Hagueover

Hagueover or Hague-Over and not Hangover, a new term coined by one of my batchmate from Philippines, explaining in one word how much we miss the awfully windy yet lovely city, we called  home for 15 and half months.  The city I learned to love...now that ISS and Hague is over I have to admit that I do miss the city but  what I miss most about the city now when I look back is difficult to put in few words or in just one post.

I still remember the first day in Hague, it was bright, sunny and a perfect day, 'Perfect Day' was not what we thought back then, only now I can say, it was indeed a perfect day. When the Admin person, told us to go out and enjoy the sun, our reply was "Oh! we come from a HOTTTT country so we do not appreciate the sun so much" , only to realise that we would regret what we said the very next day. Hague is awfully windy and I am not joking, the wind can sometimes blow you away like literally, but despite all the wind and rains, Hague is a lovely city to live. It's weird when I think, why I never took pictures of Hague when I have over 1000 pictures in Paris, and another 1000 pictures in Rome alone. I never took any pictures standing in-front of the   Nordeinde Palace or even the famous Peace Palace, both located 5 mins walking from Dorus.

Missing Hague, friends, ISS and the community we build!

Travel Plans November

To begin with we are going to Amsterdam, followed by Paris, Rome, Florence, Venice, maybe Barcelona, Brugge, Antwerp and if we get cheap tickets maybe Cologne also. Enough reasons for me to finish my RP before 9th. 

Visiting Auschwitz from Krakow

Auschwitz Camp 1

Having seen many films based on the WW II holocaust and the atrocities against certain section of the people in Europe, esp. the Jews who lived in several parts of Europe during WW II, visiting Auschwitz and knowing/learning  about the concentration camps was not only depressing but I was amazed at how humans can be so cruel to each other and to even think that almost 11 lakhs people perished in those camps in the gas chambers is beyond words to express.

Auschwitz is 1.15 hrs by bus from Krakow, we went on a guided tour and I think it saves you time and it's not so expensive, we paid 90 PLN  per person (22.50 Euro) which included  travel in a very comfortable bus and an English guide. The whole tour takes about 6 hours ( we went at 9 in the morning), be ready to walk and wear comfortable shoes, for people wanting to explore in their own, the guided tour can be a bit boring but they  ensure that you don't miss out anything in the camps which is now more like a museum, the guide we had was really good and she managed to show us the whole place without tiring us, explaining and providing all the details possible. The whole place was packed with tourist and I saw that most people were on a guided tour in different language English, French, Spanish, German and even Polish. 

After the tour I wonder how SS and Hitler got all the horrible and inhuman ideas to torture people, I personally feel it's not human to have thought every possible ways of torturing people but Hitler and his people at SS did the unimaginable. The Holocaust and the camps at Auschwitz is a reminder that no living creature on earth is as cruel as humans are. 

Krakow on a bright and sunny week

Krakow City

In the middle of writing our RP, we decided to visit Krakow and I must say we were lucky, it was bright, sunny, beautiful and Krakow has so much to offer for tourist. We also visited Auschwitz, which is where almost everyone who visit Krakow go for sure, we went on a guided tour which was very well organised and @ 22.50 Euro it was worth it. More updates will follow. 

ARD Dinner

We had our last dinner as the 1st and last batch of ARD as a group at our convener's place (  @ the very famous and the super star academician  SBJ's (Jun's) place), Jun's new house is really good, with front and back side garden, he has been growing potato's in the Garden, Agrarian Studies Professor but farmer at heart :). The dinner was awesome, a combined effort  by all of us, I made Butter Chicken and veg pakoda's, TK made Chappatis and this guy can make chappatis better than all the Indian's in our batch. Jun cooked this really tasty rice with black pepper, olive and grated lime cover,  which I plan to replicate very soon and also chicken, AC made the best Tiramisu for dessert, the best I ever had and the best part about the Tiramisu was the decoration, she wrote ARD with blue berries on top....super awesome. MJR got a lot of appetizers, MA ( Venezuelan but the wannabe Nicaraguan hahaha) bought yummy Macaroons form France and the new Phd guy B made some greek salad, which was also quite yumm. We all had a great time but sure missed our Pinky panda, Hilhil and Prof Vince. At the end of the day I realized what a great year I have spent in ISS with my classmates from all over the world, I am looking forward to going back home and getting back to work but I sure will miss the group a lot.

AC's yummy Tiramisu.....the best I ever had

Globalisation and the food on my platter tonite

Imagine this, I am  sitting thousands of miles away from home, missing home, thinking of home and thinking of the food  cooked by mumma and the local Manipuri delicacies. But the same day for dinner I had Oukabi- Atouba, Kobi ga Nga ga thongba  & Yongchak ga Hawai maton singju, does that sounds like a really exotic Manipuri food platter, but how is it possible to be having all the manipuri delicacies sitting here in The Hague. Well the answer is rather very simple, global trade, Global free trade or in the most popular word 'Globalisation', we may not realize or thinking twice before picking something from the counter of a supermarket about the origin of the food we are buying, where does it come from, under what conditions it was grown/breed, how did it reached the counter and most importantly how much did the food growers earned. Globalisation makes import/export much easier compared to earlier days, Global trade has been happening since time immemorial but now the chances of me finding items from 20 different country in 1 single supermarket is really high compared to 10 or 15 years before. 

Today I was in a very good and positive mood, having made some progress in my RP I felt I needed to shop.....yeah shop but unlike a lot of people I shop for food when m happy....so I picked my bike and went to the best Chinese shop in town. While going through the frozen Fish/Meat/Sea food section I found a picket of Nga Oukabi , m not used to buying Oukabi which is packed well and imported from Vietnam, I picked up another packet of fish a 'Tinfoil barb' which is similar to small Karpu mach  imported again from Vietnam. I moved on to the vegetable section and found Fresh and well packed Haiwai-maton, I was rather excited to see it, I mean we don't get these things even in another part of India lets say Delhi or Bangalore but finding Hawai-maton in Hague sure triggered happiness in me. I also bought a packet of  green Yongchak Maru, I checked the origin of both the item and it was imported from Thailand. So there I was buying things from all over the world from 1 single counter. 

This makes me think how each of us are connected to someone unknown through the food we buy, the connection we hardly think or care about. At the end of the day all we care is the food on the platter.