the night

There is a distant light in the sky. It comes and goes fighting with the breaking waves for superiority. There is almost inaudible rasp of razor palm leaves rubbing in the air. A single chime sounds. The light is turned off in the room. I am sitting by the window.People laugh and walk, across the road. The cool breeze gently swipes my face. Best of all is the Moon. It is almost full, like a porcelain figure. Perfect white. Everything is bathed into the orangish colour from the street light I suppose. The whole sky is splotchy but clear, although even in the clear around the moon, the light betrays the thin layer of haze. I know of nothing relentless than the sound of silence. Faint whiff of the rain in the air. There was a great thunder in the afternoon.I stare at the moon. It shines even brighter through the patch of truly clear sky.

I just want to sit on the floor and color this beauty. The night looks impeccable.

(My husband took the liberty of taking the beautiful picture of Boston. One was taken after the July 4th fireworks. )

Foray into Writing

I was very ecstatic to see my article “ The good will for Nepal in Europe,” get published in the Nepalnews.com. This is my FIRST article ever to get posted in this website!!I have been getting so many emails from different people regarding their opinion on the article. What can I say, I was very happy to have that day of fame. This credit really goes to daddy, my father- in law for his constant encouragement and of course, Mr. Pras for all his help and lastly, the Internet. This indomitable medium has really connected my article with people from all over the world!

The article is about my experience as a Nepali in Europe, which I then compared to my experience in Tokyo and Mississippi. To me, it seemed as if Europeans were more aware of Nepal then the Americans were. This is solely based on my experience. I have been getting emails from the readers expressing their different views. Honestly speaking, Mississippi took me by absolute surprise. Coming from an International school where I had friends of Ghana, Djibouti, and Sweden to a place where many had no clue about the existence of countries other than the United States was indeed a shock to me. Moving from Kathmandu to Tokyo was not a surprise to me as moving from Tokyo to Mississippi was. This transition had not been easy for me both emotionally and practically. Now, I can only look back and smile.So again! this article is my experience and please feel free to Disagree :)

Yesterday evening was very eventful evening. The “MaHa” show was very exuberant and funny. “Sharada” was my favorite one. I laughed so much and still hurts! I had seen them in Baltimore in 2000 I believe. This was the first live show I had ever seen. The Help Nepal team did a wonderful job. Kudos to all the team, especially Shailesh Dai and Muna Aunty for the job well done. My thulo daddy got here last night. He will be going back to MS today. This is another of his very very brief stay but it is always nice to spend some time with him.

Oh and the weather has been amazing for past couple of days, especially during the evening I must admit.

And Ah! No scorching sun outside…

(Article) Enjoy!!!

Sayonara World cup

What a fantastic and dramatic final to end a great World Cup. It was a great game, a classic that will go down in soccer history, in my opinion. This world cup lacked the precitability that's scourged other world cups. The finale took a strange twist when the sentimental darling, veteran and the French captain lost his composure and aggressively head- butted an Italian player

What happened to Ziddane.. Zizouuuuu… ??

It started off being his defining moment, but the reasons changed after the headbutt. He had scored an audacious penalty. All was going well until the extra time and then the red mist descended. The officials seemed to miss the incident but the Italian players remonstrated loudly and Argentine referee ended Zidane's career nine minutes prematurely with a straight red card.

As described in this Sports Illustrated article about the final match, “the beautiful game turned vicious, even venomous on Sunday.” I mean what was on Zizou’s mind to make him flip out like that toward the end of such an important match? What did Italy’s Marco Matterazzi say to Zinédine Zidane to make him so angry?

Here, one of the greatest players in the history of the game pulls out the bonehead play of the tournement in the 110th minute. The champion who in front of two billion people, was putting the final touches on one of the most extraordinary sadas in soccer's history.Can’t imagine that a player of his caliber would let something that was said to get to him and then do something stupid on the last game of his career in the finals of the World Cup. He could definitely have been the next Beckenbauer or Pele......….. but at least he got ghe GOLDEN Ball Award.

Zidane is fallible. Zidane is a mere mortal. If he wasn't fallible, he wouldn't be human - he'd be God. Alas, no man is God. It was a storybook setting, but his dream ended in a nightmare. The parting image for Zizouuu will forever be him, the viliant knight rearing back in anger, lowering his bald head into the chest of the Italian defender.

WOW!! I could only sit and wait for the inevitable.

The enduring image of the World Cup for me was when Rooney got the Red card. It was one of a tensed game I had watched so far. Aside from the poor performances of various established stars there were very few surprises. World cup debutants like Ghana and Ukraine put up a fairly impressive performance that got them to the second round and quarter-final stage respectively, while England was knocked out again at the quarter finals via the dreaded penalty

And such was the 2006 World Cup....Congrats to all the team =)
Watching the game with the fans from both the team in the middle of Boston city Hall was indeed a phenomenal experience. Initially not knowing about this event we had headed to our usual place, of course, the Phoenix landing. The place did not look as crowded as we had expected. Upon starting the pre-show started, the ESPN showed the glimpse of the hall and without even having any second thought; we headed to the city hall.The place was CROWDED and we were very thrilled and Excited!!!

Prasanna had always wanted to buy the jersey. He wanted to get the Brazil one, they lost, then he thought of Germany, they were out, then finally Italy…. Both Pras and sano babu, my brother in law from DC bought he ITALIAN jersey. Somehow, Prasanna during the half time started doubting whether he should have actually bought the “les Bleus.” Well the extra time…. proved him all wrong! With a little Italian flag on his face along with the t-shirt chanting ITALLIIAAAA , he could not been any more loyal fan.

Congtratulation to the AZZURIIII =)

My weekend indeed was indeed a CARPE DIEM weekend! It was really nice with sano babu. We also had a chance to watch our wedding video, which was soooo nice and beautiful. All that just seems like yesterday.

What a Great month it had been.I am sad that the World cup is finished. My dad had predicted brazil,holland, france and italy to be on the final rounds. Well it was partially correct. Now that the Wcup is finished, back to regular life for me;this means back to the Economic and Statistic world!

Mr Mittal

According to the Forbes magazine, the three richest men in the world are:

1. Bill Gates
2. Warren Buffet
3. Laxmi Mittal

I had the honor of watching the interview of Bill and Warren at Charlie Rose last week. Yesterday I got the chance to watch the interview of the “Mittals.”

I still remember that day, when I was watching the “ Top 10 elegant weddings of the world” at E! and then the name “ Mittal” was ranked number one. I really wondered who this Indian guy was. After doing some research, I was impressed with Mr. Laxmi Mittal's background.

Mittal steel is king of steel market today. It possess a peculiar knowledge of converting non- performing public business and factory into highly profitable steel producing entities. He is famous for his personal spending and is now reported to be the biggest steel tycoon of the world a very much old world business; but his lifestyle from the most expensive home in London to the flamboyant daughters wedding in France ( At the palace of Versaille!) and his India visits are all pretty free flowing- globally. Mittal will now run the Arcelor, Luxembourg European steel champion. When I was in London with my husband in December, my friend Priya also drove us around his house neighbouring Kengiston palace, princess Dianna’s residence and the Nepalese embassy. :)

The interview was just so nice and encouraging. Laxmi Mittal was- very humble and down to earth desapite being one of the richest in the world. Mr. Mittal grew up in Rajastan, India in modest circumstances and simply decided to take up the export end of the family steel business. It was very interesting to find out that he had spent 14 years in Indonesia and that where he “ smelt the success.”

The interviewer asked Mr. Mittal what the word “Money” meant for him?

The interviewer asks - What is money to you?
a- number
b- security
c- power

He humbly replies:

“It is the satisfaction of doing something different and doing it unique. I think this is important than money. There are lots of successful leaders in the world who never earn money. In business there are lot of successful CEOs. They may not be a billionare but they are still successful and I highly respect them. It is not that money makes you successful but it is success that makes you happy.”

The Key word here is that SUCCESS MAKES YOU HAPPY!!

I truly agree with the suggestions he gave to the new generations. He said that there is so much knowledge available today instantly (thanks to the internet!). Knowledge is the key. If you have ambition, if you are focused, if you are committed and if you persevere, then you can do it!

On topic regarding " GOALS," he said-

" I do not set high goals. I set goals as I move along. This way you do not get disappointed if you do not succeed. You always take one step forward and then gain the confident and then move along. Then again, you change you goal. This gives you satisfaction and pleasure.”-Wow!

What can I say! I was just mesmerized by the whole interview. Listening to these sucessful leaders just inspires you and gives you a push! That is why an old edge say,

“Give me 10 knowledgeable people and I will conquer the world." :)

subliminal advertising

After pondering for a while, I came to the conclusion that it was now time for me to write about something else other than the world cup. So as a marketing major, I decided to converse on this topic.

Subliminal Advertising

What is subliminal advertising?

-If you attended the July 4th fireworks and saw the “Hood” balloon floating on the sky. I don’t know about you, but I depict that as a subliminal advert.

-In the Donald Trump show, right after the candidate is fired he steps inside a cab waiting with the “Yahoo Job”sign on the cab.

- The Famous one- subliminal messages being flashed in theaters telling people to drink soda and eat popcorn.

-Another interesting one is the research done by Wilson Bryan Key, a professor at the University of Western Ontario. Key found that the ice cubes in the Johnny Walker Scotch ads had images of screaming faces, skulls, and other horrific images. These types of images were in dreams experienced by alcoholics. After seeing these ads in Key's presentations, alcoholics who hadn't drunk for years suddenly had an urge to have a drink. :)

I will now take the example of my experience on the July 4th. As I sat down to see the Fireworks at the Charles River Esplanade, when I looked up in the sky one of the things that first struck me as wide-eyed eagerly waiting person was the floating HOOD balloon. The balloon was still floating peacefully even after the fire works had started. I am estimating that there were few million people that night and now the question is who will not remember this brand? Hood definitely was not doing any explicit advertising. The balloon was just floating peacefully and yet it managed to capture our attention and successfully might have also transformed other milk buying customers to the HOOD buyers!

One reason the subliminal advertisement is a dangerous conduit for innocent people like us is without knowingly it would have successfully brainwashed us .Now imagine, I am at a store and having trouble picking the right milk. You guessed it right… HOOD will be it :)

Also while watching the World cup, I have noticed the advert for “AVAYA” quite a lot. This no doubt is another form of subliminal advertisement. Subliminal advertising is a technique of exposing consumers to product pictures, brand names, or other marketing stimuli without the consumers having conscious awareness. Once exposed to a subliminal marketing stimulus, the consumer is believed to decode the information and act upon it without being able to acknowledge a communication stimulus. Thus, it is believed that one can influence behavior by surreptitiously appealing to the subconscious mind with words and images. If this were true, then advertisers could manipulate consumer behavior by hiding subliminal messages in their ads.

The advertising industry, a prominent and powerful industry, engages in deceptive subliminal advertising which most us are unaware of. By bypassing our unconscious mind using this techniques, advertisers tap into the vulnerabilities surrounding our unconscious mind, manipulating and controlling us in many ways. (If not then why all of a sudden I would start buying the HOOD product) Half of their dominating influence can be attributed to their use of subliminal advertising. Using the latest computer technology, they have unparalleled resources to manipulate each image to target a specific weakness in us. Subliminal messages gain their potential power from the fact that they may be able to circumvent the critical functions of the conscious mind, and it has often been argued that subliminal suggestions are therefore potentially more powerful than ordinary suggestions.

There have been lot of positive and negative connotations on “subliminal” form of advertising and I am not going to any more detail. I am sure most of know about the picture of the girl by Sigmund Freud :)

I guess, the bottom line here is that: People should be aware of the way hidden messages can be used in advertising. This way they will not be manipulated by the sneaky advertisements that may be out there, because, although there have been many studies conducted, the question still remains unanswered, "Do subliminal messages exist in advertising or do they not?"

Do subliminal messages violate the code of advertising? Will this change the way advertising is regulated? How could we detect subliminal messages inserted into creatives? ----This is for you guys to answer!

BUT PEOPLE out there….. Be aware of this MALICIOUS scheme.

And NO, I am still not over the fact that Portugal lost………………

JULY 4th

Yet another exciting and a disappointing game!

This, I thought, would be an easy win for the Germans. ( Holland was out. Argentina was out. But I had, against my better judgment and every instinct in my body, adopted Germany as my new team and sadly they are gone!) They were on home territory, at the top of their game, and Italy hadn't really impressed anybody.

Italy has never won a penalty shoot-out in the world cup, while Germany has never lost one. Naturally, the Germans were quite prepared to ride out the game and go to a shoot-out in front of their home crowd. With just a minute and a half remaining, it looked like penalties were a certainty. However,Italy stunned World Cup host nation Germany: Grosso slammed in a beautiful goal that sailed past Lehmann, followed around a minute after by an equally elegant one by Piero. The German side became visibly deflated after the first goal and lost its composure, which partly led to Piero's 2-0 goals.Arghhhhh!!

What happened to Ballack? He didn't have quite the sparkle he had showed against
Argentina.

I was amongst the many disappointment fans in the Bar. Am betting on Italy - Portugal final. Hope Deco can counter Zidane.

So much for the game …

JULY 4th weekend. Just like the wind, the big JULY 4th weekend is gone ! It indeed was quite a memorable one for us.

Now, America is officially - 230 years old.

Sitting and listening to Steven Tyler and Joe Perry perform with the Boston Pops at the bandshell on the Charles River Esplanade could not have been better. This year, we got a perfect spot. Both Prasanna and I, we sat with the crowd right in front of the river bank where we got a perfect, I mean..PERTECT (trust me, I cannot be more clearer) VIEW of the BEAUTIFUL fireworks.

Firecrackers, bottle rockets, bigger stuff….
Crackling, booming, screeching

The crowd was amazing. People everywhere. Somewhere in the crowd I spotted two Japanese with their Kimonos on. I was happy. It reminded me of the “HANABI” back in Tokyo. During summer time, around this time to be exact, they have something called HANABI/fire works in Tokyo as well. To tell you the truth, I really am not aware of its significance. I am thinking just for Fun. This takes place usually over the weekend and everyone wears their kimono. It is sort of a bonding time with the family with BBQ and picnic.

Somehow my experience in the crowd made me recollect my old memories back in my days in Japan.

Hope everybody else had a nice July 4th.

On the contrary note, I am reading the article at WSJ titled “ Fans say ESPN’s world cup Derseves Penalty”- I am completely nodding at this. It is really annoying getting disrupted by the overuse of graphics and cut-away shots. Who cares about the “ father-son duo players in the world cup”? The commentators are trying to show us how much they know but they do not realize the fact that all they are doing is showing how much they DO NOT KNOW!

Bye Bye England and Brazil

It was a VERYYYY exciting game today. The first one was even more exciting.Like our usual routine, we headed to "Phoenix landing". The game started at 11:00 and our target was to get to the place at 10:30. We got there at 10: 15 just to find out that the club was over its capacity and they did not allow anyone inside. There were long lines of people, mostly ENGLISH fans of course, with their T-shirts (Beckham and Rooney) still waiting and talking with the security guard to let them in. There was no hope for us. There was another pub nearby the area but the place was not as appealing as the “Phoenix Landing.”

We only had 15 min left and whatever we did, we had to decide quickly. Prasanna suggested making a quick drive towards “New Orleans,” the sports bar in Davis Square. We were also kind of prepared for the worst-case scenario. In case that did not work out, we would just go to the North end, the Italian town and watch it in a café. Bit disappointed and anxious, we both quickly made the move.Driving by Harvard Square we saw quite a crowd at “Graffton Café” and decided to make that our Football venue for next 2 hours. That place was packed with the English fans.

England has always been in the limelight and that was one of the reasons why I did not want to root for that team. And then there was the “ BECKHAM” craze. Trust me, I have nothing against England. My sister is studying in England and I love London but I just was not the biggest fan of the English team so I decided to root for FIGO and Ronaldoo!!!! Prasanna and I, we were the only two excited fans rooting for Portugal in that whole Café. My throat still hurts.....Go FFFigoooooooo!

One English chap also shook our hand saying "Good luck" in his thick English accent. Never was I so tensed in any of the games like I was in the ENGLAND VS PORTUGAL game. When Portugal missed the second Penalty, I thought we lost and that was it but when English missed another one and then another one, I was very confident that Portugal was going to win and that was it!!!

Yes! you guessed it right! I along with other fellow Portuguese fans were whooping, jumping up and clapping my hands about England getting dumped out of The World Cup. AGAIN!Please Keep in mind that I absolutely love England!

England really dealt a blow when David Beckham went out with an apparent knee injury and Rooney left with a red card. Portugal sealed the victory with the final penalty pick from Manchester United's Ronaldo. Portugal beating England was a welcome change and I loved that match. Somehow, I always have a thing about siding with the underdogs - for the simple reason that the passion to succeed is greater than the drive to defend.

For the second game, we decided to go back to “Phoenix landing”. The place was already packed with the Brazilians and the French fans. I was quite confident that Brazil was going to win. Regardless of knowing that, I still picked to root for France. We sat in the middle of French fans and rooted for HENRRYYYYY singing “Allez Les Bleus”“Allez Les Bleus!!!!!

What a shocking game it was!

Brazil vs. France match epitomized the ‘adage’ to the fullest. Brazil, the world champions for five consecutive years, could not make it to the semi-finals, and were brutally dominated by France throughout the quarterfinal match. France had the perfect strategy up their sleeve - being a strongly defending team; they scored an early and then kept Brazil at bay for the rest of the match. Brazil lost 1-0.

The super cool french with their fancy flicks, solid tackling and razor sharp attacks just blew the famous Brazil side away. It was the best of the times ………… Henry, Patrick Vieira, Franck Ribery were a pleasure to watch … Zidane’s superb touches and virtuosi control.What happened to RONALDO? To me, it seemed like he was already satisfied with the fact that he broke the world record by making the 15 goals, and cared less about winning the W. cup.

France's 3-0 Final win in 1998 had already given than slight historical edge over the five-times champions going into this latest match. However, the Overconfident and Arrogant Brazil lost!! I can't believe it - Brazil got knocked out of the world cup even before reaching the Semi-Finals!

This will be the first time since 1982 that will be an all-European final in the 2006 World Cup Soccer. The home team advantage still favors Germany as the eventual winner.

My prediction- I think that we will probably see a final between the hosts Germany and the comeback kings of France. Looks like this year is the year for the Germans.

snippets...

This one is going to be a short one.

I really do not have much to write ……really.

There has been no football for last 2 days. I am looking forward to seeing the ones tomorrow. Argentina Vs Germany!

Roman Polanski, no doubt has portrayed the movie very thoroughly.

I started to watch the movie “ THE PIANIST” and just could not finish it. It was just too hard. Even harder than “ HOTEL RWANDA.” Adam Brody plays his character wonderfully.Roman Polanski, no doubt has portrayed the Jewish experience in World War II that manages to be both illuminating, historically faithful, and definitive.A strong script, powerful direction and splendid production design allows us to be transported into the life of Wladyslaw Szpilman, (Adam Brody) who is not only a pianist, but a good human being."

The other night, I also watched “ The Charlie Rose interview,” one of my favorite programs since college. You really get to hear perspective from big people. This time he had an interview with Bill/Melinda Gates and Warren Buffet, the 2 richest guys in the world.

Warren Buffet announced his plan to give 85% of his wealth to charity ( 5 Foundations ). Todays value $37 Billion. He said that his decision to leave most of his wealth to charity was logical, adding that he feels terrific. Buffet (75) has for decades said his wealth would go to philanthropy upon his death, is now reversing the time table. This is the largest philanthropic gift in history.

"Now worth $30 billion, the Gates foundation is one of the world's richest philanthropic organizations," "It has committed millions to fighting diseases such as malaria and tuberculosis in developing countries, and to education and library technology in the United States." (From the Internet sources)

KUDOS to MR. Buffet!

I take these types of actions by successful business people at face value and simply say that they're setting good examples, if anything, of what business owners should be doing - helping out and giving back to the community. If that's not the highest form of service - I don't know what is. When you give back to the community, it brings more meaning to your work.

What I really liked about MR. Gates is, despite his wealth and him being the richest man in the world, he is such a down to earth person. The way he speaks, they way he ahs been involved in the charity, however, on the other hand, Donald Trump- he is a man with arrogance. I guess that is their personalities.

I ponder a lot these days. Numerous topics is going through my head I must say.

This topic again got meinto thinking. The topic of “Patience.”

What can I say about this topic... Patience has to be the hardest virtue; I think that if you counted through the day how many times you lose it you wouldn't be able to keep count. The hardest thing is that most of us are called to exercise our patience.

This is all for today!

Random snippets..

I have had this post, about the power of words, floating in my mind for a few days .It got me into pondering about how we internalize them and personalize their meaning. This will be a humble effort on my side to define how I feel about this topic.

Ok! Here we go:

In an average day we may use as many as 20,000- 30,000 words, the equivalent of four to five hours of continuous speech. (Yes! I did manage to do little bit of a research). You don't have to work with words for a living to know that power is distributed unevenly to words and phrases. Even the person who is saying the “Word” might not really mean it, but if the word is powerful, the meaning might get into the wrong connotation. It is amazing the power that words have, a few words can lift you up or bring u down … they can make you smile, make you sad, make you laugh or may you cry.

Words are important, VERY VERY important I would say. Words have been important in human society for the longest time imaginable. In fact, it is impossible to think of the history of the World without the notion of words. We use words to express our experiences, to represent knowledge, to communicate, and to impress and influence people. The power of words has been well established in every civilization that human society has seen. We are taught from early childhood to use appropriate words for different contexts. The quest for increasing effectiveness of the words used in our expression never ends. The whole fight in the long Hindu epic, Mahabart and Ramayana started with a misuse of a word. The war started by an ugly remark uttered by Draupadi, the wife of prince udhistir to Duryodhan, the son of Dhritarashtra. Like-wise, the ugly remark to Rawan made by queen Sita led to a war.(Again! this is my analogy and please feel free to disagree).

Search engines are now telling us to forget the language and the notion of sentence – just consider a bag of words. I totally disagree with this. Words are just so powerful and we cannot just categorize it as a “bag” of words. I think we should always try to be aware of what we say, I know I personally slip up sometimes and just blurt out stuff that I shouldn’t have, but I would like to think that most of the time I think before I say something.

We use these words with much ease and usually little self-conscious thought. We simply open our mouths, and out they come. Out they come like rushing water out from a dam. Sometimes we rattle words without even knowing the actual meaning. This is a very bad excuse. Some just blame their habit and they do not even bother to correct it.

With our words we express our beliefs, and ourselves while at the same time imparting some affect on those we are speaking to, and they, vice-versa to us. It is this very influence that our words have that truly gives them their power. We all, at times overlook the far-reaching strength of our words, but this ignorance makes us no less susceptible to their power.

Ultimately, we all hold the power of words within ourselves. It is important to master words routinely and with dedication. Whatever powers we give them, and however they may influence us, they are things of our own creation. With this knowledge we are charged with a great responsibility. Words reflect and give wings to everything that is inside of us, and for good or for bad, they can express what we truly are as nothing else can. Our society also tends to judge people by the way they talk and how their family raised them. The good "talk" will you a positive mark and might also label you as a "sophisticated" person. Yes, it is unfair to judge people based on the way they talk, but like it or not, this is how our society works. Euphemism is also another good way to take control of the words. It really makes a big difference, if you say some one “ passed away,” rather than some one “died.”

The bottom-line here in to use the word correctly. One thing to remember: Whatever you say please make an effort to think rather than just bluntly pouring your thought.

This is my potryal of the power, the power of words.

World cup news:

Brazil won!

I will root for Spain for the next FRANCE Vs Spain game.

yellow.. dirty felloww..

The Netherlands Vs Portugal game turned out quite the disgrace. It could not get any uglier. I was of course rooting for the Holland. My dad studied in Holland so I felt some sort of a connection=) Unfortunately, they lost. This game will be remembered for all the yellow and red cards. The referee gave out the cards like flies. The game got out of hand. There were total of 16 yellow cards and 4 red. Some might suggest that the fault lies with the refree but I think it is the both the referee and the players.

The best game of the tournament so far was the Argentina/Mexico game--not because of the high drama of going into extra time or anything of that sort, but because it was played in a beautiful way openly, with a controlled yet frenetic quality. Here, though, is the important thing: In this game, it felt like as if it did not matter what the score was, as long as the ball moved around beautifully. We might agree, for instance, that a sense of personal satisfaction at the most basic level appears to be a smooth goal. But sometimes the maneuvering tactics of the players with the balls is also an interesting point to watch.

Let me talk about something else other than the football.

I was very shocked to read the news about the missing girl, Pratistha Budhathoki. I do not know her personally but I had worked with her at the Expo at Hyatt in Kathmandu about 4 years ago. I was working as a marketing analyst in a company called ITNTI and she used to come to our office quite often. I still remember her face quite vividly and was really saddened by the news. I hope she is fine and I pray for her safe return.

This incident reminded me of the disappearance of Arvin last year. Last summer, around this time, Arvin Sharma from DC had been disappeared and his body was later found in the Potomoc River. I knew Arvin as well. He was my maiju’s sister’s son. The whole ordeal was really hard and now this. I cannot imagine what Pratistha’s family must be going through. This year has been really hard for the Nepalese student studying in the US. I just watched the news clip about Pratistha's disappearance from the internet. It is really sad.At this point, we all have to remain optimistic and pray that everything is fine with her.

A million raindrop voices suddenly cried out in terror and suddenly were silenced. Sun finally decided to show up after 3 days of pouring rain.

Interview

Weekend is here.

It has been quite good so far other than the gloomy weather.

Friday, both Prasanna and I, we watched the movie – “ Malamal Weekely.”- What can I say, the movie was not as good as we had expected and we were glad that we did not go watch it in the theatre.

I also had a chance to see “ S.Rushdie’s” interview in PBS. He is also one of the guys that I would like to meet someday.

Why? one might ask.

No doubt, for his courage,his perception and for what he writes.

Salman Rushdie is, after all, the man who spent ten years of his life underground, hiding from Islamic assassins. He says, “The mélange of culture is in us all” and I truly agree with him. I have seen his interviews and really missed the opportunity to hear him speak at Harvard, when he had come for the book signing of “Shalimar the clown.” It would be a whole different experience to meet and talk with him in person.

His publication of THE SATANIC VERSES in 1988 ignited a firestorm across the Muslim world for its depiction of the prophet Mohammed. And around the world, copies of the book were set afire in protest. Even the powerful Ayatollah Khomeini, the supreme leader of Iran, issued a calling on Muslims worldwide to kill the apostate Rushdie wherever they found him. He went into hiding, moving from safe house to safe house, appearing only sporadically in public, always listening for footsteps behind him.

He refused to take his books out from the shelves, despite the threats from the Muslims.
Even recently when cartoons in a Danish newspaper depicting the Prophet Mohammed sparked worldwide protests and deadly violence, the leader of the Islamic group Hezbollah said there would not have been a problem if the assassination of Rushdie had succeeded.

And look where he is now. Throughout his ordeal Rushdie kept writing. His nine novels have been translated into 40 languages. Rushidie has become a very public champion of free speech and an outspoken critic of fundamentalism.

What I really liked in his interview is when is he said,“ Human beings look for transcendence. We're not satisfied with the every day because we are dreamers, because we are an imagining creature, we do have the ability to imagine a world which is not simply the flesh and blood world that we inhabit.”

During the interview session with Bill Moyers, Salman Rushdie said, "You know, even us atheists are obssessed with God". He has a point. Atheism is an idea that people arrive at after questioning the logic of their particular religious tradition. It seems to go beyond the need to explain the world and to alleviate our fears.

Without even realising, I manged to watch the whole hour of the interview. I have to admit, I must have very much enjoyed watching his interview because usually I do not even have the patience to watch anything without flicking the channels, however, in this case, I watched all of it without even touching the remote control.

I have yet to read the SATANIC VERSES. I think it will be an interesting read.

We went to watch the World cup soccer at the Aryal residence this morning and enjoyed the Fish curry and tama. A great “thank – you” goes to Ms. Appu. For the second game, we headed to my regular place, “Phoenix Landing,” and also met Hemendra dai along with Neevs and Anil dai and bibhu dai. The game was interesting. Argentina and Germany Won!

Later that night, we had a dinner at a French and Cambodian restaurant.

Today has been a good day.

Let me bid farewell for tonight.

Sayonara Japan

As I Cradle a cup of coffee in my fist, with my poignant face, I sadly admit that Japan’s World cup adventure is finally over. They will not go home with just a point and will no doubt remember this Cup mostly for the disheartening loss to Australia in their opener. This will surly haunt them for next 4 years.

They actually had the lead in the first half but Brazil just came back so strong in the second half.What happened to Japan after the second half? Its offense has either been eaten by godzilla or was left in the locker room at halftime. The unfortunate side effect led for Brazil victory.Japan was beaten 4-1.

Brazil is a strong team. Fair enough. But with Australia it was no excuse...

I decided to watch the game with the fans at “Phoenix Landing:” When I entered the bar all I could see was the Brazilian fans holding their flag. I was hoping to see some Japanese fans, to my dismay, none were to be found. To make the situation even worse one Kenyan guy who was of course rooting for Brazil decided to mock at me.

“They are going to loose,” he proudly claimed.

This comment made me enter into a private contemplation, rather self-indulgent in the circumstances, of whether " Japan was really going to loose really badly."I tried my very best to ignore that guy, however, deep down inside I knew that it was the truth.

Just as I sat down in a chair, the door opened and my good friend Koi walked in with his Japanese uniform. Oh! How happy I was!

The game started. Everyone was rooting for Brazil. Even though we were just two of us, both Koi and I screamed for “ Nippon.”

We were clapping and chanting -“Nippon Gamnbaro!!”

I guess the team must have heard us, cause just before the half time Nakamura scored a goal. Couple of fans seeing us scream also decided to transform themselves into Japanese fans. Soon, half of the room was supporting for Japan. When they scored the goal at first hope, we had some hope, but after the half time which conveyed the incomprehensible optimism, we both came into the realization that Japan of course, was playing none other than Brazil, the number one team and there was no way they were going to win.

Even though, Japan lost, I felt good that I rooted till the very end. KUDOS to KAWAGUCHI, the goalie for doing a wonderful job! He made some magnificient saves.ARIGATOU!!

Ghana also celebrated their victory. Nice game I must say. I am sure Mr. Kofi Annan is very happy that Ghana made it to the round of 16.

I guess now that Japan team is out; I will be an avid fan of Argentina. I think it is about time that some other team wins the title other than Brazil.

I am glad it is the weekend. Prasanna has been working like anything for past two weeks. He really, I mean really really needs a break. He was saying something about making a delivery to his clients.In addition to getting tired, he really have not had chance to get a good night sleep. Honestly speaking, this week really has been very tough for him. Hopefully, he will be able to recover well this weekend.

What else… The raindrop, growing tired of life in a cloud, decided it best to end it all and plunge to the earth below this weekend. The weather forecast says 100% chance of Rain. Most likely, the rain will be hitting the ground with distinctive splashes. Of course, we will not let this rain ruin our weekend. We have an exciting line up on both the days.

I have started reviewing for my Economic classes. I was happy that I still remembered normative economics.

Who will go to the next round ?

Now that summer is here, it is really hard to sleep with our windows closed. However, if we do sleep with our windows open, being next to the road and the fire brigade, it actually will be very difficult for us to have a good night sleep. The dreaming of "peaceful nights" are gone for us. The roaring, the honking will now welcome our new day!

This morning I woke up with a sharp pain( and no! not from the noises) in the lower right quadrant of my abdomen, and for about 10 minutes I was convinced I had appendicitis. However, I fell back asleep and when I woke up an hour later, the pain was gone. I must have eaten a lot night last I suppose. Prasanna was up quite early this morning. When I woke up at 6:30, he was already in front of his computer and was talking with his colleagues in Nepal.He was trying to solve something...some engineering things he says. I could hear him talk about cheques,"debit" and "credit" stuff.He had already made the coffee and the aroma had already captured the room. It felt fresh and nice. I love the smell of the coffee, especially when you get up in the morning and if you get to smell this beautiful aroma, it just makes your day!

World cup wise… it is USA Vs Ghana and Japan Vs Brazil. The game has just started. Truthfully speaking, Ghana is likely to win. (and Ghana just made it’s first goal).Had it been an afternoon game, I would have gone to the “Phoenix Landing” to watch the game but since it is in the morning, I decided to watch it from home. Brazil plays Japan in about 7 hours. I might go, not really sure though. It is fun to watch it with a crowd and rooting for a team.

My prediction is 2-0. I really want Japan to win but the chance is very slim, 5% to be exact. Japan has a good team but they just seem lost as of lately. It is quite ironic that Zico, the Japanese coach is from Brazil. Even if they win against Brazil, they will need the other result between Croatia and Australia to go their way to stand any chance of making it to the next round.

Will Japan beat Brazil? -This statement will resonate in my mind for next few hours, till 5 o'clock to be exact.Certainly, it's possible, but definitely not probable... RIGHT?

Yes, I still need to wrap up the Journal. Not to worry, I will soon!

In search of a Hotel

My last few posts have been cold (not cold per se) and impersonal, so I figured I'd post a few egocentric notes for some reading enjoyment. I thought before I lose more notebooks and render scribbles to unreadable scrabble, I’d like to write about the last leg of our European trip.

Our TRAVEL JOURNEY continues to the cradle and heart of the Renaissance.

As we were driving through Monaco with Lamborghini and Ferrari on our side, the night gradually started to descend. Soon, we were driving in the moonlight. There were streaks of pink sunset in the sky over the lagoon. I really have to admit that the scene was very beautiful but we really were not prepared to what was going to happen next.

It was almost about 10:00 when we left the border of Monaco and entered France and within the next 15 minutes, we entered Italy. We started out apprehensive, having heard bad stories about the Mafias. Our night started with the ominous sound of silence. The streets were quiet and empty and there was almost no one on the streets.We were excited to be in Italy.

We had left for St. Tropez, France around 10:00 in the morning.This means Prasanna had been driving for almost about 13 hours now. Slowly, I could see him feeling exhausted. I made a suggestion about taking an exit in the next town and looking for a hotel. (Yup! that was another adventure, not booking our hotel!!) Prasanna kept on insisting to drive to this city called “Savona” which looked quite far away in the map. I really wanted to take the exit on the next stop. While debating on whether or not to take the next exit,we accidently missed the exit that I wanted prasanna to take. We had no choice but to keep on driving and sadly, that it what we did. After couple of meters, we saw the sign for "gas station" and both agreed to make a stop and freshen up and also ask about the hotels.

Bearing in mind that we were in a country called Italy where "Bonjour,” or “Hola” would not work, we were bit confused starting our conversation. The journey turned out to be rather uncomfortable for us, the anxious travelers. For other trips we were quite well off with our “Lonely Planet," however, in this one we were totally clueless.Finally with a help of little English and sign language a young lad at the convenience store was able to give us some suggestions on the hotel. He told us to take the exit on the next city.

We bought some sandwiches and headed to our car and drove towards “Imperia,” the next city. We then took the exit. The city was crowded with youngsters and the tourists. It was almost 11:30 now. This looked liked a happening place. Restaurants and bars everywhere.As we drove by we also started seeing Hotels. Since there was no parking I decided to get off the car and find out the roon rates to compare with other hotels. “ No room,” the gentleman said in his hoarse voice. I smiled and left. We made a stop into the next on, “ All booked,” was the reply, and then we tried the next and the next one and so on.

The scene was quite ugly. In an unfamiliar place, horrible nightmare lurked in front of us and we were totally hopeless. After making a stop at the 14^th hotel, we decided to make a move to the next city. It was 2:00 in the morning. The night was cold, and we had nowhere to go. We were both in havoc and I really prayed for a room for us to rest.

While driving, we saw a police car and even asked his help. “Next 5 minutes, 2 hotels,” he murmured ogling at us in his so-called English language which was very vague. At this point, we were willing to do any this to get somewhere to rest. The clock was ticking and the long hand was now at 3:00. It was almost morning. We had been driving for almost 18 hours now.

Made the stop over at those two hotels.

I froze with horror. You guessed it right everything was booked.We opened the window in our car to let the cold wind in from letting us falling asleep. Both tired and frustrated, we still made an effort to talk to each other and kept on driving. I also made a suggestion about sleeping in the car. Prasanna was ready to drive all night rather than sleeping in the car in this country where we were a total strangers.

Another toll machine!

As I was about to duck to get my wallet to take out the credit card, I saw the sign of a hotel. Ok, this is it! This is the hotel. There was a hope at the end of the tunnel.

We followed the sign and kept on driving. Soon we were in the middle of nowhere. Our ONLY friend was the DARK night. Prasanna then began to doubt our decision. Feeling Helpless, Prasanna rolled down his window and raised his hand for “HELP.”

A big SUV stopped.

“Hotel?”

The young gentleman in the car tried to explain but I guess he could make out from our expressions that we were totally lost and helpless.

He signaled us to follow him.

We kept on driving in the dark night, in the deserted road.

I started getting eerie feeling. Prasanna was quiet. Is this stranger going to rob us? Is he a part of the mafia group? Does he have a gun?

Soon the big SUV made a stop and we were in front of a hotel.

The Goodwill for Nepal in Europe

“Nepal! It is a Beautiful country, I would really love to go hiking there someday” – a young Austrian excitingly told us after taking our picture in front of a beautiful valley in Interlaken, Switzerland. This was the third person that we met in the interim of two hours upon entering Switzerland, who had expressed so much interest in visiting Nepal. Just in the airplane on our flight from Amsterdam to Zurich, we had also chatted with a lovely Norwegian couple who had lived in Nepal for almost 33 years. To top it all off, even the gentleman at the passport control in Zurich International Airport seemed to know about the current political situation of Nepal and hoped for Peace.

I should explain. By sheer good fortune, I happened to be in Europe for a brief tour with my husband. They say that travel broadens the mind and challenges our preconceptions. My husband and I were uniformly engaged and even enchanted by our travels. Switzerland is a beautiful country with Alps, lakes and valleys, so green and so much like Nepal. A very developed Nepal with more educated citizens, I would say. Driving in Bern felt like driving in Chitwan. Gallivanting around Europe was very exciting, but more importantly, I was very impressed by the Europeans goodwill for Nepal. Every time we would ask someone to take our picture, our friendly conversation would end with the cheerful statement - “I will definitely visit your country someday”.

I got my high school education at an International School in Tokyo. Interacting with students from various nationalities made me realize the uniqueness of Nepal. I thoroughly enjoyed learning and discussing the cultures of the world. However, I was a bit saddened when I started my college in the United States. It was quite a daunting experience. To my American friends, the meaning of traveling was flying to the far east or to the far west of the United States. My Nepali and Japanese experiences would leave them in total amazement.

Nepal’s name was often mistaken for Naples in Italy. When I attempted to explain by saying “Mount Everest”- I would get the oft-quoted remark - “Isn’t that in Denver, Colorado?” which no doubt induced cries of indignation. Pause a moment to consider what this means. There were times when I used to sympathize or get disappointed by such remarks. But soon, I started getting used to it. It is quite heartbreaking when you do your best to follow the Western world and find out that to many here, your country does not even exist.

In stark contrast to this, my experience in England, Switzerland, France, Spain and Italy was very positive. My first encounter with the Norwegian couple gave me good vibes about Europe. On the whole trip, I was neither mistaken for being an Indian/Pakistani nor confused for coming from Naples, Italy. I was recognized for my genuine identity. I could freely talk about Nepal without having to explain its geographical location. The recent political events in Nepal had brought her more attention then ever before. This political upheaval was making many Europeans concerned for Nepal. They hoped for the quick return of peace and prosperity to our country.

I was extremely delighted to see this positive opinion of Nepal amongst the Europeans. This is certainly a very good sign. We can harness on this good image to increase our tourism business substantially. Our tourist industry is going through a slump and it is the right time to aggressively market Nepal as a “safe and beautiful tourism destination”. Nepali entrepreneurs should realize that Europe is a good market with significant good will. A marketing campaign similar to “Visit Nepal” should be launched again. With such efforts, Nepal will once again regain its popularity as a premier tourist destination.

NIPPON

I know I still need to write the last leg of our "Travel Journal" to Europe. Our trip to Italy was quite an adventurous one. Since the world, at the moment is captured by the Football Fever, I guess, I will leave it at that and keep on focusing on more exciting topic.

What a wild weekend in the World Cup. What a rotten, fantastic game. Rotten in a poor quality match ruined by the referee and the players assaulting, diving, and acting; fantastic in that the Japan can now realistically qualify to get beaten by Brazil. I was very excited Sunday morning for the Japanese and Croatian game. Both Prasanna and I, we wore our Japanese t-shirts and headed to “Phoenix Landing” to watch the game.The place had already started getting crowded. We met some other Japanese and Croatian Fans. The Japanese team really played quite well with the Croatian team. Lots of attacking play and aggressive passing moves from both sides but only had NAKATA or INAMOTO made any goals, the Japanese team would have really had chance to go to the second round.Well now I see a very slim chance.

I guess I just have to satisfy saying that every four years, some succeed where others fail. Some arrive on a neophyte ticket and perform woefully,making it very difficult to return, while others just go for the last time.

Not a great performance, but Brazil have secured qualification. They played well, but they didn’t win; the Aussies lost. Ronaldo was generally ineffective and mistake-prone aside from his game winning assist. Still, a win is a win.

Australia are still two points ahead of Croatia and Japan, and after this impressive performance you wouldn’t bet against them scraping through. It was quite interesting to see Coach HIDDINK, who was the Coach of the Korean team at the 2002 World cup.

What can I say about the third game, An early strike by Arsenal'sThierry Henry finally put an end to France's World Cup goal drought on Sunday but South Korea struck back dramatically to grab a deserved 1-1 draw and stay top of Group G. They have 4 points now.It was also quite interesting to see the Indian man at the French team.

Will Brazil win the World cup title this year? Will Ronaldo give his impeccable performance? I guess at the moment, this is a million dollar question :)

Tie Conference

Saturday night…. Raining outside and here I am in my sofa, gently musing thorough my week. What a week it was….. World cup, and the TIE CON conference, the Amnesty, Thulo daddy’s visit.

World cup- Bloodied but not beaten, the United States bounced back to hold Italy to a 1-1 tie today in an ugly World Cup game with three ejections, a disallowed American goal and wide-open play. With thousands of fans in red, white and blue cheering the United States on a warm night as it seemed, the Americans came out aggressive, quite agressive actually and then hung on while playing most of the second half at a man disadvantage. I was at “Phoenix Landing”, the Sports bar at Central Square surrounded by American fans, almost 100 of them and somewhere hidden amongst the crowd in blue jerseys were the Italian Fans. I was of course rooting for the ITALIANS.ITLAIA... :) I guess the Referee for today’s game was by far the harshest ones amongst the game I have seen so far. Three RED cards…. Simple unbelievable

TIE Conference- Along with my husband Prasanna, I had the honor of attending the TIE (The INDUS Entrepreneur Conference). This conference is dedicated to providing a collaborative framework for entrepreneurs, Venture Capitalists and leaders of global ITC companies to discuss the big issues facing the technology industry and entrepreneurism.

WOW, the IDEAS and the SPEAKERS were so impressive. The conference took place for 3 days, Thursday -Saturday at Hynes Convention Center in Downtown Boston. Koffi Annan was supposed to be one of the distinguish speakers, however, he was replaced by the Deputy General Secretary of the UN at the last minute. I was really excited to meet with me. I had seen his wife Nana, almost about 4 years back, when I was in NY for the “ Model UN” conference. Sadly, I did not get to see Rajat Gupta, the director of McKinsy either, but I have seen his speech at Harvard Business School couple of years back, so I guess I can least say that I have seen him speak. He is a MAN with ENERGY AND IDEANS. What an energetic conference it was. I felt thrilled to be a room filled with thousands of Entrepreneurs, predominately, Indian entrepreneurs.

I was also really very impressed with Ray kurzweil’s idea on “Translation.” He provided us with a little demo where he spoke on a phone in English, which was then right away translated to German by a so-called the “software” person. The he spoke in French, and then same software, quickly translated that statement into English. What can I say; it is the 21st century Technology! We may not have arrived at pervasive computing yet, but with these techies, trust me soon we will!!

Justice for Bhopal- I went to my first “Justice for Bhopal” meeting on Wednesday. I met with Aquene, who is the core organizer of this team. I had heard about this topic, but never really knew the background of it. I was bit daunted by the whole story. It is really sad and heartbreaking.

The Bhopal Disaster of 1984 is claimed by many as THE worst industrial disaster in history. It was caused by the accidental release of 40 tonnes of methyl isocyanate from a Union Carbide India, Limited pesticide plant located in the heart of the city of Bhopal,in the Indian state of Madhya Pradesh.

“In the city people were sleeping. They woke in darkness to the sound of screams with the gases burning their eyes, noses and mouths. They began retching and coughing up froth streaked with blood. Whole neighborhoods fled in panic, some were trampled, and others convulsed and fell dead. People lost control of their bowels and bladders as they ran. Within hours thousands of dead bodies lay in the streets.”- BBC

I am still doing some thorough research on the topic as I am totally clueless on it. This is what I have read so far. Union Carbide sold its Indian subsidiary, which had operated the Bhopal plant, to an Indian battery manufacturer in 1994. Dow has publicly stated several times that the Union Carbide settlement payments have already fulfilled Dow's financial responsibility for the disaster. However efforts by survivors to get Dow to clean up the heavily contaminated site are on appeal in US District Court.

The sad part is that a BBCinvestigation conducted in 2004 confirmed that even after 20 years, the contamination is still present, I do not what my role in the group would be, but I am very determined to help in every way I can.

Thulo daddy- my thulodaddy lives in Mississippi and he had come to Boston for a day for a meeting. Though, it was a really short visit, (he left on Friday morning), we had a good time. He came to our place for dinner and was impressed with my cooking, considering the fact, that I had zero knowledge about cooking in my college years. I guess I really have mastered in the cooking area, thanks to Pras.

As you can see, I really had a very long day today. The weather was VERY HOT!! Walking in Sun was no fun!! We also manged to make a quick trip to hay market; both of us dressed in a suit and did some shopping. We got tons and tons of fruits.. Cherries, lychee, strawberries, cantaloupe, bananas, oranges… and the list goes on!!

Eventhough, it was a rough trip, at the end of the day, it was those cherries and strawberries, that gave us a smile, with the delicious nectars.. oh! How sweet it was.

Good night!

The land of the vines

As I was leafing through our old pictures, I came up with these interesting ones.

The Vineyard, the wine Bottle, the Oenophile and the Wine tasters.... all enjoying the wines.

Football...

In keeping with the introspective nature of these past few days, here it goes....

South Korea won the game. I was bit disappointed. Thwarted by the fact that they won the game. They earned 3 points. Korea is Japan’s long time rival and they won, and Japan did not. My dad is in Korea right now and he had the privilege of actually celebrating this victory with thousands of Koreans.

The game this morning was stimulating as well. Spain led Ukraine by 4 goals. I was impressed with Raul’s performance.Without the spontaneity, you loose the game. Could Spain be the new Brazil? They looked more confident and adventurous than any other team so far, with the possible exception of Germany.

Brazil- There is a certain arrogance afoot that presumes that they will win the World cup again. As a consequence, this year, a total astounding result might get us. Who knows who is going to win? It could be very well be Spain.

Those of us, who will be watching this game over the coming weeks, are buoyed by knowledge that this is the world’s biggest sporting event and a positive force for change in the world.

At this time, even the enemies come together. I still remember back in my high school days, every time I wanted to annoy my Japanese friend, I would purposely say, "Are your parents not from Korea?", or would bluntly say, “ You are from Korea right”? Last year’s world cup was hosted jointly by Korea and Japan, an unthinkable alliance between the two countries with a difficult past. Does this mean we can be optimistic of a dream of having a world cup hosted by Palestine and Israel?

On a slight different note, After the NY protest, I will be re-joining the Amnesty group again. Today is my first meeting. I will be involved in the “Justice for Bhopal” group. Prasanna has started to cycle, albeit the hot weather. He seemed to have really enjoyed the company of Shailendra dai last Monday. We had a good time having him for dinner.

I hear roaring thunders. I guess Rain for tonight. Not againnn..

the fever.. continues..

I'm getting very excited about the World Cup. To tell you the truth, everybody is who doesn't live in North America. Americans have a vague handle on the notion that the Football ( not soccer) World Cup is a big deal across most of the the globe, but they don't fully appreciate the significance. Their main exposure to the event is the coverage that their admittedly competent football team gets, so and as a result people here think it's a sporting event. This is nonsense, of course, since the World Cup has absolutely nothing to do with football.

For just a few weeks every four years, it becomes perfectly acceptable to be as blatantly prejudiced as one likes, with absolutely no factual justification. In capital cities around the globe, one is almost expected to air the sort of views that at any other time would have you locked up. What makes these events particularly galling is the crowd. GOOALLLLLLLLL!!!! However, it is quite disappointing to see no such response from this side of the world.

On the other note, Weekend was VERY exciting. One Sunday, the weather was BEAUTIFUL. FINNAALLLYYY got to see the Sun almost after a week. Prasanna and I went to watch the Red Sox game yesterday. This game was wayyyy too slow compare to the football. The ambience was GREAT. One of Prasanna’s colleagues managed to give us 2 box tickets and we had the honor of enjoying the food and drinks while watching the game at the same time. To make the event even more historical, Red Sox won the game! GO Ortiz..

World cup is all about Victory and Loss. I just finished watching the game JAPAN Vs AUSTRALIA. JAPAN was doing so well… until the last ten minutes. The last few minutes, rather than being very exciting ended up being very very disappointing for Japan and myself. The Socceroos came from behind to stun the Blue Samurai with three goals in the last 10 minutes.

Peep! Peep! Peep! The Egyptian referee blows his shiny whistle and the Australians celebrate a fine victory.

For Japan, it is a loss...

I really don’t know about Japan now. The team must now pick themselves up and be fired up against Croatia. And after that it’s Brazil.

I was really thrilled to see the Japanese team almost after a year. I have been a great fan of NAKATA and ONO. They played well, only had they continued like they had in the first half, they might really have won the game against the Aussies.

The next game is US Vs Czech. I am not too keen on watching this one. I think the one with Italy and Ghana will be the exciting one. So far the best game has been the one with Trinidad & Tobago Vs Sweden. It was really really exciting one. It was amazing, how Trinidad, despite loosing one team member with the red card, still prevented the Swedes from scoring a GOAL! It really was a Good game.

I still cannot get over the fact that JAPAN actually lost the game today!

GOAALLL

World Cup Fever…

Crowd, Yell, Clap, Frustration, Bet, Triumph, Winning, Loosing....…. These are all the adjectives that define the noun, the World cup. It is the GAME that changes everything. Today, June 9th, the starting day of THE WORLD Cup. It is not like any other AMERCAN games.It simply cannot compete with the commercial spectacles of American sports, particularly because two halves of 45 minutes isn't television-friendly. Nevertheless, the FIFA World Cup raises the sport's awareness every four years.

Germany, the football powerhouse and Costa Rica will be starting off the game followed by Poland Vs Ecuador. 4 years ago, I was in Japan, the host country and the whole ambience was phenomenal. Every second you would be reminded of the game through the excitement of each and every people, every son of us were hypnotized by the so-called “ football” fever.

I am VERY excited. I always get thrilled with the WORLD CUP. I must admit, however, that as much as I have enjoyed watching the show, I am bit saddened by the fact that I would be watching the opening ceremony alone. At one point, I was seriously considering about watching the game in the Sports bar, but again, because of the gloomy and depressing weather, the thought of watching it all bundled up in a cozy room provoked me. We will see how it goes.

I am rooting for Germany. I still remember Kahn from the last world cup. I was talking with my dad this morning and this was his prediction. He thinks, Brazil, Italy, the Netherlands and France would go to the Final. Let’s see as the game progresses.

Let the kicking and Screaming begin…..

Germany made the fist goal in 5 min.. WOW!!

HAPPY BIRTHDAY!!!

I would like to dedicate this page to my DEAR husand, MR D, Prasanna.

It is his BIRTHDAY today.

HAPPY HAPPY BIRTHDAY TO YOU AND

MANY MANY HAPPY RETURNS OF THE DAY!!

I only hope, I give as much Love to you as you give to me.

Wishing you many more years of happiness together.

lots and lots of love,

Monaco

This is indeed one of my longest journals in the blog cause believe me I still am not done about our travel. The last time I stopped the journal, I was in Cannes. The beautiful French Riviera. Let the Journal begin…….

After strolling for about 45 minutes or so, we hopped into our car and headed towards Monte Carlo, the capital of Monaco.
Monaco, I have always been fascinating with this country primarily because of the royal family. I shamefully accept the fact that I love to and I still follow their life styles. Princess Carlonine, Stephanie, Andrea… I guess a way to entertain myself once in a while. Anyways, An independent sovereign state located between the foot of the Southern Alps and the Mediterranean, Monaco was simply BEAUTIFUL. We did not get to stroll around the city as the place was quite jammed by the racers from the “ 58th Grand Pix.”

Michael Schumacher could be seen on the big Screen TV hanged outside the Stadium… sadly, I did not get to really seem him in person. The interesting thing is that back in my high school days, I had a picture of Michael Schumacher in my room from the Grand Prix victory in Monaco. And Now, here I was.

Our drive was elegant. Ferraris and Lamborghini’s surrounded us. BMW and Mercedes just seemed like any day-to-day cars. It was one of the posh areas we had ever seen. The whole outlook of the city was extravagant. It seemed like Money grew in that City. Rich people everywhere….

Monaco was again! LOVE at fist sight like the other cities. We stopped to take the picture but then were quickly shooed away by the policemen. I had read in the lonely planet book that Monaco, being a small city had policemen in every 100 meters of the city. Policemen everywhere…

We very much enjoyed driving in Monaco. It was gorgeous. The houses were colossal. Wonder who lives inside those palaces? As we slowly entered the French border, the clock ticked 9:00 clock. Even though it was nice, the night still looked quite young. The sun had just bid farewell for that night. That was another thing that I really enjoyed driving in Europe. It would be 8’ o clock, but it actually felt like 5 with the sun shinning so brightly. Our destination for that night was to go to Turin and spend a night there.

Turin looked quite far away in our map……. Almost 300 km so we came to an agreement on making a stop once we entered a big city in Italy. At this point, we had been driving for almost 9 hours and was getting bit exhausted. Prasanna was tired.

The roads winds on. The car behind us never gets any closer. The steam is more a hologram than anything else. I grazed a puddle and the nose of the car was tugged to the right but released just as quickly. I keep both eyes and ear open for the night. The night.. that never seemed to end...

Soon we were in Italy. As it was quite dark, we could not tell much of a difference from France, other than the language and the sign of the road. The hills looked the same to us. Since it was Friday night, there were people everywhere. Young crowd to be exact. The restaurants looked opened. Yes!!! We can finally have a nice dinner we both thought. Since the town looked so lively, Prasanna decided to drive even more. I really wanted to end our journey for that day at 10:30 at the most. He kept on insisting on going to this place called “Savona.” I wanted to get a good rest that night and wanted to make an early start. After making a constant request Prasanna agreed to take the next exit.

Now our worst nightmare continues..… The first few hours were very painful.

I want to continue my journal.The excitement and adventurous part is yet to come. However, my throbbing stomachache is not letting me do that. It is really bad. I feel weak and exhausted. It’s the girls thing.. I have already had Tylenol, but the situation is not getting any better. I guess I just have to rest and drink.

On the side note, we went to see “ Da vinci Code” on Sunday. I really liked the movie and would have enjoyed even more, had I not had the stomach ache. Lots of people had told me not to have high expectation i.e if you have read the book. I have already read the book two times, but my excitement level did not change one bit.

Saturday, we went for dinner at Anju di’s place. She is one of my relatives.Along with her, and I also got chance to meet myother cousins whom I had never met. The food was great. We had a great time.

Europe..continued..

The Journal is not done yet.

We are still gallivanting around Europe.

Barcelona was wonderful.

I really enjoyed the Cathedrals and the building by GAUDI. I find his architecture absolutely fascinating.

We also made a point to go to Gaudi's other buildings and his Parc Guell to see more work of this visionary who even though had build these building around the turn of the century is still today ahead of his time. The more we traveled the more we liked. The architecture really does define a city. I depicted Barcelona on the whole as a small working community where everyone is considered important for what they bring to society. After our visit to Barcelona, we headed towards Marseille and Toulon, France. The very SOUTHERN tip of France. Our target was to make a stop at Perpignan, France which was sort of a mid point between, Toulon and Barcelona. We were both HUNGRY and were bit exhausted of driving. We made a stop. We really hoped the kitchen would not be closed. Sigh! GUESS what… No luck!!

We were in front of a lovely restaurant with a gigantic menu,nevertheless we could not make an order and was left with a wine and beer list on our hands. We were left to scratch our heads becoming exasperated by some idiosyncrasy of the city. The poor waiter again shrugged his shoulders and said dryly in his thick French accent, "The kitchen is closed.”

That night we were welcomed with the delicious French Lamb and wine made by our French friend,Jean Domini. He is a native of Toulon, and the next day, all three of us went for a wine tasting. We had a great time. Have we had more time, we would have definitely extended our stay in Toulon, cause the wine tasting with French was indeed a Great experience.

Saint Tropez, Nice and Cannes were our Next stop. The French Riviera on Côte d'Azur was the love at first sight. Right in front of us were the beaches, the blue sea and the elegant people…You could hear the OCEAN. The familiarity of this sound was immediately comforting. We parked, Grabed a sandwich and walked towards the beach.

As I walked to the edge of the cliffs and faced the sea, I felt the salted wind whipping up from the black void. I heard the surf below and though I saw nothing, I invigorated knowing that I was standing on the rim of the famous French Riviera.

We spend about 40 minutes enjoying the view and made a quick stop over at Nice and headed towards Cannes. I was ecstatic. For past 4 years, I have always followed the Cannes Festival. Back in the school days, I would wake up late night just to see the Festival de Cannes and here I was right in front of the RED Carpet. There were polices everywhere, news Reporters everywhere. The city itself is described as a "star" of the French Riviera, famous for the International Film Festival and the glitzy hotels, cars, beaches. TALKINAG about CARS!!! The roads were crowded with the exotic brand roaring like bullhorn naming from the Maseratic, Lamborghini to Ferrari. The picture above tells it all.. 3 ferraris in a row.. W-o-W

I was desperately looking around for Aishwarya Rai. Celebrities inside the Mercedes were sliding in and out from the Hotel. Roads were blocked everytime some one came to the Palme d'OR. Since, Aiswarya Rai was one of the jurys she surly must have been there. I really was hoping to see her, unfortuantely no luck. I just had to console myself with the advertisement board of LOREAL with Aishwarya Rai in it. But on the other note, we did see some Famous European Stars and I managed to wave at one of them who gleefully waived right back at me. YEAH!!

We also took a stroll along the Promenade des Anglais. In front of me was the same shockingly gorgeous scene I had viewed on my computer screen.

Oh How beautiful it was..

Passport to Europe

Feel tired.. Real shallow. Right down where the leg connects the hip. Just got back from the Gym. Had not been there of almost 2 weeks. I guess I have forgotten how to run. Sorry for the long silence. My classes are over and I was in Europe with Prasanna, my husband. It was a great mini vacation for us. Sort of excursion I would say.

We managed to go to Switzerland, Spain, Southern France, Monaco and Italy.

Our first stop was in Zurich. Zurich has a gorgeous modern airport. Surprisingly, I love airports — well, the good ones anyway. We had rented a car. A cute Mazda =) I would have preferred Nissan. (I have worked at Nissan therefore I am a loyal Nissan fan =). Since Mazda was a Japanese car, I cared less for Nissan. After Excitingly hopping in the blue car, we drove to Interlaken. Interlaken is considered the gateway to the Berner Oberland, a major part of the Swiss Alps. Driving in Swiss was simply beautiful. I became absolutely transfixed. Gazing out from my window, stretching farther then the eye could see were the Alps. I had no idea how immense in scope these mountains were. It looked like an ocean of mountain peaks and valleys.

The Alps, the Green meadows and the Great Lake… Really you can’t ask for more. After spending two nights in Geneva, we drove down the southern France. After almost driving for 8 hours we made a stop at “ Montpellier.” And Yes, we also managed to go to Nims, the supposedly “creator town” of the “DENIM” jeans.

They say that travel broadens the mind and challenges our preconceptions. Exploring Europe was GREAT!!! The vineries, the roads, the elegance.. the whole mixture is indescribable. Did we manage to get lost… Umm.. I would say here and there. But….what fun and adventure is it if we don’t?

One of the downfalls of our trip this time was the FOOD =) Apparently, the entire kitchen closes at 1:00. In Geneve, we had no luck with Fondue. Poor Prasanna, he really was very much looking forward to having the fondue. Every time, we made a stop for lunch, “ Sorry, Madame, the kitchen is closed” a lush and sensuous voice would say. Argghhh.....Our option was Baguette; we practically lived off the typical French cusine for dayyysss. Baguette, cheese and wine.

Barcelona was our next destination. The drive from Southern France to Barcelona over the Mediterranean sea was B-E-A-U tiful. The roads were bit curvy, but other than that the Drive was superb. We were both very excited to see Pradeep dai and Srijana. We were so excited that we got lost =) Pradeep dai had explicitly told us to follow this “ Ronda” thingie (the supposedly roundabout to enter inside Barcelona) and while trying to find that" RONDA De Dalt", we realized we had way passed the city of Barcelona. We had a make a one hour de-tour and yes, thanks to the nice Spanish people, we managed to find their lovely apartment and along with that also met an interesting fellow who seemed to know quite a lot about Nepal.

Weather wise-- We couldn’t have asked for a more brilliant day. Crisp and autumnal with a cloudless sky. Barcelona was beautiful. One feels different just being there. Walking the streets, you sense the heaviness of its long, influential history. Even the architecture, with its thick stonewalls, echoes the weight of its importance

And we also managed to go to the FCB Museum in Barcelona. Since Barcelona had just won the cup by beating Arsenal, YEAH!!!! it was a real treat for us to get to see the REAL trophy. I was excited!!!

I guess I should stop it here.. But not worry, I am not done. I still need to write about our most exciting trip to Flamingo dance,Cannes and Monaco and how I saw(not) Aishwarya Rai, the famous Indian Actress =)