Another evening at random .. Napflio, Greece

This is one more of the posts.. that I promised myself I will finish some day.. and since the homework is due on monday, now seems to be the perfect time to finish another installment!

If I were to owe my life, my happiness, my admiration, my sense of pride, and my reverence to a man, two men actually, it would be to my father, C.N. Nagaraj a.k.a Daasaru (to his reverant desciples), and my advisor Dr. Aristotle Arapostathis a.k.a Ari (to his reverant desciples). I could write songs about them..(dont worry I wont get in to that right now).. I could just watch them go through their daily lives.. (doing Sandhyavandana, or having a smoke (respectively their most favorite activities)) and feel exhilerated.. feel satisfied with my life because I caught a glimpse of it..They are the men, I wish to live up to some day... perhaps ...

Ok, not getting too distracted, Aristotle Arapostathis is my supervisor.. One of the most brainy people in the world (from whatever I have seen of the world). He is also, a coffee, wine, cigarette, music, Mac, standard transmission driving, stochastic systems geek among other things! Dr. M. K. Ghosh, (close friend of Dr. Ari from IISc) mentioned to Wei so knowingly.. that Dr. Ari is one professor who has never outgrown his bachelor's student enthusiasm! I think that every one who knows him will agree ! He was born in Athens..and the fountain of culture, class, knowledge, that vibrant LIFE, that spurts out of Athens, finds it channel through him .. in every which way..

Actually, that whole last paragraph was a distraction.. but anyways, we met Ari in Athens. We told him, we planned to go to Delphi, (overnight stay) Drive to Olympia( another night ) (third day undecided)and then take a ferry to the volcanic island Santorini. He in his wise greek fashion, with a thick accent said.. You MUST .. ABSOLUTELY MUST go to Napflio.. waving his hand like he is spinning a key chain at the end of his forefinger (that is his style).. he said "I strongly recommend it" .. We thought why not !

As per his emphatic advice, we did not stay overnight in Olympia, instead drove a killing 6 hours to reach Napflio.. I say killing because, on the map provided by greece tourism center, they say, the road from Olympia to Napflio via the village Tripoli, is a highway.. YEAH RIGHT !! it is about 10 feet at its widest.. and it (i swear) really goes half a foot next to some of the most vertical earth-cracked-open cliffs of the earth !! Prince is one of the safest drivers on earth.. to whom, driving comes naturally.. Watching him drive is like watching a gracefull ballet dancer.. and HE WAS SWEATING in fear of losing control!! and believe me .. that says a REAL LOT about the terrain !

yada yada yada, we reached Napflio. Oh my god !! What a delightful place it was !! It was about to rain.. so all the amazing things you hear about the Greek bluest seas and beaches, were ALL THE MORE TRUE about it's blue-green-greys too !! I wont say more.. i am too lazy to type.. + anything I say can only be de-meaning to the beauty the place holds ! To any one who is willing to take an advice, GO TO NAPFLIO AND SEE IT FOR YOURSELF !!

All the evening, we manouvered through the unbelievable deep gorges of Pelopenes to reach Napflio, Dr. Ari's favourite city in Greece.. It is a feast to your eyes, your skin, your nose ..and to your heart ! .. the breezy, blue, heaven :) Dr. Ari told us it had served as capital of Greece for a while in history.. Now, it is the rich Athenians weekend getaway.. whatever it is, we fell in love with it, the moment we parked in the public parking spot in the Port of Napflio.. Oh Napflio.. How I love you! 

The view of the fort right in front of our balcony.. this cute, small fort is on an island not bigger than a house plot in Austin.. and it proudly stands there.. against the background of the rugged, feel-nothing blueish grey mountains..and in the middle of the undescribable hue of blue and green and orange(!) sea.. it looked .. content! 

It was one of those evenings when it is ALL ready to rain.. winds are already carrying the smell of dry earth soaking in the fresh wetness somewhere,... NOT here, but some where expectantly close :) .... every tree is waving.... a grand welcome to the clouds.... But then, rain is pompous, and is just playing hide and seek... Now you see me! now you dont ! although we were DEAD tired, we walked around the city...... it was a place full of secrets...each alley a delicious fortune cooky.. each corner turning in to a cheery peek-a-boo... and everywhere, people seemed so happy ! we roamed untill our feet could take it no more ( i am going to be saying a lot of this sentence.. when describing my trip to europe ! ) 

We walked back to the street where our hotel was. The street is bordering the sea.. but it has many many restaurants with hotels on top floors.. All these restaurants seat their winers and diners, right on the street beneat their huge huge tents .. Now each restaurant has a central walking aisle.. and on the two sides of the aisle, there are many many cozy couches. On one side, all the couches face the sea... and on the other, all the couches face the HUGE TV screens... I guess this was an arrangement to accomodate FIFA ! but it was lovely... we ate a pizza (Prince is strictly against testing unknown terrains in alien food .. i dont know why) .. It (sorry to all the italianos) is the best pizza i have eaten so far ! And it has this cute cute greek flag on it ! we watched the game .. I cant quite remember who was playing who.. but it was lovely ! and I remember calling amma to tell her in very very .. shaky voice with cold .. as to how incredible this place was.. almost like a dream.... and she listened... attentively (inspite of the fact that i woke her up at 4 AM .. I was always confused about what time it was in India when i was in europe).. and said.. "idu ninna adrushta kaney" 

Quicksand

To each, their own battles, Every one is fighting alone..
If you are lucky, it is your victory, if not,your own head stone..

I sweat every day to unearth my treasure of dreams..
I am burried in by the night, left alone to hear my screams..

I try to scrape off the scab, to make the scars disappear..
Darn! I tear too hard, and out in the open is my fear..

I run to a corner, close my eyes.. Perhaps I wont see it any more..
I am locked in with the monster.. no use banging the door..

What do I do, whom should I call? who will give me a hand?
Loathing my helplessness, I whine, I sink in my own quicksand ..

1 random morning

I am really tired of waiting for the right time to organize and edit and summarize the trip of europe..I am TOOOOOOO lazy and too guilty that I would be wasting time ( although i do other equally useless things all the time.. )

So here are some pics .. randomly chosen dates and times (of the day).. My blog will be as random and non-chronological and chain-reaction like.. as my current memory of my trip is.

The day I have chosen is ...(camera says so) July 25th 2006. One day in Germany.. We had driven all evening the previous day .. through German Alpine Road. We had really under-estimated the real meaning of what appeared to be a few "jagged lines " on the map..It turned to be a real roller coaster..and when I forced Prince to stop before we completed the entire journey to Fussen (with the u with 2 dots above it), it was not the beauty of the place but, to find a hotel just so that I can puke in to it's sink! And we thanks to our lucky stars, found this gem of a hotel..As usual, I dont remember its name.. but I do remember how it looked like.. it had a bunch of old really old trunks and old chests of drawers all around it..and its breakfast place had a disturbingly large number of stuffed birds.. (i mean the ones hunted down and stuffed with preservatives to look real.. not the happy and snuggly baby toys). So we chose this hotel..and said yes to the hotel runner .. and came out and found (not so much to our surprise) that it was double the price of a hotel in the next block.. I did not care .. I wanted to puke.. So, between the yes to the hotel runner, and the white marble of the sink, I consoled myself about the high price (from whatever we could make out in the hazy, fog covered view)..thinking that this hotel opened to the lake. Most of the previous night, went in keeping my food down. In between the self sympathizing whines, I told princy, we can make good by enjoying a good walk in the morning by the lake.

The next morning, we opened the porch door, we had this heavenly green lake surrounded by the giant alpine ranges.. It is called weissensee.. I think that means white lake.. I have forgotten my german..so much so that, all my recollections of meanings of words turned out (to my embarassment) to be the harvest of my fertile imagination! Anyways.. That is the lake..



All the time when we were there, the birds went round and round and in random patterns shaking the crystal clear water in to beautiful patterns..


I have taken about 15 pictures of this view.. and still could not feel that I have captured really how it looked and felt..


There were these guys who were in this motor driven rubber boat.. and one guy went in to take measurements.. and the other guy kept writing it down.. seemed pretty serious research.. How I could kill to make system theory research to include such activities!

And then, when we walked further, we found this guy sitting there on the chair facing the lake (not clearly visible in the pic) .. after a refreshing (not to mention cold) swim, .. just sitting there.. eating his oatmeal and sipping his coffee... WHAT A PERFECT MORNING!
How the day progressed... I will blog some other time (when my guilt for the past 1.5 hours of blogging disappears.. )