Thought for today - 1...

Great minds discuss ideas
Average minds discuss events
Small minds discuss people.

A weekend in Madrid...

I am on a business trip to Madrid and got a chance to spend the weekend here. I generally try to avoid spending weekend away from home but this time I could not avoid it. I am staying in a small town called Alcobendas about 15 Kms north of Madrid. This place had absolutely nothing so I was forced to look for an alternative place to spend the weekend. Having come this far, I decided to check out Madrid. I generally avoid visiting places alone eventhough my better half insists that I should visit places if I get a chance. I feel guilty visiting these beautiful places all by myself. But this time, I really did not know what to do over the weekend. The only English channel available on TV was CNN. How long can I watch that? The weather was also conducive. So I decided to venture out to check out the much talked about spanish arts preserved in their Museums and their beautiful architectures. I got a map of Madrid from the hotel lobby and checked with them on how I can get to Madrid. I then got online to check out the top 5 things that I could do in Madrid. Yahoo!! Travel website came to my rescue and listed top 5 things to do in Madrid. I wrote them down, marked them in my map and started out on a chilly wintery saturday morning.
I started my trip with a visit to the Museo Del Prado. This was numero uno in the list of things to do in Madrid. Couple of my colleagues also suggested that I should not miss this one. I was not sure what to expect and I was not a big fan of art museums. But I was intrigued by the fact that this was listed as number one in the list. I took the Metro to the Atocha station and it was a short walk from there. It had started to drizzle slightly as I entered the museum. Since I knew nothing about art, I decided to take their audio guide with me to get some information. I later realized that it was one of the best thing I did. I would have been like Bill Gates working on Linux without that audio guide. Its a small handset with a numeric keypad. As you walk through the museum, many paintings are marked with some numbers and if I punch in the number in that handset, I can hear the histroy of that art. It was worth every penny I paid for it. Almost every painting was based on Christ and stories from Bible. I also got to see the world's most duplicated painting on display only next to Da Vinci's Mona Lisa. This portrait of Christ nailed to his cross is hung in almost every church in the world. One thing I did not understand in this museum was that all the description of the paintings were in spanish. Looks like they did not expect any non-spanish visitors visiting the museum. I found that really odd. Again, I was saved by the audio guide. I spent a full 3 hours in the museum and learnt a lot about spanish art and christianity. Without the audio, I would have finished it in half hour. I was able to enjoy every bit of it. The most recent piece of art was atleast 2 centuries old and it was amazing how some of them have been restored to its current state after surviving decades of war and destruction.
I was exhausted and hungry by the time I came out of the museum. I saw a Burger King right opposite to the museum and decided a grab a quick bite. I walk in and was ready to order only to find out that no one in that joint understand English. I wanted to order a veggie whopper and onion rings. So I show her a whopper and pointed to the meat in it and said "No meat". Then I pointed to the onion rings on the board and ordered it. I thought she understood. When I got my whopper, I found out that she had removed everything from it except the meat. So I had to go back and explain her using sign language that I wanted everything in it except the one she has put in it. Finally she managed to understand and made me a new whopper. I thought Paris was bad. Madrid is even worse when it comes to speaking English.
My next stop was Palacio Real. I decided to walk the streets of Madrid trying to catch of glimpse of European lifestyle. Roadside cafes and pubs were a common place and could be found in every street corner. On the way to Palacio Real, I came across Plaza Mayor. One thing you would find a lot in Spain are Plazas. Plaza means square in Spanish. When walking the streets of Madrid, one can find a plaza every 500 meters. Plaza Mayor as the name suggests is Mayor's Square. This is where the Mayor of Madrid has his office. It was very huge and there was a concert stage being setup. The plaza was swarming with tourists. There were 2 outdoor cafes inside the square. Right next to the Plaza Mayor, is another plaza called Plaza De La Villa. This is one of my favourite. It was very small when compared to Plaza Mayor but it was less crowded and very beautiful. There was a small alley way leading into the Plaza and a small garden in the middle of it. Beautiful flowers adorned this garden even during this winter time. I continued my walk towards Palacio Real consuming the beauty around me as much as I could. In only wish that I could express it in words. One has to exeperience it to appreciate the beauty of it.
My next stop was Palacio Real. A typical spanish type architecture with a huge courtyard and a grand entrance. As the name suggests, its a Palace and it lives up to its name. This is where the spanish kings and queens ruled the world for over a century. Everything inside the palace is grand. Starting from the doors to windows to furnitures and tapestry, you name it, and its triple extra large in size. One would start wondering if the room was built large to hold these extra large stuff or if these extra large things were made to make the extra large rooms looks smaller. In any case, it was totally a royal setting built for the royals. It was definetely worth a visit.
Right opposite to Palacio Real was the Catedral de la Almudena I always enjoy visiting cathedrals. Their grandiose entrance, domes and altar never seizes to amaze me. This cathedral was no different. The serenity inside the cathedral forced me to sit down and take it in for a few minutes. It was pure magical. By now, I had lost interest to visit any more places and my legs were so exhausted that I just wanted to get back to my hotel and crash. And thats exactly what I ended up doing.
Finally, the top 10 things that took me by surprise in this visit are the following:
1. All the bus drivers wore a suit and tie.
2. English is not a very popular language here.
3. There is no food without meat here.
4. Very few Japanese cars on the road.
5. It actually snows here(because of which I had to stay indoors on Sunday)
6. There is no free water.
7. One has to pay to use shopping carts in super markets.
8. There are beggars in subway trains.
9. Backpacks are not allowed inside supermarkets.
10. Could not find a single Taco bell.

Blues while flying blue...

I recently got a chance to fly the highly talked about JetBlue airlines. They were supposedly a niche player in this airline industry and now I realize why. As I was about to get to the airport, I found out from their website that the flight was delayed by more than 3 hours. So I reached the airport about an hour and half ahead of the new estimated time and when I got to the gate, the first thing that surprised me was the snacks and soda that was given out for passengers waiting at the gate since the flight was delayed. I thought that was a very nice gesture and good way to welcome passengers for a delayed flight.
The next surprise was the "Blue chips".. JetBlue airlies serves these blue chips as snacks that are made from, get this, real blue potatoes. Until then I did not know there was a blue potato. I thought that was very clever way to promote their brand logo..
As we were called in for boarding, I found out that there was only one class, which is the economy class. In addition to that there was no priority boarding for frequent flying members. The priority boarding always gets to me since by the time you board, all those morons would have occupied the oeverhead bins and the latecomers will have to run around trying to find a place to stow their luggages. I thought that was a very prudent way to stand-out from other airlines.
Once into the aircraft, you find that all seats are leather. Very comfortable seats. They also have 35 channels of live DirecTV programming for every seat and they also provide a complimentary headset to view the programs. That was another nice touch I should say.
Once airborne, they dont have those carts like other airlines which blocks the aisles for atleast an hour. They actually bring the drinks and snacks on a tray and serve it. This way they do not block the aisle ways for folks who are waiting to get back to their seats after answering natures call. Very impressive.
On my way back, I happened to fly from JFK airport which happens to be the only hub for JetBlue. They have a separate terminal which is fully equipped with free wireless internet hotspot and a play pen for kids with a 60 inch TV beaming only kids channel. The attention to details like these does sets them apart from other airlines like United, American, U.S Air etc.
All this for just a $250 for a roundtrip from SJC to JFK. Now thats the icing in the cake. As I was waiting for my flight back at JFK, a JetBlue flight to Long Beach, CA had to make an unscheduled stopover at Denver for fuel due to unusually heavy head winds. So they gave $25 per passenger as a goodwill certificate for the inconvenience. Now that I call a real customer centric airline. It was one good flying experience.

Free Call-In number...

Gizmo project has teamed up with CallWave and come up with a free call-in number with a US area code. Check this out.. This allows one to have a unique phone number where one can be reached when logged into Gizmo project.
The only downside is that they need your credit card information even for the free service.

Blogging: A Blight or a Boon to Marriage?....

This one hit me close to home. Although we are not there yet, this one was a good observation of where we are heading to..Its a 5 minute podcast..

Finally...

I read 2 news items that fits this topic. This does not happen very often in my case. So I decided to blog about it.

1. Overseas Indians can now vote - I have never voted in my life and I am looking forward for this. Not sure when this will be enacted as a law and if I can still hold on to my Indian citizenship until then.

2. Infosys faces lawsuit - Not sure why they left behind the TCS and Wipros of India. I can see some lawsuits on those follow suit very soon.

If something has to go wrong it will...

Thats something I learnt today. I was in "The city" downtown area today visiting a consulate of a schengen state. To set the stage, I live in the suburbs and I avoid driving and parking in downtown areas altogether. Having said that, I had to parallel park my car today and was pleasantly surprised when someone pulled out of a parking spot as I was trying to locate one. So feeling very upbeat, I pull into the parking spot, park my car and feed the parking meter for 45 mins and walk towards the consulate hoping that everything should be as smooth as this. How wrong I was!!!
When I got to the consulate I was told that I had to make 2 copies of all the documents I had. So now I had to go looking for a copy center which was luckily about a block away. This is the first time I can remember where I had pay to make photocopies in this country. I come back to the consulate after making copies only to realize that they accept only cash or money orders and that I was falling short by $10. So not I have to go looking for an ATM. Meanwhile I realized that I may not be able to return to my car in 45 mins so I decided to feed more coins to the parking meter before I take off looking for an ATM. As I approach my car, I saw that someone had scrapped the driver side door leaving white paint on a green car and a noticeable dent. The schmug did not even leave a note. I try to clean up the paint a little but with my hands and walk over to the other side and there it was flapping in the cool thin air. It was a parking ticket stuck to my windshield. Thats when I knew that getting that parking spot was a curse in disguise.
I checked the parking meter and there was still 15 mins left and I checked the signs to make sure I parked legally and everything checked out fine. Then as I went through the ticket in detail, I found that I failed to "curb" the car. Since I had parked in a street that had a 3% gradient slope, I am supposed to turn my wheels towards the curb. Now for someone who had lived in suburbs all his life, I could have never imagined in my wildest dreams that I would be ticketed for not having to turn the wheels of my automatic transmission car, in park with the hand brake engaged, towards the curb. I left the $35 parking ticket on the windshield, fed the parking meter a few more quarters and walked to find an ATM.
Finally I did find an ATM about a block away only to find that I have to pay nearly $5 as convenience fee for using a non-bank ATM for the $10 that I need to withdraw. I paid it, withdrew the amount and walked to the consulate with just 15 mins left for it to close. The security was kind enough to let me in and I go stand in the window for the visa officer to go over my documents. She takes one by one, reads every letter of my documents and finds that 2 sentences were missing in one of the letters that I got from my company. So I have to get another letter and mail it to them. The interesting part is that, this consulate does not have a website in English that lists the documents needed and I am not sure how anyone can find out what documents to bring. So I stand there taking down the list of items that I missed and need to mail it to them. They were kind enough to accept the application and asked me to mail the missing documents as soon as possible. Then they tell me that I can get my visa on the date I am supposed to travel. So now I have to call my travel agent and postpone my trip by a day because I may not have my visa on time. Also I have to request new letters and mail it to the consulate tomorrow. Arggggghhhhh.... That really sucks.. Thats when it struck me that this had to go wrong from the beginning and it very well did...

Free conference calls...

I came across this free conference calling facility as I was playing around with Gizmo project. Its a cool feature and very easy to setup. And to top it all its absolutely free.. Check it out..

Wedding anniversary...

Today is my parents 32nd wedding anniversary. When we called them up today morning to wish them, my dad was cutting vegetables and my mom was busy with her Friday prayers. They did not even remember that it was their anniversary today. It was just another day for them. That made me think about anniversaries. For people of today's generation, its that special day they plan activities together, go on a romantic trip, take a cruise, a candle light dinner and a mini vows renewal ceremony. One cannot afford to forget it. Neither will the other let you forget it. But their generation is very different. It does not need any of these. 32 years of life together is something remarkable to cherish and hopefully they are cherishing every moment of it in their own way. My mom usually makes a sweet of some kind and they visit a temple if possible, provided they remember their anniversary day. When I was growing up, I do not remember even once seeing them celebrate their wedding anniversary. There would never even be a mention about this in the house. It was just like any other day.
Come to think about it, birthdays and anniversaries were not celebrated when we were growing up. Its only after moving on to college and coming to this country did I get exposed to the importance of celebrating birthdays and anniversaries. It does feel good to know that people remember some special days in your life.
So I take this opportunity to wish them a very happy 32nd wedding anniversary and pray that they celebrate many more to come.

Whats your home worth?...

My brother pointed me to this site. I was just amazed at the abundance of information available at this site for absolutely no cost. I remember when I was trying to buy a home about 3 years back, one had to be a licensed real estate agent and pay about $600+ an year to get access to these information through a MLS listing website. This website should give all the necessary information for a home buyer/seller to make good decisions even before they approach a real estate agent. I cannot say how valuable it is to have a knowledgeable conversation with these real estate agents with some facts backing up our claims. Since it was an exclusive paid listing before, the end customer did not have access to these information and was at the mercy of the agents to provide us the information. Now this website has removed that so-called middlemen to get an idea of the home prices in a given area.

Superbowl ads...

Check out the Superbowl ads 2006. Not as impressive as last years..

Donuts and coffee...

I happened to pass by a Dunkin Donuts store today and it brought back memories of my good old bachelor days where it was a ritual for me and a friend of mine (who by the way is now settled in Canada) to walk to a nearby Dunkin Donuts shop every saturday morning and get ourselves 2 glazed donuts and a small coffee with milk and 4 sugars(my friend took a small coffee with cream and 2 sugars). That was how I got used to drinking the american style of coffee where they add 2 spoons of milk in a large cup of watery coffee. I never understood how anyone could drink that coffee. Dunkin Donuts was the only place where I drink this american coffee since they mix hot milk with coffee and add sugar and serve it. This makes my coffee drinking experience much more enjoyable.
I used to look forward to those saturday mornings just to enjoy that sweet aroma of coffee and the taste of glazed donuts. Even now, every time I visit the east coast, I make it a point to drop by a Dunkin Donuts and give those taste buds a sense of nostalgia. I miss this in the west coast.