Marseille view from the top

The cathedral of notre dame.

Marseille Port

This was originally a fishing port )and I guess still is because this is the first port where I could get the smell of fish (as made infamous by apna mumbai)

Off To Marseilles

This is not the TGV which is showing because even though it starts from Nice, it is 10 minutes late. I don't know why!

Atleast it has nicely reclining seats

Ice cream capital of the world?

If there was one place in the world that could qualify as the ice cream capital - nice would be it!

The way people display names of the restaurants, Nice seems to have a tradition of displaying the fact that the place has ice cream!

Everywhere you will find "glaces" written which means ice cream in french (I think!)

What you see here is the last course of my first seriously big meal.

It consisted of a huge cheese tomato sandwich, about 5 kilos of fries (they are standard!) And ofcourse, this rather nice ice cream.

Oh and for those wondering, Nice is pronounced "niece" and not "nice"

Nice town

View from the top.

The Nice beach

Its awesome! And true to its name, the famous beach is indeed pretty topless ;)

Nice in the morning

The place to eat

When wandering around in old Nice, make sure you grab a bite or a coffee at Alexander's. Very nice place and extremely friendly and polite staff.

Flower market

The chaos. The smells and the energy.

Very nice way to begin your day!

Church of st Jeanne de arc

Nice Train Station

Sharon Stone

Whoopi Goldberg

Mickey

As in the mouse?

Ben Kingsly

Mel Gibson?

Bo Derek

Walking the red carpet

Gregory Peck

Chuck Norris

Hand prints of the stars

Cannes film festival

Yup!

The offical throne of the "red carpet"
This is where the famous film festival takes place.

Around it are hand prints from some famous stars.

On top of Cannes

Here at the Fort (too lazy to look back and read the name!) You get a pretty awesome view of Cannes city and the boat stuffed harbor.

Despite the insane hustle bustle right below in the city, it is so quiet here I can actually hear myself breathe! (And no, that's not because of the climb!)

I'm staying here a while.

Cannes beach

Waiting for my ride back

To cannes.

Tonight I eat Indian food!

The prison itself

Famous inmates

The man in the iron mask.

I'm now on St. Marguerite island.
What u see in the distance is Cannes.

This island is 15 minutes away by ferry

This is where the man in the iron mask was imprisoned for 11 years.

More tunnel

F1!

The monaco F1 tunnel!!

See what all u can do when you don't have MNS to worry about?

Copy cats!

Richest neighborhood in the world and they can't come up with their own way of beating the sea waves?

Straight copy from marine drive!

I wonder though if we'll find some peanut wrappers in the midst of all that rock!

Wow! Fishes!

Huuuuge aquarium. One of several.
Easily the best thing to see in monaco.

And I don't even like fishes but the sheer size of the aquariums will hold you spell bound.

Its like you can see sea life from the comfort of your sofa!

Or - you could say this is Big Boss for the fishes :)

The famous Monaco harbor

Quite possibly worth a billion dollars if you add up all thse boats!

Le Casno

Possibly the most famous monument in monaco!

The bridge of the devil

I'm awesome!

See those tiny houses?

I trecked up from there!

Cactus!

View from the top.

Yup. I climbed all that!

I'm here!

Fragonard

One of the prem"ere perfumeries in the world.

Or so the brochure says.

The smell is making me sick!

More Eze

That's Eze

My destination!

Eze village

Walking up to eze village
View along the way!

This is lovely. Not to mentioned inclined as hell.

Surviving A Bomb Scare

An interesting thing happened at work today.

We had a rather panicked security person walk upto me and say, sir, we have some police cars and a bomb squad that has come to our office complex. Do we evacuate?

Hell yes. And we promptly evacuated all our employees (which were strangely few for 11:30 AM on a Monday morning!)

Anyhow, what was more surreal (than actually being part of a bomb scare evacuation) was the fact that when we got to the ground floor - I felt like I was at a tourist location and people were having a picnic!

You know the feeling - backslapping jokes, lots of funny stories being exchanged, snacks and candies being passed around and, in some cases, those who had not met in a while decided being thrown out of their office due to a life threatening explosive was an awesome reason to catch up with people they had not met for a while.

So here's a big fuck you to all those who plant bombs - as you can clearly see, we don't give a damn. Yes, it's really sad that many people do die, and we are angry about it but we are not scared - and as long as that stands, irrespective of how many people you kill, you lose.

Perqs of being an OIympian

Just when India is getting rather ecstatic about how many medals have been won, I have just unearthed the single biggest reason why world+dog (excuse the expression) wants to be an Olympian.

Give this a read. You will soon see why there is a whole other kinda marathon going on!


And yes, the medals are irrelevant.

At riverview chiplun

Superb staff.
Awesome service.
Great food and just breathtaking view

Crows - More civilised than the average pedestrian in Mumbai

The world before the internet

Yup, despite your firm belief that a time such as this didn't exist, there are legends of just such an "era"

Here's what it looked like:
Just a word of advice, spend time on each entry and read the screenshot.

How to find yourself a soulmate

If you are under 30 or are looking for a below 30 soulmate but haven't yet found one or are currently thinking that the one you did find isn't exactly it, well, help is at hand. I have now discovered a foolproof way of finding yourself the perfect soulmate.

No you don't have to tell me your birthdate, or birth sign or wear rings and medallions with ancient looking (but Made In China) symbols. There is no magic, no hawans and definitely no saadhus, astrologers or yogis to consult. I'm the one stop shop to the answers and the answer is dead simple:

The only way to find a soulmate is to write their MBA application.

No kidding. I recently had to go through this experience with my girlfriend of 8 years and believe me, there were STILL things I didn't know about her and I don't mean it in the "i want to know about your high school crush" way because heck I AM that high school "Crush" :)

If you think a passport or PAN Card or a job application is comprehensive, an MBA application is all of those together and then some. While passport and PAN card forms merely ask about your basic details about where you live, whats your mothers name etc. and a job application focusses on what you have achieved and a cellphone number they can reach if they wanna call you, an MBA application will ask for all that and more. It insists that they cannot give you admission unless and until you have your entire life charted out in powerpoint and excel right down to the moment immediately preceding the moment you die.

It's fucking ridiculous but its descriptive as hell. If there was a time when your mate bought an old lady flowers and helped her cross the road, it will be on the application. The lousy 3rd grade student he defeated in tennis? Yup, that will be a tournament written about in such glorified fashion that you'd think it was Pete V/s Agassi.

So you see, not only will you be absolutely aware of the honest truth, you and he will sit together glorifying it. This is important because in future when he boasts about how he kicked ass in the office Pool tournament, you know exactly what must've happened.

The application doesnt end there, you also have to explain in explicit detail as to why exactly you should be admitted to a b-school which expects you to know everything before hand and will merely provide a "multi-cultural environment for growth" which is basically similar to a subway ride in any major city in the world minus the sweat and smell.

But I digress. The fact that the applicant (aka your prospective soul mate) will remember things from decades ago with vivid detail and emotion ensures you will never have the nasty surprise that your husband is gay. Sitting and writing an application with him would clear that up for you.

BTW, just to be sure, if you have been going to him in the evenings to help with his applications and he hasn't been trying to get in your pants, there are only 2 possibilities:
1. He is gay
2. You are ugly betty

If anyone tried getting in your pants before this guy/girl then you can pretty much rule out option 2.

And if you are wondering HOW to get him to ask your help for an application, well, if he hasn't asked you himself, that should be a ridiculously big hint that you guys(or girls or a mixture thereof) AREN'T soulmates. Jeez!

Oh incase you're wondering what's with the "below 30" thingy, well, if you are 30 or above and THEN going to college for 2 years, never mind, you are no one's soulmate.

The new India

While I was waiting for someone to join me in the car, I was playing a game (bricks, if you must know!) on my blackberry

The driver on the other hand was reading Outlook Business!

Don't go by the picture here, he wasn't merely looking at that ad, he was discussing the phone with me!

And yes, we had to wait for a very long time.