Some notes on my first Indian wedding

English:

Some notes on my first Indian wedding.

Hello everyone and welcome back to my blog once again!

Now, I know it hasn't exactly been one week since I published my last post, but I really wanted to publish these notes on my first Indian wedding.

As you know (and as I have repeated plenty of times), I lived in India from July 2015 to December 2016. Those months were full of experiences that I have been telling you all about around here and, as it couldn't be any other way, going to an Indian wedding was another wonderful experience I lived in India. 

Lepakshi: get lost in an extraordinary temple and impressed by a huge Nandi sculpture

English:

Lepakshi: get lost in an extraordinary temple 
and impressed by a huge Nandi sculpture.

Hello everybody and welcome back to my blog!

As I said some time ago, I would like to publish a new post every week until all the remaining posts I have are published. However, last week I was not at home and I couldn't publish anything.

Today, I would like to say some things about Lepakshi, a town we visted right after Penukonda and in which we found - no offence to Hampi - one of the most extraordinary temples I have seen so far. This temple is called Veerabhadra Temple and it was built in the 16th century. One of the most relevant traits of this temple are the fresco paintings that can still be seen inside. Said paintings represent scenes from Rama and Krishna, two of the most well-known Hindu gods.

Alleppey: a trip to the quiet area of Backwaters, in Kerala.

English:

Alleppey: a trip to the quiet area of Backwaters, in Kerala.

In July 2016, as many of you already know, I started working at an international school in India. That was, in fact, the job that, unfortunately, I had to resign from because of the family situation that I have so often talked about lately. That unfortunate situation was the one that pushed me to cancel my three weeks in Thailand and return to Mallorca, my birthplace.

However, during my time living in Bangalore (India) I went on some outstanding trips around the country of colors and spices and my destination in the first long holiday I had, in October 2016, was Kerala and I went with my friend Cristina, whom I met during my volunteer work in Anantapur and who you have also heard about in the publications of New Delhi, Jaipur and Agra. 

Vienna: a massive imperial city where dreams come true.

English:

Vienna: a massive imperial city where dreams come true.

From July 1st to 3rd and from July 9th to 10th 2014 I embarked on an adventure alone through three European capital cities: Vienna, Bratislava and Budapest. I had always intended to travel through these cities (with very clear objectives) and had never succeeded. So, without further ado, I decided to plan this trip and do it by myself. Given the large number of places I visited in ten days, I think it is better to cover these cities one by one, and in this post I am going to talk about Vienna.

Vienna is a monumental city, full of imperial palaces and Renaissance and Baroque buildings, in whose streets, avenues, cafés and gardens some of the intellectual movements that determined the art of the twentieth century were born. Starting from the Hofburg Palace and ending at the Schönbrunn, Vienna is a city to dream about. Here you have a walk through some of the most representative monuments of the Austrian capital.

My room at the Hotel Pension Suzanne, located right in the centre of the city, was right next to the famous Vienna Opera House and had the most important shopping street in Vienna on the other side, plus many restaurants, the cathedral, and was a few steps away from other palaces and Viennese buildings of interest.

The Vienna State Opera (or Wiener Staatsoper) is a Renaissance building built between 1861 and 1869. During World War II, the building was bombarded and burned, events that destroyed the decoration and about 150,000 pieces of clothing. Finally, after the war, it was rebuilt and restored. Its surroundings are filled with men dressed as characters from other centuries, with white curly wigs, making offers to anyone who looked like a tourist.

The cathedral of St. Stephen is the main church of Vienna. It is located on St. Stephen Square, right in the center of the city, at the end of the most important shopping street in Vienna, which was just a few steps away from my hotel. All the streets that reach this square are the most lively in the city, full of cafés and always with many people wanting to get lost in this capital of the Danube and imperial city.

Visiting the Ecology Project of the Vicente Ferrer Foundation

English:

Visiting the Ecology Project of the Vicente Ferrer Foundation:

After some time without writing in the blog and being already in Spain because of some family problems, I arrived with the desire to tell you some experiences that I had pending from when I was still living in India. India was my home for a year and a half of my life and, therefore, I have more memories and experiences than I could narrate in this blog. However, there are several experiences that, either due to lack of time or technical problems, have not been reflected here until now.

Let's go back in time, exactly until July 8th 2015, three days after arriving in India. As I said on other occasions, the purpose of this trip was to volunteer with the Vicente Ferrer Foundation for a year, although we spent the first three days visiting projects carried out by said NGO.

Useful tips if you're travelling around India

If you are travelling around the Indian subcontinent or have plans to do so in the near - or not so near - future, here you have some tips that might be useful. As a person that has been not only travelling but living in India for almost a year and a half now, I have acknowledged many things about the Indian culture that can be really practical while exploring this amazing country.

A one-weekend trip to Hampi: monkeys, excellent food, a four-star hotel and lots of temples.

English:

A one-weekend trip to Hampi: 

monkeys, excellent food, a four-star hotel and lots of temples.

Last weekend, i.e. from July 17th to July 19th 2015, three of my fellow volunteers and I decided to go to Hampi, in the state of Karnataka, the former capital of the Vijayanagara Empire which was declared a World Heritage Site in 1986. The current city centre houses around 350 temples, fortifications, sculptures, stables... along with a vast amount of guesthouses, whose food is excellent.

Instead of staying in a guesthouse, we opted for a four-star hotel in the city of Hospet, just a few kilometres away from Hampi. There, we enjoyed a fantastic hot shower and a comfortable bed which could have delighted anyone. However, we did not walk a lot around Hospet and, instead of that, we decided to spend all day visiting and enjoying Hampi.

Focusing on...: traffic in Anantapur.

English:

Focusing on...: traffic in Anantapur.

As I mentioned here, and as I am sure many of you may have read in articles or seen in movies, the streets of India are a compendium of people, cows, pigs, roosters, dogs, noise, cars, rickshaws, motorcycles, rubbish, etcetera. I had also read about it and had seen it in movies, but it's not until you set foot in these cities that you actually see what it is like to live here and walk around these streets. It is surprising how much control these people have, whatever their means of transport is, and how little angry they get when they see that a car is approaching them from the front because it is overtaking a bus and two bikes at a time, not to mention how closely they pass pedestrians. Their tranquility is unchanged whatever the traffic intensity is or how much trouble there is around. Here you can see some examples of such chaos, but, as I have previously said, the photos and videos do not do justice to what one actually lives here. Personally, I am still surprised when I walk through these streets or when I am driven somewhere, but I'm getting used to the Indian way of doing things and I dare say I am not afraid anymore.

My first days in India: visiting humanitarian projects in Anantapur.

English:

My first days in India: visiting humanitarian projects in Anantapur.

As many of you know, on Sunday last week I began an adventure to India that will be extended, in principle, until July 2016. This adventure consists on volunteering in the country, specifically in the city of Anantapur, as an English teacher with Fundación Vicente Ferrer, known here as Rural Development Trust.

Madrid, Toledo, and why Spanish cities are as beautiful as many other international sights.

English:

Madrid, Toledo, and why Spanish cities are as beautiful as many other international sights.

I would like to start writing this post by apologising for having taken so long to write another blog entry. I know that there are people who check it daily and I thank you a lot for making it be that way, but it's widely known that we need to prioritize in many occasions and I have been very busy lately.

Secondly, I would like to thank all those poeple who check this blog regularly, very often, every day or in a given sporadic occasion. I created this blog just one month ago and in this short period of time I have achieved more than a thousand visits from people of many different nationalities. I created this blog because I wanted to keep people who are close to me informed about my adventures once I move to India and, even though this is not an internationally recognised blog, I have received visits from Spain, Portugal, the United States, Taiwan, India, Sweden, Ucraine, France, Holland, United Kingdom, Germany, Russia, Mexico, Belgium and Italy. Once again, thank you very much for reading me, I hope you have liked it so far and I hope you want to visit my blog many more times.

Having said that, I'll proceed to explain one of my experiences while travelling around Spain. While it is true that I usually choose to travel to international destinations (not for a specific reason - maybe it's the language, the cultural difference, the country's gastronomy, etc.), I must admit that I have discovered some fascinating nooks in Spain. Madrid and Toledo are definitely two of them.

London, I have a crush on you.

English: 

London, I have a crush on you.

There's not a better way to start describing my feelings for London than quoting Roxette's song "Crush On You". I had been in love with London since long before I finally got a chance to visit it. Before I travelled to Brighton in 2005, I had already made plans to visit London, but I was advised to go to Brighton instead because I wouldn't meet so many Spanish people (and would therefore speak English more often). Nevertheless, the fact that I spent one whole month in Brighton didn't stop me from visiting the city of London, especially taking into account how close Brighton's train station was from where I lived. One weekend, my Spanish friend, Carmen, and I decided to take a train and go to London. After a two-hour-long journey, we arrived to the first city of my dreams (and I say 'first' because back then I didn't know that the future cities I would discover in my life would also become "cities of my dreams"). Of course, London surpassed all my expectations... not only was the city huge and beautiful, but there were also so many interesting sights to see. I remember taking a touristic bus and walking around it just as if it had happened yesterday. I remember eating a packed sandwich in front of the Thames with the Houses of Parliament on my right side and looking straight towards the London Eye. I remember sitting in front of the Buckingham Palace to see the Changing of the Guard, looking for a bargain in Oxford Street, falling in love with Harrod's windows, walking across the Tower Bridge, visiting the Tower of London and, of course, posing in front of the Big Red Bus and the telephone boxes. London was also the first city where I got to use the underground. London was - and still is - a must as well as a first for me: many things that happened in my life (such as using an underground or seeing lots of guards in front of a Royal Palace) happened in London for the first time. Due to all this, I think there's no need to say that London is such a special place for me nowadays. London was a dream before I had seen it with my own eyes and, even though I have already been there three times, it will always be a dream - though now it's a dream come true.

Brighton, Cambridge and why studying abroad is worth your time and money.

English:

Brighton, Cambridge and why studying abroad is worth your time and money.

Since my parents had seen that I was capable of travelling "alone" and going back home safe and sound, they finally allowed me to go abroad to study an English course. Since I was 12 I had always known I wanted to become an English teacher - I loved foreign languages (and still do) and wanted to study an English course abroad so bad. So summer 2005 was the perfect chance for me to go and make my dream come true. I went to Brighton (England) for one whole month in summer and I fell in love with the English language and culture even more. I was lucky, because I lived with an amazing family (a single mum and her four-year-old child) who really appreciated me. Also, the house where I lived was very close to the school I attended every morning from Monday to Friday, the shopping centre, the cinema, the train station, the beach and the so well-known Brighton Pier and Pavilion. Spending one month in Brighton was a wonderful experience: I met lots of new people from many different countries (including a Spanish girl from my class who became one of my best friends), I had lots of fun, I visited the outskirts as well as other cities (like Cambridge and London - but London deserves another blog entry on its own), I discovered my fascination for cookies and banoffee and I learnt many new things about the English language. I had new classmates every week, but that wasn't a bad thing - it was a perfect occasion to discover new things about other fascinating places in this world. As you can imagine, and taking into account what an incredible experience it was, I knew I would go and study abroad in other occasions - and so I did. What I knew for sure the moment I left Brighton was that those people and those experiences would always be in my memory and in my heart. 

Stockholm and Gävle: the beginning of a love story that would last forever.

English: 

Stockholm and Gävle: the beginning of a love story that would last forever.

It was not until January 2005, aged 16, that my parents let me go on a trip on my own. Well, in fact, that trip was not even on my own... it was part of a school exchange that we were doing with a Swedish school from Gävle. However, we did spend a lot of time on our own with our host families going to different places in the country. The school we were doing the exchange with was in Gävle, a city located about two hours away from Stockholm, but that didn't mean that we wouldn't visit the capital city of such an organised and clean country. One day, we woke up very early in the morning to start a long journey towards the southern part of the country to visit the city that is now the home of the Nobel Prizes. My stay in Sweden was wonderful - not only because of the amazing people I met and the fabulous experiences I lived, but also because it was the beginning of a love story that would last forever: my passion for travelling. It was there that I learnt how terrific travelling is, how awesome it is to discover new cultures, languages and lifestyles and become, even if just for a couple of days, part of it.