A date with the Citadel

31^st december 2004, my hubby and I landed on a city in Tuscany, Central Italy, called Pisa owning one of then world’s greatest wonder, the Tower of Pisa. The traditional city to our surprise had already embraced total darkness and inertia at 9 pm. Enthusiasts by nature, we both decided to have a first glimpse of leaning tower, in the nights’ backdrop. After a flustered walk in foreign land we reached the coveted landmark. To our astonishment it was pitch dark and one of world’s wonder stood like any other building in town, with no lights to adorn and was hardly visible from distance. There was sheer air of austerity. We and few other tourists made our ways back to accommodation sensing the worth of day light.

We had an uplifted mood brought in by the welcoming weather the next morning. It was sunny yet a crispy chillness hidden in the atmosphere. This time when we reached Campo dei Miracoli (Field of miracles), the cathedral and leaning tower of Pisa was flooded with exuberant tourists.

An affable elderly Italian couple dressed in long fur coats complemented my wearing a sleeveless cardigan in their cold weather. We coerced to explain that Italian winter was synonymous to British spring. We purchased entry tickets and started climbing the slippery, narrow, spiral staircase of the tower. The staircase became more steep and narrow as we ascended further. Because of the history of vulnerable construction of the architecture, we were allowed to climb in batches with stipulated number of people in each group. The next batch cannot be allowed to venture unless each and every member from previous batch had exited from the tower.

The Tower of Pisa is not a magnificent structure when compared to Eiffel Tower, but for people with acrophobia like me, it was still an enormous deal. When the time came to climb down the staircase I bluntly refused to co-operate with my hubby. All 30 from our batch except me and my hubby were out of the building. The next group was down waiting for our arrival. Bewildered by the missing people, couple of security guards climbed up the tower just to find me refusing with all adamancy to step down the tower. I was then safely escorted down with two security guards in the front and my hubby following me. On exiting the tower, I became cynosure for people and security guards waiting outside with smirk and laughter. I was more embarrassed than relieved. I was soon diverted by a cute couple who seemed to challenge the statement “Paris and Switzerland – the ultimate romantic destinations on earth”. The couple got married in Cathedral of Pisa and they were found walking, running, kissing and dancing on the lawn in front of the cathedral for their wedding album. Many of the tourists including self became unofficial videographers for the wedding. There was a feel-good atmosphere and everyone was infected by the aura.

It was one memorable day in Pisa with the historic scary tower, the ancient yet made romantic cathedral and the Fountain with Angels. Anyone suffering December in cold regions are welcome to visit this warm place and its people with warm heart.

Batch Programming to Rescue

Few months ago, our Sony VAIO failed to work in par with all other normal VAIOs. It booted in snail’s pace, the fonts in the desktop became arguably large and our internet surfing was attacked by numerous e-bombs. Not to mention that our full version NAV was up and running healthy amidst all these havoc with scan messages showing “Total security risks detected 0”. Using the luxury of internet browsing at work place, my hubby produced a series of instructions, to be carried out by me, at home on our VAIO. The primary mission was to download and run Dr. Web CureIt Anti-Virus. Dr. Web CureIt is a standalone anti-virus and anti-spyware scanner that scans your PC for viruses, trojans, adware, spyware, hack tools, rootkits, and other malware.

A day in Safari Park

On August 9^th 2009, a bright sunny day, which is quite unusual in England, My husband and I set a trip to the West Midlands Safari and Leisure Park in Kidderminster. Being in this country for more than 7 years now and just 40 minutes away from the zoo, this has been our first visit ever to the park. Deciding to avoid motorways and take small roads to reach the destination my hubby picked our little old Nissan Micra to drive. Being a woman, obviously I disagreed to the decision and pointed out that the car lacks A/C facility. Being a typical hubby, he gave deaf ears to my moans and defended that he can bring down the car windows if need be. Little did he know then that his decision would backfire?

We took admission into the park at 12 where we were given a heads-up about high traffic in Safari between 11 and 2 p.m. Obeying to their warning, we felt it made more sense to prioritise our lunch over the Safari ride. During admission we took a guide map and bought the “Special diet animal food” to feed them, just in case if they scare us due to hunger. After a decent lunch, we loitered near the family fun area and cubs’ kingdom. There were numerous rides for kids which of course demanded extra charges apart from the admission fee.

The sea aquarium in Discovery Trail area boasted freshwater exhibits from the Asian pacific, Red sea and Amazon River. It is simple aquarium for little toddlers, however not for grown ups who have visited real good ones. We looked for our next station in the Guide map and found Twilight Cave interesting. Twilight cave exhibits free flying bats, Jumping Rats and Aye-aye (a strepsirrhine native to Madagascar). On entering the zone it was quite dark with an uninviting odour. As we moved further inside step by step, it felt spooky and invoked nausea due to increasing foul smell. I and my hubby literally ran our way outside to breathe some normal fresh air.

Laughing on our disappointment in Twilight adventure, we spotted couple of good seats in Seal Lion Theatre for the show. The show started at 1 p.m. and lasted for good 20 minutes. It was a feel-good demonstration by 2 sea lions obeying to couple of young sea lion trainers. One of the sea lion’s did its gig by jumping and catching par excellence, whereas the other one to the audience delight and trainer’s embarrassment, responded to nothing but food. The sun has started its merciless display by now and most of us in the park were craving for some ice creams, energy drinks to keep us away from dehydration. My hubby and I grabbed couple of ice-creams beating the long queue and headed towards car park enjoying the chillness in ice-cream.

At 2ish we ignited our Nissan Micra initiating our Safari journey with windows half-open expecting to let some cool breeze inside our car. The first sets of animals to our vicinity were Zebras and bulls followed by some Kangaroos. Because of unconventional heat in weather the animals had hidden themselves in places of shade. In each and every spot it took at least a minute or 2 for us, to spot the animals. Then, there was a warning board to my husband’s shock and my misery; “Do not have doors, windows or sun roof open. Wild dog reserve”. There was a huge electric gate closed with red signal. Once the red signal changed to green the gate opened to let us inside only to find another set of electric gate in the front closed. Despite the heat inside the car we had no choice but to close the windows. Also, there were quite a few wild dogs roaming impatiently, which justified the warning. The second set of gates opened and we let a sigh of relief. Just when we considered bringing down the car windows again, the next notice board read “Tiger Reserve”, with another set of electric doors in the front. I threw a terrible look at my husband which added to the heat already inside the car. The white Bengal Tigers were a feast to watch. They had a very muscular body but tad not movement noted from them. It looked like they had just finished their heavy lunch.

Getting past the next set of electric gates was the goats’ reserve. We were allowed to bring down the car windows to feed the goats. We moved further to have a spectacular view of the African Elephants, some more tigers, cheetahs and lions. All the way through we had to have our car windows shut. Unable to bear the oven heat inside, I was growling at the decision made by my hubby to bring this car. I once overheard him murmur that he would rather bring down the windows and feed lions his hand than hearing me scream.

With all these brawls inside, we reached the white lions reserve. We were awestruck by the commanding presence of those lazy sleeping white lions. They were big, heavy and lacked movement like tigers, but gave goose bumps on visualising more than 5 of them stick in one group. No wonder they are called Kings of the forest. Our journey continued with more tigers, reserves of deer and camels. Our safari almost came to an end reaching the giraffe reserve. There were patrols everywhere to monitor the security of the visitors and the animals. As visitors were allowed to feed few animals, my hubby started feeding the tall gorgeous young giraffe nearby. She passionately, licked and bit his hands tasting the “Special diet animal food”. People in patrol strictly warned the kids in the car next to us, from feeding the animal with fresh lettuce leaves. I found it cruel towards the animal as she seemed to have liked the fresh leaves more than the special diet food.

On the whole it took 2 hours and 20 minutes for us to drive around the Safari Park. We loved the trip and would recommend it for a one day family fun with young children. It is worth a day's visit.