Month: December 2012

The End is Near and We Deserve It–The Top 12 Reasons Earth Deserves Annihilation

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Originally posted on Kristen Lamb's Blog:
Thank you Hypervocal for this week’s forecast. It is December 20th! Technically, this is our last day, folks, so I figured I’d squeeze in one final blog. If the Mayans are indeed correct about this being the end of the world, then I have good news and bad news. Good news is I don’t have to do laundry *happy dance*. Bad news is, we probably asked for this *sad face*. Don’t believe me? Well, here are the Top 12 Reasons Earth is begging for annihilation. 12. Bad Driving Texting while driving. Obnoxiously passing others at high speed…only to have to stop at the red light. Tailgating. Road rage. Basically, life forms who can’t be trusted to park, can’t be trusted with a planet. So, YOU! Homedude! The one who’s driven the past fourteen miles with your turn signal on? Thanks. Thanks a lot. 11.Unauthorized Should-NEVER-Have-Been-Authorized-Biographies Yes, the end is near and we asked for it. You can partly thank The Big Six, or was it The Medium Five? Spiffy…

Image Credit: http://melbournelawyer.co

A Connected Europe

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[Image Credit: http://melbournelawyer.co] We met two interesting characters on the high speed train from Spiez, Switzerland to Milan, Italy.  They were crammed into the same four person table that Shru and I were.  Both were initially talking to each other in Italian, so we figured they didn’t know English.  A few minutes went by before Shru asked the older guy, probably in his 50s, if he was stopping in Milan.  He replied in near-perfect English that he had been in Zurich and was going on with his mother to their hometown in southern Italy near Sicily.  The younger guy  we’d find out later was 18 and was travelling from Basel, Switzerland to a small town on the Eastern coast of Italy.  Both of their journeys would take over 10 hours by train. Here is what was interesting.  The older guy was born in Italy, but spent 30 years of his life in Zurich, and now travels for work between Switzerland, Germany, and Italy.  He speaks fluent German, Swiss, Italian, and English.  The 18 year old was …

The Gift

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Traveling can bring out the best and worst in you. It can break you and lift you in ways you never imagined.  There are some days when you feel antsy and the materialistic side of you overpowers your brain …you realize you miss your tempurapedic mattress bed, clean, crisp sheets and even your uncomfortable couch at home.  But, there are days when you feel alive and free when you hike for hours surrounded by towering cliffs and incomprehensible natural beauty.  And then, there are days you feel connected to strangers that you talked to for a brief passing moment. You get overwhelmed by the generosity and kindness of people. People like this young brother and sister from Korea who were travelling outside their country for the first time. They were in the same room as us in the hostel for one night. We only talked to the sister since the brother was shy, quiet and couldn’t speak or understand English.  It was no different conversation than we had with several other travelers we met along the way. “Where …

Hiking in Grindelwald

Grindelwald: Another day, Another Hike

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If someone could just pay me to be a full-time hiker and wander around in the mountains, the deep valleys and the lush forests all day, I would be in heaven, literally.  I wonder if I would ever get bored or tired of a job like that. Will I wake up in the morning and say, “Oh damn, I have to go to work again and climb these annoying mountains and look at this beautiful scenery yet again” and “My life is so hard. I wish I had a desk job.”  

Naan and Curry at the Top of Europe

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I knew a lot of Indian people visited Switzerland, thanks to Bollywood. What I didn’t realize was the scale of it all.  When we first arrived in Zurich, we didn’t see a lot of my people. But, as soon as we stepped outside the Interlaken train station, we saw a sign for Indian Dinner Cruise on Lake Brienz.  It was the only sign for a cruise on that lake. It amazed me ‘cos I didn’t realize how many Indian people have started travelling abroad specifically to places such as Switzerland which are really expensive even by American standards!  The Switzerland government gets it and totally capitalizes on the situation. Hell yeah, I would too!  So, when I found out that there is an Indian restaurant called Bollywood at the top of the Jungfrau peak (also called Top of Europe. BTW, it is not the highest mountain in Europe), I wasn’t surprised.  Apparently, there has been a 25% increase year over year in people visiting Switzerland from India.  Even though we hold the title for the tallest …