Jumble market at Pune Club.

Here is what Olive Soap and Such looked like at Pune Club MArket . Next to "Thats Why" by friend Amruta!  Super talented artist.

Cruising along the Norwegian Coast!

My first cruise! The MSC Magnifica was built to impress... and it did!!! Or was it just my first cruise? Its a glorious ship, painted blindingly white with navy blue. Inside, it's all  polished brass, plush carpeting, sparkly gilt inlaid floors, smiling, well turned out staff and  huge plate glass windows looking out onto dark blue sunlit seas. here 's a pic. This was in one of the fjiords in Norway... but I am jumping the gun!!
We started our cruise in Copenhagen.. didnt exepct to see the  sights almost along one main road! With the size of our cities I had forgotten how compact european ones are!
Sparsely populated except along the wharf where tourists abound.. about as many as we would find on a weekday morning on Mains! Our pakistani taxi driver took us for a ride.. literally, on the pretext of showing us the hotspots. Magnica was waiting at the quay side. Magnificent!
Major occupation on board seems to be eating and drinking and lying about in the open air hot tub jacuzzis. Even though the weather was cold and breezy, americans, russians and australians lay about in blubbery pink splendour with bikinied children leaping and shrieking in the pool and bored teenagers hanging about the gaming room. Best views were from the top deck, even though it was blowing a bit. The Danes were busy sailing pretty white craft, and surfing with a wing! You could see they were enjoying their "warm" sunny weekend!

Off the German coast.
A cruise is a lazy man's holiday.. you watch coastlines and towns float by, sail under beautiful lit up bridges at night and watch other cruise ships in the distance. The seagulls and sometimes a pod of dolphins keep the ship company while everyone eats themselves sick!
 Early one morning I pulled the curtains apart to be gobsmacked with a  VIEW! Outside the cabin was a sheer mountain face, heavily wooded with foaming waterfalls and a thin ribbon of a highway clinging to the hillside which disappeared into a tunnel.... the little town of Flam, (Flom) with four boathouses stuck to the quay, and our huge ship had mosied into the fjiord right up to the coast! I couldnt help wondering how deep that fjiord was!

The waters are dark, cold, clean, clean, clean and where its shallow one can see every pebble at the bottom!

Sailing out at sunset

 

 Gingerbread house!

 Our ship!

 Oslo

 Old cheese making equipment, a village thriving due to their goat cheese.

 Kiel, Germany.

 Old style housing,

 Ice age glaciers carved this out!

 Viking~

 Sailing under bridges,

Let the pictures speak!

The Scandinavians do something right.. they have small housing and small, efficient cities and leave their open spaces wide open, clean and green! As it should be.