Milan Recap Video

Footage from 3 days in Milan
August 6-8, 2015
We arrived in Milan the morning of August 6th and took the train from the airport to Cadorna station. From Cadorna, we walked about 0.5 miles to Hotel Genius. We spent the afternoon walking, eating, and drinking between the Duomo and the Castle. In the evening, we traveled to the Milan Expo (Expo tickets are 5 Euro after 7 PM). We visited various pavilions including Mexico, Russia, USA, France, Ireland, Israel, etc...

One must have packing tip for Italy

Before you head out to a "wine region" vacation, one simple must-have item to pack in your CHECKED suitcase is....


Once again, don't pack your corkscrew in your carry-on luggage. Pack your corkscrew in your checked bag! If you are traveling overseas, you can buy excellent wine either at the grocery store or at the vineyard. This is especially true. Worried about tariffs? Then drink it in your hotel room! It can be sometimes hard buy a corkscrew while traveling, such a small and simple thing to pack! Save you money and indulge on your vacation.

5 Essentials for Long Flights

As I'm currently packing for my next international trip to Italy for some much needed vacation time, here are my top 5 travel items I can't live without for long flights (4 hours or more).

1. TSA Lock - You'd be surprised how often valuables are stolen from luggage. This is not only important at the airport, but also traveling to/from the airport, and at the hotel. I usually lock up all of my valuables every time I leave my hotel room and during hotel storage. If you don't have a TSA approved lock, TSA may cut off your lock. A broken lock is a bad way to start your international trip.
2. Travel Compression Socks - During long flights, you will be sitting for extended periods of time. Unless you are in a section with lie-flat beds, your feet and ankles will be swollen by the time you reach your destination. I have found that compression socks reduce the swelling and fatigue in my feet, ankles, and calves. Must have for any long flight. Personally, I buy a lot of travel compression sleeves for long-distance running (i.e. Marathon training). I wouldn't recommend wearing compression sleeves during air travel, you need the compression in your feet and your ankles for air travel.
3. Noise Cancellation Headphones - Planes are loud. I remember traveling before noise cancellation headphones and turning up the volume of my CD player to the max just to hear the music.  Thankfully, the price of noise cancelling headphones has dropped significantly since the first pair I saw over 10 years ago.
4. Wi-Fi Tablet with case and kick-stand - Airlines are now allowing passengers to stream movies, tv, media content in the plane to passenger's personal tablets.  It's a win-win for the airlines, removing those built-in screens from the backs of seats and/or not having to maintain screens. If you don't already have a tablet, they are pretty affordable now. You don't want to hold your tablet up for 8 hours, so always buy a case with a kick-stand.
5. Change of Clothes. Shirt, pants, socks, underwear. You never know what will get spilled on you at 30-thousand feet. What if the person next to you gets air-sick on you? What if your luggage is lost? Always travel with a change of clothes. During a trip from Atlanta to Singapore, I had a layover in Narita airport (Tokyo, Japan). During my layover, I visited the Delta SkyClub and took a shower. They even had hair dryers.

Lodging in India - Guesthouse in Mysore

In January 2015, I visited my company's Mysore office for 2 weeks. During my time in Mysore, I stayed at my company's owned lodging called the "Guesthouse."

Ramanagara Marathon in India

My most memorable experience while in India was running the Ramanagara Marathon (11K distance) on February 1, 2015.
The purpose of the Ramanagara Marathon was to  promote organ donation and child abuse awareness in India. My friend Sunaina Ravindra suggested the run to me since we both enjoy running.
The race organizers offered online registration, bib pickup, and charter bus transportation from Bangalore. Online registration was a challenge (as their online payment system did not accept credit cards from outside of India). We made special arrangements with the race organizers to pay at bib pick up. To further complicate things, we made arrangements for Sunaina's friend to pick up our bibs. The admission fee was approximately the equivalent of $7 USD.
On race day, we woke up at 4:30 am and took a Rickshaw to the bus station to meet the charter bus to the race. The bus picked us up at 5:15 am and we arrived at Ramanagara at around 6 am.

 

We found Sunaina and Balaji who gave us our bibs and packets which included a small drawstring backpack and a race shirt. Balaji is wearing the race shirt in the above photo.

It was cold, dark and foggy before the sunrise. Once the sun started to rise, the start line was a band of drum performers symbolizing the start of the race.

Start Line

We enjoyed a beautiful run that included the beautiful countryside of Ramanagara

Family of Spectators

 

Water stop along the race course

At the finish line, we received our medals and certificates of participation.

 

Although there were water stops along the race course, as outsiders, we were advised to only drink bottled water. We brought 1 bottle of water each to the race which we drank while on the race course. In the US, we usually receive granola bars and bananas at the finish line. In India, curry and/or other traditional Indian dishes were served. We needed to get back to our hotel, but the charter bus we took wasn't scheduled to leave for another 2-3 hours. We hitchhiked our way back to our hotel with a wonderful, kind, and generous family. We will always be thankful for this act of kindness.

On a very sad note, while we were leaving the race, we saw an ambulance behind us at one point. The next day we found out that one of the participants died of massive cardiac arrest. He was only 27-years-old. Read the entire article here.

Train Station in Bangalore

Train travel is probably the most common method of transportation between cities in India. Here are some scenes from the Bangalore main train station. Hosted by Paul Dunn.



There is a front entrance and back exit from this train station. When we arrived in Bangalore, we followed the crowd to the back exit and jumped into a cab. We should have walked to the front entrance and booked our return train ticket. At the time of the shooting of this video (February 2015), online train ticket reservations were not available to us.