Ponto de Vista

Perfect weather came back later in my Stockholm week, but by Day 2, Sunday, the clouds were out. Monday was chilly. Tuesday was damp and cold. These photos are from Sunday and Monday. World Water Week officially started at 9 a.m. on Sunday (really) and after several panels, seminars, and plenaries, I went on a Bridges of Stockholm boat tour, from which I caught sunset over the water and viewed a lot of “Functional Architecture,” which I thought was quite nifty with their floor-to-ceiling windows. On a side note, I don’t know if the tour guide made that up or was translating something (more…)

Stockholm presented a face that was picture postcard perfect. The weather was warmer than my app had predicted, the sun was out, the sky was cloudless and the waters bluer than I’ve seen anywhere in a long time. Everything was welcoming, everything seemed to whisper, “Stay, stay, this is where you belong.” I didn’t fall for it (see what I did there?) Good weather is always followed by ridiculous cold. (And it was.) Anyway, I got in at about 1:30 on Saturday afternoon — sans luggage, that’s a different story — with the rest of my afternoon free and a rumbling tummy, so I hoofed it up the street, maneouvering sort of by instinct, kinda by map, away from Vasagatan (more…)

Okay, so I’m breaking with tradition and actually posting a recipe here. I miss #bglsr – that was the perfect forum to post this.

So here goes. I usually bake a whole tray (that’s 24 cupcake sized) at one go, put them in ziplock bags and store them in the freezer, popping one (or two) out a few minutes before I want to eat them.
They’re small, but packed with good stuff. And they’re sugar-, gluten-, and dairy-free if that sort of thing floats your boat. A vegan variation is in the ingredient list. But, mostly I like them because I can make them ahead of time and not have to think about breakfast.
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https://www.instagram.com/p/BCCkVr9HgNO/
But, first a nap.

Oh, and all the rooms are named after places, our room is Damão, the Portuguese name for Daman.
#blog #travel #Heritage #relax #goa Shared via Instagram http://ift.tt/1oTPQle and IFFT

https://www.instagram.com/p/BBoeUd0HgG8/
Sigiriya. Monastery turned fortress/palace turned monastery –1,200 stairs of which I did several twice (don’t ask) and I have to wonder, how athletic were the monks and courtiers who did this multiple times a day? Or did they just lower baskets down for their groceries? Then I end up wondering about how they found footholds to paint these beautiful (very non-celibate) pictures on the sheer rock face.

Clockwise from the right:
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https://www.instagram.com/p/-t09PDHgCG/

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https://www.instagram.com/p/7sGH4_HgJl/?taken-by=chhavi_sachdev

I usually try to do two international trips every year, one in Asia, one elsewhere, but this year has been remarkably poor – both moneywise and healthwise, so I’d only done short trips within India (Assam, Goa, Delhi, Jaipur) until August, when I went to Portugal. And of course, I’d timed my Schengen visa application really tight. I had wanted to wait until some funds hit my bank account and realized quite late that VFS can take up to 15 working days to process it since it’s forwarded to Goa! Grrr.

So I ended up totally scrambling and getting to the visa centre a bit earlier than I’d planned.
The good thing was I have most of my documents scanned and digitized and I had already bought travel insurance that covered me through September of this year. (I buy it online and you can find several options with companies like ICICI Lombard). (more…)

https://www.instagram.com/p/7pOygVngAF/?taken-by=chhavi_sachdev
These beauties are from Rummy’s Kitchen