Sorry folks for the delay in posting. Internet access in Eastern Europe is not as cheap (as in free) or accessible as we had hoped. Anyhow....Buda and Pest are split down the middle by the Danube River. Our hotel is on the Buda side atop Castle Hill. Near our hotel is an old church under going some repainting. There are great views from the top of the hill. The weather here is delightfully warm and sunny, a treat after nearly a week of chilly rain and drizzle in Poland. Perfect walking weather and so we took advantage. North of town is [View Full Entry]

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Most of our day was spent ambling through Krakow's Old Town, Main Market Square and Wawel Castle. Wawel Castle sits atop a hill and contains a complex of building in addition to the castle. The other features include a cathedral, museums, crypts and a courtyard which supposedly has a "chakra" in it. This chakra is described as a vortex of positive energy, one of only a handful in the world. We did not find the chakra and the Polish people just roll their eyes at it and try not to encourage such outlandish things. Anyhow, Wawel Castle is like the Westminster [View Full Entry]

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On Thursday, we checked out of our Katowice hotel and headed to Krakow. We got aride from Adam, another work collegue. He had got us to Krakow in record time, driving 160 km/hr when he could. It was dinnertime for us when we arrived so we sought out Momo, a Tibetan and Indian restaurant in the formerly Jewish Kazimierz neighborhood across the Vistula River from our hotel. We were in heavan! The food was very good and it was spicy! That made us happy since Polish food, at least what we have eaten so far has been quite bland. I had [View Full Entry]

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The first thing we do when we land in a new place is to get a street map and try to get ourselves oriented on it. This involves walking around quite a bit to see what's nearby in every direction from our hotel. So far, in Katowice we have seen lots of apartment buildings, one university, a few churches and some shops and restaurants. This place is not geared toward the tourist and so it doesn't have the pizzazz that can be found elsewhere. It's kinda of refreshing actually. Still, Katowice gives us an idea of what urban Poland can normally [View Full Entry]

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We took the tram and a bus to Old Town Warsaw. Leading up to Old Town is the the street Nowy Swiat. This hip and modern area boasts many shops and cafes. Intersecting Nowy Swiat is a street called aleja Jerozolimskie (Jerusalem Avenue) which once led to a Jewish settlement called New Jerusalem. Here, we were surprised to find a single, massive fake palm tree in the middle of a cold, cloudy and windy day. Apparently, a Polish artist had gone to the real Jerusalem and was so impressed with the waving palms that she decided to build one in Warsaw. [View Full Entry]

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Here we are in Warsaw at last! Our flights here were all uneventful although all were late getting started. In fact, in Paris our plane sat at the gate for half an hour because the mechanized gateway was broken . Or so we were told. Then our pilot let it slip that the crew had to hunt for some staff person who knew how to operate the thing. Had we gotten off on time, we would have just made our connecting Air France flight to Warsaw. But alas, we were 10 minutes late and had to wait 2.5 hours for the [View Full Entry]

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Ready for another chronicle of adventures traipsing across the globe? We are! Tomorrow we head for Europe. Yeah, yeah we were in Paris just a few months ago but this time work is sending us to Poland for a week. Then since we will the there already and can't pass up the opportunity, we will take a week of vacation and whip through Budapest, Vienna and Prague. So tomorrow we shall cross the great pond as we sleep (or try to) and wake up bleary-eyed in Paris. From there we head to Warsaw. We'll spend one day there and then head [View Full Entry]

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We left Chennai at roughly 3:15 am on December 30. Such an ungodly hour. Yet the Chennai airport never sleeps and was bustling. No problems getting on our flight even though it was a bit late leaving for Paris. We arrived in Paris at about 10 am local time. We had traded in some of Anant's Hilton Honors points for a free one-night stay right near the airport. After India, it seemed extra luxurious to stay in what normally would have been an $800/night room. After we checked in, changed our clothes and got some breakfast, we took two RER trains [View Full Entry]

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A trip to Tirupathi is not in the cards this time. If we were willing to take a bus to the top of the temple complex and do the "express darshan" then we could have hired a car and made it a long day trip. But we wanted to walk up the roughly 4000 steps to the top of the hill (this is half the experience!), we wanted to do an overnight excursion. Next India trip, perhaps. Since Tirupathi has been scrapped, we have been hanging around Chennai and socializing. Anant wanted to replace his navratna (nine planets) ring with [View Full Entry]

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What started out as a day trip ended up taking much longer. We wanted to go down to Karaikal and Tirunallar to visit the Sree Saaneeswara Bhagavan temple. This temple is dedicated to the planet Saturn which has a strong influence in both of our horoscopes. The trip was thought to only be about 3-4 hours drive by car. But because of traffic, narrow roads and roads dammaged by recent rains, it took us closer to 6 hours. We drove down the East Coast Road past Mahabalipuram, through Pondicherry, Cuddalore to Tirunallar. Near Mahabalipuram, there is a crocodile park which we [View Full Entry]

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