Canadian GP - Me, Montreal and Ferraries

The town was painted red, with Ferrari fans coming from all corners of the world to Montreal (QC, Canada) for Formula1 Canadian GrandPrix in red t-shirts, red caps, red model of cars. St Catherine steet was at its best with Montreal fashion festival from 4-8th of June with each of it cross roads staging fashion shows (big brands like Guess, Milano etc), rock bands (best ones), pubs (ofcourse its "sin city") , restaurants (on street) and endless Ferrari cars to click your pics with for all the Ferrari freaks like me :).

First 2 days i was alone to visit the fashion shows, rock shows and Ferraries, but that did not stop me from going. The city was literally rocking and i couldn't have asked for more. I enjoyed the programs, clicked lots of pics (with new Nikon D60 brought for Amitava :D) and touched Ferraries too (it was my dream come true :-)). I was just waiting to see the real Ferrari racing car on Sunday. I had booked 3 tickets for Canadian GP and was looking forward to Sharath and Gaurav to join me on Saturday from Ottawa.

It was Saturday morning 9:30 when Sharath and Gaurav reached my apartment.We had our breakfast (Sharath was big fan of my cooking by then :P) and planned our trip for next 2 days. We covered quite a lot of places like Concoria university, St Catherine street, Place Ville Marie (shopping center), Eaton Center (shopping center), Christ Chruch Cathedral, FutureShop(electronics shop), Place des Arts where the cultural concerts take place. From there we took a metro to reach Viau station where we visited .Biodome that has artificial ecosystem ranging from artic to tropical forests and then went to Olympic stadium where the cable car ride and view from top of the stadium was breathtaking. We could see the whole of Montreal from there. We then took another metro from Viau to MontRoyal and started walking to the Park MontRoyal only to be disappointed to see it as just another park. We then headed to Imax at Montreal science center to see 3D movie but was disappointed again to know that all the shows for that day was in French(nothing new in this city). We then reached home and got fresh before heading to the rockshow and to click few once-in-life time pics ;). This time we were a group of 3, so it was more fun and we took a lot of pics and videos. We ended it in a great way, but am sure Sharth is still cursing me for it :P.

Sunday, the race day. We couldnot hide our excitment as we got ready and headed towards Jean Drapeau in metro to find an ocean of Formula1 fans from all parts of the world with crazy attires and even foldable chairs, food, sun screens and kangaroo tv (to watch live relay of F1 on tv with stats and replays). We grabbed our place and waited for Kimi, Massa, Hamilton, Kubica, DC to show their skills. In the meantime, there was a "challenge ferrari challege" race for Nascar kind of closed cars and then some flight acrobatics before all the Formula1 drivers were brought in vintage cars for a parade. I never thought i would ever see those great men with best job in this world from such a close distance.

It was time for some action and we were all eagerly waiting to see how Hamilton (on pole position), Kubica (on second) and Kimi(on third) would perform, when the red lights went off and cars started to rip on the track, burning the rubber at 300kmph with a loud engine noise. Hamilton continued to keep the lead with others following in same order for the first few laps. First time we got a glance of McLaren, Ferrari and other race cars in real when they entered our part of the circuit. We tried clicking the pics, but the cars were simply too fast to be captured. Sharath took few videos of the race and i was trying my photography skills with digital SLR for 13-15 laps with 20-30 random shots and yes i could capture some of those cars on the pic :). Ferrari looked strong initially, with Raikkonen setting the fastest lap on soft tyres as he hounded Kubica early on. Then came the incident when Hamilton ran into the back of him while he was stationary at the red light at the exit to the pits. The impact removed his rear wing, and that was that. Compounding Ferrari’s frustration, Massa’s refuelling rig suffered a broken joint in the fuel line that same lap, necessitating a further stop next time around which threw him to the back of the field. His climb back to fifth was one of the race’s highlights, in particular his double pass on Barrichello and Kovalainen at the hairpin. It was a sad day for Force India as Sutil triggered the fateful safety car intervention when he lost second and third gears. Fisichella’s race was compromised when his engine stalled during his pit stop, and ended after 51 laps after he had clobbered a wall. In the end it was a BMW day, with Kubica and heidfeld grabbing the 1st and 2nd position and good old DC (David Coulthard) coming 3rd in his Redbull.


It was a little disappointing as Ferrari fan not to hear the victorious Italian anthem at the end, but it was never the same when we walked on the track taking pictures and then seeing the drivers and the cars in the pit stop. The party was on at the BMW and Redbull pits and we clicked a lot of pics there near the pits and track start grid before we went to Montreal Casino where i only lost few dollars while trying my hand at quick money making way. We headed back home and after a small pit stop(hehe..am now fully into F1 language), Sharath and Gaurav left for Ottawa.

Ottawa trip - relief from home sickness

After coming to Montreal, homesickness was killing me. With French language and non-veg food everywhere and no friends, no parents, nowhere to go i was just waiting for weekend to run to Ottawa to meet Sharath (my RV classmate)...booked my tickets on Greyhound and took 7 am bus to reach there by 9:20am..it was raining all along.I met a french girl on board who was very nice and was sharing her experiences of her Bangalore an Mysore trip. I didnt know where to take the bus, didnt have the map either and all i had was his address. I went and asked a security person at bus station and he guided me, but i couldnt get the right bus stand so came back to ask him again. He then dropped me to nearest bus station in his car as he was going same direction and asked me to take bus No.85 from there.

It was my first time in local bus at Canada and didnt know how to buy ticket or request stop. I gave 4 dollars to driver, but she refused to take it from anyone that day(i dont know if they have free service in early morning), then i requested her to inform me when the stops come and got down and walked my way to Sharath's house. It was one big relief for me to see a known face and talk to him in our language. Just relaxed for a while and planned our trip for the next 2 days.



We took a bus and reached Dow's lake to see the tulip garden. Though the tulip fest was over last month, the flowers were still good enough to take pics. Then we went to Canadian Parliment house and clicked few snaps there. The fountain with fire in the middle caught our attention a lot. Then we moved to Rideau canal, where they allow ice skating in winter, but now being summer there was no activity. From there we saw Ottawa city hall and met a very nice old lady who guided us about Rideau falls and Rockcliff gardens. we decided to cover those areas on next day as it was quite far. We then went to Bayshore (where lot of wipro guys stay and there is a nice shopping center). We were tired at the end of day and bored of eating burgers, so came home and made some rice and sambar and enjoyed the feast.


Next day morning we tried our hands at making Rava dosa (which obvi tasted good) and then took a bus to Brittania shore. It was a nice shore on Ottawa river which was very wide and resembled a sea shore with a spit, yatches and water skiing around. We spent quite sometime there taking pictures and then came back to bus with freezing hands (due to cold wind on spit). We went to Rideau falls from there (which took sometime for us to figure out as it was behind a building). It was very small but resembled Niagara falls. It is joining point of Rideau river to Ottawa river. Rockcliff garden is a area where Canadian prime minister and other dignitaries stay and it was a very quite and posh area. We then went back to Carlingwood mall from there for lunch and i ended up eating a egg fried rice thinking it was veg fried rice (food in canada is always dangerous for veggies). Went back home and took some rest before i had say good bye to Sharath and move back to Montreal at 9pm. I started to feel homesick again :(...

Montreal - my real onsite

It was my first trip to North America and as always i was all excited about going to new place and meeting new people. I took a sunday morning 6.45 am British airways flight to Montreal and reached here at 7:45 pm on the same day. It was a 22.5 hours of journey including a break of 5 hours at London Heathrow airport. But i gained about 9.5 hours in the journey (that always puts a question in my mind whether we can travel continuesly around the world in east to west direction and go back in time to our good old days as kids? ;-) )

The journey was quite boring as i was gaining time in the journey and didnt know when to eat and when to sleep. Even the co-travellers in the trip were quite boring (one mallu coupl and then one old canadian lady). Once i reached Montreal, there were few initial hiccups at the immigration counter due too my peeling passport lamination and food items, but then it was all cleared without much trouble. Then i went to my apartment address to only find that the office was closed, but with the help of a girl i called him to find that my room was alloted in different building. I took another taxi and reached and rested there.

Next day, i had to search for new map on google for my route from new apartment to office. I then took the road as marked by google (one company that i can always trust) and reached office. But they were not prepared for my joining as they had got the news only on Thrusday. So i ended up sitting without any work or laptop (as i cant plug my personal laptop to their nework). It was a dull day with a bit a shower and cold winds, but it got better by evening when i took a walk back on St.Catherine street (its the main street of Montreal) looking at all the shops of best brands like GAP, Guess, Puma (with those lovely Ferrari shirts).

Till now havnt really got the energy to explore the place. This weekend i am planning to go to Ottawa and then to Canadian GP the week after that. So hopefully a lot more interesting and action things for me to post here. So keep watching.

BIAL - a big disappointment

Lot of questions were raised, discussion were held, protests made about closing down of HAL airport and traveling to new Bengaluru International Airport Ltd (BIAL). So i am not going to talk about it again here today. But the question i am trying to find an answer to is "whether the new Bengaluru International Airport Ltd (BIAL) is really of 'International' standards?".

My answer would be both YES and NO.

Yes, because the kind of entry road, parking, sign boards, valet service, number of checking counters (58 + 12 self check in) and immigration counters (20) is all superb. Even the amount of land they have for future expansion is well taken care of. Parking charges were not too high and assistant staff for lugguage cart were helpful.


No, because the terminal building and its facilities were a big disappointment. Structure wise, the building looks more like a factory (as the civil aviation minister Praful Patel rightly said). I can understand that the zig-zag design of the roof has got more to do with allowing more natural light to enter the building, but usage of more glass could have done the same too. The sloppy quality of granite stone used for flooring makes it look unattractive. The whole building had only one ATM, 2-3 shops for eatables (that too outside the departure area), there is no entry or seating arrangement at the departures for people accompanying the traveller. Worse was that there was no one from airport or airlines to guide people on how to proceed. The UDF counters were located in corner and lot of foreigners didnt even know that they had to pay the UDF charges. Most travellers were realising it while standing in boarding pass queue that they have to go and pay UDF charges (Rs. 1070) first. Out of 58 counters only 7-8 was alloted for British airways, 2-3 for GulfAir as against the much promised "check-in from any counter for any airline" thing. So i had to stand for good 1.5 hours in the queue (luckily no separate screening of checkin bags) to get my boarding pass. Then out of 20 immigration counters, only 4 were open and the officers sitting there took their own time to process. So again a 45 min standing in queue. Even the security check area had only 2 counters open, but it wasnt a long wait here. Lastly the boarding gates were 20 in number, but there was hardly any place to sit while waiting for the boarding to start.

To tell you in simple words, it looked more like a bigger version of old HAL airport with the same old inefficient staff. Compare this with the real "world class" London Heathrow airport which has 5 terminals with 25 gates in each or the Singapore airport with something like 4 terminals and 20 gates in each (dont remember exact number though) but still has no long queues and got best looks and facilities in world. Our Bengaluru International Airport Ltd really has a long long way to catch up with them. Mr. Bruner are you listening??