Venice is a small city in northern Italy. Venezia (in Italian) is also know as city of bridges and city of water. I just got a day to spend at Venice. I know its not enough but something is better than nothing.
The city’s main transport system as you would have guessed is boats. The city also has narrow (aka lot of gallis) streets. It is very easy to get lost in Venice even with a good map. I followed the direction marks inside the city to reach the landmarks. I have lots of pictures with notes so go get your Latte Grande.

View of Grand Canal from the from Ponte dell’Accademia. Its the biggest canal in Venice. You will see many gondolas (Venetian boats) carrying tourists on this canal.

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Now that I have got the official name of the workshop let me write about it in detail. I will be attending the inaugural “Open Lab” Workshop at Helsinki. Thanks to Nokia and WomWorld for the invitation and sponsorship. There will be 35 people from all around the world with different backgrounds attending this event. I am not sure about the number of attendees from India.

It’s taking place in September between the 11th and 14th, and will be the first of its kind hosted by Nokia. We’re contacting everyone from creative’s, designers, video producers to open source software bloggers and mobile tech pioneers. There will be a number of workshops that’ll see discussion with participants, and with Nokia guys, about the future of different online arenas and mobile technology. Workshops that we hope you’d like to join in with and make yourself heard.

You know how much I like myself to be heard. Now this is also a great opportunity to meet other bloggers/twitters from all around the world. I hope we will have a tweetup on one of those evenings.

The workshop will revolve around four topics. Neighborhood which will revolve around online communities, social media, networking etc. Connected Life, Entertainment, Work are the other main topics of the workshop.

During the workshop I will also get a chance to try out Nokia E71. Now that I like my eE1i so much; I am very eager to try E71. Wait for my detailed review.

Mean while did a Google search to find other participants of the workshop. I can see Micki, Mike, Nick, Rebecca coming to Open Labs. Who else is joining us?

It started with the plan to ride to Gokarna through Shivamogga. After our ride to Kanyakumari almost an year back we wanted to go for a long ride desperately. Heavy rains in Western Ghats of Karnataka forced us to change the destination. Anand suggested that we will ride to Valparai and it would be good. We agreed as soon as we knew it had 40 hair pin curves. This time we didn’t have time to do any planning.

On the day I got up quite early (3am. It doesn’t happen very often) and we left Bangalore by five. We started the ride after the group prayer. It was Anand (Eliminator) in the leading position, following him were Vinay (ZMA), Guru (Pulsar), Manju (Bajaj), Sandeep MK and GL (Unicorn) and me performing the role of sweep rider on my Yamaha.

L2R : Guru, Sandeep MK, Manju, Vinay, Sandeep GL and me

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Karanji Kere has become one of the main attractions of Mysore these days.  Karanji Kere boasts park, birds, lake with boating and special butterfly park. You can see lot of youngsters hanging out there in the evenings. I borrowed friends camera to click few pictures.


Both the pictures were shot in macro mode. It was difficult to focus in macro mode as the camera was not SLR. Which reminds me I need to buy an SLR asap.

Karanji Kere also has a small zoo. Where actually you enter the cage to have a look at birds. Since I did not have the camera. I shot using my mobile. E61i is one of the worst mobile cameras I have seen.

Can you imagine how much I missed my main camera.

On 5th of July May evening I arrived at small town of Pisa. Like any other small town this too is less crowded and there is nothing much to do other than tower of Pisa. Of course as soon as you see it you know why its called a wonder.

The Leaning Tower of Pisa (Italian: Torre pendente di Pisa) or simply The Tower of Pisa (La Torre di Pisa) is the campanile, or freestanding bell tower, of the cathedral of the Italian city of Pisa. It is situated behind the Cathedral and it is the third structure by time in Pisa’s Piazza del Duomo (Cathedral Square).The height of the tower is 55.86 m (183.27 ft) from the ground on the lowest side and 56.70 m (186.02 ft) on the highest side. The tower leans at an angle of 3.97 degrees. This means that the top of the tower is 3.9 meters from where it would stand if the tower were perfectly vertical.

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