Show me the money!!

So, I checked my bank balance today. And of course I have no money. No seriously. Every time I go to the ATM, I'm filled with dread :D If I add up all the numbers in my head, it sounds atrocious, the amount of money I've spent. At first, when the guy who'd gone for the same exchange last year had told me the amount of money I should expect to spend, I'd laughed. I was so sure I could live in less than that. But now, I know what he meant :D

This post is more about how I've spent my money. Very happily I should tell you. Richmond Row, Loblaws and Starbucks stole all my money! Every time I go grocery shopping, I start thinking about recipes, and I end up buying more than my share of extra peppercorn goat cheese or Chorizo sausage! I thought I'd be a lazy cook and just cook dal rice or vegetables and sandwiches every day. As we all know, that is emphatically not the case! I'm taking full advantage of the fact that I get such different ingredients here, and Loblaws (my closest grocery store) is taking advantage of my debit card. But then, when I cook up some stuffed mushrooms or some chicken stir fry, I feel great! Cooking is indeed a joy!

Eating!! After a couple of months of Jack's and Ceeps overdose, it was time to explore good food in London (ON). And you know, it hasn't really disappointed me! Some excellent European food (I don't know if the Europeans agree with me :D ) exists in places like Garlics, Bertoldi's and the Tasting Room. Sugar freaks like me will love London too- Marble Slab and Cold Stone Creamery, Jack Astor's (the world's smallest brownie is amazing), Cafe One (Oreo Brownie Cheesecake) and the latest I discovered- Hey, Cupcake! A small stand-alone bakery that only serves cupcakes and gourmet cookies, Stefania, Therese and I had a great hour or so eating huge delicious cupcakes and great coffee. Yum! Everywhere I've gone, I've never underestimated the importance of food in travel. A good meal can make any crappy day suddenly better! More than Chemical Engineering, my knowledge of food has grown exponentially here :)

The fact that I'm on my fourth cup of coffee for the day demonstrates how I've spent my money on caffeine over the past four months. Oh, and I owe Greyhound some credit for the dents in my bank balance too! Overall, I may have spent ridiculous amounts of money in Canada, but I'm a richer person than the one who arrived here four months ago :)

In the end, we all fruit!

Anyone who's seen My Big Fat Greek Wedding will remember this line at the end of the movie, where the obsessively Greek dad finally accepts that people are similar (and acceptable) irrespective of where they come from. Over the past four months, I only find myself agreeing with him.

As an exchange student, I've spent my fair share of time discussing cultural differences, having a million conversations that begin with "So how do you say this in (insert language)..?" But once you get past all of that, once you start discussing childhoods, families and lives, you start connecting with people. I'm the last one to seek friends exactly like me; however, we all love our parents, our hometowns, our siblings. All of us have an idea of where we want to go and none of how to get there. Our hopes and dreams may differ in details; but when I start talking about them, I can see that the eyes of my friends light up too. I grew up in Pune, but with the same family values as Stefania. I may be an engineer, but I have political views I can discuss with Therese. Cultural differences start conversations; it is the food, drink, Disney movies, boys, music, philosophy and embarrassing stories that sustain friendships.

I love the differences between our countries! And at the same time, I celebrate the similarities. It's a mix of the two that makes study nights very unproductive because of the long talks. I don't care though. It's totally worth it! This is what exchange is about :)

Jingle Bell rock!

Holiday season is here! Red and green lights everywhere :)

I think I'm mentally compensating for the fact that I missed Diwali this year by attaching more importance to Christmas and Thanksgiving here. The holiday season officially begins after American Thanksgiving (which was on the weekend of 24th and 25th November) and all the malls, lawns were lit up! Even our hospital has a huge decked up tree. Either I'm imagining it, or the general mood is really upbeat. The radio stations are playing Christmas specials: I find myself wanting to curl up with a book and mug of white chocolate! And I'm not even here for Christmas :( But then, Christmas is a time for family, and irrespective of location, I'm happy I'll be spending it with mine :)

Apart from missing Diwali, which is pretty much official Indian holiday season, there are couple of other things that have put me in a holiday mood. Last weekend, I crossed the border to spend Thanksgiving in Troy, MI. A family friend lives there, and I had a great weekend - lots of turkey, cosy recliners and two adorable bitches. I've met Sidney before - she ate all my Belgian chocolates three years ago, and was fine (dogs are NOT supposed to eat chocolate) but Hops was new for me, and very excited to meet a new person. The malls played Christmas tunes (I remember getting sick of them three years ago, because that's all they play for about two months) I had amazing Ghirardelli hot chocolate and there was pumpkin pie, date coffee cake and rum cake in the house, at the same time :D I was quite sad to leave the warmth of the house and travel back to London for pretty much the last time. But I met Rohit in Windsor twice :)

It snowed, finally!! I'm not a huge fan of the snow (I dread trudging through it to 8:30 class :D) but I woke up one morning, and it was all white and oh so pretty! It wasn't terribly cold either, about 0 or -1, so it was alright to walk around taking photos :) Also, last evening, Shruti and I attended Global Cafe. Global Cafe is this thing every other thursday for international and local students to mingle and have coffee with yum cookies. So the deal with this whole international student shindig is that I'm slightly tired of meeting new people and just discussing how exotic Indians are. Most of my close international friends know that by now :P Hence we'd never gone to Global Cafe till now. But this week's Global Cafe had us decorating gingerbread houses! Now, that was a great way to make a few new friends :) We obviously made the prettiest house, with cinnamon roll bushes and sparkly trees. The music for yesterday's Cafe was, of course, Let it snow and Rocking around the Christmas Tree! Also, I got some food from home last evening! No wonder I'm in a good mood!

Since Thanksgiving was just last weekend, I'm going to list a few things I'm thankful for, specifically for this Canadian semester-

1. My friends here- Shruti, Pooja and Kanu for making me not miss India, and Therese, Stefania and everyone else in Lambton for making this a truly international experience :)

2. Anshul Bhide, Nandan Gokhale and Gauri Joshi - for being in my life :)

3. Radio here- According to me, listening to the local radio makes you feel like part of the city (London is hardly a city) and BOB fm plays great music

4. Food

5. Starbucks Gingerbread Latte and Peppermint Mocha - This is the holiday spirit again

6. the Ottawa people :)

7. Megabus - made travelling everywhere more comfortable and affordable

8. Western Libraries

And that's all I can think of right now. Happy Holidays to everyone :)

Gimme the white hat!

Fooooood. Not so much a passion than a way of life. All my greatest memories seem to have food linked to them. Growing up, I was a nitpicky eater, I admit it. I used to hate ghee (still do), anything that looked gooey or  mushy or not made of chocolate. But I still loved eating. My mom will always tell stories of how I ate 20 jalebis once, or how I finished off all the besan ke laddoo before Diwali. I spent most of my money on eating out; there's hardly a place in Pune that serves food and I haven't tasted it.

However, till this September, it was only about the eating. But moving 3000 miles away (that's just a number, I have no idea how far Canada is from India) does put you in new situations. Here I was, September 7th, in an apartment with a kitchen, some cooking apparatus, masaale and scant knowledge of how to make dal-rice. It took me a total of three days of eating all my meals outside to realize that hell, I have to cook! Thereby followed grocery shopping, chopping, measurement and internet recipe searches. Suddenly, cooking was fun! I love it! And not in a I'm-too-bored-and-broke-to-eat-out way (that too, slightly) but genuinely. There is some magic in taking a bunch of things from your refrigerator and making something entirely tasty out of them! It took some time to get the proportions of water and salt right, and I'm still not great with the salt, but I can safely say that I can satisfactorily feed myself everyday, along with a couple of people if necessary. Not to brag, but I can make great chicken curry from scratch now :D It is possibly the biggest achievement of my semester here; a year ago, if anyone had told me I would be able to cook, the response would have been a lot of laughter and disbelief. I now look forward to my grocery visits, checking the deli section for the meat I'd want to cook with this week, and the cheeses I'd like to have at home. Till now, herbed goat cheese is my favourite to work with: not too fatty, yet great taste. Also, I don't have a microwave here. So heating things up is almost as much effort as cooking every time. Hence I cook. :P The fact that I'm here precludes me from owning a handmixer and the like, hence baking is a little far off, but I'll make anything else. I've even become a regular on epicurious.com! And thanks to my sister, I have a wonderful book about Italian cooking :) In principle, I'm against fast and/or frozen food, so I even make my own pasta sauce!

I've been fortunate that I've met fellow foodies here :) Everyone loves Indian food so during Diwali we hosted our own little Indian food night :) breaking all norms, we cooked Chicken of course :D The spices did give our foreign friends some heat, but I'm happy to say that they loved it :) And in Montreal, the amount of great food I've eaten shows in my weight :D

As you can see, I've become addicted to cooking. So much so that when I'm bored, I cook :P As a result, my refrigerator currently overflows. :D I don't know how long this obsession will last (I have been known to get bored of things pretty quickly) but I have a feeling this will stick. If I gave up the noble pursuit of engineering, I think that's what I'd do. Besides writing of course. Makes me sound like Eat Pray Love. And cooler than an engineer.

You can't be unhappy as long as there is good food on your table.

:)

Of friendship, bunkbeds and cheesecake!

"Prachi, we've eaten way too much. We can't have dessert."

"Anisha, we can't have individual dessert."

"You're right! So do you want to split one between everyone?"

"Let's split it between both of us."

"Yay!! I want this one!"

This sort of dialogue repeated itself several times over a weekend of food, friends and what currently seems like a million photos on facebook! Perhaps it's time to write about the weekend in a city I was told is a must on any visit to Canada- Montreal, QC! A city once known to me only as the home of the Canadian Grand Prix, I think now of it with fond memories. But then, I get ahead of myself.

The Montreal plan was atleast two months in the making; Anisha and I had been fixing dates since we left Toronto Orientation. So when the pseudo French weekend finally arrived, we were quite excited! (our bbm statuses bear witness to that) A momentous 8 hour journey of Greyhound, Megabus and STM (Montreal Metro) later, we were at Bonaventure, where Anisha, Rashida and Manoti met us. Hugging ensued :P Also, Shruti had succeeded in teaching Therese (origin:Sweden) a few chosen swearwords. Hence, Manoti was greeted as "Moti R****" by a white person. (no racism intended) :D

It was 11 pm by the time we got to our first meal in Montreal (trust me, the food was very important) and thankfully, downtown is awake till 4 am (unlike most of North America). We headed to a trattoria (of course) and ordered large amounts of excellent food. We were eating for about two hours, at the end of which the aforementioned dessert banter occurred.

Saturday, we headed to old Montreal, after a hearty brunch obviously. Not very old compared to Indian standards (just about 300 years), but you could see a marked boundary where glass and shiny were replaced by facades and cobblestones. The original BMO building, the Courts and the Notre Dame! I know, not the original, but magnificent nonetheless. I left most of the pretty building photography to the dhatting camera (Nikita) so most of my photos are food and funny people :D The sky was overcast and the air was chilly, but nothing stopped us from wonderful and immature walks along the waterfront. I say immature because there were performances of "There was a girl" and "Rin tin tin" along the way, as well as very sincere efforts to get jumping photos :P Across the water, we saw an extremely odd structure, something that looked like someone had stacked LEGO blocks with gaps in the middle. Later of course i found out that was Habitat 67. Talk about uninformed!

It was 8 pm by the time we got to the next meal: Pino! I haven't had too much canneloni in my life, but this was fabulous! I have a thing for European food. Or food in general.

And to top it all, for dessert, we had Bailey's Irish Cream Cheesecake. Yes, I kid you not. It was unbelievable. Absolutely.

I must say, it looked like everyone was going to drop dead by 10 pm. Everyone was tired, and with much effort we got the bracelets for this party at Altitude 737. The surprise arrival of Anisha's roommate though, spurred her (and as a result, us) up, and in full enthusiasm we dressed up for a party we knew not much about. When we finally got there, it was about midnight and the place was ALIVE! First of all, the club was on like the 37th or 50th or some floor like that. Then, it had a huge terrace which opened out into a view of Montreal. I called it "the very awesome place". The music was great and we danced for almost three hours straight. The atmosphere got everyone high! They played traditional party, salsa, hip hop and even Mundiyan :D And no grinding :D The very end was marred by the wallet incidents, but Ruchi and Nikita took it in good spirit :) <3

The night went on till almost 6 am, and finally we were out and ready by about 10 30 on Sunday morning. A steaming hot chocolate and some delicious blueberry cheesecake later (Anisha still owes me some of that) later, Olympic stadium! Very touristy that we were, we went up the tower, some people went to the Biodome while a few others went to the Bubble (Biosphere). The view from the top of the Tower was beautiful; we had seen Montreal by night, and now by day. We had great plans of reaching the Bubble after that, but we just went to a very cool Art Cafe and chilled instead. Chilling is awesome, as was the coffee, croissant and whatever Rashida had. Delectable.

The weekend was short, but great, to say the least. It was perfectly relaxed and much needed. Splendid company, a feast for the eyes, stomach and brain and the best Canadian weekend I've had. I love all you guys <3

Let the randomness and joy of travel continue! :)

Something must be done, he said,

Something I can be proud of in retrospect,

I do not need the admiration of others

Just need to do something worth respect.

I do not know what I cannot specify why,

My self esteem needs to go from small to tall;

In this age of awards, top 10s and prizes,

It is my own opinion that matters most of all.

In this search, this need to do something worthwhile,

I will find what I want and who I am;

I will never claim to be complete,

But in my eyes, I will be a better man.

There is no sleep here

Tis true. College = no sleep. Let me give you an example-

Pooja and I were done gymming (at 11 pm), and both of us knew there is a lot of work (studying/assignments) at home to do, yet both of us along with Kanu sat in Spoke and finished a plate of Nacho Fries. Nacho fries are the only way I like french fries- under lots of sour cream and salsa :D The night doesn't end here. We come back to Pooja's place and since it's raining outside, decide to have chai :D Now finally at 2 am, I am back home, and all set to begin studying for tomorrow morning's Staged Operations quiz. As I said, sleep has no place here :)

Footnote (or Header, considering it appears above)

The photos are up on my Facebook profile.

Also, I have new respect for Macs. I generally favoured other Apple products, but the Macbooks are quite intuitive and easy to use. Still very expensive, but now I can see some justification of the price. Thanks to Kanu and Pooja :)

It's been a long couple of weeks!

Yes. Finally!

It's pretty late on a Saturday night, and finally I have decided to update my blog! Forgive the delay, but it has been an unbelievable couple of weeks in so many ways! As I finished my Reaction Engineering lab on Thursday evening (Thursday is my worst day schedule-wise), I was dead tired, and realized that I just wanted to sleep at home. Except now home meant 611 Lambton Hall.

After New York, the only thing that happened of note was the Megabus ride from Philly to Toronto. Warning- MEgabuses can be more than an hour late. But they are really comfortable. It's like 9 hours of a Shivneri and no one sitting next to you. And wifi :) I can't think of more economical, comfy ways to travel. Immigration was at 6 am though :(

I entered London (the one in Ontario, not the cool one) on a dreary, wet day; not the best of welcomes. But the University of Western Ontario (henceforth referred to as Western or UWO) campus is just beautiful! Wonderfully green and quite big, it's a very nice "bubble" (as it's called) to live in. Lambton Hall is full of international students, and do we know how to party! Western is that kind of school: every minute we're not studying, we're partying. London's economy runs due to Western students; UWO may be located in London, but London exists for Western. Downtown is no bigger than Deccan area, but all throughout the week, Richmond Row is alive. Richmond Row is a line of clubs, pubs and the like, forever inhabited by Western students after dark. Partying is so big here, that lines to get in on Friday or Saturday nights stretch for miles! Okay, not miles, London isn't big enough, but trust me, they are very long :D

Lambton Hall is no less. All you have to do is knock on someone's door, saying you were looking for a party. If they don't know where it is, they'll start one for you. Trust me, this happened to us! If it's not a few frames of pool at the Spoke (the campus sports tavern) then it's the Sunday pot luck or the newest- the wine and cheese wednesday :D I love living here! Saying that I live in 611 would be a lie; I sleep there, but I'm just generally downstairs at my friend Pooja's place. We cook there, eat dinner there, read the newspapers there, even leech off Pooja's internet. (Fancy Mac people with their Airport modes! :P) As a result of this non-occupation, my room is unbelievably clean! My mother would be proud.

Speaking of pride, I get major ego boosts by cooking nowadays! It feels so good to fill your refrigerator with products of your own hard work, even if you're the only one eating it :D I can't deal with eating outside every day, it becomes dreadfully boring. Every week I think of what to get to make my cooking better. I'm a culinary work in progress! :P

After the first few days of non-classes, I was suddenly bombarded with a ton of classes and assignments! In the second week, we had four assignments due! That is preposterous! Classes here take the phrase "keeping you on your toes" too literally. I'm forever swamped with work. It's a good week if I'm done with my assignments for the week on Thursday :D But I'm not complaining! The idea of constantly using your brain appeals to me, and I love sitting in the library! I am particularly incapable of studying at home (I see the bed and I think of zzzzzz) so I'm generally in Weldon or Taylor Libraries. I love libraries!

On this extremely nerdy note, I shall end this post. I had the most frustrating day today though-spent 6 hours doing two assignments, of which we're not quite done with one! Argh. But then, I'm loving it :)

The City (Part Two)

We decided to take it easy on Sunday. Fewer commutes wouldn't make our legs ache as the day before. Right? No.

The first thing on our to-do on Sunday was the Met. The Metropolitan Museum of Art is one of the most famous museums in the world! In retrospect, I wonder how I agreed to go to an art museum (I'm quite aesthetically challenged) but it was a good decision. It is impossible to cover the Met in a day, or even a week. There are so many exhibits that Tai and I spent ten minutes figuring out which we could and should cover in 3 hours. The Roman and Greek exhibit was out (Tai just went to Italy in June) and the Egyptian exhibit is sort of a blackhole, so we saw the Photography section, along with the Frans Hals exhibit. I have very little knowledge of artists and art in general, but you could make out that Frans Hals was exceptional. As was the entire Impressionism section. A little harder to understand was the modern art. I think I have come to accept the fact that I will never truly appreciate modern art, but there were a few pieces that appealed to me, in ways unknown. David Smith in particular. Also, the Andrew Caro exhibit on the roof. All his work was made from scrap metal and what seemed to be industrial parts, but it was striking to say the least.

After 3 hours of walking non-stop, we just wanted to plop, so we went to Central Park, found a shady spot, and took a power nap. Relax happened, now refuel was necessary. So just off Madison Avenue, we found a great tiny coffee shop called Via Quadronno. Authentic Italian, it served us great coffee, an outstanding panini and delicious tiramisu. The best meal of the trip for me, even with the Malaysian fare at gobo the previous day.

Refreshed, we went to Empire State Building. I've technically been to the Building before, but I was still very excited. It's 1250 feet high, and took only a year to build. Seriously! From the 86th floor, all of New York city was in front of us (actually, it was around us) and man, was it magnificent! Something about being so high in the air, atop a feat of engineering genius, in the midst of all the lights and the skyscrapers gets your adrenaline pumping. Something very Fountainhead-isque about it!

Technically we did take it easy. Just the Met, Central Park and Empire State. Still my Achilles tendons were making their painful presence felt. We went to a relative's place for the night, where Tai had two bowls of shrikhand and I had one along with three scoops of ice cream ( eh, I'm on vacation, and the relatives are very good at the aggrah part!). It was 12 30 by the time we reached our beds, and crash is what we did, again :D

Footnote

I've put up photos of New York on Picasa, there were too many to put up here. Here's the link-https://picasaweb.google.com/prachi.a.joshi/NewYorkNewYork :)

The City (Part One)

What can I say? It is the most amazing city in the world. The title of best city in the world will never be objective, but New York City will be somewhere up on everyone's list. It never ceases to amaze me. I just came back from a weekend in the Big Apple, and even though it almost killed me, I've never felt more alive. The city has a pulse, an energy in the speed and vibrancy with which life is led in the city. I went from the peaceful sleepy silence of a town like Allentown to the fastest, busiest city in the world. Quite a jolting experience!

Now I shall cut the drama and vagueness and tell you why and how I had fun in the Big Apple :P I've only been to New York for a few hours everytime I came in the last few years, but this time we had two whole days at our disposal. To make our NY experience even more authentic, Tai and I didn't take the car in. As a result, we walked unbelievable distances! Even if you use the subway, you end up walking a lot in New York. At the end of both days, our feet were going to fall off. On Saturday, we first got tickets for....wait for it...Broadway!! More on that later :) After that, we found our way to the Brooklyn Bridge. In my opinion, it is the most beautiful bridge in New York. Constructed all the way back in 1883, it took a whole lot of great engineering and determination to get it up and running. After dodging the large number of tourists, runners and cyclists there, we walked to Wall Street where there were a thousand people. Seriously. The Bull, which is quite massive, was obscured by a number of people. We saw NYSE (not the most pleasant of places right now), 1 wall street, Trinity Church (apparently famous for the movie National Treasure), and the JP Morgan. So, JP Morgan was this fancy industrial millionare. His son decided to be even fancier, and in a show of super ego, built the Morgan building, which is just three storeys tall. Apparently they have so much money that they don't need to build any more floors. On Wall Street.

From there we went to Strand, which is a fantastic bookstore. The sheer number of books there is overwhelming. If I was ever let loose with money there, I'd buy half the place! The place does not end. Crossword and Landmark may have good ambience, but Strand outstrips everything because of the number of books.

And then it was approaching 8 o clock. We made our way to Times Square. In the true sense of the word, Times Square amazes me. The large volume of people is only eclipsed by the glitziness of the electronic billboards. There's not much more I can say about it, just look at my pictures in the Picasa album. One unusual thing we saw were Conversation Bowls. They were literally huge bowls of wood in which people could sit and chat. Very curious but quite cool.

A bagel filled with tomato and herb cream cheese later, the Majestic. Enter the theatre for possibly the greatest musical of all time- Phantom of the Opera!! Tai and I could hardly believe that we were about to watch Phantom. It was my first Broadway musical and there was no better first. Phantom is brilliant on so many levels- the costumes and sets are grand, the lighting is excellent and the music, the music was on a different level altogether. It is easy to forget all the music is live because the talent of all the singers is phenomenal. Actually phenomenal is a word I'd use to describe the show completely. The music had such an effect on me that everytime I heard the organ (the huge church wala organ) play the first few notes, I get chills down my spine. The Phantom himself has been portrayed so well- the perfect mix of darkness, evil, hurt, love and power. As you can see, I'm still completely enamored. Just hear the Nightwish version of the Phantom of the Opera song. And then imagine it live.

That night's performance was also the last for two long-serving members of the cast. By long-serving, I mean 17 and 23 years each :D So at the end of the show, there were speeches, flowers, a few tears and never-ending applause. We were probably two people in the audience who didn't know this beforehand, so it was a surprise :)

Still absorbed in the world of the Phantom, Tai and I came out, with Brooke Shields just getting out of the other theatre. The Addams Family now stars her, so we got a good glimpse. Apparently New York is star studded, but she is the only one we saw. :D Times Square was even busier, and it continued to be so till about 12 30, when we left. We were dead tired, and when we got to our room at two, we simply crashed. End of day one. I like this city :)

A Tuesday night out

Yes yes, I know the order of the posts is all wrong, but I'm just too lazy to put it up in correct order.

For those who are visiting Toronto ever, there is this street called Esplanade, near King station on the subway, lined with a bunch of cafes and restaurant. Quite buzzing till about one a.m. I personally recommend Flat Iron and a Firkin (that is the name), where five of us had a great time discussing everything under the sun! On paper (on the screen, to be exact) it sounds not very extraordinary, but new country, strange metropolis, newfound friends, and some excellent conversation made that night memorable.

Cheers!

Footnote- The five people being Anisha, Nikita, Ruchi, Rohit and I. It was Rohit and the girls :D

Moryaa it is :)

It's the first of September, 2011 and most of India, most specifically Pune, is beginning the 10 day revelry that is Ganeshotsav. A tradition started by Lokmanya Tilak (the celebration; Ganpati has existed since well, Parvati and Shiva :D) in Pune, it has now found a place in the heart of every Indian. And I found a funkier way to experience this, in Allentown, PA where my sister lives. On Sunday, my sister and her fiance decided to have a small Ganpati Pooja at their house. An email in Marathi was sent out. Potatoes and tomatoes were boiled, kurtas were ironed. My sister even wore a saree! :) The menu was extremely simple and marathi- batatyachi bhaaji, usal, masaale bhaat and saar. And a whole lot of sweets from different parts of India (those Tai and I didn't make).

There was something wonderful in the way these young adults (I don't know what the word for 20 somethings is) got together, and established their own Ganpati routine. Only three of us were Maharashtrian, none of us knew the proper order of ritual, yet everyone's devotion was sincere. So what if the aartis were read out(from Devnagiri as well as english script) more than memorized? We sang not only the aartis of Ganpati, but quite a few others from other parts of India. I'm sure Ganpati wouldn't mind. After all, he was the coolest one- lived well, ate a lot, and was quite smart (remember the race?). Anyway, I'd say it was more devotion to their culture, to their motherland that saw about 15 people come together and celebrate today.

Tilak must be happy. :)

Magical Evenings

It’s that time of the day

5, 6 or 8 pm depending on whether it’s January or July;

It’s that time of the day

When the sun decides to take leave of the sky.

A time for reflection, to smile about the day’s jokes

A time to think about the ones we love

A thousand ideas race through our heads,

Swifter than the colours above;

Temperatures dip, half of the color spectrum opens up,

The sun, in a final goodbye, becomes a glowing red ball

Just before it dips below,

We stop and stare to behold it all.

The sun is gone, yet the transition continues,

In the sky, in our lives, in our minds.

Even if a man does nothing, in the evening,

His brain is whirring, you will find.

And then there are those, for whom evenings mean sorrow,

A longing perhaps for the days gone by

Some whose twilights remind them of their lives’ confusion,

An unanswered tangle of what, how and why.

Whatever the mood, tis true

That a change above gives food for thought,

Perhaps, on a grander scale, making us aware

Of the changes our lives have wrought.

I pity most the ones who walk into walls in the day

And walk out in the night;

For them it is nothing but a passage of time

And a sudden absence of light.

Centre Island

I want a boat.

While on the ferry to Centre Island, we saw quite a few of these, and their motor powered cousins. One even came right at us while we were canoeing. We did well, to get out of its way, but the trio of two Architecture students and one mechanical engineer just managed to miss it. Why I specify their education is that they spent most part of the hour turning with both paddlers working in the same direction, hence marking a bank-to-bank zigzag pattern in front of us. :D

I know I'm putting these up a bit late, but more shall follow :)

Touchdown

So, miracles do occur, and one can get decent food on an airplane. It's true.

After quite a long but not particularly arduous journey (thankfully), I reached the Glendon Campus of York University at 2275 Bayview Avenue, Toronto, assuming the rest of the VIT "contingent" had reached. Apparently I was wrong. Jet lag caused most of the exchange people to fall asleep before 8 pm, leaving the un-jet lagged to forage for food. As it was summertime and no full-time students were on campus, the campus cafeteria was closed, and downtown was a 25 minute walk away. And we were really hungry!

A hospital came to our rescue. We walked to Sunnybrook Medical Center, about 7 minutes away, where our princely meal of soup awaited us. Rohit was smart enough to buy a sandwich, come back to our Residence and heat it up, while I was happy with my hot chocolate. Canada is chilly, even in the summer, just so you know. Shivering in the cold, holding onto my extremely sweet hot chocolate, I had my first meal of this trip. Well, atleast on land.

What you should expect

Frankly, nothing. At this point of time I have no fixed idea about what the next semester holds. Under the pretext of a better study experience (compared to Vishwakarma Institute of Technology, Pune), I'm going to be at the University of Western Ontario, London for the Fall semester, and am hoping to have a whole lot of fun. And get educated too. But mostly, fun :D

So this blog is going to try and tell you what I'm doing in the country of polite people and Tim Hortons. I'm hoping this'll be like those famous semesters abroad that seem to change people's lives and they become extremely successful. Or atleast a good time, eh?*

*Eh is apparently what Canadians say a lot. Kind of like the Indian "na". I have never heard it used yet though.