Leuven by night: Christmas

This link will take you to some photos of the city of Leuven, the one in which I stay. This was taken a couple of days after Christmas 2007 in the town center.
http://picasaweb.google.com/msashwin/LeuvenByNightChristmas

Double Role

Was going thru the list of releases this deepavali in both Tamil and Hindi movies. And to my surprise for some strange reason a lot of the movies released has the protagonist playing double role in the same movie, either because of rebirth or twin or just 2 individuals who look the same. These movies are Om Shanthi Om, Azagiye Tamil Magan and Vel. It looks like we are going back to the 70's and 80's when we had a lot releases based on this concept.

P.S. My blog is based on what i have read and not watching the movie. So incase it does not have hero playing a double role kindly excuse maddi.

Interesting

http://www.cricketnext.com/news/we-dont-respect-our-heroes/27354-16.html

I need not say more..... but read.

Multi-cultural Enviroment

I have had 2 new guy move into my office today. And now it is a truly multi-cultural working environment. It is made up of one American, one Chinese, one Belgian, one Iranian and me the Indian. Interesting times ahead.

Beginning of the end

Sorry for another cricket post guys, but I really love this game.

So it has begun. The end which we all knew will come one day, but hoped never to happen. The sunset of the career of the famed Indian trio. Sachin, Dravid and Ganguly, the end looks near with Dravid giving up captaincy on 14th September 2007. The possibility of Sachin calling it a day for one-dayers at the end of the year. And Ganguly is defiantly not far behind. All we can hope now is we find talent at least half as good as these 3 guys. Also one small request to the BCCI, let these guys retire on their terms, they deserve it. Don’t insult this group by dropping them at any point. And to the trio “Adios Amigos”. Thanks a lot for entertaining us for so many years.

Akhtar Vs Asif

Well came in this morning to read a amazing story

http://www.cricketnext.com/news/akhtarasif-brawl-ahead-of-twenty20/26767-13.html

Easily one of the best in recent times. Looks like the time when we used to play cricket as kids at the local ground. I really would like to know what was going on Akhtar's mind during the incident. This is my interpretation of the state of mind:

"Man this dude bowls better then me and does not get injured as often as me. I tried to drug him to get him out of the team and still did not work. What do i do with this kind of talent. Wait Wait...... if he does not get injured i will injure him. Where is that club the call a bat. Ahhhhh there it is. hey Asif look here. Bam on his thigh. That must keep him down for a few months. HEHEHEHE."

* This is completely fictional. Not meant to be taken seriously.

Sadly one of the biggest loss to modern day cricket.

Paris here i come

Time: Fri the 17th of Aug 2007 10pm Belgian Standard Time
Place: 26/04 Izerenmolenstraat, Leuven - 3001 (Ashwin's Room)

Watching "That 70's Show". Then
Knock knock on the door.
Ashwin: who is it
Sandeep: Sandeep
Ashwin: just a min.
Sandeep: ok
Open the door
Ashwin: hey
Sandeep: hey. what plan for the weekend? free?
Ashwin: yea. why? nothing planned as of now.
Sandeep: want to come to Paris. One guy has dropped out. and very cheap tickets just 45 euros.
Ashwin: (thinking. WTF) Sure. for how many days.
Sandeep: 3 return on mon night
Ashwin: But i have not informed at office.
Sandeep: that is ok. just mail. we leave at morrow 530 in the morn. 730 is the train (thalys: one of the fastest Rail train in the world)
Ashwin: Ok i will do that.
Sandeep: ok chal i am going need to check certain details for the trip.
Ashwin: want to check the train timings to go to brussels from here.
We check the train timing.
Next day morning we leave to Paris.

Time: Sat the 18th of Aug 2007 10am France Standard Time
Place:Gard du Nord Paris

This is how my trip to Paris started. Still recovering from how quick it happened.

Details of the trip coming up in a short time along with photos.

India a good team, Oz a great team

Proof of that was seen on the 4th day of the 3rd test India Vs England at The Oval Aug 12th 2007. 319 runs ahead, i still don't understand why we did not go for the kill and enforce a follow-on. Dravid (a great fan of his batting) messed up the situation big time. This is where I am a huge fan of the Oz style of cricket. They would have gone for the kill. I read a report somewhere that the Indian bowlers were tired. Come on that is a total bull shit reason. You are going for a series win in style, what bigger motivation does one need. The Oz's would have put the pressure on its bowling after a batting display of that might. This is the difference between a great team and a good team. I think the Oz are so far ahead of the rest of the teams that it is no longer a competition for them with other teams, but among themselves, between their bowling and batting. I expected a similar output from India. Eden gardens does not happen everyday guys. We had a amazing bowling conditions, the form Zak and co. are in i would have expected a go for the kill attitude. Alas even as i write this blog it looks like the match is heading for a draw and the series India. But to me it is a good series victory where as it could have been a great series victory coming on a special week when India celebrates its 60th Independence day.

Back to where it began

Dravid and Ganguly will be back at Lords morrow. They started there test cricket life there. The go back to that place for one last time in the Indian whites. One a 90 the other a century. Must be a great feeling. That got me thinking. How would i or you feel if u went back to ur school or undergrad coll as teachers. mmmmmmmmmm. Will be really cool. Aint it? Drop in ur comments.

Sivaji

Well it has been some time. Been busy enough not to write something over here. It has been a great couple of week here. I have not been at home more than 2hrs awake time over the last 2 weeks. Here is how the whole busy period started:
Couple of weeks back there was a screening of Sivaji at a place called Herentals (hope got the spelling right). It was about one week after the release in India and considering the huge Tamil population in Leuven we all decided to make a trip of it. It was just one screening of the movie, so for the first time in my life i saw a Rajini movie "FIRST DAY FIRST SHOW" but sadly enough it was the last day and last show also. We all gathered at a place just outside the town and went for the movie in about 5 cars. This trip reminded me of stories which my dad and relatives used to talk about, of how they all "mattu vandi katindu" go to the nearest "town" to watch a movie. Very similar experience. Must say it was brilliant. The place was about 1 hr drive from where i stay and over all a great experience.
Regarding the movie, personal opinion only, ordinary for a Rajini/Shakar movie. Good compared to most of the other movies dished out by the Tamil industry. It was like neither a pure Rajini movie nor a pure Shankar movie. It was in between. But that is will happen since u got 2 great ppl of the industry together. But what i enjoyed more was the whole experience and must say Vivek hats off. And yea of course saw the movie way before most of the guys in India could have seen it coz of the crazy rush for tickets.



Well the cinema hall was a small one. But all the people in the hall were only the Leuven crowd so was great fun to watch the movie with people. There were a few outside ppl in the hall before it started, but they were showing the movie on another screen next door, so looking at the "looty" we guys were creating they moved out [:D].



All in all a great fun day. And really must thank Ganesh and Vinodh for organizing this event.

Photos sent by Sandeep.

Change

Why did i change the name of the blog:
felt like the prev name was negative..... change is always good.......... a more apt name for my blog...........
Naaaaaaaaaaaaa, not all that........... just to prove a point that as a researcher i have so much time ( other then my research, if i do any) to think about such unimportant stuff like this.
Cheers to it.

Euro Trip - 1

Well last weekend was my first trip outside Leuven. WE went for a road trip, from the S-E to the N-W part of Belgium in 2 days. First and foremost would like to thank my friend’s company for the car and fuel, without which this trip would not have been possible.

S came to pick me up from work on Friday evening. We went to my place packed my bag for the weekend and left immediately. First and foremost on our mind was to fuel up the car so the trip could be done. Gave a full tank food to the car and we zoomed away towards Mechelen. With the car taken care we needed to fuel our self for the evening. I must tell you guys here that Europe is dead place after 7 in the evening. You are not going to find many places open. So we did find a Turkish place after looking around for sometime. We then left towards S's place to crash for the evening. My friends place is a brilliant place. It is on the outskirts of a small town, a nice 5 bedroom place, with only him staying there for now. Behind his house is an open green field heading of towards a hillock. It was decided that we leave the next day at about 7:30 in the morning.

Maps of the region can be found in the following link, just zoom into the Belgium region for details:

http://www.viamichelin.com/viamichelin/gbr/dyn/controller/mapPerformPage?strLocation=Namur&strCountry=eur&google=1

The next day we did manage to leave by 8. I must say I was surprised coz I was not expecting to leave before 8:30 earliest. Headed towards Mechelen to find get some breakfast. But everything closed so early on a Saturday. So decided to drive straight towards Namur and look for breakfast there.

Namur is in the southern part of Belgium. This region is called Vallonia. We drove for about 2 hours along some brilliant roads and the scenery kept improving as we got closer to Vallonia. We reached Vallonia at about 10am. Parked our car and headed towards the town center for some breakfast. I had a waffle, and was ready for the rest of the morning. One of the roads leaving the town center had a huge Saturday market. It was a nice bright sunny day and it felt like the whole town was there (felt like I was walking on Brigade Road back home on a Saturday eve). We walked around for some more time looking at this wonderful city. Did the mandatory photo taking around the town center and headed towards Namur Citadel. It is a fort and right next to the Meuse River. My friend wanted to drive to the top, but I insisted on walking to the top. It was a nice short walk for about 30 min. Kept clicking away at the city around us as we got higher. The view from top was brilliant. We could see what a big town Namur actually was. Then we headed back down, this time on the car way but a slight of-road kind of setup. By now it was 1 in the afternoon. So again as usual LUNCH TIME. Went into another pizzeria. It was great fun. The person at the counter did not understand a word of English, and neither of us knew French to talk to a person. Being a vegetarian it was very difficult to explain what I did not want on my pizza. So the chef ended up taking one ingredient at a time and asking me if he could put it on top of my pizza. For all our efforts I must say the pizza was good. After food we headed towards Liege via Huy along the Meuse River. It was a brilliant drive, with the river on one side and cliffs on the other. As we entered Liege must say the town was completely dead. No activity of any kind at all. But must say the whole town was a setup for one of the Arcelor factory. So for the first time saw that what an Indian owns. It was a huge factory. But sadly there was not much we could do at this place. But yea the town as such was not very impressive. Just spent about 30 min and left for out next destination Spa. It was another great drive. Felt like most of the scenes were out of DDLJ. Natural Europe is a beautiful place. Reached Spa and had some coffee and went to a spa at Spa, just to find out the rates. Must say it was quite expensive and neither of us wanted to go inside. Came back down and had a game of mini-golf (which I won :D). We then headed towards the race circuit, our main reason to go to Spa. The circuit is right in the middle of no where, in a valley kind of place with hills on either sides. Hope to come back here for the race if I can find a decent group of ppl to go with. There was some race happening but we had reached that place at only about 7:30pm so everything was over. Now the best part of the day. We did what many people would be foolish enough to try. We had heard of a good Indian restaurant at a place called Antwerp, which is located in the N-W part of the country and we were at 730 in the S-E part. We decided to try and make it to the place to have our dinner. I must say S u r great to drive that long. It was a wonderful drive with most places driving close to 150 kmph just to make it on time. And must with the sunset at 9 we drove into Antwerp just in time. But to our bad luck the place was crowded and he did not have tables for rest of the eve. So we packed some food and headed back to S place for a much deserved rest. WE ate food and decided that we will take the next day after we wakeup.

Sunday morning woke up at about 9. We decided to leave by 11. But what felt more normal left at 12:30. This time heading towards Gent. Reached Gent and put our car in front of a residential house. The owner of the house had written a letter in dutch where the only word I understood was ‘Police’ when we returned later in the day. So then we did a bit of walking around Gent. Had lunch, and this time no pizza but a wonderful pasta. Then we went into this beautiful church (photos not there coz did not feel right taking photos of a place of worship). It was really relaxing with a guy playing the harp and felt really good. Came out and some sightseeing later headed towards Brugge. At Brugge, like other towns I have seen so far on a Sunday, I was expecting a no activity of any kind. All shops closed. But I must say shops were open on a Sunday in Europe. This is huge guys. When I told my cousin this even he was surprised, but also told me that the shop keepers have decided to keep their store open on a few Sundays around the summer season. So the place was quite busy, but our camera went dead L. So no more photos after this point except from the phone a couple. Spent very little time at Brugge, as we were heading to the coast to a place called Oostende. The drive to Oostende was interesting, considering our side was completely empty but the opposite had a huge traffic backing. It was bright and sunny weekend and most of them were returning from the coast on Sunday evening. We had a little bit trouble finding the beach, but did manage to find it eventually. And I washed my hands in the second of the great oceans of the world. The water was super cold, with the real cold sea breeze blowing in. I was feeling really cold there. So we headed back to home as it was getting late. As I had expected we got stuck in slow moving traffic for some time. Finally it cleared and we drove home. Reached S’s place again to pick up my stuff and then headed back to Leuven. And reached home after a great weekend of a lot driving, which was spoilt to some extent by a bad news I heard as I entered Leuven. All in all a wonderful weekend. And Cheers to that.

Photos in the link i send u.

*******************DISCLAIMER*******************

All spelling mistakes in the above are intentional, and provided for your learning of what not to do.

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One month update

Well here it goes. Its been about a month since my prev update. So something is due. This is coming from my work place and not my lappy. Feeling tired after a long day of zero work output.
Last one month has been interesting time. It is the usual life of settling down in a new place and starting ur life all over again. Found myself a nice studio (something which I have wanted for a long time now). Everything is at a 5 yard dist. So it is a real nice place for a lazy guy like me. So if I am staying alone it is back to the usual life of running ur life on ur own. No mom to look after ur food needs and other stuff. Need to cook, wash cloths, clean rooms, etc etc on top of working. You all know the drill. First time I did it in spore it was new and exciting. So did it with a lot of interest. Now 2nd time around it has become a big bore. Especially, after I have been lazing at home for about 6 months.
Regarding work, mmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmm. It is going fine. The hectic bit has not yet started. It is still chilled out. But work will start very soon. No classes for now. Will do all my sub which could have been spread over one year in one sem. That is going to be a major pain in the ass in the coming months. Let us see how it goes. Regarding research, learning new stuff every day. Go attend a meeting and don’t understand a word of what they talk about. Need to come back a do a lot of reading to understand a little bit. So it is very interesting.
Social life is ok. My cousin is around to take me places here. It is a very nice and pretty town. The weather has been the most fun. It was really bright and sunny for the first 1 month to date (ppl here told me that is unusual for this time of the year). After that it has been cloudy, and raining for the last 10 days (now it is normal). Reminds me of the blore monsoon season, pre IT era. I am talking about my high school days coz I don’t remember my life in detail before that [P]. So that is the situation as of today. So the rest coming up later.

p.s.-sorry for bad english.

First 2 days

Finally Ashwin has reached Belgium. So guys here it starts off. Came to the airport in blore at about 1030 in the night. Had a lot of wt issues. But took off some and paid for the extra wt. the flight was realllllllllllllly long. Then landed at Frankfurt. It took me 45 min to get to the next station. Frankfurt is a huge airport BTW. The flight was delayed by 40 min to take off. So got on to the plane and came to Brussels. Landed and came took my baggages nad met my prof at the airport. My cousin was also there. Was really nervous meeting him. Then we took the car and came to Leuven. It was very weird for me. It is right hand side driving here. So had a lot of prob even though some one else was driving. Felt very weird. Then came into the city. One of th first places I saw was the palce I am going to work and the place I need to give my defense at the end of one year. So a noce way to start of.
The city is extremely cute. That is the best way I can describe it. It is everything I expected. Stone roads with very Victorian style of buildings. Had lunch with my prof. Then came home to leave my stuff and went to look for a place for myself. So then saw the place. It was quite good. So decided to take it up. That was pretty much all I did that day. Was really tired since I had slept only for like 3 hrs for the last 40hrs.
So the today got up in the morn. Went and registered for my prg and became a student again. Well that is about it so far. Everything going fine. Will send in photos and other stuff very soon. So updates coming up.

What is the right time to sleep?

Well got a nice incident to start of the blog with. It happened last weekend. My cousin had come how with his 2.5 year old twins. It was just another wonderful eve of playing with my nieces. Was in general having a good time. And then came the googly that I never picked up. It was about 7:30 in the eve. One of the girls was sitting on the floor. The other one playing with my dad in another room. She was surrounded by mom, sis, manni(the kids mom) and me. She was sitting cross-legged on the floor. So I tried to sleep on her lap. Then came the most innocent statement that u will hear only from a kids mouth, which sent the whole room into a burst of laugh and a look of total innocence from the kid. “Ippo poi thunguvala”.