“Oh, I know a great joke. But, before I start, let me just say – please don’t be offended”. Before even waiting for an answer, someone goes on to narrate a crude joke about say, your country, your language, your culture, your beliefs or anything else that you may hold dear. If you have lived …
Silent Eloquence is observing a day of mourning, in view of the heinous bombings at London. I offer my sincere prayers and wishes to victims and their families.
Came across this wonderful piece by Andrew Hammel in German joys via Washington Monthly via Venk@. As someone who used to think working 12 hours a day and then some more on the weekends was pretty normal, I can easily say the one thing that took me the longest to adjust to here was the …
Gerhard Schroeder has lost a confidence motion in the Bundestag, the German Parliament, apparently, just as he had planned. This means that Germany will have early elections – probably in September of this year. It had a lot to do with the recent victory of the Christian Democratics (CDU) in North Rhine-Westphalia (NRW), which was …
BBC has MP3s of Beethoven Symphonies, performed by the BBC Philharmonic under Gianandrea Noseda. They are available only till the 7th of July and you can get them here.
Some time back, I griped about how people thought Singapore was in Germany (and everywhere else except where it really is). Now, check out how American Express addresses my credit card bills! Sure, my previous address used to be in Holland, but that’s no reason to think Germany is in the Netherlands. I also don’t …
As the G8 summit looms near and the publicity for more aid and grants reverberate more than ever, I am reminded of the unassuming yet important cousin in the developmental policy family that everyone tends to forget – microfinance (mF). 2005 is the year of microcredit, but one will be hard pressed to find many …
This is the second of the series. The first part is here.
Schönbrunn Palace
Early on Friday morning, we headed off to the Sch̦nbrunn palace. We were planning to spend only a couple of hours there, but the palace was so impressive and the palace grounds so huge and beautiful, it was nearly 2pm by the time we left Sch̦nbrunn. The Sch̦nbrunn palace is one of the most elegant and impressive palaces I have come across in Europe Рit is a true symbol of the ancient glory of the Habsburg empire, which has included regions as far west as Spain and France and many of the east European regions. The palace traces its origins to the middle ages when it was owned by a monastery, after which it was acquired by the Habsburgs for use as their hunting grounds. The palace was destroyed during the Turkish invasion, but it was later restored and and an impressive imperial palace was added to the hunting grounds by the Habsburg empires.
The Kerala Tourism board is slowly opening up its beautiful rubber plantations to eco-tourists. The quiet, thick rubber plantations, the tappers who toil almost camouflaged among the trees and even the queer smell of the drying rubber sheets are part and parcel of Kerala’s evergreen beauty. If you are ever in God’s own country, do …
I finally got around to editing my travel notes about Vienna and putting it into a more readable format. Here is the first of a three part series.
Srijith and I started on our journey on a Wednesday evening. After a rather uncomfortable flight (Austrian airways is the only non-budget airline I know where they charge you for onboard food and the legspace is worse than trains), we reached Vienna sound and safe.
KarlsKirche
Thursday morning dawned bright and clear. We decided to spend the day outdoors – and started with taking the tram to Karlsplatz. At Karlsplatz, we visited the Karlskirche – a beautiful church that was built as a sign of gratitude for delivering Vienna from the plague of the early 20th century. The church combines the beauty of Baroque and Gothic architecture and also borrows from other regional styles – The two imposing columns are borrowed from ancient Roman architecture, the front entrance is decidedly Greek, the dome resembles contemporary Roman, and the towers are Viennese. Surprisingly, the church was not packed with tourists – somehow it tends to be overlooked by many. But this beautiful and impressive building is definitely worth a visit.