Contemplations and Ruminations

So the last travel post was about  Turin , after which we drove all the way to Padua and after roaming around at night, eating ice cream  we came back to Tulip Inn, our hotel in Padua. After the complimentary breakfast, we set out to visit San Antonio's shrine, the shrine where the tomb of St. Antony is located. We celebrated mass in an adjoining chapel there,  We weren't allowed to take pictures in the main shrine, but I surreptitiously managed to take this one. After walking around and praying in this huge church, we then went to the shrine shop. Among all the places we visited, the stuff I've seen at the Padua shrine shop , is really good. One of the best places to shop for souvenirs, everything is so pretty and well made. I had visited Padua in 2013 with Antonio and Nameeta, and Antonio picked up a really cool looking black ring with the Our Father inscribed on it in Latin... He rarely wears it, so I started wearing it... Picked up this cream ...

Since the beginning of time battles have been waged and lives have been lost in the pursuit of fame, glory and power. And this hasn’t really changed much, the current crisis in the war-ravaged zones of Syria, Iraq and the like have all begun because of vested interests by the super powers in these oil rich lands. So while it may seem that these super powers are intent on destroying the radical groups which they inadvertently created by their (hardly justified) invasion, at the same time these terrorists are being funded behind the scenes by the same superpowers. It’s all a really complex and ugly reality that will continue to go on cause let’s face it, the world economy is ruled by a few corporate superpowers. They pull strings and run this big giant show on planet earth and we are just pawn pieces on their black and white chess board. We can either be depressed and lose hope in everything, or we can learn to live in the moment, in the now. Cause that is the only way to live life i...

So after a long enchanted drive through  Switzerland , we reached Turin in Italy quite late, and since we were on a madcap road trip our hotels were usually on the outskirts of town where it would be possible to park our double decker bus, so anyway everything was shrouded in darkness when we arrived late at night.  Woke up, had a good breakfast and walked out to see fields and fields of (I'm guessing) wheat ... . Then started on or way to see the Shroud of Turin...  Some cute cops, they seem to be really fit here... they tend to value their bodies.  A lot of history surrounds the shroud, but it is widely believed to be the shroud that Jesus was laid to rest in the tomb. This is supposedly a rare viewing, the shroud isn't always open to public display. We reach the church, wait in a long queue, go through stringent security checks, and after an evocative video describing the mystery behind this famous shroud and it's patterns of blood they let us file in...