Monday, September 2, 2013

Weekend Show - Forts , Food and Friends

This weekend was one of surprises. A rather last minute decision to visit Bellinzona followed by an unexpected dinner invitation by one of K's friends. Both turned out wonderful.
The weekly Saturday morning market in Bellinzona was a delight , more so after we found a lady selling Indian sweets and savories . She told us that her husband is from India and he prepared all of the stuff to be sold there. The samosa and coconut barfi was pretty good but it was the jamuns that had us going there for seconds. And this time she gave away 2 additional jamuns for free. That was a sweet start to the weekend.
The castles were not really tourist friendly , by which I mean that there were no Audio guides or notes that we could read to know more about the place . But it was preserved in the best way a medieval castle could and somehow the lack of all things 'touristy' lent an authentic touch to the place. It was my first true castle if you don't count the visit to the small fort next door in Baden. The castle door that doubled up as a bridge across the ditch when open , the small openings in the walls that probably was used to open fire on attackers , the towers used to keep a lookout and the fortification -I hadn't seen all of this from such close quarters. The small museum we visited in the first castle wasn't great but the video was ok . I  huffed and puffed my way up to the second castle that was much lower, so going all the way to the third castle that was still further on top of the hill didn't appeal to me a lot and we skipped the third castle.
Instead we simple wandered about in the old town , bought some biscuits from the bakery , took a few snaps and then wandered back to the station to catch the train back home.
And oh , did I tell about the wonderful spaghetti with mussels that I had for lunch ? It was real good and so was the pizza that K ordered . Then there was this orange color drink that everyone else was ordering and K also tried it out of curiosity . I sort of liked it.  It had a bitter taste towards the end but still tasted interesting.
After this Saturday trip I was thinking of lazing around on Sunday and we were watching Madras CafĂ© (awesome movie by the way) , when one of K's friends called and invited us over for dinner. I immediately prepared a small batch of Rava Laddoo and packed some along for them . The hostess had really outdone herself . There was fish and chicken and prawns. What more is needed to make a Mangalorean happy ? I was delighted. Plus there was tom and jerry playing on TV and another friend S who love to chat. We were busy in our girl talk and the guys were busy talking whatever is it they talked about amongst themselves. I suspect they were also trying to listen to what we were chatting coz S's husband smiled to himself every time we spoke something silly. Cant blame the guys , girl talk is always more interesting :).
After a wonderful evening we walked back home . I had always dreaded Sunday evenings when I was working and even if there was something wonderful happening on Sunday the thought of Monday lurking around in the corner would dim the excitement for me. Its a beautiful feeling to enjoy a weekend without worrying about the start to a weekday. Few more months of those weekends and I hope I make the most of it.