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emprexxluxaic · 2 years

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ᰋ ׅ࣪ ꒰ possible profession ♡︎ where your future spouse live ꒱

⠀ׅ ♡⠀࣪ emprexxluxaic ⸺ your angel ׅ ࣪ 𝅄

──⠀۪ ఌ︎ ۫ 𝚙𝚊𝚒𝚍 𝚛𝚎𝚊𝚍𝚒𝚗𝚐𝚜 𝚜𝚊𝚕𝚎 ୨୧ ( 𝚊𝚟𝚊𝚒𝚕𝚊𝚋𝚕𝚎 )

ᴾᴵᴸᴱ ᴼᴺᴱ ᪶ ᴾᴵᴸᴱ ᵀᵂᴼ ᪶ ᴾᴵᴸᴱ ᵀᴴᴿᴱᴱ

⏝ִ︶⏝ִ︶⏝ִ︶⏝ִ︶⏝ִ︶⏝

THE TWO CUPS IN A BALCONY

⏜ ︵⊹︵ ⏜ ︵ ୨୧︵ ⏜ ︵⊹︵ ⏜

This might be someone who doesn’t want to be honest and open. They don’t prize communication, but would rather run from the truth.Most of the time they are cool, calm and unemotional.Someone who is clever and acutely aware to their current situation.They know how to control their lives and quite determined for their short term goals.In terms of communication they know when to speak and right words to use to make it easy maybe they like hosting party?,they are responsible and down to earth person,hardworking person and very commited to their jobs or studies,they can be very organized and likes to spend there time in library who loves to read books and interesting articles online.a pet and nature lover,may be they own a pet and likes to plant.They appreciate the beauty of our nature and enjoy simple walks in parks or hiking,also loves food and going to picking fruits in summer/spring or autumn,they found it enjoyable.if this a woman they very conservative into their clothes maybe because of their beliefs/culture,you probably don't them showing there skin alot or wearing trendy clothes but likes to buy good quality clothes that will last longer.Also they think about what decisions she will make and don't like to be quick,they will rather spend time weighting the pros and cons.they move very slowly but very patient they make sure that everything is perfect cause they always like it to be perfect , a perfectionist.

THEIR PROFESSION :

WHERE THEY LIVE :

Kazakhstan, Kyrgyz Republic, Tajikistan, Turkmenistan, Uzbekistan , Afghanistan, Bangladesh, Bhutan, India, Iran, Maldives, Nepal, Pakistan, Sri Lanka , Scandinavia , Paraguay , New Zealand , Portuguese , Argentina, Bolivi, Brazil, Chile, Colombia, Costa Rica, Ecuador, El Salvador, Guatemala, Honduras, Mexico, Nicaragua, Panama, Paraguay, Peru, the Dominican Republic and Uruguay [ SOUTH EAST AND EAST ASIA ]

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⏝ִ︶⏝ִ︶⏝ִ︶⏝ִ︶⏝ִ︶⏝

A CAT UNDER THE SHADY CLOUDS

⏜ ︵⊹︵ ⏜ ︵ ୨୧︵ ⏜ ︵⊹︵ ⏜

This person is someone calm, non-confrontational, and placid. They have learned to get along with almost anyone and make great partners and friends,only few things upset them.In any problems they work towards a peaceful resolution that will benefit everyone,this people simple life and avoid busy places and crowds,they need quiet and peace to think better their thoughs also tends to seeks relief from very tiring day they really love day offs and breaks from daily life. they make choices from their heart and puts effort on how they appear maybe they like fashion because they care how you/other people think about them and their appearance and image Whenever this people in a relationship they put effort for being witty and appealing,often wants to feel the relationship is whole,they have balanced approach in life or to people that surround them.They naturally an excellent communicator and mediators who brings best into other lives.They can be over confident and may brag their abilities to others,they love attention and often expect everyone to gave them recognition (can have narcissistic traits) when people are not affected by their charms they feels something is wrong with them.

THEIR PROFESSION :

WHERE THEY LIVE :

Honduras,Saint Barthélemy,Antigua and Barbuda,Dominica,Nicaragua,Cayman Islands,El Salvador,Bermuda,Saint Pierre and Miquelon,Greenland,Saint Kitts and Nevis,Costa Rica,Montserrat,Panama,Sint Maarten,Guadeloupe,Belize,Bahamas,Turks and Caicos Islands,Saint Martin,Canada,Martinique,U.S.A.,British Virgin Islands,Jamaica,Barbados,Puerto Rico,Caribbean Netherlands,Saint Lucia,Guatemala,Curaçao,Anguilla,Trinidad and Tobago,Mexico,Haiti,Cuba,Grenada,Saint Vincent and the Grenadines,Dominican Republic,Aruba,United States Virgin Islands,Bahrain, Cyprus, Egypt, Iran, Iraq, Israel, Jordan, Kuwait, Lebanon, Oman, Palestine, Qatar, Saudi Arabia, the Syrian Arab Republic, Turkey, the United Arab Emirates and Yemen,New Zealand, Australia, France, Norway, the United Kingdom, Chile, and Argentina [ EUROPE ]

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⏝ִ︶⏝ִ︶⏝ִ︶⏝ִ︶⏝ִ︶⏝

SOMEWHERE AWAY FROM THE CROWDS

⏜ ︵⊹︵ ⏜ ︵ ୨୧︵ ⏜ ︵⊹︵ ⏜

This is someone with a gentle nature being both generous and abundant,might be introvert or they just love their home and loves gardening,they enjoy spending time in decorating , cooking , and gardening.Often do well in their chosen field and people that who knows or surrounds them loves to pay a visit into their house also they love to entertain other people and has big heart.They desire for success and will do anything just to achieve it, no matter what challenges they ben through they sees life as passion and inspiration .Always has new or fresh ideas and they don't hesitate at moving forward ,they are strong and have the ability to succed the all odds,confident and accomplised people.They geniunely love their family and loves kids ,they are nurturing and often makes a good parent in future or now?.This person is very grateful ay anything they have whether it's material or not indeedreally loves their family and family means alot for them (maybe a family oriented).for other who choose this pile they will might get a wealthy spouse or a spouse coming from well stablish or wealthy family or will get wealthy after marriage.They good at working an might reaping their awards and share it with less fortunate people.

THEIR PROFESSION :

WHERE THEY LIVE :

COUNTRIES IN AFRICA , FIJI , PAPUA NEW GUINEA , SOLOMON ISLANDS , MARSHALL ISLANDS , MICRONESEA , NEW ZEALAND , VANUATA , AUSTRALIA , SAMOA , PALAU , KIRIBATI , TUVALU , NAURU , TONGA , UNITED KINGDOM , IRELAND , SCOTLAND , ANTARTICA , VICTORIA(SOUTHEASTERN AUSTRALIA)

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dedicated song :

ᵃˡˡ ʳⁱᵍʰᵗˢ ʳᵉˢᵉʳᵛᵉᵈ ᵇʸ ᵉᵐᵖʳᵉˣˣˡᵘˣᵃⁱᶜ ᵒⁿ ᵗᵘᵐᵇˡʳ ²⁰²²

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octuscle · 1 year

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Help! I tried to use my Chronivac to apply a change to myself, "Hairy Turkish Powerlifter Complete Transformation Package", but the "apply changes" button grayed out when I clicked it, and my mouse is stuck on the loading cursor with nothing happening now. It's been about two days and I'm at my wits end, waiting for the changes to apply and my new life to start.

As a subscriber of the premium version you have selected the travel package. And the loading process did not hang. A window opened in the background, which also displayed your input "Start journey". Pack your suitcase, you're off to Turkey!

Two hours before departure, you drop off your suitcase at the counter and check in for the Chronivac flight operated by Turkish Airlines. And that's when your transformation begins. The security check takes forever. Only after an hour you are through… You don't have much time left to stock up on reading material for the flight. Even though you've been living in Turkey for a year now, you prefer to stick to English-language sports magazines. But you take the Hürriyet with you, you already understand most of it.

At the gate, you are one of the few non-Turks. No one would suspect that you speak Turkish. A few heads turn when you answer the stewardess' greeting almost without an accent, "Çok teşekkür ederim ve size de iyi günler!

Lanet olsun! You should have asked for an upgrade after all. First of all, the portions at the in-flight service are something for kids. And secondly, you barely fit in the seat with your back. And it gets worse during the flight. But you are slowly getting smaller. And hairier. Your family tree begins to change. When you land in Istanbul, six of your great-great-grandparents are already Turkish. There are still a few lighter strands in your hair. But your beard is already pitch black.

Your advantage is that you have accepted citizenship after six years in Turkey. With the Turkish passport the entry goes fast. You still have five hours before your flight to Ankara. Your connecting flight is delayed. Well, at least you can eat your fill now. And you use the break for a few units of push-ups and squats.

When your flight to Ankara takes off, it's already been eleven hours since you checked in. You are almost a real Turk. Only five of your great-great-grandparents are still from England. And you've already been living in Ankara for eleven years and are part of the Olympic weightlifting squad there. In fact, a few fans recognize you at the gate. And want selfies with you.

Baggage claim takes ages again… By the time you have your sports bags all together and are sitting in your car, more than 16 hours have passed since you checked in. It was a really exhausting day. But you are now looking forward to a few days in your summer house just outside the city.

The next morning, after a bath in the creek next to the house, everything is forgotten. And next week the preparation for the next competition starts!

#male tf #chronivac #muscle tf #reality change #race change

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mostlysignssomeportents · 5 months

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This day in history

Catch me in Miami! I'll be at Books and Books in Coral Gables on Jan 22 at 8PM.

#15yrsago Obama adminstration brings back the Freedom of Information Act and transparency in government https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2009/01/on-day-one-obama-https://www.tumblr.com/edit/mostlysignssomeportents/739957959453556736demands-open-government

#15yrsago Man arrested for shouting complaints about “Arab types” on Turkish Airlines flight https://nypost.com/2009/01/21/plane-crazy/

#15yrsago Net-based pressure forces UK government to cancel plans to make MPs’ expenses secret https://www.mysociety.org/2009/01/21/blimey-it-looks-like-the-internets-won/

#10yrsago Lunar panorama stitched from Chinese Chang’e lander images https://www.360cities.net/image/lunar-panorama-change-3-lander

#10yrsago Jo Walton’s What Makes This Book So Great https://memex.craphound.com/2014/01/21/jo-waltons-what-makes-this-book-so-great/

#5yrsago Agency: William Gibson’s followup to The Peripheral turns Neuromancer on its head https://memex.craphound.com/2019/01/21/agency-william-gibsons-followup-to-the-peripheral-turns-neuromancer-on-its-head/

#5yrsago Latvia opens up its KGB files and names 4,000+ “informants,” many of whom claim they were framed https://www.nytimes.com/2019/01/18/world/europe/latvia-kgb-informants.html

#5yrsago The EU’s ambitious, fearless antitrust czar is unlikely to win another term https://memex.craphound.com/2019/01/21/the-eus-ambitious-fearless-antitrust-czar-is-unlikely-to-win-another-term/

#5yrsago “Capitalism has outlived its usefulness” -Martin Luther King, Jr https://www.dailykos.com/stories/2017/1/16/1621178/-Dr-King-the-greatest-purveyor-of-violence-in-the-world-today-my-own-government

#5yrsago CES-goer says his camera was killed by a self-driving car’s LIDAR https://arstechnica.com/cars/2019/01/man-says-ces-lidars-laser-was-so-powerful-it-wrecked-his-1998-camera/

#1yrago Tiktok's enshittification https://pluralistic.net/2023/01/21/potemkin-ai/#hey-guys

I'm Kickstarting the audiobook for The Bezzle, the sequel to Red Team Blues, narrated by @wilwheaton! You can pre-order the audiobook and ebook, DRM free, as well as the hardcover, signed or unsigned. There's also bundles with Red Team Blues in ebook, audio or paperback.

#pluralistic

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zvaigzdelasas · 2 years

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Turkmenistan was the last and slowest among the post-Soviet republics to undergo a transition to a market economy. The first president of the country, Saparmyrat Niyazov, did not want to rush into such a transition and he didn’t feel the need for it due to the large reserves of natural gas in the country, which generated a stable revenue for the budget. He repeatedly stated that “We don’t need a revolution; we’re for evolution,” suggesting slow and modest reforms. With independence, private businesses were allowed to operate, and large bazaars started to emerge run by small and medium-sized enterprises. Retail, restaurants, bakeries, beauty salons, and other service-related private businesses emerged. However, when it came to large factories and industries, most of them were still dominated by state-owned enterprises in the first decades following independence.

When it comes to the agricultural sector, the Turkmen government still owns and controls all the land in the country. The government rents land to private farmers and intervenes in what crops can be produced. The state also has a monopoly over wheat and cotton production. The state hires private farmers to grow wheat or cotton and buys the crops produced at a government-set price. Private farmers must sell all harvested wheat and cotton to the government; they cannot take the crops to an open market on their own.[...]

The government has complete monopolies in the following sectors: telecommunication, agriculture (land, wheat, and cotton), textile factories, alcohol factories, hotels, airlines, airports, railways, chemical raw materials (polypropylene, carbamide, fertilizers, etc.), natural resources (natural gas and oil), gas stations, and other industries. State monopolies mean that the government does not allow private entrepreneurs to get involved in those industries, resulting in lost opportunities and growth.[...]

The telecommunication sector is completely dominated by state-owned companies now. The Russian mobile phone operating company MTS was the largest provider of mobile services before the Turkmen government suspended their license in 2010. The Russian operator returned to the Turkmen market in 2012 only to be kicked out again in 2017, which led to MTS filing a lawsuit against the government of Turkmenistan. Currently, no foreign or domestic private companies are allowed into the market providing telecommunication services. [...]

The private sector is visible in service industries (restaurants, the beauty sector, and more), construction companies, and in retail, in which small and medium-sized businesses import products from abroad and resell them in the domestic market. These enterprises still occasionally suffer from government intervention, as in the case of the Turkish mall mentioned above.

Vienna-based Chronicles of Turkmenistan spells out the implications of what the government has planned in balder terms: shoppers at state stores will probably no longer be guaranteed fixed and subsidised prices for staple goods.

The broader marketisation agenda has been taking shape since 2017. It was in October of that year that the Council of Elders, a for-show assembly of national and local dignitaries routinely assembled to give a sheen of legitimacy to unpopular decisions, voted to scrap the free provision of electricity, natural gas, water and salt to the population.

As the then-president, Gurbanguly Berdimuhamedov, argued: “Incomes are increasing from year to year, there are a large number of jobs. I accordingly support and consider appropriate the proposal of the Council of Elders to phase in payment for the provision of utilities, so as to ensure a more rational and careful use of natural resources.”

The scrapping of the requirement to pay for those utilities was implemented in 1993 by the late president Saparmurat Niyazov. The arrangement was supposed to remain in place until 2030. [...]

The planned trans-Afghan TAPI gas pipeline rarely feels very possible, but all parties involved are acting as though it is a viable proposition.

Kabul-based Tolo news agency reported on August 20 that a government committee has been formed in Afghanistan to execute their country’s section of the project. The committee will be headed by first deputy prime minister Mullah Abdul Ghani Baradar, the outlet reported. A delegation will at some point travel from Kabul to Ashgabat for talks on how to take the project forward.

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brookstonalmanac · 7 months

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Events 10.29 (after 1950)

1953 – BCPA Flight 304 DC-6 crashes near San Francisco. 1955 – The Soviet battleship Novorossiysk strikes a World War II mine in the harbor at Sevastopol. 1956 – Suez Crisis begins: Israeli forces invade the Sinai Peninsula and push Egyptian forces back toward the Suez Canal. 1957 – Israel's prime minister David Ben-Gurion and five of his ministers are injured when Moshe Dwek throws a grenade into the Knesset. 1960 – An airplane carrying the Cal Poly football team crashes on takeoff in Toledo, Ohio. 1964 – The United Republic of Tanganyika and Zanzibar is renamed to the United Republic of Tanzania. 1964 – Biggest jewel heist; involving the Star of India (gem) in the American Museum of Natural History in New York City by Murph the Surf and gang. 1967 – Montreal's World Fair, Expo 67, closes with over 50 million visitors. 1969 – The first-ever computer-to-computer link is established on ARPANET, the precursor to the Internet. 1972 – The three surviving perpetrators of the Munich massacre are released from prison in exchange for the hostages of the hijacked Lufthansa Flight 615. 1980 – Demonstration flight of a secretly modified C-130 for an Iran hostage crisis rescue attempt ends in a crash landing at Eglin Air Force Base's Duke Field, Florida, leading to the cancellation of Operation Credible Sport. 1985 – Major General Samuel K. Doe is announced as the winner of the first multi-party election in Liberia. 1986 – British Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher opens the last stretch of the M25 motorway. 1991 – The American Galileo spacecraft makes its closest approach to 951 Gaspra, becoming the first probe to visit an asteroid. 1994 – Francisco Martin Duran fires over two dozen shots at the White House; he is later convicted of trying to kill U.S. President Bill Clinton. 1998 – In South Africa, the Truth and Reconciliation Commission presents its report, which condemns both sides for committing atrocities. 1998 – Space Shuttle Discovery blasts off on STS-95 with 77-year-old John Glenn on board, making him the oldest person to go into space at that time. 1998 – ATSC HDTV broadcasting in the United States is inaugurated with the launch of the STS-95 space shuttle mission. 1998 – While en route from Adana to Ankara, a Turkish Airlines flight with a crew of six and 33 passengers is hijacked by a Kurdish militant who orders the pilot to fly to Switzerland. The plane instead lands in Ankara after the pilot tricked the hijacker into thinking that he is landing in the Bulgarian capital of Sofia to refuel. 1998 – Hurricane Mitch, the second deadliest Atlantic hurricane in history, makes landfall in Honduras. 1998 – The Gothenburg discothèque fire in Sweden kills 63 and injures 200. 1999 – A large cyclone devastates Odisha, India. 2002 – A fire destroys a luxurious department store in Ho Chi Minh City, where 1,500 people are shopping. More than 60 people die and over 100 are unaccounted for in the deadliest peacetime disaster in Vietnam. 2004 – The Arabic-language news network Al Jazeera broadcasts an excerpt from a 2004 Osama bin Laden video in which the terrorist leader first admits direct responsibility for the September 11, 2001 attacks and references the 2004 U.S. presidential election. 2005 – Bombings in Delhi, India kill more than 60. 2008 – Delta Air Lines merges with Northwest Airlines, creating the world's largest airline and reducing the number of US legacy carriers to five. 2008 – A pair of deadly earthquakes hits Baluchistan, Pakistan, killing 215. 2012 – Hurricane Sandy hits the east coast of the United States, killing 148 directly and 138 indirectly, while leaving nearly $70 billion in damages and causing major power outages. 2014 – A mud slide; the 2014 Badulla landslide, in south-central Sri Lanka, kills at least 16 people, and leaves hundreds of people missing. 2015 – China announces the end of its one-child policy after 35 years. 2018 – A Boeing 737 MAX plane crashes after taking off from Jakarta, Indonesia killing 189 people on board.

#Events

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belovedindierock · 1 year

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Rolling Stone #1155, April 26th 2012

Radiohead Reconnect

How the most experimental band in music learned to rock again

by David Fricke

Thom Yorke walks into the catering room backstage at the American Airlines Arena in Miami wearing a dark T-shirt, tight red jeans and a crooked smile. "I'm feeling quietly excited – and quietly nervous," Radiohead's frontman says as he pours himself a cup of coffee. Yorke flew in from Britain late yesterday – his eyelids are still heavy with jet lag – and he is due onstage shortly for Radiohead's final rehearsal before the launch of their most extensive tour since 2008: 58 shows over 10 months in North America, Europe, Asia and Australia. They open here tomorrow night.

"Everything – the production, the new lights, the set list – is still a work in progress," Yorke says. "But it's finally getting started." Soon he can be heard warming up his voice behind a closed door, practicing scales in a high, precise warble, holding notes in long, clean aaaahs.

Radiohead are not only beginning a tour; they are unveiling a rebirth. The band is ending one of the most challenging and confounding eras in its career: nearly three years of public silence and private chaos during which Radiohead struggled with reinvention and their future. They made some of their most beautiful music on their least popular album, last year's The King of Limbs, but didn't promote it and stayed off the road, uncertain how or if they could be a performing band again.

"We're still flailing around," Yorke admits, sitting in one of the band's dressing rooms. He recalls the early practice sessions for this tour. "I was freaking out, going, 'Oh, no, it's not enough time. I want to do all these new things.'"

But onstage, a little while later, he and the rest of Radiohead – bassist Colin Greenwood; guitarists Ed O'Brien and Colin's younger brother Jonny; drummer Phil Selway and new second drummer Clive Deamer, who has played with the group for the past year – sound exuberant and confident as they push through "Bloom," from The King of Limbs. What sounded on that record like a glassy enigma of loops and ghostly incantation is now rushing water, arranged by the new six-man lineup as a fury of rhythms and murky-treble guitars. "Morning Mr. Magpie" is also harder and faster than the version on Limbs, while "Meeting in the Aisle" – an instrumental from the sessions for 1997's OK Computer – is played with fresh pepper, like Turkish surf music with a trip-hop step.

Radiohead have worked up more than 75 songs for the 2012 shows, including material written during rehearsals this winter at their studio in Oxford. The band will run through a pair of newborns tonight, "Identikit" and "Cut a Hole." Yorke, 43, describes the former as "joyful, slow but with a wonky hip-hop beat." He beams. "That one wormed its way to the head of the class." Colin, who is 42, is excited about another new one, "Full Stop," particularly the part "where Thorn's voice jacks up into this amazing falsetto. The song just takes off."

20 Songs You Can't Believe Are 20 Years Old

In an interview before practice, Yorke credits the addition of Deamer, who came from the British band Portishead, with Radiohead's live renewal. "Having another musician to go back over old stuff was as important as coming up with new songs," says Yorke. He's slumped on a couch, but his voice crackles with restless energy. "Along the way," he says, "you discard songs, because you can only do them in a certain way. To breathe new life into them is a good feeling. You don't have to ask, 'Oh, how does it go again?' It's 'How can we do this properly now?'"

The best example at this rehearsal is the title song from 2000's Kid A. Recorded at the height of Yorke's loathing of guitar-band convention, "Kid A" was barely a song at all – a cloud of whoosh with Yorke singing through a vocoder like a child robot. Tonight, it sounds huge and metallic, a bolt of argumentative double drumming with a striking, classical temper in the piano chords, played by Jonny.

"It was an anti-song," says O'Brien the next day, in an ocean-view lounge at Radiohead's hotel. "Now it's something warmer, particularly the end. Suddenly, it has this sunrise." For a long time, in a lot of the band's music, he admits, "nothing was allowed to be genuinely beautiful. Jonny was always so brilliant about throwing that slashing guitar through things.

"This is very much where we are – and Clive has brought this," says O'Brien, who turns 44 this month. "Didn't they say when the Beatles got Billy Preston everybody was on best behavior?" He laughs. "Having someone break up the energy – that's good. It got people out of old habits.

"You hear it all the time," says O'Brien. "These bands say, 'We're in the best phase of our lives,' and they don't make very good music. I'm reluctant to say that. It's not our best phase. It's another one – and it's a good one. It doesn't feel like a new band. It feels like a band that knows itself."

Yorke isn't so sure – yet. "It's weird not to have any definitive versions recorded," he says of the new songs, "because that's where you make the final decisions. To be rehearsing new stuff, not have it recorded, with a sixth member in the band . . ." He rolls his eyes in mock terror. "It's all very fluid. I'm not really sure what it is."

Jonny, 40, sitting on the sofa next to Yorke, remembers the singer arriving for the first day of practice in Oxford: "He came in and said, 'I had a dream that we had an extra month for rehearsing.' I thought, 'Wouldn't that be great?'"

"We haven't played in front of people yet, so we don't know if it's any good," says Yorke. "We might not even find out tomorrow." He flashes that crooked smile. "Maybe it will take a while."

Radiohead have been a recording band for two decades. This year marks the 20th anniversary of their debut EP, Drill, and the initial release of their seething Top 40 hit "Creep." Since then, Radiohead have enjoyed the weirdest forward motion of any major rock band. Their hit albums, including two American Number Ones, Kid A and 2007's In Rainbows, are slippery and jarring: blends and collisions of violent guitar dynamics, cryptic dance-floor electronics and barbed, elliptical balladry. Radiohead's last "conventional" album, according to their longtime co-producer Nigel Godrich, was their art-rock classic OK Computer. "Essentially, that was a guitar record dabbling in other dimensions," Godrich says. Radiohead have begun every subsequent album the same way. "We start," O'Brien says, "with what we don't want to do next."

There has been substantial outside work in recent years. Selway's first solo effort, Familial, came out in 2010. Yorke is almost done with the first studio album by his band Atoms for Peace. Jonny, a prolific writer for soundtracks and orchestras, just issued an album with Polish composer Krzystof Penderecki. An independent act since the end of their EMI contract in 2003, Radiohead also explore alternative ways of releasing music. In Rainbows was first available as a pay-what-you-choose download. A gorgeous 2009 track, "These Are My Twisted Words," was free.

The King of Limbs arrived as a complete shock: a download with a week's notice and no publicity by the band. A CD followed a month later. But the surprise attack, combined with the music's vexing restraint, backfired. "There were clearly people who were interested in the band's music, but they didn't know Radiohead had released a record," says Bryce Edge, one of the group's managers. To date, The King of Limbs has sold 307,000 copies in the U.S. – Radiohead's first album to fail to go gold here.

But that tally, Edge points out, "doesn't include all of the digital stuff we sold" – an estimated 300,000 to 400,000 copies purchased via Radiohead's website. "The majority of the sales were band-to-fan," says co-manager Chris Hufford. "Financially, it was probably the most successful record they've ever made, or pretty close. In a traditional deal, the record company takes the majority of the money."

Radiohead played only three concerts in 2011, after recruiting Deamer to help re-create the overdubbed tangle of drum loops on The King of Limbs: a surprise set at Britain's Glastonbury Festival and two hot-ticket gigs at New York's Roseland Ballroom. So now the band is going overboard: Its long U.S. itinerary includes festival dates, two at Coachella and one at Bonnaroo. O'Brien says the group has already "talked about the way the gigs might evolve, maybe doing them in three sections – three movements, if you like." Colin is excited about the prospect of studio time along the way. "Maybe we'll do some hit-and-runs," he says, "go in over a weekend somewhere and play."

The band is touring mostly in three-week legs with substantial breaks, in part for family matters. All the group members still reside in the Oxford area except for O'Brien, who lives in London, and all are married except for Yorke, who has been with his partner, Rachel Owen, since they were students at the University of Exeter. The five are busy fathers. Colin, Jonny and Selway have three children each; Yorke and O'Brien have two apiece. "My kids are changing schools in September," Selway, 44, notes. "I wanted to be around for that."

But there is a strong sense in the interviews conducted for this story over the past year – in Oxford, London, New York and finally Miami – of a band anxious to engage the world again after spending too much time too close to home. The first night at Roseland last September was, O'Brien claims, "a great lesson. The sound-check was a fucking nightmare. The monitors were rubbish – we couldn't hear ourselves. We felt underprepared. But you know what? It was all good. Our managers were like, 'Top-five gig!'"

"It was a fucking trip – the best adrenaline buzz I've had in absolutely years," Yorke crows. "It didn't feel like we were treading the old ground, walking over our graves. We were still wandering around in the darkness, stumbling. That was nice."

"It made us feel like a rock band again," Colin says, more thoughtfully, backstage in Miami. "It's fine to be in a band in a nine-to-five way: Get up with the kids, take them to school, do some work, come home. But I see my friends in Oxford who have jobs they work hard at that they don't enjoy, and it frustrates me. We have a job that is a passion. Roseland made us remember how great it could and should be."

Radiohead speak about The King of Limbs like it is unfinished business, an album with a future and an audience still waiting for it. The group is not touring this year "specifically to push that record," Selway says. But, he adds, "people hopefully will connect with it through that."

"It was amazing to just put the record out like that," Yorke says. "But then it didn't feel like it really existed." He mentions a chat he had about the album, a few months after its release, with Phil Costello, a friend of the band and a former executive at their old label, Capitol. "He was like, 'It's gone, just gone.' Really? Fuck.

"But that was the consequence of what we chose to do," Yorke concedes. "You can either get upset about it, or say, 'Well, that's not good enough.'"

It is a warm afternoon in New York, the day before the first Roseland concert, and Yorke – between sips of tea in a downtown hotel lobby – is recalling his Friday nights in college, working as a DJ while he was going for his bachelor's degree in art at Exeter. Radiohead were a part-time operation, writing songs and making demos under their original name, On a Friday, during the members' school breaks.

"I wasn't particularly good," Yorke says of his spinning, "because people were buying me drinks to get me to play what they wanted to hear. At the end of the night, I couldn't see the records." Yorke remembers mixing electro-dance tracks by a Belgian duo, Cubic 22, and the English trio 808 State with early Seattle grunge. He was especially keen on the way Manchester bands such as Happy Mondays and the Stone Roses were fusing Sixties psychedelia and British rave culture. "Which then stopped," Yorke complains. "Suddenly, guitars were the authentic way to go. We were a part of that."

Since OK Computer, Yorke has persistently fought to increase the distance between his band and customary rock instrumentation and record-making. "I talked about it endlessly while we were doing In Rainbows," he says. "It was a constant frustration that we were actually going the opposite way."

The King of Limbs is Yorke's student-DJ dream come true: rock fundamentals wholly transformed by electronics. The drum, bass and guitar parts are all samples, individually played by the members of Radiohead, then manipulated, looped and layered into tracks shaped by Yorke's reverie-like melodies and haiku-style lyrics. "Lotus Flower," "Codex" and "Give Up the Ghost" hover and throb more like suggestions than songs, exotic murmurs in no hurry to become declarative statements. "I can see why it's alienated people," Yorke says now of the album. "I didn't realize it was its own planet."

"We didn't want to pick up guitars and write chord sequences," Jonny says, sitting in a London cafe near Abbey Road Studios, where Radiohead made part of their second album, 1995's The Bends. "We didn't want to sit in front of a computer either. We wanted a third thing, which involved playing and programming." It was a long hunt: Radiohead worked on The King of Limbs in bursts from May 2009 to January 2011.

Readers' Poll: The 10 Best Radiohead Songs

Tall and shy, constantly sweeping a long curtain of black hair from his face, Jonny is the only member of Radiohead without a college degree; he left his studies in psychology and music at Oxford Polytechnic College when the group got its record deal in 1991. But he is arguably Radiohead's most gifted musician: a classically trained violist who also plays violin, cello and keyboards. Jonny also created the software program used to sample the instruments on The King of Limbs. "I was never happier," he says, "than when I was in my bedroom as a kid, working on rubbishy computer games.

"The brick walls we tended to hit," he adds, going back to the album, "were when we knew something was great, like 'Bloom,' but not finished. We knew the song was nearly something. Then Colin had that bass line, and Thom started singing. Those things suddenly made it a hundred times better. The other stuff was just waiting for the right thing."

"They are unlike any other band in the studio," says Godrich, who has worked on every album since OK Computer. "They could not record 'Bohemian Rhapsody,' because they don't have the attention span. If it's not happening straightaway, Thom gets confused. That's not his way."

Godrich cites one classic Radiohead song that was never finished in the studio, "True Love Waits," a popular concert ballad: "We tried to record it countless times, but it never worked. The irony is you have that shitty live version [on the 2001 mini-album, I Might Be Wrong]. To Thom's credit, he needs to feel a song has validation, that it has a reason to exist as a recording. We could do 'True Love Waits' and make it sound like John Mayer. Nobody wants to do that."

Radiohead did not support Limbs with an extensive tour last year for two reasons. One: "We thought it might not be playable," Jonny says. The other "was partly my fault," Yorke acknowledges. The album "released such a load of weird possibilities." He wanted to go right back into the studio, then decided against "carrying on in the same vein. We couldn't do that, we couldn't play live: 'Aw, shit, now what?'"

Deamer, 51, a veteran jazz and dance-music drummer who has also worked with Robert Plant, was the answer. "I've loved his drumming for ages," Selway says. "He seemed like the natural person to go to." In early 2011, the two started dissecting the new songs and deciding which of the many drum parts they could feasibly perform live. A year later, Selway is on the phone from Oxford after Radiohead's final day of tour rehearsals there: "Everything is wide open," the drummer declares in an ecstatic version of his soft, gentlemanly voice. "Seeing that dynamic between the six of us bearing fruit – we have started something. A lot of bands at this stage don't get that opportunity. Or they miss it when it's there."

But, Yorke says, "There is no way in hell we could have come up with what we're doing now, live, if we hadn't been sitting in front of turntables and samplers, piecing the record together in this method. There is no way it would have turned into this dynamic thing."

Asked which songs on The King of Limbs have changed most in performance, Yorke mentions "Lotus Flower." "With the two drummers it suddenly got nasty," he says. "I quite like it." And he agrees that "Give Up the Ghost" – a spare, repetitive ballad on the record – became something else at Roseland: a booming, circular prayer as Jonny sampled and manipulated Yorke's live vocal.

"You're sampling what the mic is taking from the room too," the singer explains. "It's getting the room back, again and again and again. What it's going to sound like in an arena. . ." Yorke's eyes go wide with delight. "I'd forgotten about that. It could be something."

On a cool midsummer evening in Oxford, Colin is strolling briskly to a pub in the old center of the city, noting historic sites along the way. He gestures at a narrow door leading into Modern Art Oxford, a prominent gallery. When they weren't playing together or in school, the young members of Radiohead hung out in the basement lounge, "talking forever, each of us over a single cup of coffee for five hours," Colin says.

Around the corner, he points to a store – part of Cult, a clothing chain – and notes with a bemused smile that Yorke worked in another local branch as a salesman. It is an improbable image: Yorke, a compact man of impatient energy and lethal irony, closing a deal on designer jeans.

Passing a phone booth, Colin remembers Radiohead's first, stumbling attempts to make records, before they got their EMI deal. "There was no e-mail or cellphones," the bassist says. "We'd find a call box, put money in it and call a studio." Once, when they asked how much a session cost, "the guy said, 'Nine hundred pounds.' We said, 'Thank you!' and hung up." Radiohead ultimately cut most of their first album, 1993's Pablo Honey, at a studio co-run by a producer who had worked with the Sixties-blues version of Fleetwood Mac.

Then there is the Bear Inn, a truly ancient pub (established 1242) with perilously low ceilings. Colin, an Oxford native, and Yorke – born in a small East Midlands town, Wellingborough, and raised for a time in Scotland – first met in their preteens. They were both taking classical-guitar lessons at Abingdon School, outside Oxford. At the Bear, the two managed to buy drinks even though they were underage and talked about their role models for the band they planned to form: New Order, Talking Heads and Yorke's favorite, R.E.M.

Over a pint of ale at a picnic table outside the Bear, Colin fondly recalls "that excitement of noise" at Radiohead's first local gigs, "when you play in a pub, borrowing some older guy's Fender bass cabinet and you've had four cans of lager to get your courage up. We did that for the first show we ever did. It was a 20-minute walk that way." He points down the street running behind the Bear, toward the Jericho Tavern. Radiohead made their concert debut there in 1986 under the name On a Friday, after their usual rehearsal day, when the members were all at Abingdon School. Selway, the oldest member, was 19; Jonny was not yet 15.

Later, standing outside a restaurant in a residential neighborhood, Colin notes another Radiohead shrine: the house near the corner of Magdalen Road and Ridgefield Road that Colin, Selway and O'Brien rented in the summer of 1991. The band stored its equipment there, and all five members lived there, in varying combinations, for about a year. "Good times," Colin says with a sigh, "although Jonny never did any of the washing up."

Selway characterizes that period as "good training for tour buses. There were piles of pizza boxes in the corner. It would get so unbearable that someone would have to do the cleaning. I was coming and going for most of the year. I seem to remember Colin moving into my room after I'd decorated it quite nicely."

Yorke arrived after he graduated from Exeter. "We would come back from gigs," he says, "and listen to the answering machine. There would be messages from 10 A&R men."

The Ridgefield Road house was the end of Radiohead's adolescence – the point at which they became a full-time band obsessed with their work and progression. Jonny describes one Christmas when he was still in high school and the others were home from college: "We rehearsed in some hall in town every day, including Christmas Eve. It was insane. There was no concept. We were working on songs for some nebulous future reason we had not clearly thought through.

"That's the kind of intense time we spend together," he says. "That's how it's always been. Our gang principally revolved around playing musical instruments, songs to talk about."

"I think that was when we wrote 'Creep,'" Yorke says when asked about that Christmas. "There are these periods when you get energized. You can't force yourself to hang out. But when we're working, when it's happening and it's all good, all that shit just occurs."

Yorke's aversion to the road surfaced early. So did his distaste for the play-the-game decorum expected of a major-label band. Manager Edge recounts "a famous gig" in Las Vegas "when we'd done some ridiculous routing because of the seeming lack of knowledge American promotion guys have of geography. We were doing a radio show, supporting Tears for Fears, and everyone was grumpy." During the show, "in a fit of pique," Yorke smashed half of the stage lights. Edge maintains that "the idea of him doing anything like that now is long gone."

But Yorke looks back on his not-much-younger self – particularly the tormented anti-star preserved in Meeting People Is Easy, the 1999 documentary of the OK Computer tour – without excuses. "I was bored," he states flatly, backstage in Miami, of his aggro-zombie aura in that film. "I loved that record. But the idea of being stuck with those songs for a year and a half, in the same form, no change, no nothing – I struggled with it. We'd finish a song, and I'd stand there, frozen.

"I understand now why we did all of those shows," Yorke confesses. "If we hadn't, we wouldn't be where we are. But I lost my nerve. We've been through different stages – that was a bad one."

"What's different about us," Jonny chimes in, "was that right from the beginning, our obsession was songs. As a byproduct, we tour now."

"It wasn't a bunch of mates" on Ridgefield Road, O'Brien observes, "more like a bunch of co-conspirators. We had this common goal. That's what it was all about, dreaming it up. All this stuff we have now – there was never any doubt it was going to happen. And it did, because the material world caught up.

"But I would say this – they are my brothers. Some of the others don't realize that. But we'll be at one another's funerals. We've been through this. We're family."

That is "a strength we don't really acknowledge to ourselves," Colin says. "We're far too English."

There is a physical side to it that I find interesting – the breath," Yorke says. He is trying to explain where he goes in his head and what he feels when he sings. "It's a meditative state, like standing in the tube station when the train is coming through. Things go past you – trains, people.

"It took me a few years to learn how to do it," he says of performing, during a breakfast interview in London last July. "Seeing people like Michael Stipe and Jeff Buckley – I realized it's a good place to go. It's OK to shut your eyes."

Later that day, Radiohead convene with Edge and Hufford to discuss touring in 2012. Afterward, O'Brien describes the meeting as "fraught." Yorke already sounds uneasy over his egg-white omelet: "The level of machinery freaks me out sometimes. You walk backstage, and there's people and stuff everywhere.

"We never wanted to be big," he says. "I don't want to be loved in that way. You can say it is selfish. You can also say this is someone who gets a kick out of what they do: trying to fuck with your head." Yorke enunciates the last phrase with relish.

"Because that's what it's all about," he continues, "casting the net wide, creating chaos and trusting something will come of it – not panicking, just going with the blind faith and all of these moving parts. This idea – where will the band be in five years? Fuck that. I'm just looking for little diamonds in the dust."

"Thom has the most acute bullshit detector in the band," O'Brien says, with awe, in Miami. "It's that balance – an intensely critical life, with an ability to feel, to have great intuition. We're not necessarily making the smartest business decisions. But we are following our intuition. It's about the art."

"This is a work in progress – that's the bit I like," Yorke confirms, just before that last practice. Then he says something else. "I was thinking, when I was on holiday recently – I've been doing this more than half my life." He pauses. "That's bonkers!" Yorke proclaims with an astonished laugh. "And it's cool. It's a job – and a good job.

"We actually need to get on a stage now and see where we're at," he declares, ready to play. "It's a large stage, and there will be a lot of people." There's more laughter. "But I've been told that's OK."

#radiohead #fitter hapier #rolling stone #2012 #1155 #how the most experimental band in music learned to rock again #david fricke #rolling stone magazine #magazine #april 26 2012 #april 26

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beardedmrbean · 2 years

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Iltalehti (siirryt toiseen palveluun) picked up on an interview President Sauli Niinistö had with news network Al Jazeera, with the outlet unsurprisingly asking him about Turkey stalling Finland's and Sweden's Nato ratification process.

"I'm not worried because 28 countries have now said that 'yes, you're capable of joining Nato and that we see that you're worthy of getting the Article 5 coverage,'" Niinsitö said, referring to the principle of collective defence.

When asked if Niinistö had a message for Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan, the Finnish president said, "it seems that a slight majority of people would like Turkey to ratify our membership, but in Erdogan's party the resistance is in the majority, so that gives you a hint of the domestic policies," Niinistö said of the suggestion that Erdoğan was playing to a domestic audience.

Niinistö also suggested that following Russia's invasion of Ukraine, hybrid threats have become a reality for Finland.

"Even though we were not expecting any military reactions from Russia, there might take place nasty things, and that's a game they know how to play," Niinistö said.

When asked to open up this comment, Niinistö said these things are "what the hybrid world includes—almost every possibility you can imagine."

Sabotage warning

Ilta-Sanomat (siirryt toiseen palveluun) carries a story on possible threats to energy infrastructure in Finland, as Russia's war of aggression in Ukraine continues.

The paper spoke with a source employed at an energy firm who said that sabotage is a possibility.

"I can't say how likely sabotage is, but I would say that I would not be at all surprised if sabotage happened during the winter," said the source.

The anonymous source said that the key factor was how quickly damage could be repaired, adding that companies are increasing security patrols and taking other precautionary measures, according to the paper.

Electricity substations, drones, disinformation, cyber attacks and issues relating to properties owned by Russians are all possible threats, the paper wrote.

Some properties owned by Russians are located very near critical infrastructure, according to the source, who wondered if their location was a coincidence or if they were selected to allow the owners or residents to conduct surveillance of energy infrastructure.

From the start of 2023 the law changes to allow property sales to be stopped if they threaten national security, but the law will not be applied retroactively.

Tuomas Rauhala from Fingrid, meanwhile, told IS that sabotage is possible but it makes little difference if the threat comes from people living next door to infrastructure or if they have to drive in from further afield.

He said that Finland's readiness is at a good level, compared to similar countries, and that Fingrid is continuing to improve its preparedness.

Forbidden carry-on 'loggage'

Airline personnel at Kajaani Airport prevented Finance Minister Annika Saarikko (Cen) from bringing a bag of firewood onboard her flight destined for Oripää, reports Hufvudstadsbladet (siirryt toiseen palveluun).

The Centre Party chair said the wood confounded Finnair's gate personnel. After consulting their security manuals, staff said that she was not permitted to bring the logs on as carry-on luggage as they constituted a security threat.

HBL noted that demand for firewood has risen amid rising electricity prices.

#nunyas news #updates from up north

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thegazete24 · 2 months

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How to go from Istanbul airport to the city

The new hub of Turkish Airlines and the main international airport serving Istanbul in Turkey was officially opened on October 31st 2018, when the …How to go from Istanbul airport to the city

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kirkpatricksnedker84 · 2 months

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Guide To The 5 Best Hotels In Miami

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phonemantra-blog · 3 months

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Turkish Airlines, the global airline with the most extensive network of destinations, has expanded its reach to the sixth continent by launching its first-ever route to Australia. Marking a significant milestone for the airline, this new gateway strengthens its global connectivity and opens doors for increased travel and cultural exchange between Turkey and Australia. Connecting Cultures and Continents: Turkish Airlines Lands in Melbourne Date: March 4, 2024 Route: Istanbul (IST) - Singapore (SIN) - Melbourne (MEL) Frequency: Three weekly flights Aircraft: Modern fleet of 450 aircraft Following its inaugural flight on March 4, 2024, Turkish Airlines will now offer three weekly flights between Istanbul, Turkey, and Melbourne, Australia. This makes Turkish Airlines the only European airline currently serving Melbourne, the capital of Victoria and Australia's second-most populous city. Passengers flying on this route will experience the comfort and convenience of Turkish Airlines' modern fleet, currently boasting a remarkable 450 aircraft. The flights will operate via Singapore Changi International Airport (SIN), offering a seamless connection for passengers traveling between the two continents. Beyond Tourism: Boosting Trade and Cultural Exchange The launch of this new route is expected to have a positive impact on trade and tourism between Turkey and Australia. By transporting thousands of passengers annually, Turkish Airlines aims to facilitate cultural exchange and strengthen economic ties between the two nations. Australian officials also welcomed the arrival of Turkish Airlines, recognizing its potential benefits: Natalie Hutchins, Minister for Jobs and Industry, Victoria: "Victoria is home to Australia's largest Türkiye-born community... We look forward to creating easier connections for this community and boosting tourism with the arrival of Turkish Airlines." Lorie Argus, CEO, Melbourne Airport: "Turkish Airlines has an extensive network and flies to more countries than any other airline... Increased competition helps put downward pressure on prices, which will ensure Victorian residents and businesses can stay connected... Melbourne is proudly home to the largest Turkish population in Australia, so we expect these flights will prove particularly popular." A Gateway to Global Exploration: Exploring the Benefits for Travelers Travelers can now benefit from increased travel options and potentially competitive prices with the entry of Turkish Airlines into the Australian market. Additionally, this new route offers: Convenient connections: Passengers can enjoy a seamless travel experience with a single stopover in Singapore. Extensive network: Connecting to Melbourne opens up access to Turkish Airlines' vast network of destinations across six continents. Modern fleet: Passengers can expect a comfortable and enjoyable journey aboard Turkish Airlines' modern aircraft. Frequently Asked Questions (FAQs): Q: When did Turkish Airlines launch its first flight to Australia? A: Turkish Airlines launched its first flight to Australia on March 4, 2024. Q: What is the route of the new service? A: The new service operates from Istanbul (IST) to Melbourne (MEL) with a stopover in Singapore (SIN). Q: How often does Turkish Airlines fly between Istanbul and Melbourne? A: Turkish Airlines currently offers three weekly flights between Istanbul and Melbourne. Q: What type of aircraft will be used for this route? A: Turkish Airlines will utilize its modern fleet of aircraft for this route. Q: What are the expected benefits of this new route? A: The new route is expected to boost trade and tourism between Turkey and Australia, offer more travel options for passengers, and potentially lower airfares due to increased competition.

#airlineexpansion #AviationNews #culturalexchange.#globalconnectivity #IstanbultoMelbourne #Melbourneflights #traveltoAustralia #TurkishAirlinesAustralia #TurkishAirlinesfleet #TurkishAirlinesTakesFlightinAustralia

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bookviaus · 5 months

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Conquering the best cost-effective booking deals with Cheap Flights to India from the USA

India, the land of vibrant spices, ancient wonders, and bustling metropolises, has a siren song that resonates in the soul of every traveler. But for those in the USA, the journey across the globe can seem daunting, often overshadowed by the myth of sky-high flight prices. Fear not, wanderlust-stricken friend, for this microblog unveils the secrets to nabbing cheap flights to India from the USA, transforming your dream trip into a reality.

Unveiling the Treasure Map: When to Book Your Indian Odyssey

Monsoon Magic (June to August): Embrace the rhythmic downpours with discounted fares, perfect for budget-conscious explorers.

Festival Frenzy (October to November): Immerse yourself in the dazzling lights of Diwali or witness Dussehra's epic parades, but book early - demand and prices soar during these joyous seasons.

Shoulder Season Serenity (September to October, March to May): Escape the peak crowds and revel in pleasant weather while prices dip, offering a sweet spot for value and tranquility.

Choosing Your Chariot: Airlines That Take You Beyond the Clouds

Direct Delights: Airlines like Air India, United, and Delta offer non-stop comfort from major US hubs to Delhi and Mumbai, ideal for those seeking speed and convenience.

Gulf Gateways: Emirates, Qatar, and Etihad provide luxurious layovers in Dubai, Doha, or Abu Dhabi, perfect for breaking up the journey and adding a touch of extravagance.

Budget Beacons: Consider airlines like Saudia, Turkish Airlines, and Sri Lankan Airlines for value-driven options with convenient connections, proving that affordability doesn't mean sacrificing comfort.

Pro-Tips for Booking Nirvana: Mastering the Art of the Deal

Flexibility is Key: Be open to adjusting travel dates and airports by a few days or weeks, as slight shifts can unlock significant savings.

Midweek Magic: Tuesdays and Wednesdays often reveal hidden discounts compared to weekend travel, making them prime days to pounce on deals.

Incognito Advantage: Browse flights in incognito mode – airlines sometimes adjust prices based on browsing history, making this a sneaky trick for potentially lower fares.

Fare Tracker Frenzy: Utilize tools like Google Flights and Kayak to monitor price fluctuations and set alerts for your desired route, ensuring you snag the best deals as they emerge.

Airline Alliance Loyalty: Joining an airline alliance (Star Alliance, Oneworld, SkyTeam) can unlock benefits like shared lounges, priority boarding, and occasional upgrades, enhancing your travel experience even on budget flights.

Bonus Round: Unlocking Treasure Chests of Exclusive Deals

Student Savvy: Many airlines offer discounted fares for students with valid IDs, making India an accessible adventure for young backpackers.

Senior Season Perks: Airlines and travel agencies sometimes cater to seniors with special rates, proving that age is just a number when exploring the world.

Group Getaways: Traveling with friends or family? Bundle your flights for potential discounts, making India a budget-friendly option for shared adventures.

Credit Card Connoisseurship: Some credit cards offer travel rewards or points that can be redeemed for flights, turning everyday purchases into fuel for your Indian odyssey.

Beyond the Booking: Pro-Tips for a Budget-Friendly Indian Adventure

Accommodation Alchemy: Hostels and homestays offer affordable comfort.

Local Eats Delights: Ditch the fancy restaurants and embrace the vibrant street food scene, where delicious meals cost a fraction of the price.

Public Transport Prowess: Master the art of navigating India's extensive bus and train networks, offering an immersive experience and significant savings compared to taxis.

Free Experiences Bounty: India is rich in free or low-cost attractions, from ancient temples to bustling markets, ensuring your cultural immersion.

With these secrets in your arsenal, conquering the cost of flights to India from USA becomes a thrilling experience. Remember, flexibility, patience, and a dash of pro-tip magic are your keys to unlocking an unforgettable Indian odyssey. So, pack your bags, adventurous soul, for the land of Taj Mahals and masala magic awaits!

#cheap flights #flight booking #international flight booking site #flight tickets #air ticket booking #bookviaus #flightdeals #internationalflight #flights to india #flights to India from USA

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wikiuntamed · 7 months

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On this day in Wikipedia: Sunday, 29th October

Welcome, Benvenuta, Bienvenue, Dzień dobry 🤗 What does @Wikipedia say about 29th October through the years 🏛️📜🗓️?

29th October 2022 🗓️ : Event - October 2022 Mogadishu bombings At least 100 people are killed and over 300 are injured by a double car bombing in Mogadishu, Somalia. "On 29 October 2022, 121 people were killed and over 300 were injured by a double car bombing in Somalia's capital, Mogadishu. President Hassan Sheikh Mohamud accused Sunni jihadist group al-Shabaab of carrying out the attacks, which they admitted. The bombing marks the deadliest attack in Somalia..."

Image by VOA

29th October 2018 🗓️ : Event - Boeing 737 MAX A Boeing 737 MAX plane crashes after taking off from Jakarta, Indonesia killing 189 people on board. "The Boeing 737 MAX is the fourth generation of the Boeing 737, a narrow-body airliner manufactured by Boeing Commercial Airplanes (BCA), a division of American company Boeing. It succeeds the Boeing 737 Next Generation (NG) and competes with the Airbus A320neo family. The new series was announced on..."

Image licensed under CC BY-SA 2.0? by LLBG Spotter

29th October 2013 🗓️ : Event - Marmaray The first phase of the Marmaray project opened with an undersea rail tunnel (train pictured) across the Bosphorus strait. "Marmaray (pronounced [ˈmarmaraj] ) is a 76.6-kilometre-long (47.6 mi) long intercontinental commuter rail line located in Istanbul, Turkey. The line runs from Halkalı, on the European side, to Gebze, on the Asian side, along the north shore of the Sea of Marmara. Mostly using the right-of-way of two..."

Image by Marmaray

29th October 1973 🗓️ : Birth - Robert Pires Robert Pires, French footballer "Robert Emmanuel Pires (born 29 October 1973) is a French football coach and former professional player. He is widely considered as one of Arsenal's greatest ever players.Pires played for French clubs Metz and Marseille prior to his time with Arsenal, where he won three FA Cups and two Premier League..."

Image licensed under CC BY 2.0? by Doha Stadium Plus Qatar

29th October 1923 🗓️ : Event - Republic Day (Turkey) Turkey becomes a republic following the dissolution of the Ottoman Empire. "Republic Day (Turkish: Cumhuriyet Bayramı) is a public holiday in Türkiye commemorating the proclamation of the Republic of Türkiye, on 29 October 1923. The annual celebrations start at 1:00 pm on 28 October and continue for 35 hours...."

Image licensed under CC BY-SA 3.0? by The original uploader was Nightstallion03 at English Wikipedia.

29th October 1822 🗓️ : Birth - Mieczysław Halka-Ledóchowski Mieczysław Halka-Ledóchowski, Russian-Polish cardinal (d. 1902) "Mieczysław Halka-Ledóchowski (IPA: /mʲɛˈtʂɨswaf ˈxalka lɛduˈxɔfski/), (29 October 1822 – 22 July 1902) was born in Górki (near Sandomierz) in Russian-controlled Congress Poland to Count Josef Ledóchowski and Maria Zakrzewska. He was uncle to Saint Ursula Ledóchowska, the Blessed Maria Teresia..."

Image by Unknown authorUnknown author (Anonymous plate)

29th October 🗓️ : Holiday - Christian feast day: Michele Rua "Michele Rua (English: Michael Rua; 9 June 1837 – 6 April 1910) was an Italian Catholic priest and professed member of the Salesians of Don Bosco. Rua was a student under Don Bosco and was also the latter's first collaborator in the order's founding as well as one of his closest friends. He served as..."

Image by Unknown authorUnknown author

#OnThisDayInWikiHistory #WikiUntamed #WhatDoesWikiSay #WikiExplorer

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brookstonalmanac · 4 months

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Events 2.25

138 – Roman emperor Hadrian adopts Antoninus Pius as his son, effectively making him his successor. 628 – Khosrow II, the last great Shah of the Sasanian Empire (Iran), is overthrown by his son Kavadh II. 1336 – Four thousand defenders of Pilenai commit mass suicide rather than be taken captive by the Teutonic Knights. 1705 – George Frideric Handel's opera Nero premiered in Hamburg. 1836 – Samuel Colt is granted a United States patent for his revolver firearm. 1843 – Lord George Paulet occupies the Kingdom of Hawaii in the name of Great Britain in the Paulet affair. 1870 – Hiram Rhodes Revels, a Republican from Mississippi, is sworn into the United States Senate, becoming the first African American ever to sit in Congress. 1875 – Guangxu Emperor of Qing dynasty China begins his reign, under Empress Dowager Cixi's regency. 1912 – Marie-Adélaïde, the eldest of six daughters of Guillaume IV, becomes the first reigning Grand Duchess of Luxembourg. 1916 – World War I: In the Ble of Verdun, a German unit captures Fort Douaumont, keystone of the French defences, without a fight.[9] 1918 – World War I: German forces capture Tallinn to virtually complete the occupation of Estonia. 1921 – Georgian capital Tbilisi falls to the invading Russian forces after heavy fighting and the Russians declare the Georgian Soviet Socialist Republic. 1932 – Adolf Hitler, having been stateless for seven years, obtains German citizenship when he is appointed a Brunswick state official by Dietrich Klagges, a fellow Nazi. As a result, Hitler is able to run for Reichspräsident in the 1932 election. 1933 – Launch of the USS Ranger at Newport News, Virginia. It is the first purpose-built aircraft carrier to be commissioned by the US Navy. 1939 – As part of British air raid precautions, the first of 2.5 million Anderson shelters is constructed in a garden in Islington, north London. 1941 – The outlawed Communist Party of the Netherlands organises a general strike in German-occupied Amsterdam to protest against Nazi persecution of Dutch Jews. 1947 – The formal abolition of Prussia is proclaimed by the Allied Control Council, the Prussian government having already been abolished by the Preußenschlag of 1932. 1947 – Soviet NKVD forces in Hungary abduct Béla Kovács—secretary-general of the majority Independent Smallholders' Party—and deport him to the USSR in defiance of Parliament. His arrest is an important turning point in the Communist takeover of Hungary. 1948 – In a coup d'état led by Klement Gottwald, the Communist Party of Czechoslovakia takes control of government in Prague to end the Third Czechoslovak Republic. 1951 – The first Pan American Games are officially opened in Buenos Aires by Argentine President Juan Perón. 1956 – In his speech On the Cult of Personality and Its Consequences, Nikita Khrushchev, leader of the Soviet Union, denounces Stalin. 1980 – The government of Suriname is overthrown by a military coup led by Dési Bouterse. 1986 – People Power Revolution: President of the Philippines Ferdinand Marcos flees the nation after 20 years of rule; Corazon Aquino becomes the Philippines' first female president. 1991 – Disbandment of the Warsaw Pact at a meeting of its members in Budapest. 1994 – American-Israeli extremist Baruch Goldstein commits a mass shooting at the Cave of the Patriarchs mausoleum, leaving 29 dead and over 100 injured before he was disarmed and beaten to death by survivors. 1999 – Alitalia Flight 1553 crashes at Genoa Cristoforo Colombo Airport in Genoa, Italy, killing four. 2009 – Soldiers of the Bangladesh Rifles mutiny at their headquarters in Pilkhana, Dhaka, Bangladesh, resulting in 74 deaths, including 57 army officials. 2009 – Turkish Airlines Flight 1951 crashed during landing at the Amsterdam Schiphol Airport, Netherlands, primarily due to a faulty radio altimeter, resulting in the death of nine passengers and crew including all three pilots. 2015 – At least 310 people are killed in avalanches in northeastern Afghanistan.

#Events

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kirukkals · 10 months

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Winter 2022 - Germany & more!

We had been wanting a holiday, a white christmas holiday and we got one. An unexpected work-related trip to Germany, and we grabbed the chance.

December 1st, 2022.

We boarded the Turkish airlines in Dubai and landed in Zurich. This was our second time in Switzerland, and our previous trip was in 2015 with our friend's family. We had been longing to come back. We didn't cover Zurich then, so ya, same country, but new city and this time during winter ! COLD! REALLY COLD! Ok, so it is not just Switzerland again. Our agenda was completely different. Read on…

A few days earlier...

Venkat calls mid day from work to tell me he has a business meeting in Frankfurt, Germany, during the 1st week of December. And as expected, my reaction was, yeaahhh.. I'm packing up.

We had been planning Germany for the past 4 years, and somehow it kept getting delayed - visa renewal, then we booked on a Russian airline for March 2020 & covid travel ban happened. When everything opened up, we didn't expect the Ukraine war, and Russian airlines were banned over EU airspace, so our Germany trip was far-fetched. Finally, it looked like it was time.

And I have to say, we were indeed very lucky to get a schengen visa appointment on such short notice. We quickly booked our tickets to the cheapest available option, which was Zurich, readied our papers for the visa process, and prayed a lot. It was all in a matter of 7 days, and when we received the visa sticker on our passport, we could already see snow.

We planned Switzerland & Germany, maybe the Netherlands if time permits. We never thought we would end up doing 7 countries in Europe in 13 days !

We decided to use the trains only for this trip, no self driving. Just mid the same year, we did a cross country drive in the Balkans. That goes in another blog for another day. So, let me stick to these 13 days now. We got a blast of a deal on the 10 day Global train pass over Black Friday sale, which can be used for most Schengen countries.

December 1st, 2022.

Zurich, Switzerland - Country 1.

We landed around 10.15 am. in Zurich. We were welcome to a 5 degree celsius kind of weather straight from a 25 degree in Dubai. As we stepped out of the airport to the train station, we realised the 2 layer clothing that we had would not be sufficient for the days to come. We took a train to our hotel Ibis. This is a really, really expensive country, and a triple room always costs more. A few years back, we had decided no more IBIS Budget, the room is always so small and the bathrooms… omg! Not again ! It was a transparent glass door for the shower with a translucent patch exactly where needed, not an inch higher or an inch lower. Separate toilet with proper door, but no lock. That is ok, but glass door for bath, and we travel with our girl (always!) She is 12 now! So, we pulled out the bedspread and hung it along the height of the door, creating the cover we needed, the first thing that we did after landing in Switzerland !!!

Evening, we went for a stroll to Lindenhof, and it ended up to be a hike, actually. The view from the top was spectacular. Being winter, no crowds at all. It was around 8 to 10 degrees celsius. And this time, we were prepared with jackets, gloves, snow boots, and all ready to take on the winter. So we assumed.

December 2nd, 2022.

Vaduz, Liechtenstein - Country 2.

Day 2, we decided to visit one of the smallest countries in the world, Liechtenstein. From Zurich, we took a train to Sargans and from there a bus to Vaduz, about 1.5 hrs for the total trip. Vaduz is one of the most beautiful, picture perfect little towns I would say. The castle towers over the entire place. The Prince of the country still lives there (lucky him!!), so the castle is not open for tourists. We just walked around the main town area for a few hours - castle, church, shops - beautiful & calm place. Definitely one of the richest in the world. We bought the smallest magnet to identify with the size of the country. We treated ourselves to a nice cup of Srilankan chai in the evening.

Evening we headed back to Zurich, to the Rapperswil, where the Christmas Market was put up. What a contrast to the calm Vaduz, it was buzzing with activity and lights, people laughing & drinking all the way! Zurich Lake is huge, and sunset was such a beautiful sight to watch! Temperature always starts to drop drastically after 5 p.m., and all around us, people are either smoking or holding a beer mug! We were the ones drinking hot chocolate and standing in front of the fireplace for some warmth.

Overall, it was a brilliant start to a much wanted vacation.

December 3rd, 2022.

Frankfurt, Germany - Country 3.

Here we come, Germany, finally ! Took the train from Zurich, about 4 hrs. As we entered Germany, the landscape changed visibly. You may call I am biased towards Switzerland, yes, I am, but still, I didn't find any beauty in the German landscape, not just yet. Just factories, lots of them, and more crowds everywhere.

Frankfurt, especially near the main station, where we stayed, was so crowded. You can see all kinds of people, immigrants, office goers, students, all busy running around, the place is not so clean, seemingly shady street corners, such a contrast from the neighbouring Switzerland, which was so neat, posh & calm. Frankfurt is a bustling business centre. We stayed in a place called Hotel Apollo, which had a big room, decent accommodation. The best part near where we stayed was Hotel Saravana Bhavan! What a blessing! And the train station connectivity helped us move around. We spent 6 nights in this place.

Christmas Markets in Germany are definitely quite famous and rightly so. It was ten, twenty, thirty times bigger than what we saw in Zurich! It was like a whole city in itself. The old town area was lit up in the evening, and the place was crowded like a music concert party ! We had to push through every street, like how we used to do in Ranganathan street, T.nagar during Diwali times! All Chennaiits can relate to this ! We had the famous kinderpunsch drink, tried the chocolates and pastries, so many small stalls, all handmade dolls, arty stuff and all so beautiful ! We walked and walked and that was the only day we were out late in the night I guess, for a long time despite the freezing cold ! (Temperature was 4 degrees or even less)

December 4th, 2022.

Black Forest, Germany.

My great friend from TCS days, Sara, lives in Germany. We met as a family in Baden-Baden and they took us for a drive to the Black Forest area. First, to the world famous cuckoo clocks in Triberg. What an amazing collection ! All handmade, authentic & beautiful wood art, 1000+ cuckoo clocks! Cost ranges from 50 Euros to over 1000 Euros! And yes, of course, we bought one for our home and to this day, our cuckoo coos beautifully, every hour.

We then went to the Triberg waterfalls and then the lake. Such a beautiful day, the weather was perfect, still very cold, but we did cope quite well. And we also managed to find an Indian restaurant, Rangoli, to have hot food in the middle of nowhere! An entire day spent with friends in such a lovely setting, is definitely unforgettable. Thanks to Sara & Mani for that !

December 5th, 2022.

Luxembourg - Country 4.

This country is a hidden beauty amidst Germany, Belgium & France. It takes about 5 hrs one way to reach from Frankfurt. We started early, so we could spend about 5 to 6 hrs in Luxembourg. All public transport is free here, people look cheerful & wealthy, yet another rich, well developed and maintained country. We walked to the main square, Grand palace, Notre-Dame, Christmas themes all around. We just had time to go to the town center where the mini Christmas market was warming up to welcome the crowds for the evening. We didn’t really have any agenda or particular places to cover, so we relaxed to take in the beautiful scenery around us.

Trams were crowded with university students in the evening, I in fact got left behind while boarding one, didn't have any money or mobile with me, but got into the next one quickly & I knew the stop to get down. Well, my husband's plan of leaving me behind didn't really work, haha! What a lovely place anyways to be left behind!

December 6th, 2022.

Brussels, Belgium - Country 5.

We boarded the train from Frankfurt morning, about 3 hrs to Brussels. Beautiful blue skies, amazing weather, (by this time, 7 or 8 degrees was actually pleasant for us), We indulged in Belgian chocolates, a must do thing. What a huge town square, architecture was especially notable in these buildings !!! Columns & Pillars in the Grand Palace were particularly intricate. Old style European architecture was all around, and we actually like such places. We visited the chocolate factory, but really, not worth all that hype. Think of it now, maybe we visited to escape the cold outside. Cadbury chocolate factory in the UK was actually much better and fun for kids & adults.

Unlike Luxembourg, Brussels was quite crowded and a big city, too. And yes, the most famous Mannekin Pis in Brussels! The story is that a little boy saved the city from dangerous fire by pissing on it. And so, there is this bronze statue in the city center, which shows a naked little boy pissing and creating a fountain. This is being decorated all through the year, some even worship, thousands of tourists visit to take pics, we did too. And the entire city had souvenirs showcasing this Mannekin Pis. So, later in the day, we headed back to Frankfurt after a stroll in the park.

December 7th, 2022.

Frankfurt, Germany.

Oh yes, I did tell you all that Venkat had a conference, it was today ! So, here comes our Mom & Girl day out. We went to the Christmas Market again and got some little cute stuff for the upcoming dad’s birthday. We strolled by the lake side, went to Eiserner Steg, the Iron Footbridge. And what is the obsession about hanging those lovelocks in the European bridges?!! Every place we have been to, we have seen this! May all the love flourish! We were just out a few hours without our man, it actually does get boring after a while.

December 8th, 2022.

Cologne, Germany.

Day 2 of the conference, but thankfully it got over soon. We could visit Cologne, and the most popular Cathedral there. If Frankfurt was crowded, Cologne looked nothing less, we visited in the evening, and the place was lit up totally. The Cathedral with its Gothic Architecture, alongside the Rhine River and the bridge, looks majestic in the evening lights. We were basking in the glory of the train journeys by now. All trains were neat and clean, had a coffee shop and ran nearly on time. Using the rail pass was a breeze.

December 9th, 2022.

Amsterdam, Netherlands - Country 6.

If Frankfurt Hauptbahnhof is a very huge and busy train station, Amsterdam Central is equally big and very impressive. Of course, I like Switzerland trains and stations better, but Amsterdam follows closely. About 4.5 hrs from Frankfurt and we checked into Hotel Koopermoolen. The entire trip being train journeys and mostly exploring the city center by foot, we made sure all our accommodation was very near to the main station. We headed out immediately after dropping our bags, and I have to tell you, we felt the real cold from here actually. We had headed up north from Zurich. Temperature was around 4 degrees at noon! We started wearing layered clothing, woollen, 2 jackets, gloves, scarves, exposing only our eyes!

Amsterdam is known as the “Venice of the North'' and rightly so. The city center, the picturesque canals and those vibrant buildings all around, it has a definite charm. We walked to the Anne Frank house, unfortunately, didn’t know we had to book in advance, didn’t expect such a big queue there, all slots were fully booked for the next 2 days. We had to settle looking from just outside. Having read the Anne Frank Diary, it was disappointing not to visit the house, maybe some other time. And the Netherlands is definitely worth visiting more than once.

With Christmas around the corner, nightlife was extremely radiant and festive. My cousin Pavi & family live in Amsterdam. We met them for dinner, and they took us to a lovely Indian restaurant, Pind Punjabi. Food was yumm and we all needed the hot food and the warm indoors. Thank you Pavi & Karthik!

December 10th, 2022.

Zaanse Schans, Netherlands.

What is a visit to the Netherlands worth without seeing the windmills?! I have always wondered if those windmills will look really like the ones I have read in books about. The countryside, toy town look is what all those illustrations show. We went to Zaanse Schans along with our cousin's family.

What a cold, foggy morning it was ! About 1 degree, it also started snowing lightly. This place recreates the look of an 18th/19th century village. It is a residential area, though so many tourists visit all around the year, there is a sense of calm and peace. And after a few kms walk, we could see the first of the windmills, the fans of which cut through the thick fog. What a sight ! I don’t know what attracts me to those wooden mills, but true to the stories i have read, I was indeed taken back in time. The walk across the bridge on the river Zaan while it was snowing was magical. Then we saw those colourful wooden mills, all in a row, and most of them were still running. They are used for making chocolates now, house a restaurant or coffee shop and sell souvenirs. This place is a must visit for all those going to the Netherlands.

We had a train to catch at 3 pm to go to Hamburg, so had to say bye to my cousins as well as the mesmerising Zaanse Schans.

December 11th, 2022.

Hamburg, Germany.

We reached Hamburg the previous night, around 8 pm. Stayed at Hotel Novum for a night. And this hotel was actually very good, bang on the road, right opposite the station and a spacious room too. Went to Hotel Saravana Bhavan for dinner. What a blessing that we found this place nearby wherever we went on this trip. Now, the prime reason we had been planning to visit Germany for many years was actually for this - to visit the famous Hamburg Model Railroad museum. Not many are aware of this, but here is one of the largest miniature railroad museums in the world. Model railroading is a popular hobby in Europe, US & Canada, and because we follow it too, this was a must visit place on our list. To give a brief, modellers collect model trains, build a landscape for the trains to pass through, all in reduced scale. The landscape can be imagined or recreate some city or village as a miniature model.

Morning we quickly got ready and headed out to the museum. We have to book tickets in advance and book our time slots too. Definitely the place kept up to its name and fame. Various regions around the world have been recreated on a small scale. And once into that magic, one won’t realise it is a miniature world. If the Switzerland snow mountain is the theme, it includes the scenery, the train tracks all around the mountains, people hiking, all the snow games, the lights changing to show day & night set up and so on. What precise details !!! Lots to learn from every model that was there. I won’t delve more here, we spent more than half a day there, and worth every minute.

Caught an evening train to Munich, long journey, about 6 hrs. Reached our hotel, Amba, around midnight.

December 12th, 2022.

Innsbruck, Austria.

As I mentioned earlier, when we started this journey, we thought we would go to Switzerland, Germany and maybe the Netherlands. After getting the Global train pass, from Frankfurt we quickly did the neighbouring countries. Nothing planned ahead. But this last day plan of visiting Austria came all of a sudden, and we thought, why not! Was debating whether to take Munich to Innsbruck train or to take Munich to Salzburg train. And Innsbruck it was, all for the good.

It had been snowing heavily last night, and we stepped on thick snow mid day as we got out of the train. Weather was minus 9 degrees, it was freezing and sunny at the same time. The sight of snow capped mountains with the scattered clouds across the bright blue skies stays in the memory even today. Entire city center was neatly planned, roads parallel & perpendicular, all leading to the mountains. Amazing landscapes, we had a much deserving hot lunch buffet at an Indian restaurant, Masala, roamed around more till we could no longer stand the cold. We headed back to Munich later in the evening.

December 13th, 2022.

Munich, Germany.

Our last day for this trip, we had our flight in the afternoon to Dubai. In Munich, it was Marienplatz, the town centre and the architecture is known for its centuries old buildings. Lots of history to be explored, but as tourists, time flies in Europe, we always never get enough.

At the airport, we had another no boarding episode. After covid times, this is becoming quite too often, at least for us! Turkish airlines most likely overbooked passengers, they wouldn’t admit that, would they?! We thought our web check-in was complete, they just said you cannot board, please go to the ticketing office, which was right opposite. There, they requested if we are ok to take the Emirates, direct flight to Dubai instead of Turkey layover. Oh yes, that is an upgrade and definitely a bonus for us after a lovely 13-day trip. So took the ever so comfortable Emirates and landed in Dubai the same night.

More magnets were added to our fridge and more European memories !

As we look back now, it’s amazing to realise how well the Schengen states are connected. We travelled 7 countries, 3300 km, hopped on and off 36 trains, and did not feel tired. In fact, it has only left us wanting more.

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