The last day of the year

The perfect time to stop and think... today’s the last day of an eventful year, and also of my winter vacations. I am not going to list what happened in the past 365 days, maybe because I can’t... never really been a ‘memory’ person. But having said that, there has been a lot to learn, a lot to feel, a lot to reason out, and a lot to take forward. It would probably not be an exaggeration to call it the year of my life so far, not in terms of achievement, obviously not, but in terms of what it has added to the wonderful creation called ‘me’. Ok, that’s a little arrogant. So, leave the wonderful bit out of the sentence if you want you, mine is a completely democratic blog.
Phew, good I got that part away. I have spent the last few days thinking about myself. So, I had to get a little paragraph on it, before I could come to other beautiful things. Now, it’s actually a little weird. I don’t generally leave topics incomplete, but maybe I would here. And it’s not because I can’t or don’t want to complete it, but just because I prefer to wait, to talk about it some other day.
Hmmm.... so that’s like two crucial issues done. The third one, South Africa beats Australia. I had a pretty nice time watching the two test matches. I never had problems with Mr. Pointing, but I always knew Graeme Smith was my favourite (and please it’s not a pun. I mean, even though it seems very much like a metaphor for deeper things, it’s not). And all the ‘reason loving’ people, please don’t ask me why, I can’t be answering this.
Fourth in the list is my recent passion for crucial situations. I have always loved finals, but I love them even more now. It’s good in ways, to be battling against the odds, and springing up surprises for everyone around, not because everyone around matters (only some do), but doing it for oneself. A little tricky, the last few lines... but then that’s how I write, bear with me.
So, I am all set for a brand new semester. In fact, waiting (im)patiently for it to begin. It feels great, I don’t quite know why, but my gut feeling says 2009 is going to be a very special year indeed. So, I sign off, wishing everyone a happy new year. May you all achieve your dreams (or on a more practical side, understand why the dreams were wrong if you don’t actually achieve them :) ) .
Enjoy every second of what’s coming your way!
Love you all
(PS: If you like solving puzzles, here’s a little one for you – The third line is not just a little ‘good to hear’ phrase, it has some resemblance to the entire post...)

The land of the mummies

The good thing about any holiday with Dad is that we are always up for surprises. Independent of what I predict and prepare myself for, he somehow manages to be a step ahead. So, this time it was my trip to Egypt and the UAE. “Egypt!” I said with a little high pitched tone when I first heard it. “Egypt” I say again, this time with a smile on my face... it has been a wonderful holiday to round off the year.
Now, if I start writing about what happened, I can go on for days describing it, so I intentionally keep it short, especially for my ‘lazy’ readers who I value so much. So, we had a couple of 3-houred flights on our way to Cairo. Just like the previous occasion, my ears got blocked during landing, and they continued in the same fashion for about 2 hrs after that, forcing me to use a lot of ‘hun?’ and ‘kya bol rahe ho?’. Ok, so Cairo... my first request to the driver ‘Please through city, to see’ using only key words (I also tried full English sentences in all possible accents, but he didn’t get any of them) to indicate that I wanted to see things and I didn’t mind traffic (‘Come on, the traffic here can’t be as bad as Delhi’ I said to myself). The city of fly-overs, there was nothing magnificent about the buildings (mind you, I had already had some taste of Dubai, so no building was tall enough). The most fascinating thing was the river Nile running through the length of the city (or call it the city built along the river, sometimes it doesn’t matter what the cause is, or how something happened, what’s important is only the result of it all). We spent the next few days going places,

1.The Pyramids of Giza (actually pretty big, and please don’t go inside them, there is nothing there. Yeah, the camel ride is great, more so if you manage to convince your parents to let you ride one, with all the technicalities of turning and controlling its speed)
2.Saladin’s Citadel (largest mosque or something, but the fun part was the wind there, strong enough to blow away shoes! And trust me here for the shoes. Since it was on a hill top, the entire city was visible from there)
3.Cruise on the river. (Slow, a cold breeze to accompany you, some weird food to go along, it was a nice ride indeed)
4.The museum (I almost hated history but the national museum is definitely a thing to be seen. And yeah, no photography inside. Hmm.... yes of course)
5.Lots of shopping, and even though I have had some interest in the field lately, I still couldn’t handle the enthusiasm of my mom and my sister.
6.The highlight of the show, was the left hand drive (Egyptians have the opposite driving convention), and even though I had neither a driving license in the country nor the permission of my parents, in fact not even common sense to justify my attempt ( driving is 90% instincts is what I normally believe), I did actually get my hand on the wheel of the land cruiser (Nice car!)

Then, after all this we had a one-hour flight to a place called sharm-al-sheikh. The city with the most beautiful beaches (and this refers only to the water and the marine life) I have ever seen. So, the three days there were spent on the beach side. Ok no, some market again... but it was still like a holiday within a holiday.
Then came Dubai. Speed limit – 120kmph, wow I love the city. The tallest building there is 180 stories tall, called burj dubai, maybe still under internal construction but the structure is up. The attraction of the city was, the palm tree. The only difference about this tree was, that its actually a large piece of land recovered from the sea... large enough for a few hundred houses and a five star hotel. Enough for one post, I care for my lazy readers... let’s leave out the rest for later.