Living the life in a magic world

Casa dei Padri is not the only home for visitors, it also welcomes all natural lovers. The morning and evening time were my favourites; I loved to move around the fruit plants and check the ripening status every day. I loved to touch the fruits, pat the branches of the tree which is burdened with the fruits, still hold it firmly with the main tree. When a small breeze come it moves in a swinging pattern as a lullaby of a song. The Garden of five senses (here it means five different fruits)

We were asked to meet in the open space in front of the hostel at around 6.30 pm to have an ice breaking session. All participants who reached that day assembled at the ground. Prof. Cantoni and team were ready with their preparations. After a brief introduction, Dr. Silvia asked us to introduce ourselves, mention two world heritage sites and place a pin in the world map. When my turn came I briefed them about Nalanda University, the recently declared monument in the UNESCO list and Taj Mahal one of the wonders of the world. I met Mr. Shri (fullname is quite long hence mentioned as Shri only) from Sri Lanka and Ms. Psuhpita from Indonesia, Ms. Jingjing Lin and Ms. Quenchen from China who represented Asian Continent. After the brief meeting finished we were informed about the schedule for the next week and then dinner was served at the dining hall. It included some kind of breads, meat, vegetable salad and a desert. The summer school The sessions briefing was given by Dr. Silvia a...

The cabin crew all were above the age of 40’s had a wonderful way of speaking to the passengers. It seemed they were also enjoying the trip to Milano. The flight flew at a low height adding excitement to see Europe through a bird’s eye. Numerous number of buildings, everything looks very symmetrical, and long highways. Canals and rivers give a blue shade to the canvas of the earth’s surface, whereas the the patches of hills and trees paint green.  Slowly I switched to sleepy mode where my eyes were blurred for some time. When I woke up after 20-30 minutes, I could make that now we were above the Alps . Peaks after peaks, some have snow cover which looks like the melted ice cream on a small mount. Slowly a beautiful lake appeared in my view among the mountain peaks. The crystal blue lake appeared like a gem in the necklace of the hills. The view slowly moved in to rivers and small towns. The announcement of the pilot came in between as we have crossed French Alps and moving in...

I started learning the basics of Italian as the language spoken in the area is Italian online. It was rather a tough task as I have to devote considerable time for it, but by the end of August I could understand it in bits and pieces. As my date to departure were closer, Ms. Elisa the host informed me to reserve the bus tickets from the airport to Arona. My nervousness increased as the days came closer, and the programme schedule has reached me well ahead of schedule. As the schedule contained no room for moving out for sightseeing of important places in Italy such as Venice or Pisa, I was bit disappointed, but I found I can make it to Rome on weekend as the organisers made it clear that  there are no classes on the said days. My flight to Amsterdam was operated by Jet Airways (Carrier and crew) and further it was operated by KLM. Fortunate that I got an aisle seat in the last before row of the plane to Amsterdam.  In a long flight of 8 hours and 50 minutes, an aisle s...

 I received the renewed passport in the early first week of July. Then it was the time of getting visa done. Since I have to undergo bio-metrics process, I had to personally go VFS office in Delhi personally. Meantime Sri Sirmour Chandan, my good friend in Varanasi has advised and given me a list of documents required to be submitted along with the application. Accordingly I prepared the documents and reached the office in New Delhi. As there ware seats in train available at that time, I decided to go by bus as advised my research scholar who occasionally use the bus. It was a testing time for me as I have to sit for almost 14 hours to cover the distance of approximately 800 km. Though the bus equipped with A/c and other comforts, it was difficult to stretch my legs as I preferred a seat rather than a berth.I stayed with Tikkam and Arun as they even offered breakfast prepared by their own hand. Arun accompanied me to VFS office, as he got some free time. Everything went well ...