Vienna, Austria

Its a fantastic feeling to write (again) after a gap of two years! 100% true that life's priorities changes after marriage, I felt it, time shrinks but enjoyably!! Even then, after every trip in the past two years, somewhere in the corner of my heart, I was longing to write :) and it was catalysed by a good friend's request, and here I start writing again...
I am happy to mention that Austria is my TENTH country visited in EU!! When I was studying Geography in schools, I had a wish to see these countries/cities: to see the people, understand their culture, taste their food etc., I should thank God for fulfilling the wishe(s) and its a wonderful feeling!
Vienna (Austria) was on the list to visit for a long time but couldnt find a right opportunity to do it. For a change, this Vienna trip was not a long planned one. Even a week before, we were not knowing that next weekend is going to be at Vienna. On Monday, casually browsed for offers in DB (German train system) and found a cheap offer and booked it right away. Even the hotels were cheaper (I was expecting the hotel costs to be higher due to late booking) and  found a 4 Star hotel with good tram connectivity with 10mins city center travel. The downside of the cheap train ticket was a travel time of 9.5h from Hamburg. Even though it is a InterCity Express (ICE), German's fastest trains, the distance of 1150kms (via Passau) took 9.5h (calculate yourself the speed of the train). I took a day-off to feel Vienna better, frankly, two complete days weren't enough but still not worse! Austria's official language is German and hence there was no language problem in this trip. Nevertheless, the German spoken by the locals were much different than that of in northern Germany, though, Austrian were more comfortable to switch to English.

Reached Westbahhof by early evening and directly checked into the hotel. Unlike most EU cities, Vienna doesnt have a central railway station, it has different stations at west, south and middle with the new Vienna Central Station planned to open in 2014. After a quick refreshment, reached schloss schoenbrunn (castle with beautiful garden). The name Schönbrunn means "beautiful spring", and it matched to its definition. After visiting 3 castles in Europe (including the much famous Bavaria's Neuschwanstein) frankly I lost interest to visit an european castle. These castles are luxurious from a western point of view, but nothing when compared to Indian palaces. Hence, we roamed the gardens and the Gloriette.

The garden axis points towards a 60 meters higher hill, which is crowned by the Gloriette structure. The Gloriette is dedicated as a Monument to 'Just War', that led to peace. Read about 'Just War' at http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Just_War, I am sure you will be surprised that Indian Epic "the Mahabharata" is referred for it!! Lately, I started loving symmetric huge scale constructions. The castle, garden and the gloriette structure were designed in complete symmetric and it was a wonderful opportunity to try some good photographic angles. We climbed the hill and reached the Gloriette for where we had a magnificent view of Vienna.

The beautiful romantic garden was vast and it will take at least half-a-day to cover entirely. We cut short the plan and visited the rosarium and one section of the garden to spend the evening quite relaxed! The calmness and greenery of the garden was soothing and we enjoyed it.

Left the gardens to the city center and decided to taste the famous Austrian pastries and cakes in their famous cafe shops. The first target was the cafe sacher to taste the world-famous Original Sacher-Torte (torte in German means cake). Franz Sacher in 1832 created a palatable dessert for high-ranking guests and later on a large scale to the general public. The Sacher-Torte is a soft and fluffy chocolate cake with the tasty apricot jam under the icing and probably considered as most famous of all cakes!!

Once we were at the Hotel Sacher, I recollected that this is the same place where they prepared a a single cake diametered 2.5 meters in 1998 and entered into the Guinness Book of Records. Another interesting info at Wiki says 'The recipe of the Hotel Sacher's version of the cake is a closely guarded secret. Those privy to it claim that the secret to the Sacher Torte's desirability lies not in the ingredients of the cake itself, but rather those of the chocolate icing. According to widely available information, the icing consists of three special types of chocolate, which are produced exclusively by different manufacturers for this sole purpose. The hotel obtains these products from Lübeck and Belgium'. Now, I should say the cost of one cake piece (refer picture), it was Eur4.9, costly but equally tasty ;) After the delicious and high calorie retreat, we roamed the Graben, the famous shopping street of Vienna and started collecting few of the souvenirs for remembrance.
The next day started with a wonderful breakfast at hotel and we energetically went to the city center. Visited the St. Stephen's Cathedral (Stephansdom in German). It is the tallest church in Austria with a height of 136.4m, and the roof was beautiful, never seen a church with such beautiful roof design. No building can be built in Austria taller than St. Stephen's Cathedral, this is similar to the rule in Madurai, comparing with Meenakshi amman tower. Really interesting to understand the kind of respect which is globally followed.
The historic centre of Vienna is rich in beautiful architecture, including Baroque castles and gardens, as well as with grand buildings, monuments and parks. The city center can be covered by walk casually and found this colorful steps for a museum.

We visited the Hofburg palace that is the former imperial residence until 1918. Today it is the official seat of the Austrian Federal President. It also encompasses six museums, a chapel, the national library, the famed Winter Riding School, a greenhouse, and a park. It was so big and I guess it will take two days to thoroughly see the place. We had a general overview of the palace and went to our attraction: Butterfly house created out of greenhouses built from 1901-1907.

Its been another long wish to go inside a butterfly house and we made it at Vienna. It was a memorable experience to see many butterflies passing around you, so freely, bringing a smile on everyone's face!! The only constraint inside the house was the size was small when compared to the price they charge, but the first-time-experience was worthy!!

During my quick review of Vienna, I read about the fiakers, a two-horse-drawn carriage, for many tourists, a ride with the two-horse carriage is one of the highlights. The cost for a short tour (approx. 20 min. through the centre of the Old City) is Eur55 and for a long tour (approx. 40 min. through the Ringstrasse and the Old City) is Eur80. Having enough experience with horse drawn carriage in India, we opted out of this tourist-must-do and preferred to see the city center on our own.

Walked down to Nasch Market, which existed since the 16th century, the oldness was vivid along with colorful crowd buying fruits, vegetables and various delicacies from every country. We bought some exotic dried fruits like liche, papaya, lots of varieties of nuts and sweets and had deliciously spicy lunch at DR. FALAFEL (Turkish style restaurant).

Walked back to Karlsplatz (city center area) and took tram to Hundretwasserhaus (Hundertwasser House). The Hundertwasserhaus is an apartment house in Vienna, Austria designed by an artist Hundertwasser. You may ask, why to go to an apartment house but the uniqueness is that it features undulating floors, a roof covered with earth and grass, and large trees growing from inside the rooms, with limbs extending from windows!!

Within the house there are 52 apartments, four offices, 16 private terraces and three communal terraces, and a total of 250 trees and bushes.

It seems that the Hundertwasser House is one of Austria's most visited buildings and has become part of Austria's cultural heritage!! But the Hundertwasser House can only be viewed from outside (per this instruction posted at its entry). TIP: near to the house, there is a book store which sells books on the artist Hundertwasser and there is one book depicting all the inside views. Scroll through it and its fun! It was so different to all the grand palaces & fine buildings of Vienna. The place has a character and brought a smile to our face!!

Opposite to the house is a Hundertwasser village, where his crazy and uncanny constructional designs can be enjoyed, the souvenir shop was cheaper than that of the city centre!! The only difficulty I faced was that the tram map was not elaborative but doesnt detail the trams running towards Hundretwasser house. It needed few enquiries to locals, ofcourse killing, sorry speaking,  the German language and getting a reply in English, as they see I am not a German ;)
Came back to the museum quartier, it should have been a good relaxing place on a sunny day but when we reached it rained and we lost interest to spend time there. Its true that, when the Sun shines, the charm in the location increases, you feel happy, relaxed, at the same time, when the weather is worst, the beauty vanishes. Always plan a visit to Europe under good weather conditions!! But the rain was a passing and we roamed a beautiful garden between the Art and National museum buildings. The two big buildings and the nearby old constructions reminded us of Brussels and Paris, no memories of WW-2, it all escaped!

Near to that was the parliament house of Austria and Vienna's Rathaus (Legislative assembly). When we casually walked near the parliament, my wife came across this commemoration which states that Austria's republic day is my birthday (Nov 12th), interesting isnt it?
The film festival on Rathausplatz was on and there was more people and food from different countries. This film festival is quite famous and this was the 22nd time! Its a festival that shows selected famous classical music concerts on a open theater setup. Spend sometime roaming the food court and tried some chinese noodles. Couldnt wait for the show (as it gets dark at 8PM) and strolled out to city center. Sudden urge to taste 'one-more-time' the sachertorte came up and directly went to the hotel and enjoyed it :) to end a very beautiful day at Vienna!
After a wonderful breakfast at the hotel and left to The Belvedere. It is a historical building complex that includes two Baroque palaces: the Upper and Lower Belvedere seperated by a beautiful garden. I read a recommendation to enter the garden from the lower bevedere palace (from the südbahnhof entrance), take the nice lake reflection view and move down on the gentle gradient which had decorative tiered fountains and cascades, Baroque sculptures, and majestic wrought iron gates towards the other end of the museum (upper belvedere). With the weather being good and less tourist around due to early morning time, the garden walk was romantic and beautiful with nice water fountain flowing around. The symmetrical french garden setup was beautiful, really liked it.

 The lower palace houses an extensive collection from the well known artist Gustav Klimt, that includes the Kiss (read more at http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Kiss_(Klimt_painting)). 2012 being the 150th anniversary celebration of Gustav Klimt, I came to know about him a lot while roaming Vienna. Being an art introvert, I never know him, but after this trip, was really impressed on his works! Due to time constraint, couldn't enter the museum of his works, but spend sometime at the museum's souvenir shop, which almost had all his famous work!!

One point was vivid for me is that the city is getting modernized!! Vienna just got introduced with Schnell Bahn (S Bahn or speed train) and many of the U bahn stations and tram stations are under renevation. Even one line, U1 was completely stopped for major work. Hope they don't loose the baroque architechture for the sake of modernisation. I would rate Vienna a people friendly, nice and beautiful city to visit in Europe!! Its a heaven for museum and art lovers, nevertheless people like me who love nature and photography are also entertained!!

Reached Westbahnhof and started the journey back to Hamburg!! Once reached reading here, I should thank you for reading through, hope my writing (after years) havent changed! with the expectation of your encoraging comments, let me sign off with a smile! Have fun and enjoy the life's precious moments!!

Moving on to the life's next stage...

Yes, its time to proceed forward to the next phase of my life. In the recent past, I had some hot and casual discussions with my friends and colleagues on the topic "Arranged Marriage Vs Love Marriage". Especially, with my German friends and colleagues, it was tough to explain/support the arranged marriage concept, as its almost history in their culture! Nevertheless, I always accepted that the arranged marriages are a little more difficult to deal with. Choosing the right partner is a challenge in itself and the biggest decision in one's life. Recently, I was again lucky to face a sweet challenge to take a wonderful decision.

S. Anbu Vidhya, when I heard her name for the first time, there was an unknown pull due to its uniqueness and when I saw her photo, her smile made me crazy. She is a Post Graduate in Power Electronics and working as an Assistant Professor at Shanmugha Arts, Science, Technology & Research Academy (SASTRA), a university in Tamil Nadu, India. Our first meet at her house was on Dec 27, 2009, I still remember the feeling cum excitement on that day and it is to cherish forever. After that meet, my gut feeling told me "Vidhya is the person whom I was raring to share my entire life" and went along with it. After casual discussions, we both were happy that our likes and dislikes seem to be matching and we hope and wish to lead a successful life together. It was indeed a pleasure to think like: "Love (Anbu) with Knowledge (Vidhya) when joins with Victory (Vijay) will sure to prosper our life".

Our Engagement happened on the auspicious day of Feb 19, 2010 under the presence of close relatives and friends. With great hopes and dreams, started counting the days for the marriage scheduled on Jun 21, 2010, book your calendar and you all are invited well in advance.
"Marriage is like a whirlpool, which takes one from a carefree world to a world filled with commitment and sacrifice, with love as its backbone." This quote attracted my attention sometime back and got in as a strong belief. Now gearing up for my next phase with our parent's blessings and wishes from all of you. Meet you soon in my next blog, till then take care, viel spass (have fun)!

Maiden trip to Switzerland

In the month of August, during a casual chat with my friend Balaji over skype, he shared a week office shutdown for him at Belgium in November. He was compelling me to plan a trip. Even in my German office, everyone where started asking "why are u working without a vacation" (Germans have the habit of taking 2 or 3 vacation in a year and spend time out of office regular stuffs), hence decided to have a mega trip and Switzerland was the destination for it. Thanks to bollywood/kollywood and all kinds of "woods" of Indian cinema industry, Switzerland has become the most sought after foreign destination for Indian tourists, specially the nouveau riche. In no country does Switzerland enjoy as much popularity as it does in India. Booked my tickets from Hamburg to Geneva thru Lufthansa Regional and it worked out cheap (100 Euros to and fro). As usual, invested many weekends and week day evenings, doing research and planing the itinerary. Thanks to Skype, Balaji was reachable and he too did his part of planing and associating me. Finally I took off from Hamburg on wednesday (04.Nov.2009) to Geneva.

Switzerland doesnt have their own language, half of the country speaks French (the part near to France) and the remaining half speaks German. Though Switzerland is land locked on all sides and is pretty much in the center of Europe, it is not a part of the European Union and obviously doesn’t use the Euro as its currency. The local currency is Swiss Francs (CHF), conversion during my travel was 1:1 (for CHF:US Dollar) and 1:1.5 (CHF: Euro). It is a country where from one corner to the other corner can be travelled in 3-4hrs, thanks to their extensive rail network. As per our research, we found that taking a 4 day pass for travel inside swiss is economical and user friendly (no need to waste time in ticket counters). We booked our night stay at Geneva youth hostel and Balaji was suppose to reach 3hrs after my landing. I settled down in the hostel, roamed a little in the Geneva city but for taking the swiss saver 4 day pass, they wanted both of our passports and hence I couldnt purchase it. Geneva is in the Swiss-France border and the entire city speaks only French, of course with English. After being in Germany for considerable period of time, a sort of attachment has developed within me for the Deutsch (German) language, whenever I am touring another country (like this), I started missing Deutsch and if someone speaks Deutsch, I felt an unknown liking towards them, after all German too was a foreign language for me before 2009, but now never.

The next day morning after purchasing the pass we took our first train journey to Jungfraujoch. Jungfraujoch means virgin peak (Deutsch to English translation - Jung: young, Frau:Lady, Joch: ridge), pronounced-yung frau yokh. The weather was ultimate, bright sun shine, no cloud cover, blue sky reflection over the lakes. Many of my friends said, November is not the correct time to go to Swiss, eventhen we took this risk and thanks to Global Warming (jovially), we had a summer day during the end of Autumn and beginning of Winter. The journey from Geneva to Jungfraujoch is not by a single train, we jumped 3 trains (@ Interlaken Ost, Lauterbrunnen, Kleine Scheidegg) and the travel time was almost 5hrs. The travel from Interlaken to the top of Europe (Jungfraujoch) was breathtaking with so many tunnels, steep slopes, ice covered mountains, valleys, waterfalls, it was a treat to eyes and enjoyed it. The fact is: The journey from Kleine Scheidegg to Jungfraujoch takes approximately 50 minutes including the stops; the downhill return journey taking only 35 minutes and the entire journey is inside a tunnel. It took 16 years to build this tunnel up to the Jungfraujoch railway station at 3,454 m (11,332 ft), the highest in Europe. Thanks to the the Jungfraubahn cog railways, before arriving at the Jungfraujoch station, the train stopped for five minutes at two other stations, Eigerwand and Eismeer, where the traveller can have a look through the excavated holes of the moving Glaciers!! We roamed the Jungfraujoch using a map (provided in the train) and covered the places like: ice palace, sphinx (astronomical research area), ice walking area. I dont want to write much about our experience at the top of Europe, please visit this site: http://picasaweb.google.com/vijaynov12/JungfraujochTheTopOfEurope?authkey=Gv1sRgCPOlk6byhYSUqAE&feat=email

enjoy the descriptions and explanations below the snaps. We reached Interlaken late in the evening and was tired. We had already booked a youth hostel named BALMERS (very famous one in Interlaken) and enjoyed the stay there. Roamed the town a bit and called the day with lots of memories of the first day at Swiss.

A Weekend in Prague, Czech Republic

Whenever I hear the country name 'Czechoslovakia', I at once remember my dad's dictation, it was always a tough name to spell (By the way, from 01.Jan.1993 Czechoslovakia was split into the Czech Republic and Slovakia and hence the word 'Czechoslovakia' is permanently lost). I had never thought I will visit Prague - capital of Czech Republic (the heart of Europe) in my life, but, its fate that I should spend the 2009 Deepavali (Oct 17,18) at Prague (or Praha)!! Life is indeed a beautiful puzzle to solve.... Praha is the sixth most-visited European city after London, Paris, Rome, Madrid and Berlin. Prague suffered considerably less damage during World War II than some other major cities in the region, allowing most of its historic architecture to stay true to form.
I booked my travel from Hamburg to Prague (in Deutch Bahn - German train service) in August and for the first time in Germany, I was traveling alone for a trip. Balaji (my colleague at Capgemini) who at present works in Belgium, joined me at Praha. I was expecting the train travel (6.5hrs) to be boring, but it wasn’t. I had two cute Czech kids with their mom as the co-passengers. The kids spoke English and taught me Czech language too (Dobry den (Dough-bree-den) for Hello, Yokayoo/Dekuji for Thanks and Prosim (Pro-seem) for You’re Welcome). Also, the train line from Berlin to Praha passed through the Erzgebirge mountains, for a couple of hours enjoyed the series of beautiful alpine river valleys, surrounded by rocky escarpments and mountains. Sometimes, it feels good and better to be alone and I felt it at that time.
As always, I invested much time in planning this trip too. The major constraints were the time to spend and the vastness of Prague. Prague is a city which requires minimum a week to admire each and every beauty, I had just 25hrs to cover the must see places and was really a challenge to plan this trip. After few weeks of surfing the internet and reading reviews, I came up with a feasible itinerary. I decided not to visit the world's largest Castle in Praha, as I had visited the famous Neuschwanstein castle and Schwerin castle, it was a tough call but took it for good. Advised Balaji to spend half a day alone at the castle before I reach Praha at 1330. Praha has two central train stations and we decided to meet at the McDonalds near to the Praha Hostivice station. There was no big confusion in finding him and we started our trip taking a 24hrs travel pass for 100 Czech Korunas (CZK). We noted that the conversion rates are pretty low in the railway station and went to Wenceslas Square and converted Euros for CZK (24CZK/Euro).
Wenceslas Square is 750m long and 60m wide boulevard (a wide street or thoroughfare), it was laid out over 600 years ago during the reign of Charles IV. It was originally used as the Prague horse market. Wenceslas Square is where the Czech's come to let off steam (e.g. anti-communist uprisings or celebrations of national sporting achievements). It can comfortably hold up to 400,000 people! Behind St. Wenceslas is the monumental National Museum, and just off to the left is the Prague State Opera. The sides of the boulevard had many important houses, banks, shops, hotels and restaurants. The notable one was our famous brand "BATA shoe" company store, later when I surfed for this blog, I came to know that BATA's founder is a Czech entrepreneur, Tomas Bata!! walked the length of the square and without hassles reached the Old town square.
The Old Town Square is one of the largest and most impressive open public spaces in Europe. The most notable sights are the Church of Our Lady before Tyn, the Old Town Hall Tower & Astronomical Clock and the St. Nicholas Church. As soon as we reached this square, we saw the BIG astronomical clock. The Astronomical Clock consists of the windows with apostles at the top, the Astronomical Dial, the Calendar Dial underneath and various sculptures around. The clock announces every hour with 12 apostles passing by the window above the astronomical dial and with symbolic sculptures moving aside. The Astronomical Dial shows the medieval perception of the Universe: the Earth is the center. There are three circles on the astronomical dial, showing different time: the outer circle shows the Old Czech Time (“Italian Time”), the circle with Roman numbers shows the Central European Time and the inner circle with Arabic numerals shows the “Babylonian Time”: the length of an hour differs there according to the season – it is longer in the summer, shorter in the winter. The Prague Astronomical Clock is the only one in the world able to measure it. We were lucky enough to reach the clock at 1550, enjoyed the clock's performance at 1600. Decided to climb 69.5 meter tall Town Hall Tower (hosting the astronomical clock) and enjoyed the elevated view of the old town. Enjoyed the Prague's view for 45mins and came down to get along with the clock performance (for the second time) at 1700. The fun is to stand under the clock and look at the tourists looking at the performance. It’s really funny to watch about 300+ digital cameras all pointing upward at the same time.
The Church of our Lady before Tyn is an impressive Gothic cathedral. It is located just opposite to the town hall tower, the church's towers are 80 m high and topped by four small spires. The church is Prague's most important gothic sanctuary and is a very impressive sight. Enjoyed this info which I discovered during my trip preparation: A close look at the two spires reveal that they are not symmetrical. This is characteristic of the gothic architecture of the time and is a representation of both the masculine and feminine sides of the world. Also, we admired watching the St. Nicholas Church, the Jan Hus monument situated in the middle of the Old Town Square.
After cherishing the beauty of the old town square, we walked in the Jewish Quarter (Josefov) crossing few Synagogue (the place of worship for a Jews) to reach the Old Jewish Cemetery (founded in 1478), it is the Europe's oldest surviving Jewish cemetery. People had to be buried on top of each other because of lack of space. There are about 12 layer and over 12,000 gravestones. 100,000 people are thought to have been buried here. No idea, the gates to the cemetery was shut, I said to myself 'God doesn’t want me to enter the cemetery so soon :)'.
Traversing the city was so simple, they have three metro lines and numerous tram lines. Traveling in Prague tram, I remembered my travel in Kolkata (the only city in India where tram is still in operation). Accompanied Balaji to TESCO (an international retail chain, the Walmart of Prague). Balaji is a smoker and wanted to save money in purchasing cigarettes in Czech! Wonder why people spend so much for smoke, as I had never tried it, I know, I can never understand it. He did not do his enquiry properly (how much to carry in flight back to Belgium) and couldn’t decide whether to buy 2000 or 400 cigars, finally ended up in 400.
As per our plan we reached the Krizikova fontana (fountain show) to be part of the music-light show carried out to the Beethoven - Symphony No.9. It was a mind-blowing performance for 40mins and I loved to be there. I recollected my experience of the musical fountain show in Brindavan gardens, Mysore. The amazing fact is, a general search of 'Prague's must see places' doesn’t yield Krizikova fontana. as it is in the outskirts of the Prague centre, even the tourist info center guys were not much aware of this place. Don’t miss this show, when you are in Prague! The hotel we have booked was near to the fontana and after the show, we rushed to the hotel. While getting back it was too cold, a perfect autumn weather of central Europe and had a comfortable sleep.
Touring Europe in this part of the year, needs preparation w.r.t weather. Before my trip, I checked wetter.de, it said 6°C (max) and 2°(min) for the weekend. But the Sunday morning was damn cold than expected, plus it was rainy. Good that I had my umbrella and woolen gloves! We checked out the hotel and reached Charles Bridge. The best time to visit the bridge is early morning or late evening to avoid the tourist rush. Charles Bridge is built between the 14th and 15th century, spans the Vltava River with 16 pillars and boasts some 30 statues of various saints. Holy Roman Emperor Charles IV laid down the foundation stone on 9th of July 1357, at 5:31 a.m. It is no coincidence: this date was carefully chosen, because it makes an interesting numerical scale. When it is written in the chronology the year – the day – the month – the time, it makes a scale, going upwards and then downwards: 1 3 5 7 9 7 5 3 1. Strange enough to know that the great Emperor Charles IV too believed numerology!!
The bronze statue of St. John of Nepomuk is the oldest statue on the Charles Bridge. St. John of Nepomuk was a parson (A person authorized to conduct religious worship), who refused to betray a secret, confided to him by Queen Sophia, to the king Wenceslas IV. He was tortured on the king’s demand and then thrown to the river Vltava from the Charles Bridge in 1393. The inseparable attributes of St. John of Nepomuk statue are the five stars, a surplice, a cross and a martyr’s palm tree. The five stars allegedly appeared above the river, after the martyr was thrown there. They are supposed to symbolize the five letters of Latin word “tacet”, which means “silent”. There is a brassy cross with five stars at the place on the parapet, where he was thrown to the river. Its told that if one places his hand on the cross, so that every finger will touch one star, he can wish something and it will be fulfilled. I too did it :). In one of the review, I read an advise to visit Strelecky Island (small island in Vltava River). At the northern end of the island, it was said to have a incredible view of Charles Bridge. When we reached the particular island, the area was cordoned off by Czech police from some crime investigation. Hence missed the opportunity to have a beautiful view of the complete bridge from a distant point.
We marched towards the Petrin Hills. As per my itinerary, we should use the funicular (cable) train to reach the top. Bad luck, it was closed for maintenance. It was drizzling and we started to climb the 327 meter hill. The cold invariably increased as we climbed up and it was a tough experience, I don’t have a handy thermometer, but it must have been below zero. The Petrin hills has number of tourist attractions, we wanted to cover few of them: the Hunger Wall, the smaller replica of the Eiffel Tower 8Petrin Observation Tower) and the Mirror Maze.
Charles IV build the Hunger Wall thru the poor people in the 14th century. He wanted to give some work to those, who suffered from hunger at the time of bad crops. The Hunger Wall is 1178 meters long and about 8 meters high (sort of copycat of Great Wall of China). The Petrin Observation Tower is an imitation of the Eiffel tower in Paris. It is 60 meters high, so it is five times smaller than the Eiffel Tower in Paris. As we climbed the hill, we lost time (as well the energy) and couldn’t climb the 299 steps of tower! I had never entered a mirror maze before and was excited. I know that this is made for kids, but sometimes its nice to become a kid and enjoy!! It was funny to find the way through the mirror maze. I saw my picture in the mirrors all around and felt like there is no way forth or back. It was an amazing experience. Then I entered the other room, which is equipped with variously bulging mirrors and I can see my picture amusingly deformed. It was funny to check out how I would be looking tall or short, skinny or fat etc. There were 14 misrepresenting mirrors in the maze altogether and we enjoyed it.
It was time to catch the train to get back Hamburg, walked down the hill and had a nice lunch at a Subway (I couldn’t taste a Czech beer with lunch (mostly with pork), as I don’t take either of them). I should say that Praha is a cheap European city, I have been. I converted 70Euros and ended up having more than 100 Czech Korunas to spend, even though I expended like an average European tourist!! When I was returning Hamburg, a nice thought came up comparing Praha with Madurai! I lived in Madurai for more than 10 years and the resemblance is as follows:

- Praha is founded in 8th century and not as old as Madurai whose cultural heritage goes back 2,500 years, and the city has conducted trade as far as Rome and Greece since as early as 550 BC!!

- The Praha Castle being the center of attraction, Madurai has the Thirumalai Nayakar Mahal (palace);

- The Old town square is not old enough to compare with Madurai's Meenakshi Amman temple;

- The astronomical clock is as similar to the Porthamarai Kulam (Pond with the Golden Lotus) inside the temple;

- The Church of Our Lady before Tyn has the same architectural galore of Madurai's Aayiram Kaal Mandapam (Thousand Pillar Hall);

- The Praha is situated on the banks of River Vltava, Madurai on the banks of River Vaigai (Vltava faces floods often whereas Vaigai hardly sees water);

- Praha nicknamed as "city of a hundred spires", Madurai is "Temple city" or "Athens of the East";

- Praha has innumerous Synagogue (the place of worship for a Jews),in Madurai you will see a temple in every corner of a street;

- All the streets of Old town of Praha gets connected to Old town square much similar to the concentric rectangular streets surround the Meenakshi Amman Temple, Madurai is built around the temple;

- There are many bridges crossing Vltava, Madurai too has many bridges crossing Vaigai. The view of Praha I saw from Charles bridge is as similar to the view of Madurai from the Aaarapalayam bridge;

- The Petrin Hill of Prague is a nice place to leisure out from the city life, Madurai has the similar Azhagar Kovil (Alagar temple) Hills;

- I can keep going on comparing like these... let me stop sharing with this last thought: Praha is filled with tourism and economy depends on it, interesting fact is 'one-half of the Czech income from tourism is spent in Prague', I don’t have any comparison with Madurai's tourism development :(
I wish to see Madurai as developed as Prague, an European/American should plan himself easily (like me) to visit Madurai, I wonder whether my wish turns true in my lifetime!!! I celebrated 2009 Deepavali as well as my 250th day in Europe (thanks to diary writing habit, it gave me this count, its been 250 days I left my mother(land) ) in a grand style at Prague, one of the beautiful cities of Europe. Thanks for reading my experience, if you are reading this line, you must have enjoyed my narration!!! See you in my next endeavor from Switzerland, till then take care.....

Indian Cuisine at German's Kitchen!

A long plan to visit my German colleague and a good friend Susanne's house happened true on 19-Sep-2009. We five Indians reached Jork (a cute village 35kms off from Hamburg city) at 1100Hrs, where Susanne lives with Horst. (Read my blog "An evening in Buxtehude - Germany's country side" for our previous meets...). After tasting our lunch dishes at office, Susanne was particualarly keen to learn the process of making Chapathi. Obviously, Germans love wheat, with that when she tasted chapathi, she loved the taste!

So we decided to prepare an Indian cuisine at her kitchen. She had invited three other German friends for the lunch. Madhurima took the lead and we all helped her in cooking. We prepared chapathi, vegetable rice, matar paneer gravy, mushroom masala, potato cauliflower curry, raita, appalam (pappadam). The German ladies were keen in noting all the steps during preparation and the best part was Susanne trying herself a chapathi. A nice chance for me to visualise the German house arrangment and their daily living style. They had a beautiful garden, a glass room to enjoy summer. Horst took us for a drive to nearby Apple Orchard, where we saw short trees with 50+ apples per tree waiting for harvesting.

Germans enjoyed the lunch with appalam, appreciating all our efforts. Susanne's friend naratted his New Delhi business trip experience and the road travel from ND to Agra to see Taj Mahal. He was particularly amazed on our trafic rules following methods, elephant begging on the road, car over taking the two-wheelers, Bus/Lorry over taking the car (his statment was: Heavier vehicle is the master on the road), he even took snaps of overcrowded busses and explained his astonishment. True, more than a billion lifes lives and survives in India, nothing when compared to 83 million Germans!!! Had a splendid lunch and left Jork by 1730, It was indeed a good day to remember for ever.

Climate House, Bremerhaven, Germany

Everyone talks about the weather, but what factors determine the climate? At the Germany's new Klimahaus (Climate house in German) museum in Bremerhaven 8° East longitude, we can get the answers that are both scientifically supported and fascinating. It offered a great journey into the world of the climate with unique world of knowledge and adventure.
Early this month, my friend Arasu (working for UTC Fire & Security) shared info about this Climate house, for which UTC has done the fire security systems. We were fascinated to visit and planned our trip on 20-Sep-2009. I have made Eleven short (weekend)/long trips from Hamburg across Europe in the past 8 months, and all the trips were nice, enjoyable but nothing serious and thrilling. This trip brought that experience, read on...!!
The plan was to catch 0715 train from Hamburg, but Hari (third person in the trip) got delayed and missed the train. Arasu and I, sitting inside the running train were discussing on mobile with Hari, who missed it. A rush of thought came to me as to get down in the next station (Harburg), go back to Hamburg and catch the next train to Bremerhaven (reason: this is the last trip for Arasu as he leaves India soon and first trip of Hari with us). We speedily got down at Harburg and rushed towards local train station to catch the next train to Hamburg. Arasu was on mobile with Hari saying that we are getting back to Hamburg, suddenly I saw the back bag of Arasu missing on his shoulders; a rush of Adrenalin: WE MISSED HIS BAG IN THE TRAIN!! Ran to the platform where we got down from the train, but German punctuality, the train has already left the station. The bag had Arasu's favorite jacket, Sony camera, my Nikon camera and other stuff, thank God, not our passports. No idea what to do, the entire platform is empty, who will be there on a cold sunday morning! We decided to go to the info center and went up, explained the mishap to the German. He asked the color of the bag and which wagon we missed it, I said it was Wagon 8, he smiled and replied "The train runs with 6 wagons!". I don’t know, whether it was tension or what feeling, even the numbers were confusing to recollect...
He called two people over phone and detailed our issue, he told to go to Bremen (a station on the way to Bremerhaven) and collect the bag. He was not that promising and we left the place back to Hamburg to meet Hari. Arasu was perplexed, even me. But no idea, I had an unknown confidence like we will get back everything. May be the confidence was from seeing, moving and working with Germans for 8 months, as well appreciating their earnestness. We reached Hamburg and caught 0815 train back to Bremerhaven, this time with Hari and without the bag!! Reached Bremen at 0930 (2hrs passed without bag), while getting down Arasu queried "how much you are sure we will get the bag", I replied 99.9% and we went to info center. While Arasu was explaining the happenings to the German sitting at the info center, my eyes scanned his cubicle, I saw our Orange bag in the corner, I never interrupt other's conversation, but this time no discipline, I shouted 'there is our bag', the German dint ask any further details, coolly returned the bag. The feeling was tremendous, we caught the next train to Bremerhaven and reached the Klimahaus at 1100 with the enthuse and charm to enjoy the day.
The Klimahaus comprises of four exhibition areas: The Journey, The Elements, Perspectives, and Opportunities. The journey beginning and ending in Bremerhaven, always following the 8th degree of longitude! It passes though a whole range of climate zones and we encountered virtual people whose daily lives are profoundly influenced by each prevalent climate. We experienced extremes of temperature and discover fascinating creatures and plants.
The first region was Isenthal – Switzerland. We can experience the alpine climate of the glacier, Wander across a lush green meadow, past the cows, up the mountain, through stark rock formations to the glacier.
The second region was Sardinien – Italy, we can take an insect’s eye view of things and become part of the microcosm! Gigantic stalks of grass rise up. Above our head a large butterfly wings its way through the air, signifying the famous butterfly effect (The beat of a butterfly’s wings can result in a distant mighty storm).
The third region was Kanak – Nigeria, the Sahara and the arid heat of the desert which is spreading at great speed through Northern Africa is visualised not only by means of the sand and rock installations, but also with a shimmering steel wall of heat: the temperature is 35°C, the “sun” beats down mercilessly from above.
The fourth region was Ikenge – Cameroon, perfect simulation of a Rainforest – hot and humid tropical climate. The importance of the rainforest for the local inhabitants is shown at the outset of the exhibition area for Cameroon. On the forest floor the air is filled with various scents, strange sounds can be heard everywhere, and it is dark... a winding path leads through this exotic world, ending at a village scene of mud huts. In the rivers cape we came across exotic fishes which can be observed from a hanging bridge.
The fifth region was the world's uninhabited continent, Queen-Maud-Land – Antartica, it was a cold room, floor and walls are covered with real ice and temperatures dropped down to -6°C (21°F). Leaving the room we were caught up into the upper heights of the atmosphere. A climb of 65m long walkway through the night sky towards the dawn. Below was the topmost layers of clouds, above was the endless reaches of the universe. Iit was like we are at the edge of the world with the stars as the only source of light!!

The sixth region was Satitoa – Samoa, the place of tropical humid warmth, turquoise water and a fine sandy beach. There were aquariums on the sides, and we gradually submerge deeper into a fringing reef. A number of display aquariums illustrate the tropical underwater world off Samoa as faithfully to the original as humanly possible. Ranging from the shallow lagoon over the reef crest and the transition to the open sea.
The seventh region was Gambell – Alaska, in the Bering Strait, on the edge of the Arctic, we came face to face with a culture stretched between a society of hunters and foragers and the “American way of life”. The problems and hopes of the indigenous people, their normal daily life on an island cut off from the rest of the world, in a raw climate which is now changing, it was indeed marvelous.
The eighth region is Hallig Langenesse, Germany. The place where high tidal floods spilling over the island, the raging North Sea all around. We can see that the coastal protection workers are raising the height of the summer dike. But because of the Global warming, the next storm tide won’t be too far away and soon the island will be missing from the world's map!! It took 5hrs for us to cover these eight regions, we never felt the time running and it was a memorable journey across the globe, never thought I will go for a ride like this virtually!!
The Elements exhibition area details more than 100 interactive displays illustrating the physics of the climate, its complex interdependencies and numbers of amazing phenomena. The Perspectives area detailed the history of the climate, ranging from the origins of the Earth 3.9 thousand million years ago and looking forward to the year 2050. Couldn’t make into the Opportunities as it was closed, as well we were exhausted physically as well as mentally, brain has limit to grasp info at a time, we felt the saturation of that!!! Departed Bremerhaven (53°N Longitude 8°E Latitude) to Hamburg (53°N Longitude 9°E Latitude) with a great knowledge update on our world's climate and its interdependence! One more pleasant but a thrilling trip... See you in next blog: its from PRAGUE, Czech Republic!

The Scandinavian Dream...

A trip to Copenhagen was on cards as soon as I heard that the train we travel will go into the ship and you travel on the deck of the ship for 45mins to cross the sea border of Germany and Denmark and again the train runs towards the Denmark Capital for couple of hours! As well, a google search for Copenhagen resulted to the Little mermaid statue and Oresund bridge, the man made 8Kms connection between two countries (Denmark & Sweden). We (Arasu and me) made the reservations (train and lodging) and left Hamburg for the weekend on our 62nd Independence day (Aug 15, 2009). The trip's pleasure started in the train itself as soon as we reached Puttgarden, Germany. There was a unique announced in the PA system, advicing to get down of the train and go to the deck of the ship. The train slowly entered the Ship and there we go, we staired up to the deck and took the below snap from the side of the ship and catching the rare view of train tracks ending into the sea!The weather was not that great but the drive was ultimate, I had never been in my life on such a big ship that too over a sea which splits two countries (Germany and Denmark), indeed it was an unique experience. The sail was for 45mins and Arasu and me had a nice time roaming the deck and clicking snaps. Reached the train back and started travelling in the Danish speaking country. Reached Copenhagen in time, it was cloudy and thought the bad luck of bad weather continues wherever we go (read Rügen blog for this comment). Whoever lands Denmark, the first and foremost job to do is the "CURRENCY CONVERSION", we need to convert Euros to Denmark Kroner (DKK). Arasu and me converted our currencies seperately (in different counters) and paid 30DKK as fee per head, it was a learning from mistake: while converting currencies, convert only once but a bulk amount (how much u want) and save fees!!! Ask any European, he will say that Copenhagen is a costly city to roam, true, feel this fact: "If you travel to the next station in train or bus, you need to pay 21DKK nothing but approx. 3 Euros (Rs.200)!!" As all other cities, Copenhagen too has different zones, but the catch is one have to stamp his ticket as per his travel zones. As per our information collection before the trip, the best deal to travel (for 2 ppl) is to buy a 130DKK card thru which 10 travel can be made, i.e. 5 travel for 2 ppl per zone!! We were lucky that our DAN Hostel was in the next zone and we used one punch per person to reach the hostel. I should appreciate the Danish people, from Rickshaw-wala (Denmark has too many modern rickshaws) to train ticket advisor, everyone speaks GOOD English, a little known fact: there is no Danish FM which plays songs in Danish, all in all ENGLISH!!

We got the tickets to Malmö (ö should be pronounced as 'o and e' together, I am yet to master that pronounciation, and all my German colleagues laugh when I try that; although they cant pronounce 'R' in Rajesh as we do :>) and reached DAN hostel, checked in to unloaded our baggage and freely set towards Sweden. We stayed in a DAN Hostel at Belle Center connected by the electronic M1 (metro) route active from 2002. The speciality of this metro is it is a 'driverless light metro' with the entire metro system run by a fully-automated computer system, first of its kind in Europe. Malmö - the third largest city of Sweden, is just a 35mins train travel from Copenhagen, but you cross again a sea border (Denmark and Sweden), this time not by a ship, but by a tunnel cum bridge called Øresund Bridge ('Ø' is nothing but 'O' in English). Few of the interesting facts about Oresund Bridge (thanks to Wiki):

1. It starts from Denmark going beneath the sea thru a tunnel for 4kms to reach a man made unpopulated island and then a giant bridge rises up and runs across the sea for 8Kms to reach Sweden's Malmö. The reason for building a tunnel instead of another section of bridge is that the Copenhagen Airport is nearby.

2. The bridge has one of the longest cable-stayed main spans in the world at 490 metres (1,608 ft). On the bridge, there are two rail-tracks which are beneath the four road lanes.

3. There were challenges related to the difference in electrification and signalling between the Danish and Swedish railway networks. The solution chosen is to SWITCH the electrical system, from Swedish 15 kV, 16.7 Hz to Danish 25 kV, 50 Hz AC right before the eastern bridgehead at Sweden (Being an Electrical Engineer, I was curious on this fact).

4. The line is signalled according to the standard Swedish system across the length of the bridge. On the artificial island, the line switches to Danish signalling which continues into the tunnel.

5. Sweden runs railways with left-hand traffic and Denmark with right-hand traffic, the bridge uses the Danish method (RH track driving).

The train travel on the bridge was wondrous, we saw the Lillgrund wind farm located 10 km off the coast of southern Sweden, just south of Öresund Bridge. With its 48 wind turbines (arranged in a matrix format), Lillgrund is Sweden’s biggest offshore wind farm and one of the largest in the world. The wind farm generates 0.33 TWh annually (domestic electricity demand of more than 60,000 homes). The view of the circling blades from the moving train was awesome as at some point all the wind turbines (positioned in a single row of the matrix) fell in one view with numerous blades rotating in different phase sequences!Reached Malmö and converted few more Euros for Swedish Krona (SEK) at the forex center. We found the Malmö festival happening just outside the central station and peeped into it, it was sponsored by IKEA (international home products retailer from Sweden). Instead of taking a transport to the Turning Torso, we decided to walk in the swedish streets and it was real fun.

Facts about Turning Torso:

1. The tower uses nine segments of five-story pentagons that twist as it rises; the topmost segment is twisted 90° clockwise with respect to the ground floor.

2. Each floor consists of an irregular pentagonal shape rotating around the vertical core, which is supported by an exterior steel framework.

3. The two bottom segments are intended as office space. Segments three to nine house 147 luxury apartments.

4. As Turning Torso is a private residential building there is no access for the general public.

So we didnt go up the building and enjoyed the civil engineering wonder from outside. Just a 5mins walk from there is the Baltic sea and a beautiful view of the Oresund bridge. The weather was superb, bright and sunny, but on the wrong side, the Sun was just near the bridge and we cant take good photo with the Sun directly falling on our camera lens, no issues, we admired the view with our natural camera (eyes) and it will remain in memory for ever... Reached back to Copenhagen and entered directly into TIVOLI.

Tivoli is a amusement park and pleasure garden opened on August 15, 1843 (coincidently, we were there on Aug 15, 2009 just 166 years difference!) and it is the second the oldest amusement park in the world. We enjoyed the evening entirely and the four bests of Tivoli are: the demon (rollercoaster ride), the pantomime theatre, the midnight fire works, and the illumination show at the lake. Enjoy the rollercoaster ride virtually thru the below video.

The ancient Pantomime theatre from 1874 is one of the oldest establishments in Tivoli. Pantomime means a play when performers express themselves by mute gesture and are accompaniment by music. It was mind blowing synchronisation between the music (which is played live beneath the stage) and the action and worth for the time you spend in Tivoli.

The fireworks starts at 2345 and goes on for 15mins, virtually our Deepavali is brought to Denmark, it was colourful and majestic. The Illumination show was using focused light over water fountains and smoke in between. If you ever go to Tivoli, dont leave the garden after the fireworks (as many do), go to the lake in the center of the garden and enjoy this illumination show, its a special one and I dont think we can find it somewhere else!!

Reached hostel at 0130Hrs and had a nice sleep, the first day of the trip had much more thrill than I expected.
Day2 (Aug 16, 2009): It was good that we booked the hostel with the breakfast and had a nice morning food, checked out and directly head towards the central station cloak room and stored our luggage safely. Caught a train and reached the Osterport train station and had a short walk to reach the seashore where the symbol of Copenhagen - "The Little Mermaid" is sitting. She was pretty, short but attractive. The Little Mermaid statue is only 1.25 metres high and weighs around 175 kg itseems. The Copenhagen City Council are planning to move the statue to Shanghai for the duration of the Expo 2010 (from May to October), thank God we visited it before that... Below is the extract of the fairy tale written by Danish author - Hans Christian Andersen: "The Little Mermaid lives in a utopian underwater kingdom with her father the sea king; her grandmother; and her five elder sisters, born one year apart. When a mermaid turns 15, she is allowed to swim to the surface to watch the world above, and as the sisters become old enough, one of them visits the surface every year. As each of them returns, the Little Mermaid listens longingly to their descriptions of the surface and of human beings. When the Little Mermaid's turn comes, she ventures to the surface, sees a ship with a handsome prince, and falls in love with him from a distance. A great storm hits, and the Little Mermaid saves the prince from a near-drowning. She delivers him unconscious to the shore near a temple. Here she waits until a young girl from the temple finds him. The prince never sees the Little Mermaid. The Little Mermaid asks her grandmother whether humans can live forever if they do not drown. The grandmother explains that humans have a much shorter lifespan than merfolk's 300 years, but that when mermaids die they turn to sea foam and cease to exist, while humans have an eternal soul that lives on in Heaven. The Little Mermaid, longing for the prince and an eternal soul, eventually visits the Sea Witch, who sells her a potion that gives her legs, in exchange for her tongue (as the Little Mermaid has the most intoxicating voice in the world). Drinking the potion will make her feel as if a sword is being passed through her, yet when she recovers she will have two beautiful legs, and will be able to dance like no human has ever danced before. However, it will constantly feel like she is walking on sharp swords, and her feet will bleed most terribly. In addition, she will only get a soul if the prince loves her and marries her, for then a part of his soul will flow into her. Otherwise, at dawn on the first day after he marries another woman, the Little Mermaid will die brokenhearted and disintegrate into sea foam. The Little Mermaid drinks the potion and meets the prince, who is attracted to her beauty and grace even though she is mute. Most of all he likes to see her dance, and she dances for him despite her excruciating pain. When the prince's father orders his son to marry the neighboring king's daughter, the prince tells the Little Mermaid he will not, because he does not love the princess. He goes on to say he can only love the young woman from the temple, but adds that the Little Mermaid is beginning to take the temple girl's place in his heart. It turns out that the princess is the temple girl, who had been sent to the temple to be educated. The prince loves her and the wedding is announced. The prince and princess marry, and the Little Mermaid's heart breaks. She thinks of all that she has given up and of all the pain she has suffered. She despairs, thinking of the death that awaits her, but before dawn, her sisters bring her a knife that the Sea Witch has given them in exchange for their long hair. If the Little Mermaid slays the prince with the knife and lets his blood drip on her feet, she will become a mermaid again, all her suffering will end and she will live out her full life. The Little Mermaid cannot bring herself to kill the sleeping prince lying with his bride and, as dawn breaks, throws herself into the sea. Her body dissolves into foam, but instead of ceasing to exist, she feels the warmth of the sun; she has turned into a spirit, a daughter of the air. The other daughters of the air tell her she has become like them because she strove with all her heart to gain an eternal soul. She will earn her own soul by doing good deeds, and she will eventually rise up into the kingdom of God. "
Bought a souvenir (hand made copper little mermaid) for my copenhagen trip rememberance and started walking towards the Amalienborg Castle infront of the Marble Church. As per our plan, we made ourself available for the famous Amalienborg Castle changing of the guards, but our bad luck the Queen was not at home and the royal guards were missing (as they go along with the Queen). Only there were lieutenants guards (sergeant and 12 palace guards) without music we saw the guard changing, it was not that attractive as we expected and I need to visit London to view the changing of guards at Buckingham palace!!
The best way to tour Copenhagen is by foot and we got a excellent city map from the infocenter (near the central railway station) and it was quite helpful. We walked towards the Nyhavn, a colourful waterfront, canal and popular entertainment district in Copenhagen. It is lined by brightly coloured 17th and early 18th century townhouses and numerous bars, cafes and restaurants. Serving as a heritage harbour, the canal is packed with old wooden ships and numerous ferry tour starts from here. Then entered the street named Strøget. The Strøget is located in the centre of town and it is the longest pedestrian shopping area in Europe (carfree zone in Copenhagen from 1962). Enjoyed the walk along the Strøget, eventhough it was Sunday, 50% of the shops were open and tourists were enjoying their time in Copenhagen. At the end of Strøget, we reached the Rådhuspladsen, the City Hall Square. It is a city square beside Copenhagen City Hall at the center of Copenhagen. The square is home to a large statue of Hans Christian Andersen, the author of The Little Mermaid fairytale.
During my info collection for this trip, I read about the 1930's mechanism called 'golden weather girls (Vejrpigerne) of Copenhagen' near the City hall square. I was searching through out the square for sometime to see them but I was lost in the square... I felt bad to miss them eventhough I was infront of them!! Suddenly my eyes fell on a neon thermometer and atop I saw The girls are on a rotating disc and provided a weather forecast for Copenhageners. One girl on a bicycle would rotate to the front when it was sunny, and the second girl with an umbrella would rotate to the front when it was rainy. Today the statue is permanently stuck half way in between! But the neon thermometer (also from the 1930's) is still working and you can see the temperature reading captured by me on a bright summer day! Hardly scientific and really rather vague, but an excellent example of how girls on bikes are an integral part of the Danish mentality. With lots of satisfaction, happiness and beautiful memories, we boarded the train back to Hamburg. We enjoyed a beautiful sunset during the border crossing (Denmark to Germany) from the ship deck... I sign off with my own saying: 'The perfect utilisation of a weekend in Hamburg (North Germany) is a trip to Copenhagen!'