short documentary on the city.

It was a lovely city - and especially because of the beautiful river that bisects the city into 2 halves.

The main town hall in the town square ... nice, but sadly not a patch on our Aachen Rathaus :-)

Strange man holding ball of fire. We would have gone closer, but our tour guide tempted us with offers of the 'world's best ice-cream' which was on a parallel street. Which is definitely was. No pictures but can provide a link - if you can find this store 'Australian Homemade Ice Cream' - GO EAT!!! See here ...

This is supposedly ranked in several guidebooks as Europe's best french fries. We didn't bother - just having lunched and all ... and anyway, the Germans and the Dutch (don't know about the rest of Europe) have their fries dunked in bucketfuls of mayonnaise. Yes, not our good old 'it's different' sauce, but MAYO. And not being too much a Mayo fan, we decided to skip it.

European streets are all the same ... cute and quaint.

The other square which led off to the university - Maastricht again has a fairly famous educational background. The one thing I found really unusual was the deep red of the bell tower next to the main church. A close-up below ...

Na? And it was a fairly muggy day with little sun and more threatening-to-ruin-plans clouds, so the red and the gold just stuck out even more so. Quite nice.

Aah. Now the fun part. In the old ages, the head religious honchos of Maastricht had quite a thing for building churches. A lot of them. I mean - a hell lot (excuse the blasphemy). So the new administration (I mean still Stone Age by American historical standards) were quite at their wits end in terms of figuring out what to do with all the Churches. They couldn't well raze them down (the possible violent riots etc) but then what?

So they started 'leasing' them out. Exactly. So abandoned old Gothic churches suddenly transformed into ... car parks (YES!!), discotheques (DOUBLE YESS!!), hotels, restaurants, coffee-shops (the regular ones), libraries and bookstores. So the picture above is of a fairly well-stocked bookstore (you can make out the entrance - its the maroon part).

I LOVED it!!! Check out the simple gorgeous pillars, the high ceiling and the lovely windows at the end.

and don't miss the floor :-)

Crossword, Landmark or Barnes & Nobles ... dig that!!! They also to their credit had a very interesting range of books - especially some great cartoon ones which we picked up and which will be a topic of another blog post.

But I loved their main Church. Nothing fancy or pricey like Aachen, but intricate carvings and a truly peaceful atmosphere.

The whole Church area.

The next example of what you can do with a Church - reconverted into a fairly snazzy hotel, complete with some psychedelic UFO-looking lanterns (I love the fact that just behind it on the ceiling are original Church carvings - something wonderfully weird about it)

And the entrance was even more radical - they remixed it to create a kind Wonderland tunnel that you go through - quite quixotic.

Another one for the Lit fans. Maastricht is also the final resting place of D'Artagnan - yes, of the 'one for all all for one' musketeers legend. If you're either furiously getting ready to send me a stinker or are guiltily googling his name since you had no CLUE he was a real person - relax, he was. Yes the details of whether their quadro-bromance really occurred or if Charlie Sheen did look really good in the film are slightly sketchy, but rest assured - there was a man, there was a D'Artagnan.

Don't believe me still? Read the inscription. CORRECTION: My good friend Kedar brought it to my notice about how interesting it was that Mr D'Artagnan has a commemorative statue in the city ... considering he was fighting for the French King against the Dutch! Talk about being good sports. Or maybe they saw the Chris 'O Donnel in the film and were moved to make the statue. I really don't know. Anyway, he died fighting in battle when a musket went into his throat ... I think at this spot.

There is art. There is more art. And then there is crap. Why oh why would anyone spend money on this waste of time? (Video below) For those who are too befuddled by the sheer perfidy of rubbish ... its essentially a mermaid-type woman (who looks more like she's stepped off the set of Thriller) comforting a dead giraffe (because they ARE so cute and cuddly) while on a marooned island with random other animals (supposedly extinct ones - but there was a penguin and a donkey there - both of which I am willing to swear are not extinct by any standards) floating / walking in a moat. And oh, as a finishing touch this entire thing is in a cage.

Even the fake bear seated an arms length away looks like he's in no position to comment on this travesty of artistic liberty. The cute kids seem to be able to do nothing to help.

Now since that's done, we move to random animal and nature shots. There is no particular reason for them being there, its just that Nat Geo has an annual duck feature they do, and I want to make sure I have pictures up that can justify my bird-watching skills. (Read as: you can furiously click the downward arrow button)

I found this hilarious. Imagine living there and having a cannon right below your house. Talk about a welcome wagon!

No clue what this is. I want to say theme ship, but the sheer moronicity of it stops me. Why would you have a boat designed like a castle complete with animals inside? Bleats me.

And that's that. Farewell, adieu till my next post. It really thrills me every time someone admits to reading my blog, and readers - don't worry. I will not let anyone else know that you do :-)

Cheers,
Sush

Incepting Sherlock.

So a million years after the rest of the world has done it, we did it. We saw 'Inception'. The good thing about it was that it definitely sparked off debate ... we came out and were immediately trying to cross-check the various issues we had with the film, but in a nice, semi-intelligent, non-Titanic type way.

We've come across some fairly bad reviews of the film - but have to admit that those were none of our problems. It was a fun Hollywood flick, with enough semblance of a plot and possibility of analysis to make you feel happy with yourself, and with style worthy of a entire Chanel ramp-show.

So what were the dissident's common plaints?

1) No plot

This I thought was rather unfair. There was an extremely clear plot-line ... if you got lost along the way, there's a pardon for that, but I think Mr Nolan had a very clear story in mind when he sat down in the director's chair. The issue could have been one of over-sandwiching, or simply that irresistible Photoshop urge to keep adding layers because they look so nice. Could it have been made a little simpler? Definitely. But then we'd have been baying for him succumbing to dumbing it down. Somewhere along the way, a story of corporate espionage through a type of 'mind-reading' became a special effects extravaganza. Oh yes, we have never seen THAT happen before in Hollywood ...

2) All style no substance

http://www.nypress.com/blog-6838-a-non-spoilery-but-still-negative-inception-review.html

Ahem. Have you seen Mr Nolan's other films? You don't go expecting the 'Pianist' at a 'Terminator' movie. So this is like that, but not exactly like that. You be happy for the substance that you get.

3) "I felt more for the guy sitting alone in front of me than for any character in the film."

One remarkable aspect of Christopher Nolan films for me is their ... umm ... 'frantic-ness'. All the scenes, characters and the story racing through like they're all on varying quantities of Red Bull ... and there is an almost conscious attempt not to let any character grow on you. You're not allowed to empathize with a character. Its difficult to as well, when you're jumping off buildings and racing up at angles opposing gravity. Nolan has never been about building characters. Which is why if a character ever did, it was just proof of his skills as an actor - to stand out despite the pace of the film.

4) "Climax which is clunky and confusing" / "overblown mess of an ending"

http://www.salon.com/entertainment/movies/inception/index.html?story=/ent/movies/andrew_ohehir/2010/07/14/inception

This I can still sort of subscribe to. I have hajar reservations about the ending, and despite a mess gargantuan enough to warrant 3 sequels of cleaning up ... I was a little uncomfortable about everyone waking up sweetly in their seats, seat-belts still conveniently in place. All they need were blonde air-hostesses handing them their travel toothbrush kits.

But I guess sometimes, the only way to go is pretend like it never happened - as in, in reality :-) if that makes any sense. So my review is - go watch. You may be violently disappointed, but for a year that has given us a range of fowl from 'Robin Hood', SATC2, 'Knight & Day' and the Prince of Whatever ... I think this is definitely more engaging stuff. Do let me know if you violently contradict.

But leaving 'Inception' aside - the telly does really seem to just get better and better. Last night we saw the first episode of the BBC series 'Sherlock'. Its a 90 minute show with an absolute cracker of a cast, a mean editor on the table and a totally fun premise. Watch the promo below ...

The lead character especially deserves special mention for totally bringing the 'off' quality of Holmes to life ... and of course the fact that I've violently fallen in love with him has a teensy bit to do with it as well. And come on - I'm sure all lit lovers have wondered what would Sherlock do today with the modern wonders of GPS, SMS and email. And I of course couldn't stop cracking up at poor Watson's feeble attempts to not be classified as Holmes's 'date' on one of their stakeouts at a restaurant. The perils of modern living when 2 guys share a apartment. Sigh. But friends - the game, is most definitely afoot. Do try and catch it.

Next post will be a travel one - from little Maastricht, a small city on the border of the Netherlands where we saw 'Inception' over the weekend. Lots of pictures in the next.

Cheers

Sush

Buy None, Get Some Free ...

We just finished watching an old classic today - 'Blackmail' - a vintage Hitchcock from 1929, and possibly one of the earliest 'talkies' - made at a time when theaters themselves weren't really equipped to handle sound.

We watched it online - at an 'open culture' site, where several classic films are now available for viewing either online, or as downloads. This is because their rights have lapsed, thus bringing them into the public domain, and hence making them 'free' for audiences like us.

I personally found it marvelous that I was watching a Hitchcock film - FREE, LEGALLY and so simply ... no DVD, no player no rental etc etc. So thought it would be useful if I could compile a quick list of things that were in my sphere of online hunting around that could make you go 'mmmm ... or more simply, things that are for free on the internet!

1) http://www.openculture.com/freemoviesonline

This is the holy mother grail. The idea that usually springs to mind when I say free, is boring old student films that would possibly be passed over even by their own makers ... but this list of far from it. Slightly for the discerning viewer? Yes. Fun and erudite? Most definitely.

A quirky Alice in Wonderland (the B&W original) or the cartoon version of Orwell's Animal Farm (excellent) or even early masterpieces from Hitchcock, Chaplin, Polanski, Tarkovsky or even the Tarantino Man. Cary Grant, John Wayne, Mr Bogart, a certain Mr Depp or Audrey Hepburn. Even a Sherlock Holmes. There are documentaries, biographies, short films, super short films, features and animation. One of THE most amazing repositories of free films I have found online, and one I plan to keep permanently bookmarked.

PS: Keep 'open culture' marked for other stuff as well ... if you've ever been thinking of learning a language, but the effort and money of the exercise got you down - look no further than http://www.openculture.com/freelanguagelessons

2) http://www.archive.org/

I found this far more interesting as a bank of images, news resources and also some occasional music options. But needless to say, an amazing collection of just STUFF, so although I wouldn't recommend keeping it bookmarked, it can totally help you spend away a boring hour at work. Or two.

3) http://emol.org/movies/freemovies.html

Take a closer look at this list. Although you may be tempted to go to open culture, one thing I have to admit that these guys got done nicely was the genre-wise classification ... you almost can pretend to be in a video-store while selecting a movie to go with your pizza. Nice.

Also another thing here was the large amount of public domain TV they have stored. Besides the usual faves like 'Laurel and Hardy', 'The 3 Stooges', 'Lucy' - they also have tons of cartoons that have lapsed into the public domain ... all our old pals like Superman, Bugs Bunny, Popeye and Woody woodpecker. (click here!) All free and legal to watch!

4) http://www.classic-literature.co.uk/

OK, that's movies, TV, cartoons ... a bit of music ... what else am I missing??! BOOKS! Yup, several classics are also now all for 'free' (of course with a net connection that does more than just 'connect') and the above link takes to you to some truly important classics.

Ol' Will is in there, and also some surprising names - Jules Verne, Dickie boy, Mark Twain and Doyle. However I wouldn't get chai and biscuits and settle myself into a chair too early into this site - several of the links are dead, so would advise checking they do exist before you decide on a read.

5) http://www.booksforabuck.com/general/pubsources.html

Tons more book options.

So there. If you have the bandwidth to update status profiles on FB, then you've just lost your excuse of having 'nothing to watch' or 'nothing to read' ... be proud to be Indian and take full use of the free maal :-) All of course - totally within the beautiful confines of the law. Could anything be more cooler?

To close, a few more sites where you can watch more ... umm ... contemporary? stuff. Issue usually being that they are region-specific ... but nothing a dedicated VPN couldn't solve. (This could be kinda stretching those beautiful confines I was talking about earlier :-) (Virtual Private Network for the non-comp junta)

- www.hulu.com

The holy grail of good TV. Everything's here. And I mean, everything.

- www.southparkstudios.com

South. Park. All. Seasons. 'Nuf. Said.

Tons others - google out ABC, NBC, Fox, CBS, CN & Disney & Nick ...

Cheers folks.

Sushma