When I woke up in the morning
And looked out of me window
The sun was just rising
And the mountains were aglow
Them who were bare
Until a few days ago
Those very peaks are
Now covered up with snow!

Winter! Winter!
Hark, here it comes

So long Autumn, and thanks for all the colours.

[Note to self:
        A rose is a rose is a rose,
        It's better if you stick to prose
                -Old Chinese Proverb
]

I have been a great fan of Pune mornings. There was something in the Pune air that made mornings special. It is a great feeling to get up early and be invigorated by the elements. I felt it every single time - the chilly crispness, the freshness, the persistent breeze, birds chirping. Two years of getting up and finding oneself in high spirits straightaway. Bliss! I often wonder whether it was my ever positive outlook on life which made the mornings beautiful, or whether it was the beautiful mornings that gave me my ever positive outlook on life.

I am in Pune no more, but my mornings continue to be beautiful! Trento (to be precise, Povo) adds its own unique flavour, and makes them breathtaking. Location, location, location! Povo is in the mountains. In Pune, the mountains are an insignificant backdrop (although the hills within the city do make things interesting). On a clear day, you can make out the outlines of Sinhagad, and its neighbours. In Trento, the mountains are in your face all the time. They affect everything. The rising sun has to obtain permission from the mountains to peek through, the wind has to go over, and around them. But they are kind, and have a great sense of artistry.

I arrived here in Autumn, and it still is Autumn. Most mornings here are crystal clear. There is not a cloud is to be seen in the sky, which is sometimes so brilliantly blue that it hurts the eyes. If there are clouds, they are spotlessly white, and form awesome patterns in combination with the mountains and the sky. The frequent planes that fly high across the Trento sky leave long condensation trails, that are slowly dissipated by the wind forming wild fractal patterns in white against the blue canvas of the sky. If it is raining, it is even better! Being high in the mountains, it means that you are actually in the clouds. You are in a dreamy world of swirling eddies of mist, through which golden beams of sunshine sneak through every now and then, and there are glimpses of patches of blue sky which seem to be trying to seduce you and tell you what things could be like. Today is the misty kind of morning, and when I ventured out, I could easily imagine that I was in Lonavala or Khandala in the monsoons.

A misty, rainy morning in Povo:

Brilliant day, at the Trento railway station:

Italy should start thinking seriously about getting into cricket. They already have the beginnings of a good team - for example they have "The Wall" right here in Trento.

The Wall in Trento is just that - a wall in Trento. Now, you might argue that there must be indeed many a wall in Trento, and there is no particular reason to rave about one of them in particular. Your argument would only be partially valid. Yes, there are many walls in Trento.

But, here is The Thing. A wall does not have existential validity of its own accord - unless of course it is an Old Chinese Wall. A wall is usually a part of a collection of walls that enclose a space. It could also be a single but circular, or roughly circular, or very roughly circular wall closing in upon itself. But this Wall that I talk of is nothing of that sort. It is a straight longish thickish wall that stands by itself in the middle of Trento. It is next to Piazza Fiera, if you really want to know. But spotting The Wall is difficult. It is very well camouflaged as a wall. The trick is not to look at it directly, but out of the corner of your eyes. Best results are obtained standing opposite the bus-stop in Piazza Fiera, and looking into the Piazza at some hot girl. Then you spot it; it hits you suddenly like a wall of bricks (forgive the simile and the pun). That is exactly how I spotted it in the first place.

I thought it must be part of the castle, but quickly realized that it is nowhere near the castle. My bus was due any minute, but my curiosity was piqued, and I walked towards it. Mystery surrounds it. You can sense it in your bones as you approach it. It is made of an unknown (to me, but I ain't no archeologist or geologist) stone, put together in the form of huge rectangular slabs. The colour is hard to define - a yellowish, brownish gray. The most intriguing part about it is a set of steps that lead to the top, but start only about three-fourths of the way up.

I walked up to the wall. I walked around it to the other side, and onto the road. As I turned round, I almost ran into a bus turning the corner in the opposite direction, but narrowly missed. The bus itself had almost run into The Wall, but had narrowly missed. Naturally the driver hadn't spotted it; as per his training he was looking straight ahead, and not out of the corner of his eyes. As a result of this little encounter, I got to the bus stop a minute late, and missed my bus. Consequently, I had to spend another twenty minutes at Piazza Fiera looking at hot girls - examining The Wall, that is.

It still stands there. Conspiracy theories have been built around it. Most physicists and mathematicians at my university claim that it is the projection into our three-dimensional space of a multi-dimensional entity. Others of course claim that it is just a wall. The various Tourist Offices in Trento flatly contradict each other about The Wall.

The Mystery, like The Wall, stands.

Author's Footnote:

In this post I have used a technique called "Ignorance is Bliss and Can be Milked for What the Ignorant Author Thinks is Humour". You are right in thinking that this technique is born out of an Old Chinese Proverb. It is not that I am obsessed with Old Chinese Proverbs. It is just that a lot of Old Chinese Proverbs were in fact invented by my friend Jay, who maintains a door - The Door - filled with samples. Come to think of it, most Old Chinese Proverbs I know were either invented by Jay or by using one of his techniques. Incidentally, Jay is neither Old nor Chinese. One day I shall write in detail about this phenomenon (The Friend, The Door, The Proverbs).

It is said that travel broadens the mind and teaches one many new things. I never doubted this, and my recent week-long trip taught me many valuable lessons. These will, I am sure, help you out some day.

Golden Advice for Travelers:
Better an hour early than a minute late.
(It is an Old Chinese Proverb actually. The wise guy who said it first had to stop and explain it to the village simpletons; as a result, he reached the bus-stop a minute late, missed the last bullock-cart, missed his wedding, and never got laid in his entire life. He did not come up with another Old Chinese Proverb either).

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Europe is in the countryside.
(This is another Old Chinese Proverb. This is subject to considerable debate and controversy. Some scholars are of the opinion that it is a mistranslation of an old Chinese script, which actually says "Avoid the Plague that is Europe". These words were found carved in stone next to skeletons of Chinese origin, of people who are believed to have died the Black Death. Engrossed in admiring the beautiful European countryside, they were a minute late at the port, and missed their ship to China).

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Cellular operators cannot live without perpetrating a fraud of some sort or another. Never trust your cell phone operator's geographical knowledge. I was going from Trento to Munich by train, and I knew that I would pass through Austria. As I passed Brennero (the last station in Italy) and into Austria, I duly got a message from my operator (Wind), bidding me welcome into Austria. After about fifteen minutes, I got another message from the operator bidding me welcome into Liechtenstein! I was thoroughly excited about crossing another border, and about the fact that I had managed to get into this small country on my very first outing outside Italy. But something nagged away at the back of my mind. Later, when I checked out the Eurail map, I found out - to my chagrin, but not to my surprise - that the railway route goes nowhere near Liechtenstein.

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The Colosseum is to Rome, what the Madame Tussaud's Museum is to London. It costs a packet and a long wait to gain admission, the admission is worth neither the packet nor the long wait, but it is a shame if you visit either city without visiting the respective attraction. Of course, if you compare the prices, the Colosseum wins hands down - it cost me about 24£ to get into Madame Tussaud's two years ago, and it costs just 11€ to get into the Colosseum. But unless you love wax and stone or unless you are moved by art and history, it is all good money down the drain.

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Maps are printed and folded in such a way that you spend more time folding it back in the correct way than in looking up places on it. Most people end up folding it in a random manner every time they unfold it. This is quite inconsiderate of people; it ends up splitting the city into multiple parts. If you travel around with an open map, you gain the respect of people. If you fold it back correctly, you gain even more respect.

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The Schengen Visa ROCKS!!!

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A week off in the middle of the semester + a Schengen visa = international travel! Found myself in München (Munich), and then in Roma (Rome), and had a great time exploring the two cities. Rather than narrating how I travelled from place A to place B to place C, and how I saw this and that, I will just give you a gist of all that I found out about the places I visited.

This is where the two cows come in.

München:

I have two cows. I milk them everyday, sell the milk to the cheese factories (nobody drinks milk anyway) and buy a huge jug of beer. I am happy.

Roma:

I had two cows. While I was milking one, somebody stole the other cow. As I looked around for it, somebody stole the second one as well. When I went to the police to complain, they drank the milk I got from the first cow.

Roma (Take 2):

I had thousands of cows. Now there are only the ruins of cows.

The Vatican:

I have thousands of really old cows. I got Michelangelo and Raphael to make paintings on their sides and heads, and carve their horns. Now I charge innocent people twelve euro each to have a look at the cows.

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I had no untoward experiences in old Roma. I was convinced that the reputation it has earned for itself as being full of petty thieves and pickpocketeers was unfounded, just a myth. Then just today I heard from a friend who lost his bag (passport, wallet and all) standing in line at the Colosseum! He was there just two days before I visited it!

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Also, I have some cities I should have written about earlier:

Trento:

I have two cows. I milk them, but only if it is a weekday. Even on weekdays, I do not milk them in the afternoons, and stop at seven in the evening. On Sundays, there is strictly no milking. Saturdays and Wednesdays and sometimes Mondays are half-day holidays for milking. In the end, I would much rather drink wine than milk.

Venice:

I have two cows. I cannot milk them, their udders are constantly under water. Doesn't matter much, for I milk the tourists dry.

If "two cows" jokes are not your cup of tea, check your tea, there's probably too little or too much milk in it!