Twenty- five Seven

Personally speaking

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  • Another day, Another park

    Day 3 : Brooklyn & Dumbo

    On Day 3 my host took me to another borough, one that has been on my to see list ever since I read ‘A Tree Grows in Brooklyn ‘ as a teenager. This coming of age novel that was written way, way, way before I was born somehow is one of those classics that appeal to most teenage girls and one of the books that I have read again and again.

    So even though it was beastly hot, we put on our hats and jumped onto the subway, changing trains and lines to take us to Brooklyn. The subway system is so simple that if one keeps one’s wits about, one can easily master it in two days! Or at least that’s what I thought as I confidently tapped my card on the turnstile.

    Stepping out into the sunshine ( New York was having a heatwave that week), we made our way to the waterfront which was once again an area that had new life breathed into it . Passing some old warehouses now converted to trendy eating spots, we went down the steps of Squibb Park to get a great view of Manhattan and Wall Street on the other side.

    This purely residential area of Brooklyn Heights with some of its streets named after quaint fruit names like Cranberry an Orange doesn’t encourage nosy photographers or peering tourists, so I didn’t take any photographs for fear of annoying the residents. I quite understand how irksome it must be to have strangers of all shapes and sizes crawling around your personal space, taking photos to fill up a travel blog!!!!

    It was rather hard not to take any pictures of this leafy neighbourhood and I quickly sneaked a photo of a quaint little fairy garden . This tiny bit of garden was made around a tree growing on the pavement and I would appeal to Ms. Papaya who is all into fairies and witches.

    Walking through the shady park was a welcome relief from the blazing sunlight but I was quite amazed that there were several people sweating away at Pickleball , a game which combines tennis, badminton and table tennis and which was invented during Covid. This seems to be quite a popular sport is a popular sport and I saw many people playing it in various parks around the city.

    Walking down the waterfront, we came to Park where I struck off another item on my bucket list ‘A Lobster Roll from Maine’. I wonder if the lobster was really from Maine but it hardly seems likely that I will ever visit this part of the world. This was my chance to grab a lobster roll and I wolfed it down, despite a heavy lunch just an hour earlier!

    This gave us an opportunity to take a breather before we walked ahead and under the Brooklyn Bridge towards Manhattan Bridge and stepped into Dumbo.

    Dumbo was a revelation. It was buzzing with people yet seemed peaceful. We went inside the Tin Building the brainchild of chef Jean Georges which has an array of cuisines to choose from. We settled down for a quick spot of tea before moving on to our last stop for the day- the 9/11 memorial.

    9/11

    9/11 has attained iconic status in the living memory of almost every human on earth. There have been horrific events before and after with many losses in various parts of the world but strangely this has instant recall .

  • Goodbye 2023

    Goodbye 2023

    Photo by Alexas Fotos on Pexels.com

    Strange as it may sound, New Year on 1st January is not the only New Year that we follow in India. Many of us have a new year in April which is the official start of the Lunar Calendar that all Hindus follow, while some of us mark the New year in October after the summer harvest which is what many of the business community follow. But whatever it is, tradition demands that on the last day of the year, one does a recap of all that has happened in the year. A time to count all one’s blessings, a time to reflect on what went wrong, a time to remember all that happened right and a time to set out the trajectory for the new year.

    So like every year, 2023 started with the good intentions of

    1. Blogging more regularly - I posted 28 posts in the year. I wrote 26.1k words. I had 35 likes and 16 comments and I have only 24 subscribers. This is a dismal report card and if I were scoring myself, I’d give myself E for Effort.
    2. Losing weight – Once again this was a losing battle with disastrous results, I actually gained a pound or two which is par for the course – two pounds every year. If I don’t put a stop to this, I will soon burst.
    3. Reading more books – I can’t remember exactly how many books I read because after January, I stopped keeping count of which books I’d read in that month. I can also hardly remember the stories or the content of the books I read. So again this gets a miserable rating of a C
    4. Meeting friends I hadn’t met for the past several years- This is one intention of mine that I did manage to succeed in partly because I joined a WhatsApp group where I discovered many friends from my childhood. I also made a special effort to reach out to a friend and am happy that we did reconnect. So for this I would give myself a B.
    5. Begin painting again -It’s been five years since I bought myself an adult painting book and sadly I haven’t gone beyond two paintings this year. At the rate I’m going, I will probably be still painting for the next ten years! So once again I score a D for disappointing.
    6. Getting back to the piano and playing Hanon’s exercises every day – This didn’t even get off the ground and remains an idea in my head.
    7. Bending down and touching my head to my knees – well my Yoga practice was consistently inconsistent and even though my head doesn’t reach my knees, my head is bending lower. I also managed to do some stretches that have brought relief to my aching limbs so even though I am not very regular, I have improved in my flexibility so I can give myself a B.
    8. Walking every single day – Once again, my performance was better than 2022 because even though I didn’t walk every single day, I did manage to improve my step count and it is higher than what it was last year.

    Well, actually the list can go on and on and on because almost every year, I resolve to become a better version of what I was the year before but sadly it never happens.

    But it isn’t all a rabbit hole. There were lots of positives too

    1. Managed to see more of the world – Actually this has been the best year ever for me as regards travel. I began the year with a trip to Bhuj. Towards the end of the year, I visited New York and then Egypt. All these trips were memorable and have restored my confidence in travelling whether solo or in a group.
    2. Began the process of decluttering – CoVid taught me that many things in my life were unnecessary and I promised to declutter my life. But it was only in 2023 that I consciously began cleaning up. Many of my clothes that were kept in the hope that I would fit into them, were finally given away to other people.
    3. Consciously keeping account of money spent – For years I used to spend money and note down very cryptically amounts and items. This actually was meaningless because at the end of the month I had no idea of what the figures represented and what the ‘items’ were. So finally I developed a system whereby I would send a WhatsApp message to Hubby Dear giving a run down of the expenses I had incurred that day. This also helped me control my ‘impulse’ purchases and also helped cut down unnecessary trips to the bazar.

    So all in all, I can look back with a sense of satisfaction and hope that things will definitely be good in 2024.

    Ciao,

  • Up in the sky

    I am the world’s original scaredy cat and quite reluctant to do anything remotely daring or adventurous.

    Going in a hot air balloon was the last thing on my mind but since I was among the minority ( the only one actually) who was too chicken to go, I decided to go with the flow.

    And I’m glad I did because it turned out to be the highlight of our Egyptian holiday. Balloon rides begin near the Valley of the Kings and Queens and it takes about an hour to get there. So we opted for a later balloon flight because we didn’t want to wake up at 3.a.m to make the sunrise fight.

    In semi-darkness we went gingerly down the gangway and got into our van for a short ride to the boat that took us to the Eastern bank of the river Nile.

    Once there, I began having second thoughts since getting in to the balloon basket seemed quite complicated. Where was the gate? I thought to myself as I spotted two notches on the side of each section, which we had to use to clamber in. I did manage though and was quite pleased with my agility and ability to overcome the first hurdle.

    A new dig in progress
    View from th etop
    A sunrise balloon coming down
    The Valleyof the Kings
    New temple with the Colossi of Mnemon being restored
    Green fields below

    Now I had to face the butterflies in my tummy that would accompany the ascent. But wait! What happened? By the time I finished listening to the Captain’s welcome address, we had already left mother earth below us.

    What a spectacular view it was. And what a wondrous feeling it was to be up in the sky Below us there was a new excavation going on with workers getting an early start to get the numbered pieces in place. It turned out to be a new find of the Mortuary Temple of Amenhotep III.

    Surprisingly, my fear and apprehension just vanished and I actually enjoyed being up in the sky but we had to get down as rides were limited to just two in the day and only for 45 minutes each.

    We met up with Ahmad at the Ali Baba Cafe which turned out to be remarkably nice for a restaurant in the middle of what seemed like nowhere, situated as it was in front of two colossal statues known as the Colossi of Memnon.

    The Colossi of Mnemon

    The Valley of the Kings

    After a quick breakfast that was packed for us by the cruise ship, we made our way to the Valley of Kings to see the much awaited mummy of King TutAnkhAmun.

    The tomb was one of the tombs which had all the artifacts intact and would have remained so had it not been for accidental discovery of the water carrier during the dig of Howard Carter an English archeologist. It seems that this young lad was digging a hole to balance the pitcher of water and came upon the first step of what turned out to be the staircase to the intact chamber ofTutAnkhAmun’s tomb!

    This discovery led to the discovery of several other tombs and is yet another UNESCO World Heritage site. It is beautifully maintained with a museum in the complex and has golf carts to ferry passengers and well maintained pathways. Inside the tombs, the walkways were well made and passages well lit.

    The Valley of Kings has around 52 tombs and it is quite difficult to see all of them at one go. So we just saw two tombs before going on to see the Valley of Queens on the other side.

    The guide pointed out to the mountains in which the tombs were made. They were natural pyramids!

    Did the later Pharaohs become lazy too lazy to construct Pyramids? Or were they just too practical and made them in mountains to prevent tomb raiders from destroying their after life homes?

    The natural pyramid shaped mountain

    The Valley of the Queens

    There are many nobles and queens buried in the Valley of Queens but we were more interested in the mortuary temple of Egypt’s famous female Pharaoh. Hatshespsut . She was the only Royal descendent of King Thutmose I so she married her half brother Thutmose II who was born of a secondary queen. Thutmose II died leaving a son born of another secondary wife so Hatshepsut ruled on behalf of her stepson Thutmose III.  Hatshespsut was a powerful ruler and was depicted as a male with the false beard in all her images but traces of her rule were almost wiped out by her stepson Thutmose III who immediately over threw her once he came of age.

    The funerary temple was another grand two storied structure with traces of painted ceilings and walls.

    The Karnak Temple

    The true grandeur of ancient Egypt is only apparent when you see the temple of Karnak with its tall columns, obelisks and the grand avenue linking it to the Temple of Luxor.

    These two temples must have indeed been imposing and majestic in their hey day. Unfortunately, it was not only high noon and too hot to really wander around the temple complex, but we also had to make our way to the airport to catch the flight back to Cairo. So we had to make another rushed visit through this temple which is still being reconstructed.

    No flight to Cairo

    Finally, after a quick lunch at McDonald’s overlooking Luxor Temple, we made our way to Luxor International Airport.

    Ahmad was in a rush and didn’t even look back once he dropped us off at the airport . Of course, this is normal at normal times but we found ourselves unable to even enter the airport as the guard told us that our flight was cancelled! With great difficulty we contacted our Egyptian tour operator and managed to convince him to let us sit inside.

    Our original 1.30 flight would now be taking off at 7! This put paid to our plans of seeing the Son-et-Lumiere show at Giza. It also put paid to our plans of having a grand Egyptian meal .
    By the time we reached our hotel all catering service was closed so we asked Tifa ( terribly late again this time) to arrange for some Shawarma. I have to admit this was the first time ever I’d eaten a Shawarma and was pretty much hooked.

    Too tired to think, we collapsed into bed hoping that there wouldn’t be any hiccups the next day.

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