Back – And a Recap

We are back from our trip.

Unlike half the people in Toronto who went to Europe this year, ours was something on the way to Bangladesh. We touched into Italy, spent a gorgeous week there, and then was off. And what a gorgeous week it was. Now Mona and I are a filmy couple (as in we love Bollywood), so our itinerary was mostly directed by “Oh-they-shot-this-movie-here!” – this is how we found ourselves in Capri, Italy, on a day trip from Rome, just because they shot ONE scene of ONE song from Bachna Ae Haseeno! Not that we regretted it – Capri and its Blue Grotto was simply too marvelous for words.

Capri Mammoth Rocks

Capri Blue Grotto

Now I am not a good travel journal writer like Liya or Nadia, so I am not going to try writing about my experiences – there’s just too many to list!

But I will say this, EVERY one should visit Italy once in their lifetime!

We met Bangladeshis everywhere in Rome. They were all over! We couldn’t even talk on the bus in Bengali lest someone overhear us (our favourite time pass on long bus train rides was to pass comments on everyone else! as well as sleep). I was on the bus saying “God I don’t know which stop to get off for the Vatican” and there was one Bengali guy directing us. Any street vendor was almost Bengali and would give us half price off once he found out we were Bengali too. One of our games became “Spot the Bangladeshi” in town squares.

They had amazing stories to say and would start talking once you spoke to them in Bengali. Most of them had come through smugglers and people traffickers illegally into Italy. It was poignant that it’s just an accident of birth that meant we were tourists in Rome with money to burn while our fellow countrymen were ‘illegals’ trying to just make enough to get by and pay huge debts at home. Sometimes I wonder if Bangladesh will EVER improve.

Speaking of Bangladeshis, we made the mistake of telling our relatives in Bangladesh just HOW much we paid for a gondola ride in Venice. My uncle almost had a heart attack (his third).

“HOW MUCH? God, you can pay a nouka guy here ten times less and he will take you all over Bangladesh in his boat!”

Somehow, I doubt it’s the same ….

We are due to visit Bangladesh again in December and I am thinking of stopping by Qatar where we have another tons of relatives on the way. Of course key to it will be persuading Mona she can take a week off from visiting her parents in Bangladesh so we can stop by in Doha. Bechari! Sometimes I wish her parents were here so she wouldn’t miss them so much. I really respect women (sometimes) for the sacrifices they go through.

Back in Toronto, and joining work a couple of days back, it was back to the grind. A friend had an accident the day we came, so I was at the ER till 4 at night (and hadn’t slept at all on the flight back) and at 8 I was at work. Needless to say, nothing got done at work. Not that this was out of the ordinary!

Last night I attended a wedding. It was a Bengali guy and a Japanese girl – and she did NOT convert. For some reason this was offensive to many aunties and they decided to boycott the wedding – which just made me more gungho about attending! Honestly, the petty politics of the Bengali community here is quite puzzling. Anyways, it was a nice occasion to meet everyone here and catch up on what’s happening. Ramadan starts in two weeks, and summer is almost over.

Yes, back to the grind indeed – although I am still in vacation mode and can’t honestly wait to go somewhere again!

Now onto reading all the 1,353,725 blog posts I have unread…