Paris Trip (1): Disaster

It's already quite outdated as the journey was last month. I was busy (and lazy) to write anything till now. The plan has started as long back as December for the trip and waited with expectation.

All the energy seems to fade away even before we reached Paris. The reason being the six hours flight delay which made us depart at 12 midnight instead of the scheduled 6pm. And they delayed the flight in block size, every one hour. Enough of flying with myAir.

So we reached Paris Orly at 2-3 in the morning The hostels were already closed. Metro closed. Few night bus in operation. And we dropped somewhere in the city with our luggage.

And then we walked around Champs Elysses at 4 am while waiting for the morning sun. And by the time we reached our hostels, we need to wait(or sleep) for some time before we can actually check in. So much for a budget travelling.

Italian Beuraucracy

Before coming to Europe, I thought that the more advanced the country is, things can be done faster.
Not here in Italy it seems.
Just went today for the police to do formalities for Italian permit of stay. It was quite a long wait.
I arrived in September, submitted the application. In December they told that there were processing changes and we need to submit to Rome instead. Some 60 euros extra were taken in the process. So I submitted the application to Rome and getting back an appointment in May.
In July, I will (hopefully) be able to get the permit of stay.
This is not of much use then as I will be leaving after two months. Had I not have the Schengen visa, I may be locked inside Italy.

Back to blogging

It's been a while, last month many things happened. Went to Paris for vacation. Had some first and really bad experience with budget carriers. Got feet blisters which turned into infection. Stayed at home for a week. Catching up with work. And courses. Yeah a fine month it was.

Counting Years Passed

It's a small midnight party involving fruits and cakes. Thank you everyone for coming!

Pick Your Apple

An apple a day keeps the doctor away, that's a slogan people used to keep you eat your share of fruits. And anyway, apples are common and inexpensive.

These apples, however, are different. I took a snap of them at the Swarovski Kristallwelten (Crystal Worlds) in Innsbruck, Austria. They sell high class stuff, many with 3- 4 digits price and there I was wondering which things I could get as souvenir.

Perhaps now I should start taking oranges instead.

Lucca: Behind The City Walls

Italy has been divided into small villages for a long time. During medieval times wars between villages are not uncommon. For this purpose some of them have walls built around.

Lucca is an example of such village ( or city now as the population increases). They were once at war with Pisa. Compared to Pisa, the walls around Lucca is more well preserved.

Within the city stood some watchtowers. Too bad we did not make it before the closing time to climb one of those. The city itself look similar to the other Italian cities. But having these walls around sure has added to the sense of being in medieval times.

Pisa: The Leaning Tower

Pisa is probably more famous and become tourist destination because of the leaning tower.

The tower is supposed to be a bell tower for the city cathedral. We were able to get on top of the tower through a spiral staircase within, for a limited time of half an hour only and saw the nice scenery from there.

Would it be better that the tower was straight instead of leaning? I thought of that, and see if I could push the tower back to normal. But then on second thought, the world already had so many straight towers. Let this one be lean then. So I stopped pushing.

But apart from the tower, the city of Pisa is really a small peaceful city in the middle of Italy.
Clear sky. Green grass. Vast view. Those things relaxes the mind.