Exciting Autumn - Tennis and Travel
If you're baffled by the title, then you're probably not the only one. I do understand that the 2 words that make up the title of this blog should never go together. However, for a bunch of reasons, I'm experiencing a much better post-summer season than the summer itself. Hence, the exceptional title for an exceptional autumn.
I'm going to talk about 2 big events that have happened in the past few months which have made this Autumn quite interesting. I've been a bit busy the past few months and that's partly also the reason why I haven't been able to write as frequently as I wish. In addition to the things I mention below, there's a bunch of stuff happening that's been keeping me on my toes. Nevertheless, I've finally managed to sit and jot this one down real quick.
Eventually, I realized that it was time to upgrade to a new pair of tennis rackets. While I got plenty of control on my flatter shots, I was unable to generate enough topspin. I was also unable to generate enough kick on my second serves from the advantage side of the court (in case you're not into tennis, you can skip this part). I recently purchased a pair of Babolat Pure Drive 2017's (one of them funded by my dearest dad). I've named them Pam and Cam and they're an absolute bliss to play with. I found it astonishingly easy to adjust to the new frame, especially on my forehand. It took only one session to find the sweet spot for flatter shots as well as to be able to give it the spin I needed to create shorter angles. The serves also came on pretty naturally - especially the kick serves. It took me a while to adjust my backhand action a bit. I've had a pretty flat backhand till now. I've had to modify my action a bit - a little more loop on my backswing to get a bit of spin on the backhand as well. It's still a work in progress but my game has definitely improved significantly over the past one month. One side-effect is the huge stringing cost that comes with it. The Pure Drive has an open string pattern and they break a lot more often than the tight string pattern that I had in my older rackets. I'm breaking at least one set of strings every week. Now that I have to pay for the stringing myself, I feel the pinch my dad must've gone through when I was a teenager and used to come home in the evening with broken strings.
I've even started playing a couple of amateur tournaments. I reached the final of the first tournament I played which included a semi-final win that I still don't how I managed. I was 5-0 down in the tie-break and somehow, I managed to win it 9-7 in the end. Unfortunately, I couldn't win the final. I sprained my hamstring in the first game and my movement was restricted since then.
It is impossible to measure in words how happy tennis makes me. Tennis has to be one of the main reasons why I've been quite upbeat all season. I've found a pro tennis store near my office. Laszlo Simon, the person who owns it, gives me great deals on tennis merchandise. He saw me play at the tournament and has asked me to play for his club, Simon Tenisz Klub, in the spring season. I'm quite excited about it and I'll be training hard over the next few months for it.
I've also managed to travel a bit this autumn. I was in Zagreb and Plitvice last month, which is now amongst the top 3 trips I've ever taken. I went there on a long weekend in October owing to the national holiday on 23rd October. To those of you who don't know, 23rd October commemorates the Hungarian Revolution of 1956 against the Soviet Union.
A bunch of little things happened in Croatia and they all came together in a really beautiful way to make it a memorable trip. The first night involved going to a nightclub, Opera. The DJs there were dropping the sickest hip hop beats I had heard in a really long time. Personally, I hated the fact that smoking was allowed indoors. Still, I stayed out there until 4 am, just twerking and grinding till my legs gave out.
Saturday involved walking around the city and doing all the touristy things. I met a fellow brown from down under, Trish, and her dutch flatmate while looking for the free walking tour in the morning. Together, we went through 2 walking tours, a lunch, a coffee & cake munching session and a long stroll through the city's parks in less than 11 hours.
Sunday was the big day. Harry (a Canadian lad I came across at the hostel) and I headed to Plitvice lakes. Inside the Plitvice national park, tourists normally take a ferry across the main lake to reach the part which has a bunch of waterfalls. We decided to hike through the woods instead. In retrospect, it was one of the best decisions ever. Hiking through the woods was just the kind of exercise I needed to detox and soak in some fresh air.
I hadn't been in nature for a really long time. The last time I was out in nature before Plitvice was in the summer of 2015 when I went white water rafting in Rishikesh. Although the light drizzle and the fact that I was wearing Converse did make it quite a difficult hike, the beautiful views of the waterfalls made up for it. None of the pictures I took will ever do justice to the beauty of Plitvice National Park (partially because I'm quite terrible at clicking pictures). To anyone who ever plans to go to Croatia, DO NOT miss the Plitvice national park.
Sunday night was a movie night at the hostel. As we huddled ourselves in warm blankets, watching movies and sipping white wine, the series of events that unfolded will be another story for my grandkids - "The big spoon from Berlin".
Monday morning breakfast was spent bantering with Bianca, a fidgety Englishwoman from Essex who had been on the road for well about 4 months. I spent the rest of the afternoon slow walking around the old town of Zagreb. During this, I bought a pair of all-weather shoes for my future travels/treks and window shopped across several bookstores spread across the city. Zagreb seems to have a strong book reading culture. There were way too many bookstores for a town of roughly 800k people.
One reason I really enjoyed this trip was the fact that it was the perfect balance of all the different things I look for in a trip - a bit of partying, a bit of history and culture and a little workout for the legs too. Add to it a satisfying shopping experience and a night full of interesting events - you've got yourself the perfect solo trip.
So these were the 2 big things that have made the last few months quite a memorable one. In addition to this, I also took a random weekend off to Venice and Milan to meet a couple of friends but I guess I'll write about it some other time.
Life's been quite busy the past few months. Work life has been treating me well so far and I hope that continues in the months to come. I'll be traveling to Belgium soon and meet the annoying Sri Lankan whom I do seem to miss sometimes. I'll also be heading home for Christmas and I'm really looking forward to it. I'll get to play with my little nephew for a couple of weeks. He has started learning new words now and I think it's time his uncle teaches him a few "important" ones too. All in all, it's been an exciting autumn and I hope it sets to stage for an equally eventful winter.
Just a side note, I stayed at the "Whole Wide World Hostel" and it is one of the top 3 hostels I've ever stayed in. The staff was exceptionally amazing. If anyone is traveling solo to Zagreb, book this place for sure.
I'm going to talk about 2 big events that have happened in the past few months which have made this Autumn quite interesting. I've been a bit busy the past few months and that's partly also the reason why I haven't been able to write as frequently as I wish. In addition to the things I mention below, there's a bunch of stuff happening that's been keeping me on my toes. Nevertheless, I've finally managed to sit and jot this one down real quick.
Tennis
One of the best things that have happened to me in recent times is that I've started playing tennis quite regularly. My parents got my tennis rackets from India when they came to Budapest for my graduation ceremony. This was the initial push I needed. I started playing for about 2-3 hours a week. Slowly, I've upgraded to 6-8 hours a week now.Eventually, I realized that it was time to upgrade to a new pair of tennis rackets. While I got plenty of control on my flatter shots, I was unable to generate enough topspin. I was also unable to generate enough kick on my second serves from the advantage side of the court (in case you're not into tennis, you can skip this part). I recently purchased a pair of Babolat Pure Drive 2017's (one of them funded by my dearest dad). I've named them Pam and Cam and they're an absolute bliss to play with. I found it astonishingly easy to adjust to the new frame, especially on my forehand. It took only one session to find the sweet spot for flatter shots as well as to be able to give it the spin I needed to create shorter angles. The serves also came on pretty naturally - especially the kick serves. It took me a while to adjust my backhand action a bit. I've had a pretty flat backhand till now. I've had to modify my action a bit - a little more loop on my backswing to get a bit of spin on the backhand as well. It's still a work in progress but my game has definitely improved significantly over the past one month. One side-effect is the huge stringing cost that comes with it. The Pure Drive has an open string pattern and they break a lot more often than the tight string pattern that I had in my older rackets. I'm breaking at least one set of strings every week. Now that I have to pay for the stringing myself, I feel the pinch my dad must've gone through when I was a teenager and used to come home in the evening with broken strings.
I've even started playing a couple of amateur tournaments. I reached the final of the first tournament I played which included a semi-final win that I still don't how I managed. I was 5-0 down in the tie-break and somehow, I managed to win it 9-7 in the end. Unfortunately, I couldn't win the final. I sprained my hamstring in the first game and my movement was restricted since then.
It is impossible to measure in words how happy tennis makes me. Tennis has to be one of the main reasons why I've been quite upbeat all season. I've found a pro tennis store near my office. Laszlo Simon, the person who owns it, gives me great deals on tennis merchandise. He saw me play at the tournament and has asked me to play for his club, Simon Tenisz Klub, in the spring season. I'm quite excited about it and I'll be training hard over the next few months for it.
Trippin' Times
I've also managed to travel a bit this autumn. I was in Zagreb and Plitvice last month, which is now amongst the top 3 trips I've ever taken. I went there on a long weekend in October owing to the national holiday on 23rd October. To those of you who don't know, 23rd October commemorates the Hungarian Revolution of 1956 against the Soviet Union.
A bunch of little things happened in Croatia and they all came together in a really beautiful way to make it a memorable trip. The first night involved going to a nightclub, Opera. The DJs there were dropping the sickest hip hop beats I had heard in a really long time. Personally, I hated the fact that smoking was allowed indoors. Still, I stayed out there until 4 am, just twerking and grinding till my legs gave out.
Saturday involved walking around the city and doing all the touristy things. I met a fellow brown from down under, Trish, and her dutch flatmate while looking for the free walking tour in the morning. Together, we went through 2 walking tours, a lunch, a coffee & cake munching session and a long stroll through the city's parks in less than 11 hours.
Sunday was the big day. Harry (a Canadian lad I came across at the hostel) and I headed to Plitvice lakes. Inside the Plitvice national park, tourists normally take a ferry across the main lake to reach the part which has a bunch of waterfalls. We decided to hike through the woods instead. In retrospect, it was one of the best decisions ever. Hiking through the woods was just the kind of exercise I needed to detox and soak in some fresh air.
I hadn't been in nature for a really long time. The last time I was out in nature before Plitvice was in the summer of 2015 when I went white water rafting in Rishikesh. Although the light drizzle and the fact that I was wearing Converse did make it quite a difficult hike, the beautiful views of the waterfalls made up for it. None of the pictures I took will ever do justice to the beauty of Plitvice National Park (partially because I'm quite terrible at clicking pictures). To anyone who ever plans to go to Croatia, DO NOT miss the Plitvice national park.
Sunday night was a movie night at the hostel. As we huddled ourselves in warm blankets, watching movies and sipping white wine, the series of events that unfolded will be another story for my grandkids - "The big spoon from Berlin".
Monday morning breakfast was spent bantering with Bianca, a fidgety Englishwoman from Essex who had been on the road for well about 4 months. I spent the rest of the afternoon slow walking around the old town of Zagreb. During this, I bought a pair of all-weather shoes for my future travels/treks and window shopped across several bookstores spread across the city. Zagreb seems to have a strong book reading culture. There were way too many bookstores for a town of roughly 800k people.
One reason I really enjoyed this trip was the fact that it was the perfect balance of all the different things I look for in a trip - a bit of partying, a bit of history and culture and a little workout for the legs too. Add to it a satisfying shopping experience and a night full of interesting events - you've got yourself the perfect solo trip.
So these were the 2 big things that have made the last few months quite a memorable one. In addition to this, I also took a random weekend off to Venice and Milan to meet a couple of friends but I guess I'll write about it some other time.
Life's been quite busy the past few months. Work life has been treating me well so far and I hope that continues in the months to come. I'll be traveling to Belgium soon and meet the annoying Sri Lankan whom I do seem to miss sometimes. I'll also be heading home for Christmas and I'm really looking forward to it. I'll get to play with my little nephew for a couple of weeks. He has started learning new words now and I think it's time his uncle teaches him a few "important" ones too. All in all, it's been an exciting autumn and I hope it sets to stage for an equally eventful winter.
Just a side note, I stayed at the "Whole Wide World Hostel" and it is one of the top 3 hostels I've ever stayed in. The staff was exceptionally amazing. If anyone is traveling solo to Zagreb, book this place for sure.
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