Author Archives: Ankur

Bello Milano

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I have been traveling quite a bit, this started in the last few months…Vienna, Amsterdam (not exactly!),  Milan, Konstanz and of course places within der Schweiz. I have already completed that wish to visit 5 countries by the time I am 30, in fact, i have already exceeded it by one.

Do I regret traveling? No, I love it.

So it was a fine sunny day in September, not like the suddenly gloomy, dull days of the fall, devoid of any Sun. Early around 8.30 we left from Zurich HB towards Milano Centrale. Yes, Yes I know I should have taken an earlier train, but a weekend is all about lazy beginnings right?

Anyways, it was already around noon when we landed up in Milano Centrale. The first taste of Italian hospitality came in when the Tourist counter lady at the station acted super rude and just gave me a tourist map to the city, she did not respond to my query about this thing called Milan Card (a coupon which gives you free local travel and discounts in shops). It took us another 10 minutes to find our way out of the station, deciphering the map…The station itself is huge, with connections to the Milan Underground system. The station was opening in 1931 and was, at one time, an attempt to showcase the impact of the power of Mussolini’s regime.

Next step was to look into the map and select the places we’d visit, afterall we had to return the same day. We were hungry, and ended up at the McDonalds across. First tragedy stuck, the lady at the counter said yes to vegatarian burger, and what i ended up with was a salad burger without any patty. It was yuck! Anyways, we marked around 10 places on the map, and figured out the  Azienda Trasporti Milanesi route.

Next halt was the massive Piazza del Duomo, a huge expanse of a square with buildings all around it. I have never been to a place like that, a huge square with hundreds of people. It was indeed a crowded place, a novelty in Europe I suppose? The square is faced by the famous Milan Cathedral on one side, the Galleria Vittorio Emanuele and a series of other important buildings and shopping arcades.

The square had like a zillion pigeons with sellers trying to lure outsiders like me to feed corn to them at a price or get a picture taken at a price. Sounds familiar? Yes, this reminded me of India. The impression of Italy was reinforced in the rest of the day.

The Duomo di Milano (cathedral) is a huge building which started off back in 1386, finally ordered for completion by Napolean. In fact Napolean was crowned as the King of Italy at the Duomo. The church with its extensive glass paintings, sculptures, halls and the treasury is THE place to visit in Milan. I have been to a lot of churches here, but nothing compares to Duomo.

We later headed to the Art museum (Pinacoteca Ambrosiana) nearby, it started as the personal collection of Cardinal Federigo Borromeo it has expanded to over 12k paintings and a huge collection of artifacts and manuscripts. The notable elements of the place Raphael’s School of Athens sketch, designed for the fresco in the Vatican’s Stanza della Segnatura, and manuscripts by Leonardo da Vinci, including the Codex Atlanticus.

From here on, we returned back to the square and searched for a small chapel nearby, we could have almost missed the place as the opening was hidden. After this, we took a walk around the Piazza and visited the  Galleria Vittorio Emanuele, this huge building houses the most premium shopping brands with plenty of food joints. It opens on one end towards the town hall facing the Opera house.

It was around this time when we wishes to return, but the return journey was not as fun as i had thought. For the day we traveled to Milan, it was the same as the F1 GP in Milan. We managed to get reserved tickets to Zurich (only 1st class was available). Only to realize on boarding the train that the ticket agent gave us tickets of the next day! We went back to argue, the man just denied it. It annoyed us because he had himself proposed us to buy 1st class as reservation was available! Sadly it was the last direct train to Zurich, we then took another ticket to reach a place called Arth goldau, hoping to catch the last connection for the night to Zurich.

But the train was delayed, it was indeed similar to India again! Our worry was that our connection was in Switzerland, thus there was no way we could now catch it. Everyone was quite uncomfortable, afterall most were visiting from der Schweiz, trains getting late is not a common thing.

As the train entered the Swisss territory, a terrible thunderstorm started off…well i had no hopes left, i thought I’d reach home the next day. But, soon a train announcement was made, the train would now be going to Zurich and Basel. Any passengers who were going to Luzern (as in the original route) should get off on the next stop and they would have a bus waiting to drop them off. You can only expect the Swiss to do this!!!

We did not have a ticket to Zurich, and we explained it to the ticket checker, he said, ‘No problem we are delayed and its on us’.

From Boom to Gloom – A crises for all

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No matter how many times you save the world, it always manages to get back in jeopardy again! Sometimes I just want it to stay saved, you know? For a little bit. I feel like the maid: “I just cleaned up this mess! Can we keep it clean for, for 10 minutes?! Please?!” –  Mr. Incredible from The Incredibles

Not too many years ago, the West was ravaged by a storm of complex financial debacle, it was known as the Sub-Prime crises. The crises brought upon the death of Lehman Brothers, large scale bailouts by the Federal Reserve, unemployment and bear markets. It also was often hailed as the end of Capitalism as we knew it, for the Federal Reserve was bailing out private financial institutions using the tax payers money. It was also the time when I was about to finish my B School studies and was promptly the victim of the recession, I wrote about it here.

Three years on, this is another September of gloom, and this time its bigger and badder than ever. I am no economist, while I can often understand the trail of disasters, I am not able to interpret the complexity or the severity of the crises which is about hit both Europe and US (or has it already hit us, and we are just sitting in denial?).

US with its trillion dollar debt, failed housing revival, and stubborn unemployment is barely growing. On the other end European Union is battling its debt crises with Greece in tatters, and the other members of the PIIGS doing no better. It is only a matter of time, when general constipation of better solutions will fail to avert the crisis which could explode in a few weeks.

While I have been closely tracking the situation as the crises unfolds, it puts me ill at ease when I cannot picture how insulated will I be from this crises. The current world is deeply interlinked, it is chaos theory redefined, the ripple effect is global.

Economic crises often results in political crises, is this the doom of capitalism? Maybe not, maybe what the world needs is a mixture of capitalist and socialist(or state involvement) philosophies being balanced as the situation demands…or maybe it is a cyclic phenomenon between the two extreme concepts

These are turbulent and exciting times for us, and I hope we all survive long enough to tell the stories on the life and times we lived in.

I Love Vienna

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I have never been to Paris, so I don’t know if Paris would score above Vienna.
Last week, I was out to visit Netherlands and Austria(locally written as Österreich) . While the trip to Netherlands was quite busy in work, where I could not visit any place of interest (and neither was I in Amsterdam), but the second trip to Vienna(also locally written as Wein) allowed me to spend a Saturday.

I had never expected to fall in love with Vienna, the rich town where you could hear music anywhere you’d go. The soul of the town touched me, right from Stephensdom to the Danube, Vienna had so much to offer, and I had so little time accept it all.

Streets filled with musicians, dancers, random performers, quartets there was always something which demanded my attention. The architecture of the town from the Opera House to the Parliament left me spell bound, and to top it all was Sacher Torte. The dessert, which is an institution in itself, a trip to Vienna is not complete if you have not tried this delicacy.

What I did do was not take any guided tours except a small Ring tram across the town for a quick overview, and then a walk from the Opera House towards the Parliament, covering each building like the Imperial Palace, Art Musuem, Museum of Natural History and the People’s Park. A useful tip was to buy the Vienna card for 18 Euros and using it for all local travel and a few discounts at various places, the underground system in Vienna is fairly straightforward and would take no effort in figuring out.


I know there is more, for the country which gave birth to Mozart and Beethoven, for the people who love spending time in kaffeehaus, life is filled with music and art. I bumped into folks dressed up as Mozart selling tickets to Mozart concerts, mime artists whisling Mozart tunes and chocolates in the name of Mozart. It was indeed a surprise to know that Mozart was from Salzberg.

I also chanced to visit the Prater and the Madame Tussauds wax museum, the first wax musuem that I’d have visited. It was indeed an impressive affair with Arnold Swachzennger (an Austrian by birth) welcoming you in!

Yes, the time was limited, and there was so much to see, but I know that this is cannot my last trip there, Vienna shall call me again, until then just follow the music…

Constipation of Thoughts

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With the church bells chiming around me for the past 8 minutes, I have not been able to focus on a single thought. Piling on a happy-to-recur headache the bells have ruined any peace whatsoever.

Ever wondered, if you didn’t wake up the next day? Will it be easier for you? Will it be easier for the people around you?

Sometimes life is swirling vortex of sticky situations, and all you wonder is if your not being around would have made life easier for people around you. Sadly, these are those days when you don’t have better thoughts and neither do you have any comfort. I often plunge into such situations, at work or home…strangely i blame human interaction as the culprit. The lesser I interact the fewer are the sticky situations, but then isn’t this the first stage of turning into a sociopath?

Ah well, why do you care, you are another unfortunate visitor to this blog, which is plunging in popularity and meatiness of content…quick click the back button to never return.

 

Yours Sweetly

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Over the last few days quite a few people have commented that I am a sweet person, its often made in a pitiful way. Obviously, I do not take it as a compliment, because a few of those comments were from the workplace. It extrapolates to being not taken seriously, or being too gullible.

I don’t know what is required of me to disprove the impression…