Wordless Wednesday

WPC: Bear-ing Theme

While we were in Padua, we saw a recurring theme which is very apt for this week’s Weekly Photography Challenge, Variations on a Theme.

We didn’t know what the relevance of this polar bears was to Christmas in Padua, but when we saw them near the City Center, we were like “What!!!???”

Then near the Eremitani church, we found them again, but this time there was an additional member.

Again in another place, there were there but in a slightly different stance 😉

Anyone has any idea why the polar bears are important during Christmas?

WPC: Weathered

The above-weathered paintings are from roofs of old buildings in one of the cobbled streets of Padua, the last place you would expect such beautiful paintings. They are easy to miss because we often don’t see the roofs of the pathways we walk.

Trip down the travel lane

For this week’s photography challenge (or was it last week’s) I am going to go through my travels in 2017.

We did some small inside the city stuff, but I am not considering those for now. Let’s begin with Windsor. I have been here earlier, but it was Mr M’s first visit to this city. 

Since we were there, we also walked around to Eton which was just around the corner and enjoyed some Eton Mess (a very lovely pudding)

We did like Eton more than Windsor, just to record the facts 😉

We then made our way to Oxford for a day trip, which was lovely (except for the weather of course…was pouring down on us for most of the trip, but that didn’t dampen our moods hehe! )

I have never been to Skandavel, a small multi-religious ashram in Carmarthen in Wales, so Mr M thought that I should try it out. It was a beautiful place and those few days we stayed there, we were totally cut off from the world (to the most extent) and we did our level best to cleanse ourselves spiritually.

We decided that we should complete this year by visiting Padua (and Venice for a day) in Italy. A very historic town but hardly explored. It is known for its famous Basilica of St. Anthony. We just loved the calm and quiet of this lovely city. More on that later when I actually find some time from my busy holidays 😉 

Hope all of you are enjoying your holidays and relaxing after those heavy Christmas meals. I have some more fun stuff to show you, but it might take a day or two. Until then, ciao!

Almost close to a live performance

When my friend asked me if I would join him for the ‘One Direction-Where We Are‘ movie, I thought ‘why not’. I always wanted to go for a live performance for one international group, especially of a group I know the songs of and I have heard One Direction and kinda like them too, not necessarily their personal history and stuff like that (which I am not aware of any group either) but I know their songs to sing along. And one of our friend from my gym also joined us, because she knew that it would be pure fun. When we were waiting outside the screen, we noticed that it was full of girls (not women, but girls) and hardly a couple of daddy who have been given the job of safely escorting their daughter(s) and their friends. We knew what we were going to experience when we heard those girls scream as soon as the screen for opened for us to go in. We looked at each other and laughed and went in.

Even before we could take our seats, the girls sitting directly behind our row were highly excited and were screaming and shouting. And then we knew that we were going to have so much fun with them behind us. And wow, those girls didn’t disappoint us. The movie was only for an hour and 15 mins or so. So every time every one thought the movie was gonna start, they would play some advertisement. All the girls around boo’ed for every single ad. It was so hilarious. It was like someone was really getting the crowd worked up for the movie. And…..when the movie started….wow.. those girls in the theater could really really scream at the top of their voices. We couldn’t hear a single word said on screen for some time. Thank God for the subtitles. (And all those questions about wee breaks and underwear’s didn’t help in reducing the screaming!) My ears were ringing and by the time it would come to normal, one of the band member would look into the camera and again, the screaming started. I am not going to talk about anything related to the interview they had or the movie as such. So no spoiler alert there. There might be probably a lot of YouTube video’s of their performances in San Siro anyways.

Among the whole lot, the favorite, the absolute favorite of most of the girls was ……’Zayn Mallik’. Agreed that he is very good looking (and with the slightly serious and mysterious persona he was projecting …he had them eating out of his hand), but to scream and shout his name, every time the camera focused on him was…I don’t know what to say. I have never been a fan of someone so bad. So I wouldn’t presume to understand the feelings of these girls. But it was really something. When they were saying that they have performed in lot of places, these girls were shouting that they haven’t come to India. And they were asking Harry and Zayn to look into the camera. We were sitting there, rolling our eyes, thinking ‘Girls, we are watching a movie for godsakes. They can’t hear you’. They had an intermission and these girls were saying that their throat was parched to which my friend asked ‘Really ?’ which wasn’t actually meant for them to hear, but then the theater went quite that exact time and they heard it 🙂 But then, did those girls bother? Nah. Their focus and concentration was elsewhere. When the song ‘Little Things‘ came out, the band asked the stadium to use the torch of their mobile phones and guess what, everyone in the theater too did the same. And I got my friend’s phone and joined the party 😉 Guess those girls were rubbing off on me. But I had the sense to go to the edge of my seat, every time the camera came anywhere near Zayn. I didn’t want to become deaf. And their throat didn’t give them any trouble when they were singing the songs at high volume after the intermission too. Wonder what they had during the interval! And when the last song came and the movie ended, the whole 2nd half of the theater was screaming and shouting Harry and Zayn’s names along with singing for a solid 10 mins and there was some dancing too. And finally I got fed up and did my share of whoooop! too (actually it felt good to shout like that 😉 ). I sang along only for two songs but even then my voice changed a bit by the end of the movie. I gotta say this movie experience is as close as it gets to seeing a live performance and staying safe too. I wonder what would happen if it was a live one. I really have to try that once. Even though the enthusiasm and the fandom made me feel a little old, it also felt good because I felt like I was absorbing their energy and if the movie had gone for another half an hour or so, who knows, may be I would have joined them and matched them scream for scream. After the credits, these girls asked me to take their group picture, which I obliged and made sure they got a good one. What an experience 🙂 I loved it.