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Seville

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SEVILLE Sevilla After living up to some wonderful moments at Granada, the birthplace of the renowned Spanish poet and playwright Federico Garcia Lorca, we decided to further our coadventure through the heartland of the southern Iberian Peninsula, composed of lowlands, mountains and valleys. You’ve got it right. To arrive at Seville, we traversed the fascinating Spanish heartland. The landscape presented some vistas composed of rustic plains, lowlands, winding roads through the Sierra and then vast stretches of olive orchards. About 200 years back, a couple of decades after Napoleon’s army plundered and destroyed parts of Alhambra, an American diplomat and writer, Washington Irving and his Russian counterpart traversed the path from Seville to Granada. It was highly adventurous then, because of the fact that the transport system at that time was horse-drawn carriages and muleteers. It was such that they could ‘wander among the romantic mountains of Andalusia’ (Tales of Alhamb...

BUDAPEST 1

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A YouTube presentation on Budapest Booking.com

Pandemic Pandemonium

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Rajat Sarkar of Hamburg, Germany briefly expressed his opinion on the WhatsApp page. What impressed me is his satiric style and the crispiness in looking at a dreaded virus that has suddenly taken mankind by storm. Read on : Pandemic Pandemonium - Tracking the Virus  by Rajat Sarkar  Tracking the virus and the actions of the medical institutions have so far come a cropper. Many experts have been giving their ‘invaluable’ opinion since the beginning of the pandemic. People have been arguing which vaccine works better. ‘Research papers’ are floating all around. Without knowing what they are, we have been using jargon like antibodies, mRNA, mutations…. Treatment protocols are being constantly upgraded – serious business! As early as May/June of last year, a vaccine scientist told me there would be vaccines available by the end of the year 2020 and that companies are working round the clock. All would be okay. It has been amusing, to say the least, to listen to the...

Meet the Guru, Part III – Lighting & Biology by Professor Robert LUCAS

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Lighting Updates LIGHTING UPDATES on non-visual effects of light. A highly interesting webinar by Prof Robert LUCAS, Department of Neuroscience, University of Manchester.Covers some very essential study on circadian entrainment, and what human-centric lighting can perform.   Booking.com

Barcelona 2

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BARCELONA 2   Sagrada Familia- the amazing, still unfinished cathedral   Barcelona is proud of Antoni Gaudi. It is Gaudi's city. The two seem to be almost indivisible after Gaudi delivered some architectural wonders to the city he loved. Park Guell and Sagrada Familia are two architectural masterpieces he created and gifted to his city. Though Sagrada Familia is now in UNESCO World Heritage sites, I perceived it as one of the Seven Wonders of the World. I was stumped when the temple façade loomed up for the first time. Awesome! It is an incredible beauty! The only similarity to the Gothic architecture was the Latin Cross Floor Plan which Gaudi maintained in his design. The core in the Plan is occupied by four aisles of 7.5 M wide each and a nave of 15 M wide totaling 45 M The complex geometries developed by Gaudi deviated significantly from the Gothic designs. Such as introducing a system of angled columns and hyperboloidal vaults to do away with the need for...