A Traveling Day

We woke up to extreme weather. Snow clad trees, car frozen and carpets
of snow on the side gardens. We had to scrape the car and cajole it to
start. But before that we took a horse carriage to the castle. Sweet
experience. We sat with our legs covered in blankets ( smelt my jeans
when i kept smelling horsy smells in the car - it's in the wash as we
type) and slowly tread up took some photos and zoomed off in the car.
Almost! The traffic jammed us everywhere and today Madhur's driving
compared to the horse carriage guy. Slowly plodding on!
But when we arrived in Black FOrest the plodding seemed worth it's
weight in hay.
The hotel is situated in the midst of the top of the valley. Our room
overlooks mountains, forests and valleys and the sweetest houses I
have ever seen.
Stayed back in the hotel for dinner. Seven course meal if u please and
was obviously severly underdressed. Do I look lile I care?
 Our next table neighbours were a couple with kids. The woman kept
looking At me. She would jut back her head, straighten her back and
plast a huge smile on her face. It was bloody eerie. When I told
Madhur about it he asked me to smile back as eerily but unless I
smeared ash all over my body, held a skull in each hand and swung my
body in circles mumbling and chanting randomly, I could not have
mimicked her.
We went for a walk after. The valley the roads, pavements, trees,
fields, houses, windows, meadows, grass everything was bathed in
moonlight. I felt an epiphany coming.
We are one one side of the mountain. The other side was half blocked
by a moving sphere of cloud.  The bottom of the mountain was covered
with white transulcent clouds and the top looked like it was floating
in thin air. A sight I h ave never ever seen. And bathed in moonlight
it looked heaven sent and amazingly special.

So far this holiday has been special. And today the sight made me
realized that special moments are to be grasped. They don't fall in
your lap.

Appu