Sunday, January 28, 2007

Visited Countries

The fabulous people at World 66 have created a fun tool that lets you map out how many countries you have visited and which percentage of the world is that. I have visited 23 countries, which is 10% (actually I will actually be visiting South Africa in March, but I figured it would be OK to add it now - hope its not cheating). More than some, less than others. But still not bad considering I'm a puertorican from an average family.


create your own visited country map

In this day and age of globalization, I think we forget sometimes just how big the world has a:
Surface area: 510,065,600 km²
Land area: 148,939,100 km² (29.2 %)
Water area: 361,126,400 km² (70.8 %)

That it is composed of:
As of late 2006, the world population reached 6.5 billion.[1]. These are grouped into racial and ethnic groups often classified along linguistic lines: Ethnologue lists about 7,330 main languages in its language name index and distinguishes about 39,491 alternate language names and dialects.

So where does globalization fit into this picture. I for one, just want to try to explore it all, see it all, experience it all before I run out of time. It's a big world outhere.

Friday, January 26, 2007

Back-Blog: Lakme Fashion Week Spring/Summer

I've been meaning to post these pics forever, but I always found some excuse. So FINALLY...

Last Oct/Nov my friends Dev r Nil showcased their S/S '07 collection during Lakme Fashion Week in Mumbai to much acclaim (they even got nominated to have a runaway show in Sydney Fashion week!). I wasn't able to be there all of the time, but Ankur was and he took some great behindthe scenes pics.




















Wednesday, January 24, 2007

Goa

I HAD to go to Goa for work. Poor me. Actually I was running the last of my 4 skills building workshops (this topic was Documentation and Reporting - to which I recruited the ever lovely Deepti to co-train with me). And I figured since it's the last one, we might as well splurge a little - and I do mean little!

We stayed at this ghetto'esque (We were drowning in white thrash Russians) place in the middle of no where. The closest real town was Panjim and that was 30 minutes away.

This was my first time in Goa, and I was looking forward to it. It has a lot of hype after all. But like most things that people can't talk enough about. It wasn't all that. Is it me all do all colonial, christian, coastal, tropical towns look a like?

Anywho, at least I got to scratch it off my "places I must visit list" and I did get to get some fresh air and clear skies for a a couple of days (and did I mention the couple of massages and the facial at the spa?). So it wasn't a total loss :-)

Dinner with the Funders/DFID (with Deepti and I behind them)
The resort (the place itself wasn't that bad, but the service SUCKED!)


I did manage to get a bit of touring done - To Panjim at least and Old Goa
St. Francis Xavier Church





Church Of Bom Jesus
St. Francis himself!

OMG They Have Panapen in India!
(I think it's called breadfruit in English - but I thought it was a Caribbean thing!)
Pretty Church in Panjim
(if you hadn't guessed by now, Goa was a Catholic colony from the Portuguese)
Panjim Vista


Calingute Beach, North Goa - Highly Overrated
Dinner with the Humsafar Crew

Wednesday, January 17, 2007

Spain Pics

Here are a few of the tourist pics that Ameet (as opposed to the artistic ones posted on his blog) and Anthony (he's are of the only free day that we had in Sevilla that was not tied up with travel or emergency room visits) took.

They day I landed in Barcelona - The last day my lip looked normal

Sevilla: Churros y Chocolate (the tastiest thing ever)
Sevilla: Posing in La Plaza de Espana
(after the first emergency room visit and still with a swollen lip)

Sevilla: Resting in La Catedral (The lip is really hurting)

Barcelona: Spanish/Castellano is not the first language
Barcelona: The area by the Hospital del Mar
Barcelona: The Frank Gehry fish
Barcelona: Really does have beautiful architecture
Barcelona: Ameet's crotch shotBarcelona: Hospital del Mar -
as seen in
l'Auberge Espagnole and Todo sobre mi madre.
Barcelona: Escaped PatientBarcelona: Hospital silliness
(the crusty black bit is the dead tissue which will eventually fall off and leave a big gaping hole in the middle of my lip)