11 January 2026

Cleared out a lot of alcohol and liqueur bottles

Thirty, to be precise! This year’s goal is to try to specialize in Indian cocktails. Which means cocktails with some Indian twist to it. So far, I have some base alcohols from India and some tropical fruit juices from there. And a myriad of Indian spices.

This will be tricky. Indian spices are so flavorful that the palate I am afraid will overwhelm the nose. Let’s see if trial and error gets me anywhere.

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10 January 2026

The houses of KLM

Sharmila and Nikita traveled to India by KLM. Which meant I got to add to my collection of KLM houses. I had even given them the list of house numbers that I have, so they will not pick up a duplicate. 🙂

They publish one new replica of some famous houses/buildings in Netherlands every year – I believe on their annual anniversary day of existence. I have long ways to go!!

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10 January 2026

A prized possession in my antique collection

Sharmila and Nikita are back from India. Looks like, together with my mother-in-law, they dug up my late father-in-law’s stuff and got one of his prized possessions – a Yashica-D camera. He was an avid photographer back then. This is from the late 50s – nearly three-quarters of a century old! I think it was one of the first twin-lens reflex cameras.

It has now been added to my small but growing collection of things that most folks today would not recognize, nor know how to operate!

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8 January 2026

Yerba Mate!

At times, I had seen people drinking from a coffee cup but with a straw! The straw was made of metal and shaped more like a pipe. It looked more like a pipe-meet-coffee cup!

Found out in Uruguay – where lot of people were doing it – that is used to drink Yerba Mete – sort of like herbal tea except, caffeinated!

Got a few varieties of the Mate and two of those cups. Now, I need some excuse to drink it!!

Category: Vacations | LEAVE A COMMENT