And Outside The Rain Fell...

Parisian Streets

2009-12-30T10:19:00.000-08:00

Streets. There was something about those Parisian sidewalks that I miss so much. It took me a movie to remember them – “Before Sunset”. What was it about those streets?

Was it those poles lining the streets? Or those unblinking eyes that walked those streets? Maybe the cigarette butts lining them. Or that entire anticipation of finding what comes at the end of this street? And that one. And the one after that. Paris is one city where I have walked alone more than anywhere else, where I have picked up a golden brown maple leaf from the streets and crunched it in my hand, smelling it. It was never the wide boulevards and avenues that interested me. No, it was the little streets where the treasures of Paris were to be found. It might have been stumbling across monolith Obelisks never to see them again, or getting lost and yet continuing on, knowing well that I might be late to reach home. It was sometimes just a friendly smile from a wrinkled old monk outside a long forgotten church. I remember it now. It was so easily forgotten then.

It was those cafes we never had enough money to enter. And those windows above. Who was staring at me? There must be many. People. With not much to do. Looking for something interesting in the next random stranger walking the road. Their road.

I am sure I did not excite too many people. Nor did I bother to look up too often. I should have, in retrospect.

Sometimes, what I enjoyed most was just the fact that I was the only person walking that road. That sense of achievement. It’s hard to describe, really. Those streets gave me time to think. To discover those people I have loved, those I have wronged. There was this pervading charm about the city. It was just there. You might have stayed in Paris all your life and not felt it. May be. But I did.

It was those afternoon streets. Looking up at those Blue and Green boards. You can’t help but wonder – who Turgot was? Or whether Rue Royale ever had any loyalty living by it? Of whether Rue Papillon was named after a horse that drew King Louis XIV. Maybe it was his Admiral. Even a mathematician. At that point, it really didn’t matter. I could make Papillon whoever I wanted him to be. It was sometimes nothing but the pleasure of having discover a street names after someone you know. Or had at least heard about.

I miss those streets now. I miss the pleasure of walking them, and doing nothing really. But think.

Impressions..

2009-12-07T12:29:00.001-08:00

Studying

2009-12-07T01:47:00.000-08:00

I know I should be studying. And not colouring up my presentation slides.

The Poetry of Silence

2009-12-04T09:36:00.000-08:00

There was a strange music to this day. To the sound of snow crunching underneath my feet. The sound of the dog growling at the sight of an outsider trespassing its farm. The sound of turquoise-blue water lapping the shore. Of ducks paddling. Of a strange man whistling. Of the occasional camera clicking timed self-portraits. Of the swish of a para-glider landing. And the chirp of a lone bird looking at the onset of winter. The vibration of an unanswered phone call. To even hear the wisp of a cloud passing over my head. And the music of silence itself.

Today was a day I felt perfect staying in silence. A repelling thought to most people i know ("itna chup rahungi toh peth dukhega"), today, silence seemed more beautiful than anything else. I was in love. More with myself than anything else.

It was just one of those days.

Interlaken had left me speechless. For no reason in particular, really. It was a feeling of being at home, amongst the water, the mountains, the cold and the snow.

I cannot think of a more perfect way to end my Eurotrip. Interlaken was dressed, and dressed well in everything that was Christmas. Santa's peeked out from the rooftops. MLTR and George Michael's music filled the streets. There was snow. And Christmas trees. Stockings and bells, glittering balls and stars. Streets were lined with makeshift stalls, selling traditional Swiss handcrafted trinkets (and vegetable samosas) and Swiss hot beer. There was a certain joy in the faces of the people here, one that said Christmas is here. I couldn't have chosen a better time for this little visit.

We stopped over on our way back at the little village of Breinz. Completely nestled in a small valley, it had the lake flanking it on one side. The sun shone through the mountain peaks on the lake, and it glimmered, like a spotless blue mirror. Eyes that never tired gazing at the turquoise colour of the water. This was as little a Swiss village as there could possibly be. Tiny, one storeyed wooden houses, cow bells hanging on the window sills. Roofs completely covered in last night's snow. And even a black steed galloping across on the snow. The roads narrowed as I moved inwards from the station, with almost no person visible for stretches, only the occasional car drifting by breaking the silence of the day. The jagged peaks rising above far above the valley, with the sun shining down on the village only for a couple of hours around noon. Winter had blanketed this place in snow. All the way downhill to Luzern, I gaped in awe at feet of snow lying in the very same field that was a vivid green the last time I did this journey. The Golden Panorama. There was a time when I did not know what NOT to photograph. And that's when I stopped. And let my eyes capture what was to come. It was enchanting. In every sense of the word.

Switzerland.

Winter Blues?

2009-11-29T04:33:00.000-08:00

Changed plans no longer surprise me that much. Not after 3 month of travelling. Bern became Zurich in seconds, and I was glad. Playing train-train no longer excited me that much.

And therefore Zurich.

It is still a surprise, the way people work here. The Sabbath is taken really seriously here, the sunset too. Everything, absolutely everything remains closed on Sunday, even the best of the Supermarkets and convenience stores. A weekday is no better, shutters start closing just a few minutes after dusk. The lights remain on though. All of them. All night. This is really sharply in contrast to India. People seem to work harder back home. Maybe I'm wrong. But three months of Europe has left that impression. Do they work smarter? That's probably unanswered.

The lake. The towering church spires. Bells going agong in harmonious cacophony, apparently trying to outdo each other. And after 3 months of nearly every European city, I knew I had had enough. Finally. For this trip. A flower clock. Cobbled streets. Lanes narrow enough for no more than two people walking hand in hand. Beautiful benches, seagulls and swans. The Alps hanging far in the horizon. It's snow glistering in the morning sun. The weather was amazing. To just pull your cap down on your face. And sleep by the lake, the sound of paddling water your lullaby. Christmas trees. In all its finery. McDonald's that served vegetarian burgers. And a shopping mall that masqueraded as the Central Station.

I liked Zurich.

Now if only I could have found that cheese fondue and Rosti i was looking for...

Playing train-train to reach home. Just 4 switches.

PS. I noticed how huge the train windows here are. You save on precious metal. And us travellers have a sprawling view of the countryside.

I hurt my thumb after a fall in Titlus. Doesn't hurt anymore. Yippee!

And Outside it Snowed!

2009-11-28T13:48:00.000-08:00

It is the period just before dawn that is perhaps the most spectacular part of the day. With the earth bathed in pale blue light, snow capped mountains stretching all the way to a horizon, and little towns, with little huts, their chimneys whispering wisps of steam, shining bright against the lights reflected by hundreds of little christmas trees. This was my first impression of Switzerland. It was beautiful. And virgin perfect.

As the train winded down the beautiful Interlaken valley, i struck up conversation again. This time with a lady from Atlanta, USA. It's delightful, when you can talk to people without inhibitions, when you know that your friend later will not be taunting you about an otherwise stupid remark made, when you just find company in strangers. And we spoke and spoke and spoke. The journey down was absolutely surreal, and both of us let out involuntary "wow's" several times enroute. A village in the valley completely shrouded by a cloud several feet high, like a blanket shielding a child from the cold. A solitary church spire the only thing visible from between the clouds- the child peering from the blanket out of curiosity. The village dead still as our train travelled down to the valley- the child merrily asleep.

This analogy was not drawn by him, it was my fellow stranger who did so. Her imagination ran vivid, and she identified faces in the mountains, colours in the lake (I quote "Even Crayola does not make a blue that vivid"). The water indeed was almost turquoise, and my 35+ stranger friend almost had a child in her while she spoke. Eager to travel home for Christmas, uncommonly curious about my education, fascinated by Diwali and Holi, describing herself to be a bad photographer, she was fascinating. And we hit it off well.

Bidding goodbyes, I took off for my next leg of the journey, Mt. Titlus, and spent half an hour in this beautiful little village called Stanz (recommended by the ticket checker), as i waited to join my friends. Stanz was beautiful, made even more beautiful by the call of one lady, I thank her now. Sprawling meadows with steep snow clad mountains serving as the backdrop, dew covering everything, from windshields to barbed wire, bells hanging from christmas trees to the coffee vending machine outside the station. I was loving Switzerland. Every bit of it so far.

Boarding the train again, this time to Engelberg, i realized I was sitting in a coach that would be delinked with the rest of the train soon. The train manager smiled at me, saying, "no stress, you get off at the next station. No stress at all. This is Swiss land". Ha ha. You cannot help but smile then.

Joining PritS and Patwa soon, who treated me to sakkath khakra, I was rather surprised to see the coach full of Indians. I later, in the evening, cracked a rather sad joke to PritS- "Simran must be the most famous Swiss girl". It's funny now, isn't it? Sad, but funny?

I think I was in one of those quirky moods of mine where I was cracking sad jokes throughout the day- judging by the number of indians of board, it seemed the train was going to Lokhandwala. Ha ha. I am funny. I know. PritS and Patwa are probably the only known exceptions who believe otherwise. I know, i know.

So, the train pulled into Engelberg after a surprisingly steep side, and there we were, blue icy mountains everywhere. I don't know how to describe Titlus. I've seen snow before, yes. I'm seen fresh snow. But this was different. To see scores and scores of skiers(?) fly down the steep mountain peak, that was amazing. To have an almost 60 minute cable car ride up, with three different legs, with drastically changing landscapes, that was amazing. From bright green meadows, onto dead grass, frost covered ground, dead blight afflicted ground, and finally, miles and miles of soft snow all around. Titlus. 3000 metres above sea level. 2000 ascended in an hour. And -9 degrees to the thermometer. Wow. Our hands numb as soon as we were out in the open, the icy cold wind blasting loose snow across our uncovered faces, a snowball flying here, another there, this was ruddy brilliant! Freezing, trudging along, skidding, watching the reason skiers(?) in awe, and worrying about "chillblitz(!)" this was amazing. Totally. Completely. I don't remember how many hours we spent at the top, on the glacier, on the peak, basking in the bright sunlight, icy blasts of wind blowing across our faces, writing names on the snow, or clicking photographs, but after a trip down and up again, I suddenly was so thoroughly exhausted even as I climbed an ascent less than 200metres high. My cough did me no good either, and i was continuing with my paste of honey and turmeric solely for the taste.

It was only when we were back down did I realize that it was almost 4. A futile hunt for food later, we were off to Luzern. The train, well, apologies, but might as well have been called the Gujarat Mail. So full was it of us. It's a nice feeling, in a way, to have so many of my fellow nationals in my midst. Also surprising, in a way. Of how one family of directors could sell an entire country to a billion people. The messages in Hindi everywhere were testimony to the fact. Indians love Switzerland, and rightly so. It's every bit as beautiful, as amazing, as good.

The next 5 hours now seem hazy, Pizzas, a supermarket whose name i forget, Zurich, a brilliantly lighted street, and St. Gallens. It didn't matter. I had enough memories already for the day today.

And the rain danced along the wire, again!

2009-11-27T14:34:00.000-08:00

Travelling alone gives you that one pleasure you never get to have when you're travelling with company, to interact with the world.

To skip Geneva this morning with a terrible cough, I was truly disappointed. As in almost shattered. I could not leave Europe without visiting Switzerland, sans all the Bollywood cliches about the place. It still was Switzerland. The snow. The mountains. And my cold. They just wouldn't go along.

The disappointed was hard to shoo away, and having failed to figure out the rather decrepit French Medical system, I knew it was time for some action. The earliest appointment i could get for my common cold and cough was almost a week later! Honey, a little of crushed onion juice (errr.grated, crushed, chopped) and a little too much of turmeric, whipped into a paste, and I had a tasty placebo ready. Some expensive Strepsils too, a ticket bought, assignment slides mailed, vacation mail reminders put in for a selected target, and there, I was off. Running. Backpack in tow. To Interlaken. Taking a circumvent route all across Europe. I had to see Switzerland.

Alone, this time I chatted up with totally unknown people. And it's weird how you establish connections with the strangest of people. An Indian couple kept me company for most of my first leg of the journey, and we discussed everything, from backpacking (they paid 300€ for my 5€ journey), to economics, to the health care system in India, to entrepreneurship, cranes, Switzerland, education, even Professors at IIM-Ahmedabad. It was really a most delightful conversation.

The second conversation was with a fellow cat lover, this girl who lived in Ulm and study Philosophy for a living, whose cat took an acute liking for me, jabbing it's paw at my muffler (or was it my throat? *in alarm!), with embarrassed smiles from it's owner. And we discussed Nietzsche, (something I've been reading for my tormential pleasures of late). Thus Spake Zarathustra. And we discussed the Rhine, Mark Anthony, Goethe, No Country for Old Men and even Nanu-Nina. Apparently, we are not its only fans. She was a delightful conversationist, and her English was flawless.

This is one of the few things I can never do, strike up conversations with random people when I'm with someone else. Probably it's because I'm rather content with the things I have, probably it's in some parts shyness, i would never know. And i do not like exchange cards, email ids. It is somehow nice, to leave it this way. To leave it as one amazing conversation in my memory, rather than trying hard to make conversation when we are a million miles apart. It's just not me. Maybe I'm losing a great friend this way, but that's that, i'm content. Weirdly, the philosopher girl agreed to me. Weirdly, we did not ask each others names. Weirdly, if i ever need to find her, i'll need to find a cat called Mimo in Ulm. Many of course wouldn't agree to leaving things hanging like that, and I respect that. But for me, a perfect conversation sometimes needs to be just a memory that would one day fade off.

Onwards to Interlaken. SwissLand, here I come.

I love walking in the rain

2009-11-22T12:18:00.000-08:00

To spend an outstanding day with dear friends. To watch the Eiffel, lights et al., in sync with the crescent moon in the backdrop and an accordion played on the metro.

And that's when you realize in love.

PS. Yeah Pritesh, laugh on.

And outside the rain did fall

2009-11-07T04:56:00.000-08:00

Well. It gets hard. I really cannot think of a single word to describe today that I haven't (ab)used enough already. Marvellous? Brilliant? Excellent? Superb? Wonderful? Fantastic? Fabulous? Terrific? Awesome?

Well. Today was everything above. And add some magic to this, and you have Annecy.

It didn't start this way. No. The beginning was bad. Reaching at 6.15, we played train-train and came back on time to Annecy at a comfortable 8.30. The "we" here was just Patwa and me. Another first. To our disappointment, Annecy was wet. And as much as I love rain, cause I absolutely love it, bicycles and rain just don't go along well with each other.

A little town on the South Eastern part of France, surrounded by the Alps, Annecy was beautiful, uncrowded, plain and simple. The hallmark of the town, if I can call it that, was an absolutely serene lake, with the town on one side, the Alps on the other. And except the mountains immediately flanking the lake, every other peak was snow covered.

Our sole intention of coming to town was to cycle, and it was terribly disappointing to have everything so dreary and wet. Except the lake. Water so clear, we could see the 5 foot deep bottom as if there was nothing in between. A few yachts by the lake, mountains on one side, this lake was long, and narrow. Very long, very narrow. And that made it an absolutely divine place to cycle on.

Well, the weather gods (are you listening Q?) had other plans. And there we were, sheltered under a shed by the lake, watching everything just stand there, calm, serene, untouched, pristine, in heavy rain.

Finally bored, we came back to the station by bus, and this time decided to play bus-bus by picking up the next bus to an unknown destination. After convincing the non-English speaking driver that we indeed could travel on the bus for free (which just for the record went to this forsaken place called Grenoble), there we were, all set to leave by 11.10.

I saw the first glimmer of hope, and sunlight, at 11.09. A speck of sunlight peeking through the clouds. As though it was almost mocking at us. Hell, no. Nobody mocks at us and gets away with it. And so we ran. Out of the bus. The expression of the bus driver, well, it was absolutely hilarious. A look of shock, disbelief, a look that said, "you-bl***y-geezers! What-were-you-thinking-when -you made-me-run-all-around-the station-asking¬-my-buddies-if-you-travel-free-on-MY-bus, and-now-you-buggers-suddenly-run-out-like-that. With-those-silly-grins-of-yours!"

Sunlight. And no rain. All of a sudden. The rain god(dess) did smile upon us at last.

We needed bicycles. And food.

The first pitstop was at Subway. Yes, I loved Amy, for speaking wonderful english and so gladly, in France. And being curious about the world.

Walking on, the cycle rental. 10 Euros for half a day, per person. We could get a half a cycle in India for that amount! The deal closed completely, he had my passport, and I, his cycles.

Jet Black. A blue biker's helmet. A bottle of orange juice. And smell of fresh earth. And the cold, cold weather. Suited up, we were set.

And then it began. Amongst the most memorable cycle rides ever. The cycle track was perfect. Deserted, strewn with autumn leaves, many offshoots every now and then, and even a few stunt platforms! And Scenic. It passed by the lake for the most part, and whenever we didn't, we just went off road.

Passing through carpets of red leaves, passing by pony farms, passing by acres of bright green meadows, crystal clear wave, a few smiling pedestrians (see France, you can do better!), dirt tracks, numerous wooden and metal bridges passing over rivulets. Europe was alive. The countryside. And here I was, on a cycle. Just one deep breath said it all, air so pure, so full of scents, of leaves once, of flowers the next, of baked bread, of the rain the next, of mud the next, and the ever lingering smell of fresh grass.

Needless to say, we stopped often. And so did our cameras. Podiums going far into the water, there we were, listening to Dil Chahta Hai and Yeh Haseen Wadiyaan, going absolutely crazy. We were enjoying it all like never before. And were cycling.

The countryside changed drastically, and often, in spans of minutes. We often cut into the littlest French villages, riding through them. The smell of fresh bread still lingers as I write this.

And at the background all through was this pristine lake. Azure blue water guiding us. And snow capped peaks in the far back drop. We drove on, and on. And on.

Through a cycle only tunnel. Through tracks that were little more than a feet wide. Through dense trees. Through the most romantic of fall enveloped through ways. Through meadows. Through an apple grove even. Through villages. So engrossed were we in the ride, little did we realize it was raining again.

Having had begun at 12,
We’d set 3.30 as the point we would start pedalling backwards.

En route, before I forget, there were several remarkable incidents. A WC (European for a loo) that completely washed itself everytime someone used it, including the room! Patwa ji falling off the cycle while trying a stunt podium. My cycle stand breaking off (poor baby), which I then wrapped splendidly in tissue paper. Some pro cyclists going "zooooop" past us. A meadow where we had doves flying all over our heads as we cycled through it. A pair of ferocious dogs snarling at us. Several intentional wheel skids. Two races, one of which Patwa won. A lady who gifted us two apples. A crazy brilliant tunnel solely for cyclists.

By the time we finally did decide to turn around, we had menacing clouds all around us, and the rain grew steadily heavier. And we cycled back. With just one pit stop. Legs, mind, and the jacket doing an okay-ish job of protecting me from rain, all working towards getting me back.

The rain had got heavy by then, but this was undoubtedly the part I loved most. Riding alone now (for Patwa ji chose to race ahead, while I preferred to go slowly, minimal gear changes and a steady ride), it gave me enough time to ponder over several things. And in the midst of the most scenic routes I've witnessed. Just one pit stop later, we were back.

My jacket drenched completely on the outside. Numb, cold hands. Wet gloves. And hurting calves. Yet, given more time, I would have gone ahead. Far ahead.

It was funny when I presented the broken stand to the shop owner, almost as a gift, neatly wrapped in tissue paper. He laughed himself, and said, well, 1000 Euros. A few stupid explanations later, he decided not to charge us for it. Phew.

And the result.

35 kms of cycling for the day. Through fairly uneven terrain. One stop on the way back. Rain. And the most beautiful part of France yet.

It tested the limits of our endurance on our way back, but wow, never had I enjoyed so much. Even with just one other person. Brilliant. Especially with the pace we set. Many thousands of laughs. Many "wows". Tour de France next, who knows?

And finally. Subway again, a full meal, some brilliant coffee. A change of clothes. Our cold feet warm again. It all happened there.

Walking the streets of Annecy, the constant rain and the cold convinced us to do a little train-train. Well, finally, we screwed up. Going to this place called Remilly, 15 minutes away, we searched for a non-existent supermarket for kicks, and realized our immediate return train was cancelled. An hours wait, brilliant music giving me company (I bow to you, O Ozzy Osbourne and Rahman), we were back to Annecy.

Cemetaries of Paris?

2009-11-05T04:44:00.000-08:00

Yay! A lazy day. A day when I get to do nothing at all. And in Paris. Taking a well deserved break from our travels; today was the Sabbath. And why not, we deserved it. Replying to infinite mails, catching up with many friends, this was long due.

Noon brought me to why I'm posting up this blog today.

Notre Dame.

A tour of this centre of Paris. Nestled between an island on the River Siene, this cathedral of gigantic proportions always inspired a sense of awe in me. Ever since Victor Hugo wrote that book.

Guided by a volunteer who "also" spoke Anglais (English), the tour was frightfully uninteresting. After being guided by native speakers in other cities so far, this was bound to happen. Well, it was still good. But not the best.

And that again is not the reason why this blog is up.

It's because of this cemetery at Pere Lachaise.

Reaching a few minutes before Paris fell into darkness, this cemetery was grand. The who's who of the dead; this was the place everyone in Paris seemed to love to be in their afterlife.

Spooky. Eerie. Especially in autumn. With little sun. Frightfully cloudy, the cemetery's cobbled paths were neatly carpeted with golden leaves. Tombs that were uniquely grand, many gothic, many baroque. Dazzling marbles and granites. Several of the crypts had house like towers of the exact same floor size, but enormously tall. Few epitaphs. And crowded. Not with people. With the dead.

But i would have let this post pass if this were all to it.

Cause there was more.

PritS and I were the only ones going. No one else seemed interested enough. Suits me, I enjoyed my time with him. I did not feel the need to talk, to make my presence felt with him around. I could walk silently. You can do that with very few. One was he.

Branching off our different ways once into this huge cemetery, I chose to walk the oft walked, cobbled path. The strewn leaves, the pretty tombstones, they fascinated me. I loved it. I walked on, to the very heart of the cemetery. Totally lost, really. I had some directional sense to the way out, but there was quite some time until it would get completely dark. I was good.

And it was then that it happened.

To look back, I still don't have an explanation as to what happened. Or whether it happened at all.

Wandering through the streets in the cemetery, I suddenly stopped. I still do not know why.

I chose to walk in the midst of the graves, which had little more than a few centimeters of distance between each other. Treading carefully, as i did not want to step on the graves themselves, i walked in the heavily soggy and leaved little path. Wandering between many hundreds of graves. Looking around, I suddenly realized I truly was in the middle of rows and rows of the dead.

It was sad. Beautiful. Melancholic. In a wonderful way. In a supernatural way.

As I stood there, watching in silent contentment, a certain grave caught my attention. I still do not know why. I really don't know why this particular grave. It was amongst the simplest of them all. Something I would have just looked over otherwise.

Drawing close, I was surprised. The slab covering the grave was partially open. Curiosity. That mother of all dangers.

I peered in.

I actually peered into an open grave.

And I had the fright of my life.

Roughly 6-7 feet deep. And I was peering in intently from up close. A minute later, all I remember is backing away suddenly. Running away from the graves. On to the nearest cobbled track. It's suddenly so hazy as I write this. Why was I running? Why was my heart pacing?

I saw something move.

Looking back, I have several unanswered questions.
Why was I at that grave in particular? What attracted me there? What did I see in it? Why was I running away even before my mind registered the fact that I was running? Why did I walk briskly all the way back to the entrance? What made my legs carry me away from that grave?

There were too many unanswered questions. Too spectral. Too other-worldly. I still don't know whether it happened at all? Had I fallen asleep somewhere in between? Or did it all happen.

It was almost dark and raining by the time PritS came back.

I was ready for another walk through it. Oscar Wilde was buried in here. I wanted to see his grave.
PritS said another day. Thank god for that. I had had enough for a day.

Still. Did it happen? I can never say.

All the Way up to Heaven

2009-11-01T15:27:00.000-08:00

Waking up lazily at my convenience hasn't happened at all on this Eurotrip. Waking up fresh, like I've slept forever, especially while travelling, hasn't happened either. Well, finally it did.

In the most peaceful, almost subconscious sleep so far, we woke in the hotel, having cup noodles (yummy) for breakfast, and hopping out rather quickly to be greeted by an Indian sun, warming, bright and blinding.

We had the enormous Roma Forum and Palantine Hill for the day. To imagine Palantine Hill and the Forum in its heydays, it the era of Trajan, was a bewildering experience. The huge pillars and arches that remain are testimony to how massive the place was. The heart of Roman Civilization, Palantine Hill was where, as legend has it; Romulus and Remus were brought up. Where successive generations built the foundations of Rome. Where the kings and nobility erected magnificent villas, banquet halls, temples to Jupiter, baths, private arenas and courtrooms. Each of them, as their foundation reveals, was enormous in their entirety.

Today, alas, most of it lies in ruins. Yet, it isn't difficult to imagine the place in its heydays, to imagine filled courtrooms and the neighbourhood Colosseum teeming with people cheering, to imagine the enormous white marble and granite pillars and kings and generals walking the very roads we were walking now.

Spread over a huge bread, we hardly had time to see it all. And having spent four hours there already, E moved on to the city, looking for the Holy Grail - food.

Finding no pizzeria that was affordable and good, we all settled for shakes at McDonald's, and walking on, soon did find rolled Margaritas.

And then the Pantheon.

A 2000 year old structure. A 40 metre perfectly spherical dome. A dome that was free standing. No one really knows how such a massive, immensely massive dome can remain standing with absolutely no reinforcements, just plain concrete created some 2000 years ago.

Initially a temple to all the pagan gods (and hence the name - Pan and Theo), it was later consecrated by the Church to be a church for St. Joseph. What this did do was save it from pillage and destruction. And thus it still stands. A beautiful example of early Roman architecture, the huge dome and the mighty pillars are an example of how advanced the engineering of those days was.

As I stood there, feeling little, gazing in awe at the pillars, the open dome (the dome has a circular opening from where sunlight streams in), I couldn't help but want to stay there forever. A live choir played there at the back, probably because it was a Sunday. The earthy, eerie tones of the choir echoed in the interiors, with Tards and Bansi and I chatting away about Roman history, of the Papacy, of the church and pagan gods. We spent almost an hour there, in what might appear to be nothing more than a massive room.

Almost time to leave Rome, we walked around the old Pantheon area, which is scattered with several relics of the past. En Route, outside a certain McDonald's, I saw a wonderful street artist, using nothing but cardboard and spray paint to create starkly beautiful, supernatural paintings out of nowhere. Using a few moulds to cover earlier work, she worked with fantastic speed, and amazing, almost careless accuracy. And the paintings never came to life until the very last moment. Brilliant. I wanted one so badly, but we were running out of time and had to rush forth. Some other day. For in my mind, I knew that if there was one city that I was coming back to, if ever, this was it.

Rome. Forever.

City of Angels: A Gothic Romance

2009-10-31T15:19:00.000-07:00

In Rome. What can I say more?

For a city so replete with history, we created a little bit of personal history ourselves. For starters, we finally would be staying over in a hotel. This was due. Having survived, and successfully, Europe for over a month and a half without staying in a hotel or hostel (the colloquial term for a hotel where you can share a room, like a dormitory, but fully furnished) is quite extraordinary. And tired of train travel out of my senses, I really wanted this to happen.

Early morning, and we had another train joy ride to a nearby station, having our breakfast and freshening up in a totally random station, which we realized is also the entrance of a little used airport in Rome.

Our train joy rides are immense fun, where we run all permutations to find a station which would give us enough time to catch up on some sleep, freshen up and have our breakfast. 2 hour joy rides, often back in the same train again.

Back to Roma Termini, we dumped our bags in the hostel lobby and set out to see Rome. We had 2 days to 2000 years of history.

The Colosseum. Magnificent, huge, and surprisingly intact, all of us simultaneously went 'wowwww' at first sight. Home to Merciless animal fights and gladiatorial duels, the Colosseum once had 25000 beasts killed in a span of a few days! Huge travertine arches cover most of the arena, which once could seat 50000 Romans.

Paying an outrageous sum for entry, the Colosseum on the inside was every bit as splendid, but the authorities could have done a lot more to make it more visitor friendly. Nevertheless, the inside had the arena, a huge oval platform where the fights once took. It really is difficult not to imagine 50000 Romans screaming in joy at the sight of their favourite gladiator winning a duel, with the king looking on. Splendid and a fantastic, this was a testimony to how Roman architecture was (for it is vastly different from the Baroque and Gothic sites I've seen).

Having spent almost half our day there, we had to move on. Hungry, we picked up delightful pizzas and proceeded to the Vatican.

It is indeed funny when you're crossing a country on foot. Even more when you're standing on no-man's land. Even, even more when the country is an all-male little country housed entirely within another city.

And there stood undoubtedly the most amazing, massive church I've witnessed. I wouldn't call St. Peter's Basilica a church at all in fact. A monument to the Popes, or the Papas, as the Italians call them. Celebrating them rather. St. Peter occupied the centre stage, quite obviously, and around him, in much opulence were sculptures of more Popes, often shrouded in controversy.

The dome was hard to miss, it was simply massive. And surprisingly, there was no full statue of Jesus at all! The crypts below were grand, and I loved the moment when I was passing by the tombs of each of the Pope, recalling history I'd read in Wikipedia years back.

Rome was fast becoming my favourite city in Europe (too, yes Nyx, I join your gang). The whole aura around the city just grew and grew. And there I was, sitting under the huge obelisk opposite the Basilica, admiring what the Roman Catholic Church is, what it was at once. At the splendour of it all.

Walking out, we went on to the city centre. En route, a certain call made me miss home immensely, but soon enough, I was laughing in splits. Thanks. To the caller. You rock.

The River Tiber, the castle upon it, and the best place in town for pizzas. The first time we were in a full blown restaurant, Pizzeria da Baffetto. One of Italy's best Pizzeria, we were almost shoved in by the owner into a little, serpentine staircase up to the attic-like dining hall. The ambience immediately reminded me of Vidyarathi Bhavan. What a place! We waited for almost an hour as our Margaritas came along.

The delicious smell of tomatoes and cheese hit our noses almost seductively. The charred wood burnt edges of the Pizza, a thin crust that melted in my mouth, cheese that smelt fresh out of the diary, expanding in our mouth as the tang and spice of the pizza burst almost simultaneously. It really was the true Italiano pizza experience. Walking out, very, very content, I was rather surprised to see a huge queue of people outside, waiting to get into that little place in the heart of the old town.

Walking home, final a hostel, we came across many historic monuments, some in ruins, and many intact. Every turn, every single road had something dating from almost 2000 years back, and it mingled so, so well with its neighbourhood. Rome was captivating.

Our hostels. I was quite looking forward to a comfortable sleep, and I was rewarded rather handsomely. The hotel rooms were amazing, a little too bright for my eyes, but the bunker bed quintuplexes had everything we could want, and a quick shower later, and a week long shave after, I drifted off to sleep. Sooner than ever. Probably in milliseconds. It felt so good. A cosy bed that didn't rock, and no evil ticket checkers and polizei knocking doors at 3.

I miss home so much, and the people back home, but Rome. It was amazing. Roma. So, so easy to fall in love with this city.

To Where the Sea Flows

2009-10-30T15:15:00.000-07:00

What can be said of Venice that hasn't been said already? Venezia. Romance. Gondolas. Murano glass. Laces. And the masks. Pure, unadultered charm.

From point 0, there was surprisingly little to see in the town. Except for the huge Roman church, Venice was all about the experience. Amongst the most romantic and picturesque ones. Very nearly utopian.

Yet if you look closely, there's nothing remarkable about the city. A few miles of canals that replace roads almost entirely. Hundreds of bridges, often providing direct access to houses, crossing the many canals.
Jet black Gondolas, lazily wading through the canals, complete with a man in striped t-shirt and black trousers navigating the Gondola through, complete with his hat and red ribbon, a long wooden oar and a couple sitting cosily in the middle. Oh, yeah, a labyrinth like city, with a hundred million roads branching off everywhere, leading to high arched roofs, dead ends and seldom used canals. It was impossible to not get lost in Venice. And I know very people who wouldn't want to get lost here.

Morning brought us to Venice, with lots and lots of sunlight finally.

Treating ourselves to the biggest pizza I've ever seen (it was one helluva large pizza), and doing some hilarious jugad, tapping Venice's underground water supply for our drinking water needs, we were off. Criss crossing many shops, hundreds of charming bridges, many gondolas and houses, houses that seemed to be falling off their foundations, peering precariously close to the water's edge, often having doors that directly opened to the water. Venice had me smitten completely. Thoroughly. I could sit there for hours by a little used bridge, doing random bakar on everything from history to college, and just spending the day thus.

Needless to say, soon enough, we were lost. Hopelessly. Fun. With only a very vague set of direction. Evening brought out the best in Venice, for we had almost passed off the entire day doing little but walk around, exploring pretty little souvenir shops that sold fantastic Venetian masks, thoroughly enjoying the moment. Rounding up with Pizza for dinner too, and walking around some more (much to the chagrin of PritS who complained we hadn't 'seen' everything that Venice had to offer).

I think somewhere around, everyone made a little promise in the corner of their hearts, a promise that promised to be back some day. Some day. The Gondola ride remains. The memory remains.

And The Interlude

2009-10-29T15:11:00.000-07:00

A long, long day of travel. Due south, from almost the tip of Eastern Europe to Italy.

Our Trains journeys so far have been rather legendary. Comfortable, racing through scenic country sides, with beautiful trains that offered us just enough rest to go on backpacking the next day.

This one was all of that, except for one small detail. The Authorities. Being knocked at our cabin at all hours of the day, all hours of the night was not funny. First, the German Police. Then the French ones come along. And then, even the Italian ones. Sigh. Although uneventful, just the arduous task of waking up from a tired sleep to show passports and visas and passes can get often annoying.

Nevertheless, our train reached Milano early morning. Pacing the station for a short while, we knew we wouldn't be staying in Milan for too long. It was a great cosmopolitan town, but had terribly little to offer budget tourists like us. Except for a few, many luxury branded stores. The heart of World fashion. The Armani's were everywhere. We did however take a tram ride through the city.
Relics of I-do-not-what-era trams, these actually had old lanterns hanging from the ceilings, were bone-jarring rickety and super fun. Riding through the city, passing through swerving Vespa's and narrow lanes, Italy was immediately enchanting. And uniquely non-European. It was chaos, charming and beautiful. The weather perfectly Indian. Out went our jackets. We actually were enjoying the sun this way after long. And the girls here...

En route, we actually got down to see the Piazza del Duomo, one of the world's largest gothic cathedrals, with a seating capacity of 40,000 people. Flanked by tall spires, gargoyles and bishop statuettes, this occupied pride of place in the heart of the city.

Late, we now caught the metro back to Central Station, and sipping on our lavazza's, boarded the next train of ours to Firenze, or as we know it, Florence. A bread-cheese-spread breakfast later, we were nearing Florence around 2ish, and almost immediately took off for Pisa.

The train journeys were already getting long, and reaching Pisa at 5 meant that we would see the sun setting at the tower. I was initially hardly enthusiastic about travelling 2 hours one way to see just this one tower, for the city had nothing else to offer.

However, the actually tower easily made the journey worth it. Inclined alarmingly steeply, this seven storey tower was beautiful. And along with the cathedral flanking it, easily stood out in the landscape.

PritS and I both concluded that not just the tower but the nearby cathedral and the cupola seemed funnily inclined. Maybe it was just distortion. Maybe they are.

A lot many "sugar" poses later, with many amongst us saving the day by comically "holding Pisa up", we were back again. To the train. To Florence. Late night, there was little chance of us going out. So, feeding on Pizzas and Milkshake, we sat about chatting till late, and at 11.30 took another train to a subway of Florence. Our next train was at 1.48! I got out my pillow, draped myself in the jacket and comfortably wore off to sleep, to be awoken only by, and again, the polizei checking our passports.
Sleeping in the stations too came was like second nature now.

Occupying cabins in the train now came easy. And when morning came, I found a bag missing. Poor thief though, he found absolutely nothing in the bag except bread and gloves, and left it discarded in the toilet.

I had never realized the threat of theft in Italy was this real, but experiencing it first hand, from a closed cabin in a train, I was almost surreal. Need to be more cautious. But heck, it's a beautiful country and well worth it.

Collapsing Delight into a City

2009-10-28T15:06:00.000-07:00

28.10
It's a funny city, Berlin.
It's citizens seem to love their traffic lights only if it has this cartoon character called AmpelMann. The site that was once Checkpoint Charlie is now a famous tourist trap. And the "American Side" is lined with signs of Capitalism - Subways, McD's and Burger Kings. The first sight that greets you as you crossover to the "Eastern Side" is probably Starbucks.

The city is absolutely beautiful. Remarkable. Extraordinary. One of the only cities today whose "history" is as early as the 90s. A city that seems to resurge every single time it has fallen. And beautifully so.

In Berlin again today, the fourth time this Eurotrip, we finally visited the Reichstag, the German Parliament. The entire building seems to echo that one thought - "our democracy is transparent for all". The free tour inside the Parliament building, under the enormous dome seems to epitomise this thought. As you circle feets above the floor along the starkly contemporary glass and steel dome, you get a clear view of everything happening inside the Parliament. And again, for the Members of the Parliament, the clear cue, "no matter what, the hundreds of people walking above you are the people for who you sit here".

Meeting a really quirky Indian "uncle" on the way up had PritS and me in fits of laughter. This bloke, a self-styled Swami, was self-obsessed, enormously pompous and lecturing about almost everything on earth. Rustic in a way, he kept cursing Indian Politicians, referring to his firm belief in the youth for tomorrow's future (yeah, like whatever man) and wanted us to take a video of him walking up the dome.

It got funnier when he gave a running commentary about what he was seeing, mixing up rivers, Berlins and even people. He kept referring to us throughout his commentary, and was almost evil in his attempt to not stare at the camera while he spoke. Imagine PritS' expression when the bloke asked him to give a commentary as well. He was one of those typical guys who seemed to love the Western world, and was quite embarrassed at us seeing him in a cowboy hat, and white overalls, jeans et al. I assume, by his uneasy smile, that he was to be at some ashram in a european city in dhotis and had conveniently found himself the time to visit Berlin. Whose money, I dare not think of it.

Funnier still when he got into a gang of schoolboys to get his photograph taken, a gang of girls next, his funny hat et al. We almost roared in laughter at his antics. Finding a fellow brother who could speak Kannada only made him happier, and finding two more in our group had him almost bursting at his seams.

An impromptu discourse on the Gitanjali later, we had to finally, with an almost heavy heart bid adieu to this guy. He was worth a big smile. Crazy, awesomely.

Having left the Holocaust museum half way yesterday, we headed there while Patwa ji visited the Deutsche History museum.

Having already seen the museum yesterday, I wasted no time absolutely in drifting off to sleep on a coffin shaped ledge there, waking up many minutes later to be woken up by someone in that dimly lit room. Embarrassed for having fallen asleep (cause the museum really was amazing and very interesting), I quickly moved to the next room, thinking I'd lost my mates.

I hadn't.

3 of them had fallen asleep in the exact same way as I.

And it was one of us who'd woken me up!

Nevertheless, the museum was brilliant, recollecting stories from long gone Jews who had suffered the worst of the atrocities during the war. 6 million jews dead. It's a number you, atleast I Can't even imagine. 6 million humans, even more difficult. The all brutally killed. It's touching, even for those who fall asleep midway.

Falafels next, and a weird Stasi exhibition, who were the then secret East Germany Police, we again branched off with 3 of us going off the other way to Checkpoint Charlie.

I liked Berlin today, one for it reminded me so much of Bangalore. The weather, gentle rain that was cold and absolutely the exact same Bangalore one. It felt like I was meeting a long lost friend again. Walking alone often gives you time to think, and today I had plenty of it.

Of late, I've been doing a lot of things I'd lost out on of late. Scaring Bansi from behind huge concrete blocks, jumping out suddenly at her, or trying to be more of a stoic again, or even just making random "monkey-faces" (did I finally get this right?) at will. It's like the old times again. More quirky almost.

Italy next. Italy. Woo-hoo-ness-ess, no?

The Wall Part III

2009-10-27T15:01:00.000-07:00

27.10
The Fourth Incarnation. The Third Reich. SS. Bundelstag. Stasi. GDR. Checkpoint Charlie. The Wall.

Berlin again. Berlin finally. Having been in and out of Berlin twice without having seen the city, this time we were finally here. Berlin. A sea of new. Trying to forget its horrific past. And yet keep it preserved for the future. Berlin was amazing.

At the city only at 12.30, we headed straight for our walking tour. Jack. Irish. In Berlin for 8 years. Our tour guide for today. Walking down Berlin, listening to almost 800 years of enigmatic history. The little quirks in East Berlin that remained. Including the signal lights. Ampelmann.

The Bradenburger Tor, once the symbol separating East and West Germany, continued to stand imposing, with its top surmounted with a four-horse driven chariot with Victoria (the winged goddess of victory) . The gate Overlooked many embassies, including my personal favourite, the Indian. Imagine a long road, flanked with the embassies of the best of the World, the most prestigious hotels and the most revered brands along it. This majestically ended in the Bradenburger Tor. A tour kick started off from there.

We moved on to The Memorial for the Murdered Jews of Europe was a set of 2711 concrete slabs. Symbolising everything. Yet nothing at all. It could be anything I wanted it to be. Beautiful and stark, I could see a hoard of graves for varying sizes, steps representing the increasing magnitude of torture inflicted upon them, a vastness that told many stories. Walking between these imposing blocks of concrete was cold and eerie at the same time, yet deep in the kind of emotions it brought about.

It would be impossible to write everything about the city the way I heard it. From one of only surviving Nazi building that was massive, called the Ministry of Ministries under the Soviets to the (or in)significance of Charlie's Point, the wealth of information we learnt about the city was immense, and inexplicable.

I particularly loved the Gendarmenmarkt, with the church built by French immigrants almost standing neck in neck to the Deutsche Dom. Identical yet different, these structures flanked an almost Greek neo-classic Concert Hall. It was easy to feel insignificant in the enormity of the square.

The tour went through the city, to Babel Square where the Nazi book burning once happened. It's a different experience, to walk through a city and listen to its history at the same time, it gives you a feeling that you are travelling through time.

The tour soon done, Berlin Hauptbaunoff beckoned, and we travelled to Leipzig for the night. And that's when we had amongst the most sumptuous meal of our European tour, comparable, probably to only the one at Prague. Amazing Naans, an assortment of sabzis cooked in real Punjabi style, it just made so content, so happy. And at "isspecial" student price for students from "apna desh". We couldn't ask for more.

Trip planning, a long message conversation, and hot coffee, I couldn't have asked for a better day.

Where the Streets Have No Name?

2009-10-26T14:55:00.000-07:00

Finally. A day that actually had me bored. Terribly, terribly exhausted, walking through the city of Vienna as if in a trance. Actually falling asleep once while walking (and not the other way around). Missing a train. Getting cold in the rain. Throngs of people everywhere. The museums closed. Getting separated from the rest of the gang. A broken handbag. And a sea of tiredness.

I'm writing this a whole day. And looking back, it wasn't that bad a day after all. Even i only removed the exhaustion from the picture, it was a rather great day.

The Austrian Republic Day. Army exhibitions with a great deal of fanfare. Sleeping on cool grass in the middle of the busiest town square for over a i-don't-remember-how long. An almost eerie cathedral. Beautiful a la Bangalore pitter-pattering rain in spurts throughout the day. A grandiose museum square. The absolute yummiest chocolate wrapped wafers I've eaten. A museum for films and impressionism. A long, long walk with PritS, silent for the most half, anecdotes for the rest. Pretty cups. Deep sleep once in train, almost surreal, with the effect that at one point i wasn't sure if i was dreaming about such a day in Vienna or was it for real.

See, now that I think of it, now that i remember it, the day was beautiful. Absolutely. Yet add a week's tiredness to it and everything gets so bleak, distorted and dark.

Well rested, I can recollect massive Gothic Cathedrals, a blend of the old and new in the museums. Immensely awesome Royal Palaces. The Blue Danube which I never saw. A train missed, as we travelled all across Vienna.

I think things were just not meant to be when it came to Vienna. Not this time. Another time? Another year? Another person? Probably. I'll leave that hanging.

Oh. And we saw apna India wala Cafe Coffee Day in Vienna. Occupying prime property. At prime prices.

Douche Bag

2009-10-25T14:52:00.000-07:00

25.10
Prague was different.
Different in what we did. In what we saw. In the way we saw it.

Just different.

So, we started off the day, rather night, in a totally absurd fashion. 4a.m. The conductor comes knocking. Prague time!
Voice in my head-
"Wait. Prague. Already? 4a.m.". No way in hell!
"Yeah boy, now get your a** out of my train (sorry parents)".
"Oh. Well, I might as well do that"

4a.m. in a cold city. No way. Opposite station. Some train leaving in 4 minutes. To some random place called Desin. Like the hell I care. Arrival at destination? Sometime 6.
Good enough.

Catch entire compartments for ourselves. There were few others to complain on this train. In fact, none at all. Woo-hoo. Just the 7 on a train, to a random place, in a random country.

Anything for dear sleep. Almost.

I don't even remember getting down at Desin. Or whatever that place was. A few minutes later, we were catching a train back to Prague. Right opposite again. Reaches at 8. Woo-hoo. Time to brush my teeth and go back to sleep.

Alright. We like making the most of our Eurail passes. Including travelling trains just to catch sleep. Like i said, anything for precious sleep.

Prague again, this time at a more sane 8-ish. And then we did the usual. You know, walking the walk (a few kilometres around the city square), talking the talk (food, supermarkets, food, India, sweets, dosas and Paris), doing the stuff every other backpacker does.

Or did we?

Take a wild guess.

You're right, we did.

Actually, nah, we didn't!

Currency conversions. Pizzas for breakfast. And off we were to town square.

Voice in my head
"But hey Gustav, you haven't described the city yet"

"Like whatever, take that you (shows an absurdly explicit sign) European conscience"

Oh, well, so the city.

Astonishing. Beautiful. Amazing buildings everywhere. If there's one city you'd want to visit in Europe, you cannot possibly miss Prague.

Okay. History time.

So, this like city. In this little country. How the hell did it possibly not get flattened out during the War? Like every other major city in the Europe we'd seen? To an extent, by letting the Nazi Germany occupy Czech during the war. And then, at the end, letting them out peacefully. See, no bloodshed. No rampage. No pyromania leaving the city burning. Of course, the Russians were waiting outside for the retreating Nazis, but the city was safe.

What that left was a beautifully intact city, with a splendid town square, replete with its own elaborate Astronomical clock, huge Goth church and a more modern Protestant church. Again, everything beautifully intact. I do not want to talk too much about the city, it really is amongst the most beautiful cities I've seen here, and must be experienced first hand. We took one of Sandeman's Free Walking Tour of the city, and by the end, richer with a lot more history and the most laughs so far, we were extremely happy, content.
Our guide, Isaac, was flamboyant, knowledgeable, an amazing story teller, and a killer wit. And a Jew. Who could ridicule and laugh at almost everything. Including his beloved Prague. Never did we enjoy touring a city so much, thanks to him. It really couldn't get better.

Only it got better.

Way better.

As in, way, way better.

A restaurant. An early Dinner.

One of the best so far.

A vegetarian restaurant. Gets better. Hold your breath.

An Indian Vegetarian Restaurant! Yeah baby!

Gets even better. An Indian Vegetarian Restaurant that charges by the weight.

Inexpensive, and downright delicious pulavs, rice, dals, rajma, salads, curds, pickle. The meal was absolutely yummy.

It really couldn't get better.

But it had to.

The kind hostess offered us free lassi since she was closing and we were the last customers.
The food really was as good as any in India. And we had the widest smiles yet on our trip.

We rounded off the day with a lazy walk across the castle and St. Charles Bridge.

I had to come back to this city. Period. Soon.
I wanted to see it all over again, and see the parts we had skipped.

One helluva day. This day. Today. Douche Bag.

The Blue Danube.

2009-10-24T14:42:00.000-07:00

24.10 Rubbing my eyes this morning, I woke up to sound of the train attendant “the seats aren't for sleeping" and that of a door sliding shut. Sigh. I went back to sleep a few minutes later, waking up only much later to the sight of a city suburb that almost reminded me of India.

The station had an old, rustic feel to it. Far from the futuristic, halogen lit stations of Germany, the deserted, almost entirely automated stations in Scandinavia; this one was old, small and quite unclean. We landed to several touts offering taxis and accommodation, and they surprisingly didn't press at all when we said no.

An excellent currency conversion rate brought out our wide smiles, immediately followed with shock- a conversion spread of 20% between the bid and the ask. It was outrageous!

Guided by the tourist information centre to better rates downtown, we headed out, heavy backpacks on us, to find food, money and some history.

A long walk late, we got some fabulous currency rate with a spread of less than .8%. Man, I could survive this country only with arbitrage, buying and selling currency between the station and downtown market. Delicious veggie burgers and coffee at Burger King, we were all set to explore the city on foot.

The beautiful white Elizabeth bridge into Buda, we immediately were greeted by the statue of an old monk set high up in hill, surrounded by a semi-circular archway of Greek pillars. The walk up was rather arduous, our bags not helping us much. And rather dirty. The city could have been much, much cleaner. Yet, the view of the gleaming white bridge from up there, with the monk who supposedly introduced the Christian faith into Hungary behind us, the walk now seemed worthwhile. Yet, our climb further continued to the Citadella, an old fortress that was now a wax WWII museum and a huge statue of the lady holding the palm frond. The view of the city from up there was absolutely mesmerizing. The only dilution of this view was a scam played out on Patwaji, with him losing 50 Euros. There really isn't easy money anywhere, not even in the cheapest city we've visited so far.

Some souvenir shopping later, and hungry, we plodded down slowly to the nearest Subway. A Sub after so long simply tasted delicious. Absolutely perfectly toasted, lots of olives, honey mustard and ketchup with extra capsicum, this Sub couldn't have got better. At all.

Forking off here to pursue our several interests, the two couples with us went off shopping in the rather cheekily named fashion street, while the other 3 proceeding to see the rest of the city on foot. Walking along the bank of the Danube (note to John Strauss II - it's more green than blue, but nevertheless, respect.), we came across the most fabulous, opulent and grand parliamentary building yet. Fantastic spires overlooking the Danube, this enormous building had 700 rooms. Too bad we were too tired for a guided tour of the place. As dusk fell, I also realized I missed the famed spring baths in Budapest. I'll leave it for another trip to this city, for another year. Forking off again, PritS and me quickly passed by the fashion street, finding it thoroughly uninteresting. Burgers again, we walked the god-knows how many kilometres to the station, boarding our train to Vienna, enroute to Prague. Or Praha. Yoo-hoo.

Conspiracy arose in the train as a couple of suspicious men checked our passports. Bansi seemed to thrive off it, throwing up all possible speculations. Joking about it, we had a super meal of bread/jam/cheese/ketchup/garlic paste/chilli sauce. And we were off to bed. Deep sleep for tired souls. Nothing better.

Dreamt for Light Years in the Belly of a Mountain

2009-10-23T14:18:00.000-07:00

Jolting up to a wake, with PritS nudging me awake, I felt terribly tired. 5 hours' sleep in 48 hours. WAC nights packed more sympathy.

The concept of dressing up was now alien; we slept in what we would be wearing the next day, which more often than not was what we'd worn the previous day. Out of home and taking a painfully long walk to the Haupbaunhof (Central Train stations in Germany, as they are called) that early morning (for we feared missing our train), we reached Munchen station, panting and grasping for breath. And seconds later, we were deeply asleep in the train, almost all at once. Salzburg arrived before I knew it, and in what seemed a trance, I was already boarding my next train to Werfen, home to the ice caves.

Finally, it took some jaw dropping landscape to jolt me to awake-dom. Our “Regio-train” had suddenly pulled into an astonishing vista of snow capped mountains, with dense fog hugging the bottom of the cliff, pale green trees and river streams appearing pale in the morning sun.

We stopped at Werfen, and a scenic bus drive later, we were already at the foot of the ice caves. The ice caves then were a mere 2 hour climb away, a steep mountainous track climbing some few thousand feet skywards.

The states we were in, we dropped the hike for a 3 minute ropeway ride up. And a 40 minute walk all the way to the final stretch.

Magically however, the sweeping panoramas of the countryside quickly took away all my tiredness, and the first sight of snow (old, but snow nevertheless), got the widest smile on my face for days. Soon at the base of the cable car, now boarding, now climbing the incredibly steep ropeway. Mist all around. Snow all around. A little bit of the sun streaming through. It was over before we knew it. 3 minutes and we had climbed the 90 minute stretch.

And stepping out, we literally had our jaws drop. The panorama was incredibly, incredibly beautiful. Snow crusted mountains, clouds far below, tucking away at the mighty Tennengebridge Mountains, slippery gravel tracks and little "stream-lets" of water all around, it was here that we caught our first glimpse of the opening of the Eisriesenwelt, the ice caves.

The world's longest accessible ice caves, these stretched to an astonishing labyrinth of 42 kms of claustrophobia inducing tunnels. The rather large entry crater quickly narrowed to a mere crevice as we crawled in to the mountain, as a gust of icy, cold wind at subzero temperatures hit us hard.
This was the nexus. The place where the cold air from the other end of the cave, 42 kilometres away, quickly flowed out to meet the warm air outside the cave(or is it the other way?). This was the reason the caves existed, and probably this why they had an astonishing set of ice caves.

Armed with Davy's Safety Lamps to light our way through the pitch dark caves, the cold air was unmistakable moist. Climbing several steps to the first step of the guided tour, the guide had an awesomely "draggy" English accent, who seemed to love the thought of us climbing 700 steep feet up and 700 down in our 1 km long tour, an equivalent of a 42 storey building apparently. Okay. Whatever made him happy.

The carbide lamps cast off an eerie blue glow along the walls of the cave. It was only when the Guide set up a dazzling white magnesium flare did we realize what an enormous cavern had we already climbed. Steep, densely packed ice filled up a pillar-less auditorium like grand hall, larger than any i had ever seen. And all naturally formed. The climb was steep, on wooden stairs glittering with slippery remnants of now trodden ice.

The caves reminded me of my childhood favourite, A Journey to the Centre of the Earth almost immediately. I dreaded the thought of being struck here someday with (or without) a light someday. The thought was horrifying, nausea inducing, to starve to death in a cold, damp cave in pitch black darkness.

Thankfully, i had light. Wooden stairs to guide me. And a guide. And the entire contingent of tourists. (But what if ... Beyond the 1km?)

The caves themselves, though one enormous stretch with just two openings along its entire length, branched off into several smaller paths along the way, each with its own distinctive icicle formations. From enormous blue tinged stalactites hanging as pillars across the caves, to whole sheaths of ice forming an icy wall of many layers, the water trickling down its surface still freezing to form ice. To mounds of stalagmite formed from limestone precipitations of the hill towering above it, to steep 73 degree slopes of ice formed many thousands of years ago. This place was enormous, ethereal and magnificent. The guide was a delightful chap called Lucas, who skidded across the hard, icy ground lighting flares, creating wonder out of darkness almost. We also saw Frigga, a polar bear like ice mass formed by intersecting stalactite and stalagmites. And an elephant that now looked like a camel, with a new hump slowly crystallizing on its back. Odin. This place let our fantasies run wild, to picturize huge waves halted midway at the crest or painful deaths by slipping down one of the icy interior, the possibilities were limitless.

An hour later, we were out. Blessed daylight again.and a clear, sunlit view of the mountain range awaited us outside. A prologue to Switzerland. Clouds flowing many feet below, the peaks were now bathing in sunlight, jagged and glacier rich.

Down far below in the valley soon, we wanted to go Hallein, a place enroute back to Salzburg. Here, we would spend some 8 Euros for a 2.3 km bob sledge ride down the hill at a breakneck speed. Alas, when Hallein did come some half an hour, the 5 of us were so deeply immersed in sleep that it was a unanimous decision to go straight back to Salzburg, and make the most of the one hour additional sleep we'd be getting.

Falafels at Salzburg, we walked across the city. To be honest, the city was disappointing. A few baroque buildings here and there, an over exposure to Mozart (whose birthplace this was) who hr branded on everything, selling chocolates to light bulbs to handkerchiefs. The cathedral here with its three large bronze doors was fantastically lit up in lights to commemorate world peace. The others intended to sit from 7 to 12 inside! Terribly bored soon enough, I took a long, long walk across the city, with its light drizzle and cold air. It's one of those things I enjoyed a lot, to take some time out thinking about nothing in particular; just I. Burger King, The Lost Symbol, an Austrian Army chap and a Pakistani gave me good company till 12, when Burger King finally closed.

It was fun watching the others shiver and crib about the cold. Poor them, they were wet and therefore, tired. Finally boarding the train at 2ish, we fell asleep quick, sharing seats to stretch ourselves and relax. Budapest tomorrow.

Schwarzwald: The Nature of Reality

2009-10-22T13:51:00.000-07:00

22.10 There were few parts of Europe that held my fascination more than the Eastern countries, the formerly Communist countries, then under the Iron Curtain. A 10 day stretch now at my hand, there was much I could now see. East Europe, especially the former Prussian and Austria-Hungary empires beckoned - its history, the grandiose empires that once stretched its landmass.

Today, however, had to be different. Black Forest. The heart of it. Schwarzwald. This part of Germany had always fascinated me, mostly due to the fact that one of the most testing tracks in Need for Speed Porsche Unleashed was located here, and I absolutely love that track.

Schwarzwald was different. Tall, towering trees, so dense, little light streamed through. Icy, cold streams gushing downhill amidst fallen tree trunks covered green in moss. Walking trails with the floor so densely packed with dried leaves and acorn, it felt like you were walking on a soft bed of straw.

A change in plans at Karlsruhe station. We had planned to visit the city of Freiburg for the day, a little town that was at the edge of the Black Forest. On second thoughts, we did not want to visit another city. And thus, we picked up a little town completely off the radar, Triberg.

The heart of Schwarzwald, this place was home to Germany's highest waterfall, the world's biggest cuckoo clocks and nothing else at all. Hell, we did not come here for this. We were here to experience Black Forest at its best, and wow, we loved it.

The countryside changed quickly, with densely covered hills transpiring out of nowhere. Logging mills, little rivulets, and leaves were now everywhere.

The only ones to alight at the station, probably for the first time ever, it was the kind of place you'd fall in love with immediately. The kind of place you'd just want to stand and admire, without saying much. A hill flanked one side of the station, complete with rock climbing stubs and safety nets. The other side, as you might guess, had a stream on the other side. And the station and the avenue by it had leaves strewn all over and completely deserted.

Walking down the road, we came across a winding highway and little shops all around, selling handcrafted wooden artefacts that were both intricate and attractive (did I mention expensive? Did I? Did I?)

The area around the waterfall was dense forest, dark, cloudy and black. A nature trail snaked around to the waterfall, which although hardly a cascade, was impressive, with an icy, cold shower of water spraying across the rocks, some of it on us, as we stood on the guard rail.

As we wound up the hill, along the waterfall, the forest only got denser, until the road forked into several smaller ones. We picked up one marked the "nature trail", and Patwa and I quickly found ourselves hiking our way up the steep hill amidst fallen branches and trees. The forest floor was cushioned with leaves, so thick; it appeared we would have to dig several feet through them if we were to strike hard ground. Rocks around were covered almost entirely in bright green moss and the trees were daubed in lichen. The air around was cold, moist and very, very fresh. The forest smelled off fallen autumn leaves and of moss, the smells mingling together to leave a slight tinge in the nose! The roar of the fall quickly fused into the background, with the sound being broken only by breaking branches and an occasional bird flying across (and of course Patwa ji spewing fundae about everything). The forest floor had acorns strewn all over, bent and broken branches, and slippery pebble. This was Schwazwald of my dreams - beautiful, scenic and untouched.

We walked around the hill, a mile or so, taking our time, stopping often for photographs. We even had our little picnic on a bench near the fall, taking our time. We had much time.

Out of the hill, we rummaged through the cuckoo clock shops, for Triberg is home to the Black Forest cuckoo clocks, including the largest one existing which is in fact an entire building! We rounded off all this delicious, sumptuous Italian pizzas. Sau should have been here, he would have loved it!

Boarding a two coach train, we changed three trains to reach München, sleepy eyed, to meet DJ, PritS' delight of a friend. He took us out to Marienplatz, and we chilled out outside (quite literally) till almost 3 in the night, including being treated to McDonald's Kit-Kat ice-cream, and talking randomly about everything on earth, including beloved Bangalore. By the time we returned, we found the S-Bahn metro closed, and walked all along the city back home.

I actually worked on our presentation for college, finally hitting the sack at around 5. We had to wake up at 6.30 again, to probably experience our most fascinating days yet.

Sleeping with the thoughts of heavy blanket of leaves, tall trees overhead and the sound of water gushing forth, I quickly fell asleep.

Mercedes!

2009-10-18T10:35:00.000-07:00

The train has now almost become my second home. And it's always comfortable. Well, anything is, to tired souls who have walked miles and miles, exploring fascinating cities day after day until exhaustion drove us to an all consuming sleep every night.

That said, our love for trains today grew almost ridiculous. We were to do 5 trips up and down on the same rail track, from Stuttgart to Munich, a 200 mile (?) journey, within a span of 24 hours. Yeah, laugh on. It was that ridiculous.

Early morning at Munich, we took a train to Stuttgart, I forget the times. All I do remember is reaching Stuttgart around 10, deeply in sleep, eyes opening only when the cold, icy wind blew into my face.

This trip was unlike any other, all we wanted to do was relax, (without predeciding of course), do the things we did only at a much slower pace, and yet do nothing at all. As complicated as that might sound, we were thoroughly enjoying this trip, with hardly any physical exertion at all.

The only thing on our agenda today - Mercedes Benz.

Visiting the Neckarpark area of Stuttgart, an area riddled with Mercedes Buildings all over, the museum and its neo-modern circular building loomed over large. Fascinating technology was everywhere here, with capsule like elevators that had huge projectors showing the Daimler and Benz's history on the staid cement walls, audio guides that were packed with information enough to spend an entire day at the museum, and also Souvenirs to keep.

We walked along the museum's 8 opulently designed floors, retracing the history and the birth of the Benz Motor Company and the Daimler Company. The numerous displays of cars right from the late 1800's was a treat for every automobile lover. Navigating through the miles of circular exhibitions, each depicting a particular aspect of the era in which the companies existed, and how it played a vital role in its times.

The numerous audio guides were a treat, which entirely retraced the history of almost all of Europe. And to see a car that we’ve all dreamed of, and heard so much since our childhood, it indeed was a dream coming true. Seeing those historical cars, transitioning from the era of three wheels to the pre-war bulky designs, the post war sleek and Supercharged cars and finally the cutting edge technology that we see today, Mercedes Diamler Benz was history in itself.

As evening drew on ,we found ourselves back in Munich, walking along Marienplatz. Having been here earlier, I already felt nostalgic seeing it again. I would miss Europe. The night getting colder, and not having much to do in the one hour before our train was to leave, we returned to the station, reading, dozing off, finally boarding the train to Paris. And enjoying the rare treat of sleeping completely stretched out in the train. Sigh. Drowsy.

Scary. Indeed.

2009-10-17T09:50:00.000-07:00

Life seems good. Europe, brilliant. Berlin again, awesome. Getting a free tram in Leipzig, super.

Early morning deep sleep in the train, breakfast on the platform, a walk to the metro, connecting train transits in under a minute, and idyllic walks in villages so small, they wouldn't be larger than a street in India. German Shepherds and Alsatians, staring out at curious visitors(and as Tards and I observed, barking at Patwa), trees in multiple colours, leaves everywhere, little houses with their chimneys bellowing out smoke, little gardens with huge kennels overlooking the houses, zero traffic and long boulevards.

Scenic, eh?

Not so much for the 200,000 people who once lived here.

Starvation, subzeros, Gas chambers, Extermination camps, overfilled bunkers, torturous labour camps, burial grounds, the putrid smell of death everywhere, execution trenches and mass graves, Station Z, Turreted gun towers, an Iron Gustav who burst into orgies of violence at will, humiliation, disease and the cold. Sachsenhausen Concentration Camp was pure hell then.

Located very close to Berlin, the Imperial Capital, at Oranienburg, this first meticulously "planned" concentration camp was a key site in the persecution of political oppositions initially, slowly evolving into genocidal crypts where the Nazis exterminated those they considered to be racially inferior. Over time, as the war ended, the camp continued to be used for the same purposes as it did earlier, this time the Soviet Special Camp for the undesirables.

It was difficult not to imagine all the deaths and suffering thousands went through on the same grounds that I now stood, shivering in the mid October cold. December was already unimaginable, even with clothing that was manufactured for sub freezing temperatures. How prisoners here survived the cold then in little more than a cloth wrapped around their bodies was frightfully unimaginable.

Sachsenhausen eventually involved into this mighty "model" concentration camp on which later camps were modelled, with its famous invested triangle structure to achieve its objectives. The SS played out its propaganda here with little mercy, killing at will, sadistically torturing the many thousands of inhabitants. Merciless. As I walked along alone in the camp, listening along on the audio guide, the stories of the survivors sent chills down my spine. The cold and the rain notwithstanding, I couldn't help but feel sympathy for the hardships many thousands before me had gone through here. What made men like this, one thought that echoed through my mind time and again. The brutality of the war, made immemorial through hundreds of movies, was far far more inhuman in real life, from so close and from the centre of it all.

There's little to describe what I saw and felt, All I feel is this is one place everyone needs visiting someday, and spending time at it.

Out of here, we went on a shopping spree at LIDL, now armed with chocolate spreads, grape jam, ketchup, chilli sauce, garlic paste, cheese, bread, cakes, waffle chocolates and milk. We realized it was Diwali, and a feast was due. Cold, but hell, yummy. Train journeys, many laughs, a one hour dinner in a cosy cabin in a fabulously extravagant train, we ate sandwiches with "cheers" and "Happy Diwali's" going through and through as we satisfied our taste buds. Damn. It almost felt sinful. I missed being back home, back at Ahmedabad, but barring that, this was closest to where it came.

Now sleeping all stretched in a cabin, a German opposite me who seems to be enjoying the beer and listening to heavy metal in a high volume. Life is great. And peace to those who were once at Sachsenhausen.

Day Something: I'm totally losing count

2009-10-16T09:08:00.000-07:00

Watching rain drops trickle across the window screen, on a train running over 250 km/hr, meant they were defying gravity and moving horizontally across the huge, wide windows. Like slivers of mercury in a race, leaving a blazing trail behind which quickly caught up. I just fell more and more in love with rain.

An extremely sleepy ride that got us to Berlin at 4 pm. The weather outside was frigid, with light rain and heavy fog interplaying menacingly.

We had to get out of Berlin soon. Realizing the overnight train to Munich turned out to be extremely expensive, and walking around in the cold, we either looked for accommodation in Berlin, take the train or move elsewhere. Plan C – move to a friends' house at a place 200 kilometres away. Our accommodation for the night now secured (for we surely could not spend the night in the station in this cold), we did what we do best, explore a city on foot. And Berlin took our breaths away with what it had to offer.

Once we had crossed the wonderfully lit Brandenburg Gate, where the East once separated the West, I realized how beautifully lit the city was getting to be. There were lights everywhere, including a sign that said Berlin Festival of Lights. Oh, well, thank you very much. A very Happy Diwali to you too.

We had little time before we had to leave for the night, and we made the most of it by entering this mall that was exclusively for cars. Bentley and mighty Bugati flanked the entrance. To see a Bugati from a distance of 2 metres was absolutely ecstasy. The sleek lines, the colour tones and sheer power this baby packed were enough for us to give it absolute reverence.

Realizing we wouldn't be able to see Berlin this way, we walked along randomly, the 384 metre TV tower staring into the night sky, with lights and the clouds putting on a fabulous show for us in the night.

We got pseudo-lost on our way back, and navigating along the river, we finally saw the DB sign shining across the station. Smiles all around, we treated ourselves to falafels that tasted yum, occupied a cabin in the super luxurious ICE train, relaxing, on the way to Leipzig.

Leipzig. East Germany. Cheap. And small. The best thing about Europe is that most cities (except maybe the supermetros) are entirely walkable. And we do a lot of that.

Dumping our bags at Cobra's house, we were all set to club. I really didn't know what 3 teetotallers would want to do in a club, but Leipzig offered a good crowd, cheap entry and Cobra's company.

And how we loved it! European parties. Phew. Decent music, a nice atmosphere, a great crowd and a tad crowded, it felt good. If only I had the right company, I would have loved to dance!

Finally so exhausted that the three of us were almost falling asleep in the club, we took the walk home, in eerily deserted roads, hitting the sack.

Day 30: Small. Is. Nice.

2009-10-12T12:41:00.000-07:00

Hurriedly waking up, feeling a little cold. A quick look at my watch. Hazy, it looks like its 5.40 a.m. Maybe it’s it is just 4.40 a.m. yet, I’m not sure. I’ve woken up early. I check my mobile. Damn. Why can’t I open my eyes? Is it 5.40 or 4.40? Is it morning yet? Yawn. I’m so, so tired. 2 more minutes of sleep wouldn’t matter. I change the clock on my phone from Analog to Digital.

Shucks. 5.42 am! Train leaves at 6.18 am. Alone, I need to find the way to the Metro, catch a tube, meet the gang at the station and catch my train to Luxembourg. And I need to pack too. Rubbing my eyes, I get up. Need to brush. Shower. Pack my blanket. Pick up wallet, passport pouch, coins (2.1 Euros), my two phones, camera, back pack. Need to wake up Vipul. And run like hell. Catch the metro. And get to station.

Needless to say, all I managed to do was to pick my stuff up and run. Like crazy. Got into the wrong station too. Ran all the way down. Now up. The tube worked automatically, no drivers. But I was too late to admire it. 6.10. Station. Long corridors to the main station. Lille Flanders. 10 minutes left. Woo-hoo. I’m good. Now only to find my station and the guys (and Bansi). Tard calls. Yay. There they are.

A day that begins like that can’t possibly go wrong. And it didn’t. I slept like a baby, crouched on two seats in a packed train, oblivious to the world. Two hours. Absolute serenity. Changing trains at a station, all of which I almost walked with my eyes closed, I suddenly felt awake as soon as I boarded the train. Luxembourg.

Maps. Lockers. Out of water. Tickets back to Paris. The usual stuff done, we walked along Luxembourg city,looking for food. Covering the entire city in the 4 hours that we had would be easy. A Subway spotted. Yippee.

Outrageously expensive. This Subway was a rip-off. Thoughts of hot parathas and sabzi 7 hours later haunted me. Settling for bread. And ketchup. Well. I can wait for the parathas. And the sabzi.

The city wasn’t too different from any other European city we had seen, except for some fantastic views over a huge arching bridge. Panoramic. We walked along, laughing, talking, pulling each others’ legs. That the best part, in many ways. We are all the time teasing each other about everything on Earth.

The city was heavily fortified, with remnants of ancient walls with long tunnels all over the city. The “Casemats”, as this tunnels were called, were very, very long, damp, cold and claustrophobic. Descending into the eerily lit caves reminded of The Descent. It was amazing, especially the photographs that we took. Everyone looks evil in red, yellow and blue light, even little kids grinning away in black.

Inside the caverns for at least 3 hours, by the time we came out, it was time to leave to Paris. Paris. Yay!
Arriving at the Gare du Nord or Gare l’est station now indeed feels like I have arrived home. The homecoming is always pleasant, where we have access to good (great) food, internet and Paris city itself.

We finally did have parathas for dinner. Along with paneer mattar and some yummy tamarind rice. Sigh. Food. Always so great.

Day 29: Rain and Romance..

2009-10-11T21:01:00.000-07:00

Belgium. Antwerp & Bruges. And Subways.

Famous for its diamond industry, Antwerp on Sunday was as laid back as you can imagine. Dreary, sleepy and pleasantly cold, I wanted to do as little as possible, enjoying my Sunday morning relaxing by the river. And post a heavy Subway brunch, I guess the feeling was unanimous.

The city offered little to tourists except for an exceptionally relaxed atmosphere, a river that flowed gently, a kilometre and a half long underground tunnel across the river that provided a fantastic photography point. A Gothic Cathedral, a fountain depicting the legend of the Flying Dutchman, a town hall masqueraded by flags of almost every country, and great chocolate stores.

The light rain, good food, great company and the atmosphere of the city, it all set the right tone for what was to come next.

Boarding the train from Antwerp, we met this kind Belgian person who spoke Hindi, had visited India 13 times and seemed to be absolutely in love with the country. India was a cheap option to spend time in the cruel winters here, he pointed out. And was as vast and as diverse as the European countries, from Norway to Italy, much like Kashmir to Kerala.

And then, Bruges.

Easily the most romantic city we had been to. This little town exuded charm all over. The light rain, autumn colours, delightful little canals meandering amidst bridges and little houses, the waft of waffles filling the air, many beautiful, beautiful swans lining the canals, and a completely medieval feel to it, I hadn't seen a city so full of old world romance yet. Every road was neatly cobbled, there were tasteful cafes- lit with old fireplaces and candles on the table, and time-worn tapestry hanging on the walls. Even the buildings here looked like remnants of old road side inns. A huge convent that was enclosed by tall trees, church in the middle of Sunday mass and silence all around except for the whistling of trees, everything here was perfect. It was like time had forgotten this place.

I walked around the town as the light rain lapped down on my umbrella, stopping ever so often to admire the canals, the little homes or the cobbled road branching out into cafes and chocolate shops.

As dusk fell, the rain subsided and the city was wonderfully lit, as if out of a fantasy book. All we did here was to do nothing, and we were so happy doing that.

It seemed it was PritS' lucky day; he had several generous sponsorship offers made to him to come back here someday. Haha. The rascal only asked for more.

We were to spend the night at Lille, and I would have gladly spent another day here if I were not travelling with a bunch of guys and a committed girl!

Back at Lille, the only way we could spend the night was to stay with friends in different parts of the city, we went our separate ways, promising to meet at 6.18am again. Ah. Tired. But awesomely happy. Happy. Very happy.

Day 28: Rain from high, high above

2009-10-10T13:55:00.000-07:00

Amsterdam by day, Amsterdam by night, we were in two different cities, yet at the same.

Another fairly early morning (I don't remember any other time when I woke up often, so early and so ungrudgingly), we had little plans, and much to do. A sumptuous breakfast of bread and marmalade, I often wonder how my definition of a delicious meal has changed so dramatically in the past month. I guess I've hit the bottom of Maslow's hierarchy, the quest for satisfying our most basic need of hunger always a question on our minds. Well, almost.

We shopped for souvenirs first, going totally crazy. I wouldn't describe what I've bought now. It'll be a picture for later. Souvenirs in Amsterdam were full of vices and debauchery, outrageously funny and not very expensive.

The only thing that probably topped this was our next visit, a museum dedicated to gratifying another of Maslow's basic need. I shall leave the description aside, and just say it was very, very interesting.

The city was a maze of canals, as someone calls it, a Venice without its gondolas, and a city of bridges. Several hundreds of them. And apparently, of a million cycles. Amsterdam was full of cycles everywhere. I assume it’s to reach the narrow streets where the cars couldn't reach, or just to make the most of the beautiful cycle lanes the city is full of. The tourist cycles were vividly coloured, yellow and bright reds and oranges. And the more local cycles were much akin to the good ol’ Atlas Gold cycles, skeletal and a bunch of rods put together. Uniquely, at Brussels, the cycles were small, with tall seats and short handles. Europe is a collage of oddities. Sigh.

Hopping across roads, we passed by Anne Frank's museum. The place where she hid during the Holocaust, I would have almost missed the building had it not been for a serpentine queue for entry. Bansi and Tardi were keen to visit it, so we left them there and went on to the station, taking our time, walking by abstract wooden elephants and rows and rows of souvenir shops.

Split second decisions later, almost suddenly, the five of us were travelling to Rotterdam. Truly backpacking, this decision was made in no time and for no specific reason. Rotterdam was the Netherlands' second largest city and apparently EUROPE'S largest port.

I often run the sin of diluting the meaning of the word beautiful because I'm using it so often, but few other words can fill in the same way as beautiful does. Rotterdam was beautiful from the moment go. As opposed to an archaic Amsterdam, with its ancient buildings and narrow streets, this city was almost completely modern. A single canal ran through the city into the harbour, and we followed its trail to Euromast- a 185 metre high tower that provided a fantastic view of the city from the top. The cold air and rain playing spoilsport but not stopping us, Patwa, PritS and me went right up the tower. The last 100 metres or so were covered in a circular saucer like buggy that rotated around the tower while climbing up. And it was up there that we realized what a fantastic city this was. The unique Erasmus Bridge standing out in the panorama below, Rotterdam had a harbour that stretched on for miles. The air up there was very, very chilly, and Patwa and I got into this crazy photo-shoot mode, especially as dusk fell and the city lit up. The landing platform of the buggy even had a suite that offered a beautiful view of the city. Almost like the penthouse of a skyscraper, only with walls of glass, this place was one of my dreams.

Staying there for many minutes, I enjoyed the feel of the cold air running through my body and the sight of the city sprawling before my eyes. Tiny cars metres below, and the harbour stretching far out to the horizon as dusk set on, all captured forever.

Day Zero : The night at Amsterdam

2009-10-10T13:46:00.000-07:00

Amsterdam. And the night. A perfect tour guide. And mild rain. 5 guys and a girl. And the famous red lights.

Now Amsterdam's prime tourist hotspot, the Red Light District is famous for rows and rows of "windows" with scantily clad women doing business. Very little open solicitation, it was almost like you are walking surreally along street after street, bounded by Venice like canals on one side, and draped in red and ultraviolet light, colouring the world with lust, little passion and a lot of dope. Scores of men satisfying every concupiscence fantasy, but more than that, many more curious tourists, mostly couples, coming over to see what the fuss is all about. We were them. I was that.

Our fantastic tour guide knew everything about the street, notorious for offering something to every carnal desire. Apparently now completely standardized (can I use the word commodotized?), with strong unions and police protection, Amsterdam’s Red Light District had tax payers, was self governed and almost completely commoditized. All it invoked really was a curiosity. A giant museum gone wrong. The roads branched into several arterial roads, narrow roads with enough walking distance only for two, with the windows on both sides, many with their curtains down. Made more interesting with stories, titbits and the experience of others, this was Amsterdam, liberty and freedom at its finest. And craziest. Phew. Glad to get out of the streets. And glad I got down to write this. It is crazy. And I would never want to describe it the way I saw it here.

Day 27 : (Too tired to think of a title)

2009-10-09T13:12:00.000-07:00

Brussels. My first impression of the station was an explosion of smells. Chocolates and croissants, room fresheners and perfumes, I could smell so, so much here.

Chinese lanterns, zodiac symbols on the floor, figurines of unknown important looking leaders and the opulent entrance of Le Meridian, the Central Station had it all. Except maps, that is.

Venturing into this pleasantly cold city without our customary map, walking about the streets, we came across a little morning market, set up under tents and selling curios. A Notre Dame look alike in the distant and the towering spire of Hotel de Ville, this city seemed extremely likeable almost immediately. Each European city I've visited so far has had so much to offer, cities so different from one another - in the kind of people I’ve met, in the transport systems, the sheer variety of trains, the attractions they have had to offer, the architecture, the girls, the food, the smells in the air (and can I mention the costs?). So far, in spite of what I’ve heard, Brussels had not disappointed at all.

The Notre Dame look-alike was a massive Cathedral, with beautiful stained glass windows. PritS, ever the observant chap, pointed out the depiction of depth in the windows using deeper colours, with the foreground depicting Biblical scenes and those from the days of the royalty. Brussels, probably the whole of Belgium, also seemed to love their Monarchy, with photographs of the royalty at several places all over the city. Impressive for a city that has been revolutionary in its ideas (the centre of the European bank and the entire Art Nouveau culture here explains much). This Cathedral also had ornate sculptures of Bishops all along the walls, each pointing in a specific direction, sometimes to each other. If I were Langdon, I’d probably figure why.

Everywhere we walked in Brussels, we could see new age abstract artwork and sculptures placed in gardens, whether it was a shimmering crumpled up blob of metal, or an almost two dimensional wooden cow that encouraged lovers of freedom to doodle on it, Brussels seems to be in the middle of an art revolution.

One particular pseudo street, the Galeries Saint Hubert, particularly caught our attention. it was apparently the first true shopping arcade in Europe, and even today, it was simply splendid. A huge frosty glass ceiling above, Art Nouveau sculptures below and the famous Belgian chocolate stores below (some dating as far back as 150 years), this place was fascinating.
Today also seemed to be school kids’-day-out, because we could see several hundreds of kids running about, wearing radium green jackets, enjoying their day out.
We next visited Grand Place- which was the city center and the town hall, a gothic spire towering over the clear sky; this building was small but beautiful. Apparently, it was the only building that missed getting bombed in Brussels during the war, which is weird considering it was the target in every attack.

Catching up on what I felt was the most delicious Sub yet, we walked around further, navigating around our new found map. An interesting, again Art Nouveau building fascinated us, the Old English Building, which had music notes on its exterior wall. Apparently, this was the biggest museum dedicated to musical instruments in the world, and it was pure genius.

This is one of the museums I have enjoyed the most as of yet. Sporting musical instruments from hundreds of countries, this museum housed a most esoteric and brilliant collection of musical instruments. To top it all, the audio guide was infrared activated, meaning all we had to be in proximity to a musical instrument to hear specifically created compositions play on it.

Beginning from traditional Belgian instruments, this museum had instruments from India, China, Italy, France, Japan and a huge collection from Africa – truly an astonishing collection. It almost seemed the aim of the museum was completeness with respect to the instruments they possessed, and they seemed to have done a fine job.

The collection had some fascinating instruments - from Dulcimers that had strings that need to be hit with hammers, to the Hurdy Gurdy - played in ancient times by beggars and the blind; quirky single and double barrelled Accordions; at least a 100 different kind of flutes (so many shapes, so many sizes!), amazing bagpipes from the shepherds and dancers and even Jews’ harps - key like instruments that need to be clicked together to produce a rickety noise that was music to the ears.
This museum was astonishing, with the ability to listen to nearly every type of sound produced, and a handsome guide book telling the story behind the instruments, I loved every bit of it. Amongst the more exotic instruments, I saw ancient Arab violins, which was accompanied by guttural singing, the forerunner to western stringed instruments, super Balalaika and lutes, complicated Tekeros, really long wind pipes called the Midwinterhoorn from Holland and Swiss Alphornspeiers, these instruments, then just modes of entertainment, today, it was almost a science.

Spending at least 3 hours there, Tards had to leave and the rest of us proceeded to the Atomium. But not before visiting the "SuSu boy", icon of Brussels, the Mannekan Pis. We visited many souvenir shops too, including one completely dedicated to horror.

Realizing the Atomium was far too far to walk, we bought tickets. On first sight, the Atomium was, well not too big. But from up front and close, this thing was enormous, and starkly beautiful. I'd go so far to say that I liked it more than the Eiffel, which is a mighty difficult task for any building. The huge globes, joined together with shafts of metal depicting a giant molecule had some kind of celestial beauty to it, and it was difficult not to far in love with it.

Sitting under it for several minutes and having a supper of bread and ketchup, I just sat there quiet, admiring the structure, with the thoughts that someday, I need to be here again.

Waiting until 7 pm there when it got even more beautiful, with the flashing lights on, catching a fleeting glimpse at the Atomium before we left, we boarded a metro and then an international intercity to Amsterdam. Amsterdam! Woo-Hoo-Ness-All-Over-Again!

Day 26: It rained of gold!

2009-10-08T16:35:00.000-07:00

Today was a different day. A quiet day. A day of uncertainty until yesterday.

The tickets for our next excursion now booked, I was quite looking forward to spending the rest of the day at the historic palace of Versailles. Switching almost 3 trains before we reached the station of Versailles, I spent my time reading “The Lost Symbol”, this time, in fact, possibly for the first time, not falling asleep on a train. It’s highly addictive!

Sau says most of my blog is about references to how expensive this place is. Haha. I totally agree. It’s crazy, especially when you aren’t earning at the same level at which you are spending.

Reaching the city of Versailles, now almost a suburb of Paris – I was terribly excited to see this historically significant city – the Treaty of Versailles, the French Revolution, and the extravagant lifestyles of the monarchy, my Class 10 history textbook was racing back to me.

The Chateau de Versailles, a set of buildings in a large complex set in Versailles had a history dating back to the early 1700s, when Louis the XIV began the construction of a massive royal palace that could be the seat of his governance of France. Apparently, construction never ceased here, and the Palace was expanded and renovated with each subsequent generation to become what it is today. Today, gleaming in gold fringed rails and ceilings, Versailles stands out as the height of French opulence and grandeur, and as I remember my history teacher drilling it in, was the reason why the Bourgeoisie finally revolted.

We passed through room after room of the lavishly decorated palace, our audio guides describing wonderfully the lives of the royalty then, their comforts, their passion for the arts, and even some good governance. A fabulously ornate room where the king met ordinary citizens seeking royal favour was a revolutionary concept, much so when it was thought of some 300 years back. Several hundred tapestries hung on multicoloured-velvet covered walls, with beautiful yet baroque mantle pieces and gilded furniture standing out. The Hall of Mirrors, the central gallery of Versailles, was a remnant of the success of the King in one his battles, and this long was adorned with several mirrors that were then both a luxury and a symbol of supremacy to the visiting dignitaries.

The apartments of the King and Queen were lavish, with huge paintings adorning the ceiling, each room dedicated to a Roman God, from Mars, Venus, Jupiter, Diana and Apollo – one for each of the kings’ nuances. Also, the beds were surprisingly small for that of a king. An interesting observation was the weird and totally ridiculous poses in which the “Sugars” had their photographs clicked, and Patwaji seemed to enjoy the thought of hating them.

A gallery where busts of French greats linings the walls particularly interested me –Charlemagne, Hugo, Descartes and even Voltaire and several French statesmen, artists, poets and philosophers of those times.

We proceeded on to the garden of Versailles, superbly landscaped gardens with conical trees, vast canal-like ponds and manicured lawns; they have apparently been preserved in the same way from the time of the kings. Several white marble (Plaster of Paris?) statues lined the huge garden, and we spent quite some time there, soaking in the suddenly chilly air, walking around, enjoying the moment.

Returning home, we prepared for what should be an amazing trip beginning tomorrow. The start of our weekend, and we plan to do it in style. More on that soon.

Day 21: A day when the clouds played hide & seek

2009-10-03T15:36:00.000-07:00

The warm evening having rapidly transcending to a cold night in the train, i woke up this morning feeling miserable and shivering.

Warming up to a Caramel coffee at the station, we were to spend time till 11.30, when we could catch our train to Carcassone. Having dumped our bags at the station, and with nothing much to do, we decided we'd walk around the city of Toulouse, a fairly small University town housing the EADS. It also housed several of my friends, who had left the previous night to Nice. Evidently, the whole of exchange WIMWI were criss-crossing paths with one another.

Walking randomly, we crossed several narrow streets to come across the huge city cathedral. What fascinated me more was the flea market immediately outside. People here were selling everything you could think of - knives, old grandfather clocks, hideous African masks, gaudy earrings, several hundred LPs (including a classic Johnny Cash one, several Pink Floyd), totem poles, the quintessential Asterix, an accordion player with a drunk bum dancing to his tune shouting "woo-lah" at every other note, ancient pocket watches, a drum, crockery and even a Suzuki Swift.

A sharp contrast to the hullabaloo of the market outside was the solemnity of the cathedral inside, though I did not choose to spend much time in it.

Not wanting to carry anything from the market place, we walked on further to find the town market situated outside the Capitol, and i noticed interesting patterns on the ground below, before realized they were the zodiac signs, embossed in brass and stone, radiating out from the square.

We proceeded on to a beautiful park, and i even sat on a oblong circular disk that was a kind of self propelled saucer at an incline. It was immense fun. I say this at the cost of sounding like a total kid, but that's that, you enjoy a few things and you don't enjoy a few more. This, i enjoyed completely.

Proceeding, we came across this massive monastery in one section of the town, where people got particularly scarce and the roads narrower. Plain, devoid of ornamentation and simple sense of aesthetics, this place was colossal. Huge pillars towered over a single prayer hall, with few chapel benches for prayer in one corner. Windows, several metres high had stained glass in various hues - red, blue, greens, yellows and azure. It gave the entire place the feel of a giant kaleidoscope, with me at one end peering through a hole, looking at it all in ardent fascination.

An exhibition by a Belgian artist in the complex premises particularly interested me. He had exhibited a huge dead horse, hanging by its hooves. Revolting at first, the beauty of what he depicted grew in, and he assured us, the horse wasn't real. Yet, standing centimetres close to it, I couldn't tell the difference between reality and artificiality. He explained about the significance of dead horses at a time when the French and Belgians were culturally bonded. It's something I must look up.

We left Toulouse for the ancient town of Carcassone, sight of amongst the best castles in Europe. Built in the 12th century, this castle had been painstakingly restored in the 19th century by one Viollet le Duc, and today, intact and beautiful, it gave us the feeling that this is the kind of castle you would see in photographs of Europe. True castle towers, a complete moat, and several little streets within the castle that sold some amazing souvenirs – paladin and knight figurines, pistol and bracelets, gleaming cavalry swords – it was as if all of Carcassone was preparing us to go into battle. The enormity of the castle was baffling, with towering walls and corridors that spanned the perimeter of the castle. PritS was particularly fascinated that day by “sugar” poses, I with French windows and Patwa ji with “hiking” up the cliff on which the castle stood.

To be honest, after the Scandic North, few things now fascinated me so much now as did this castle. Scandinavia set an extraordinary high benchmark for us, and I guess the rest of Europe can now only match up.

Soon down, we decided to catch a train around 6, and as we waited watching the city go by, we saw in action the fascinating system of a “lock” linking the river which was at two different levels, as yachts and private boats moved from a lower level to a higher level. A most ingenuous system indeed.

We reached Toulouse, intending to leave for Paris the next day, to capitalize on the “First Sunday of October”, a day when every museum and attraction in Paris was to be free. Dinner was a super large pizza at a steal-away price, and sleep was on the reclining chairs of the CoRail train, we were finally going back home. Paris.

Day 19: Monaco! Period.

2009-10-02T01:46:00.000-07:00

Tired out of my senses, I spent the previous night, sleeping on a hard wooden floor with a blanket underneath and Pritesh pushing me into the wall for company. 10 of us squeezed into a large apartment of our friends from IIM B, I still think it was amongst the most comfortable sleeps I’ve had. Having easily walked at least 15kilometres, especially across uneven terrain, climbing up and climbing down, sleep came in less than a jiffy.

Waking up early morning at 5, we were out of home by 7.30. Today, it was fantastic Monte Carlo and then Cannes. Both home for the super rich and super famous, we arrived at Monaco, a short 20 minute ride from Nice.

My friends joked when they found that in that short journey, I read 3 more pages of my book (Nightmare on Wall Street) as well as caught up on a nap.

Monaco is a ludicrously small country, a 1.95 sq km area packed with cafes, luxury stores, palaces, and an aquarium and bordered on all sides by the most fantastic yachts you'd see. There was even a broker I saw who bought and sold yachts. A 7 day old yacht was for sale, at a price that I’d rather not convert to INR.

Patwaji had a swollen leg (all that walking, and the beach full of pebbles, sigh, I wouldn't blame him at all) and took the bus to the aquarium, first on our itinerary. We decided to walk and the shortest and probably the most scenic way was up the hill, across the royal puppet palace and down the cathedral into the aquarium.

Walking again with heavy backpacks (well, you eventually start hating them no matter how good they are), the three of us trudged along, up the stairs to the hill. Several vantage points gave us a panoramic view of the city-country, and I can now proudly say that I saw all of country in a single day. Well, almost. I missed the iconic tunnel since we were not driving and famous U-turn, both immortalized by F1.

Busts of formula 1 greats, along with their cars in stone lined the streets of Monte Carlo, and Fangio along with his ancient 50's car immediately brought about a smile on my face. To think of the Argentinean great driving the same streets where I was today was an amazing feeling.

Formula 1 also seemed to everywhere, including dedicated F1 souvenir shops, a Ferrari store and F1 routes marked on the city-country's boards. We quickly walked past the royal palace, which I for some reason found comical, like a theme park for a rich kid. Howitzers with hundreds of cannon balls lined the outside, a tower turret rose out of place against the facade, and the azure blue Mediterranean stretched till the eye could see.

We reached the aquarium to find it closed. Hungry, we had the last of our apples and carrots for breakfast, and waited at the aquarium park waiting for the aquarium to open. Amongst the first to buy tickets early morning (at 6.5 Euros), the aquarium was a rare treat, with huge tanks that housed entire ecosystems. The real coral reef housed in the biggest fish tank I’ve ever seen was the highlight of the aquaria-museum for me, with brightly coloured fishes swimming in and out of the reefs, while the sharks, their pointed fin et al patrolled about the tank. The bottom was lined with a giant ray, and the ecosystem was carefully designed, with several vantage points to give the feeling of total immersion.

We saw many exotic fishes, a fish that changed sexes at will, well camouflaged paper thin fishes that masqueraded almost invisibly as sand at the sea bed, a horizontal fish that can be used as a knife once it is dead, even luminous fishes that gave off a dazzling glow in the tanks. Housed in two major flanks- Mediterranean and tropical, I totally loved it. Q would say, well, you must, you're a Piscean after all. I couldn't disagree this time.

We walked up to museum, housing Prince Albert’s schooner models, giant fossils of weird fishes from an archaic age and a several god-knows-what, for personally I was too tired to notice anything more, thanks to PritS' nonchalant persuasion, I proceeded to the palace to watch the change of guards ceremony. Attitudinally challenged, I couldn't see much anyway, so instead parked my bags and admired the Toyota Prius and Audi A8 standing by the side.

Continuing, we skipped the cathedral and walked across the market place to find a super market. Armed with bread now at exorbitant rates, we sat at Gare du Monaco, surviving on bread and waiting for our train to Cannes.

Cannes was brilliant. Sun clad beaches; we had subs for lunch on Palm Beach. Speaking to mum, I told her how everyone seemed to be tanning themselves here, and for 4 young guys, that can be a mighty pretty sight. It was. Hehe. It really was.

Azure waters, sandy beaches and the bright sun, it was a perfect way to spend the rest of the day. We had no other plans, chill out on the beach till evening fall and go back to Nice then.

And we did exactly that. Basking in the sun, I had a quick swim in the waters, coming out and lying on the beach on a blue towel, taking in the waft of the sea, reading my book. Especially funny was PritS, who was tanning himself while being fully clothes, trousers, caps et al, a book on his chest and the cap drawn over his eyes! The both of us had a little sand fight, and absolutely hated it because his clothes got all screwed up. I just took a shower again, but felt extremely apologetic about my behaviour.

Both of us walked across the promenade, watching colourful sights on the way, a potpourri of music, smell and sight. An old man playing typical Mediterranean music on a piano accordion, the waft of bread, ice-cream and coffee filling the air, and skaterboys, street painters, old women with ornamental dogs and couples walking hand-in-hand filling the promenade. The beach was lined with private beaches by the super luxurious hotels on the other bank of the street.

We returned to Nice, with Tards and me going on a grocery shopping spree to buckle up for tomorrow and pass some time. Boarding the train to Toulouse, I now sit reclined on a comfortably couchette, writing, reading and thinking. Comfortable. Content. Happy.

Day 18: And the beach rain

2009-10-01T16:06:00.000-07:00

Amongst the quickest overnight plans, waking up early at 5 to dress up, a warm breakfast of Maggi, sleep deprived eyes and excitement.

We were heading to the French Riviera, Cote d'Azur, to the Mediterranean. Having spent 2 weeks in the cold cold Scandic North, we decided we needed a change of air, a change of climate, and already, something different to do. The warm beaches of Nice, Cannes allured us, and that meant an early morning TGV from Gare du Lyon. Comfortably packed, we headed out, boarding the RER city metro- experimenting on our Eurail passes by not buying tickets. The train zipped along, and we covered an hour's distance by walk in little under 5 minutes.

Boarding the super fast TGV, Which apparently was moving at 300km/hr, I quickly fell asleep, the countryside fading away in green and gold.

Waking up at 10.30am to the knock of the ticket examiner, we shelled out 10 euros for a ticket. Expensive! An unexpected blow at the start of this trip, we settled in, watching the countryside transforming into an ocean of blue- the sea, with our train running alongside for almost the last 200 miles. The clear, blue waters and the sun shining down warm excited us, most of all Patwa, who had never been in the sea before (“Mumbai ke paani ko paani thodi keh sakte”).

Alighting at Nice, I was immediately impressed by the old charm to the station, with it’s many wrought iron pillars and frosted glass ceilings. A quick stop at the Subway, catching our usual Vegetarian sub, i finally got down to observing this warm town. The first feel was of Goa - the place rang with a relaxed atmosphere, cafes and restaurants (apparently the best in the Mediterranean) comfortably placed alongside premier luxury brands. The entire feel of the town was 'touristy', bustling with rich, beautiful women (honestly, I hardly even noticed the presence of the other sex) armed with cameras, tan lotions and not too many clothes!

We walked down the town boulevard, heading towards the beach. Midway, we came across a fantastic fountain, flanked by statues of men taming horses and bulls. The fountain rose high into the sky, standing out in a huge courtyard. Further, the courtyard had statues of monks in yogic poses, giving the courtyard a feeling of large emptiness and calmness.

Onwards, we had been warned, the beach, while beautiful, was rocky.

Landing immediately to the beaches lining the promenade, we were enthralled. Rocky, yes. But absolutely everything you're heard about the Mediterranean. Crystal clear blue waters lapping against a shore full of pebbles, with many sunbathers enjoying the warm sun and sight of the bay arching along this pretty city.

Patwa and I stepped in for a swim, and the touch of the cold water lapping our toes left us jumping up and down! Soon acclimatizing, I paddled in further. The water was cold at the surface, but I could distinctly feel a warmer current on the sea bed. Enjoying the swim for several minutes, I got out doing what the locals do- tan myself! Laying out my towel on the beach full of pebbles, I just slept there, enjoying the feel of the warm sun on my cold body. Constantly laughing, bickering, checking out other peoples (especially the 'Sugars'); we had a ball on the beach. All smiles, we left to begin our walking tour of the city. The old town was dominated by the tower of the 330 year old cathedral, an entirely bland chimney like tower, enclosed by the smallest and most densely packed quadrangle I’ve seen. Littered with cafes and restaurants, we entered the cathedral to spend a few moments in solitude, watching the church being decked up in flowers and candles for some festival on October 4th. The interiors of the church too were far too different from the gothic structures of Paris. This one had a ceiling embossed in gold, with stained glass lining the lofty ceiling along with ancient paintings. The exterior facade was painted bright, the greens and yellows standing out, with statues of what I think were the magi’s. I think one thing I've always done is to visit churches and sit there in solitude, keeping our cameras away for the while, staring high into the ceiling, or admiring the organ.

We walked on to the huge baroque castle at the edge of the city. Located on a hill, it served to defend the French empire against invasions from the Mediterranean, but once consolidated; it was dismantled as a fortification, instead being used as a cemetery now.

It was unlike most castles I’ve seen, with silvery walls circumscribed by trees. It was a long (and rather arduous, with backpacks et al.) walk up to the top of the hill. The top gave us a sweeping view of the town below. Nice was huge, and the sea came into the city in a sweeping arc that ended in the airport strip.

The promenade around the beach was beautiful, lined with palm trees and exotic restaurants. We stayed on there until evening fall, watching the sun set behind the countless red roofed buildings, as the waves lapped against the rocks. We could still see people lying on the beach from high above, beginning to move away as the sun set.

Having to go to our friend’s house for the night, and the backpacks becoming too heavy to continue carrying them, we decided to start walking to their place that was right across the promenade.

Imagine our shock to find the castle entry gate locked when we came down. It was 7 and the castle was not to close before then. Scared (actually, I was excited. Not everyone else though) at the thought of staying in the largely open and quite spooky castle for the night, we tried hurriedly rushed back up and tried another gate, at least a mile's climb away to find that locked too.

Frustrated, extremely tired and almost giving up to the thought of being trapped there until morn, we tried yet another gate, far across on the other side of the hill to find that locked as well. With no one in sight anywhere inside, we found a group of men playing a guitar right outside one of the gates. On enquiry, one chap, with a nasty grin on his face tells us that the castle will open tomorrow morning again, we can get out then.

We discovered there was one more gate in, and a long long walk away, far across on a distant side of the castle. Walking there, heaving and trudging along, we found to our delight that this gate was in fact open. Phew.

Breathing a huge sigh of relief, we walked some 4km across to our friend's apartment, almost facing the sea.

Dumping our bags there, we left again, this time to see Nice by night.

The city was beautiful, with scores of locals and tourists hanging out in the innumerable cafes. Nice also has some of the most attractive street lamps I’ve seen so far!

Dead tired, and letting go of the option of spending the night on the beach chatting away, the four of us asked for leave, settling into bed and tucking ourselves fast into sleep.

Day 17: The lull continues.. but only till today

2009-09-30T17:15:00.000-07:00

All classes for today stand cancelled. Group meet with at college for an assignment due next week! Sigh. Got my credit card. Used the Velib free cycle. I loved it.

Day 16: The lull begins again

2009-09-29T17:14:00.000-07:00

Back in wonderful Paris.
Busy day. Classes all day. CAF filled. Good food, now in the college canteen.

Day 15: And it rained insanity

2009-09-28T17:13:00.000-07:00

Arriving into the University town of Koblenz, we were engulfed in thick fog all around. Students streamed in and out of the station, and we had a helping of Yoghurt and fruits to kick off morning.

Walking down into the streets looking for the Rhine, we came across some of the most elaborate graffiti I’ve witnessed on the walls of an underpass.

We could hardly spot the bank of the river amidst the fog, and expected the Rhine river cruise to be quite a lull if the fog did not lift. The cruise was to take us down the river Rhine to Rudelshiem. The journey onwards mostly was fog, until the sun suddenly peeped out around 11 and the beautiful countryside came out in its full splendour. The castles, small and originally intended to collect toll, were built by thieving barons and bishops, from what was then the busiest waterway in the world, now looked rather decrepit with time.

Eventually, the Rhine river ceased to be used for transport by the shipping companies due to the extremely high tolls by the feudal lords, which marked the beginning of their decline. Today, most of them own vineyards, acres of them, and almost all of them have ropeways to the top. Cruising along on this almost historic waterway was obscenely boring, except when the castles popped up in the hills dotting the river. The castles were beautiful, picture perfect with their gun turrets and their towers, their fortifications and vineyards all along the hill slopes. The little idyllic towns along the side were just that – little and idyllic, with an occasional church spire towering above in the sky. Too bad mist covered most of it for good photography. The cruise was at a snail's pace, and weirdly (Mondays being half price for senior citizens) we were surrounded by people over 65, the average age probably scrapping 75! Drifting off into sleep between the “ooooh” and “ammmphs” marking a new castle spotted; the cruise was, in retrospect fun.

The trouble began when we realized our cruise was late, we were misinformed about the timings, and more importantly, we might miss our connecting train to Paris. Being in Paris tomorrow was terribly important; we had classes we couldn't miss.

We reached Rudelshiem at 3.15, running about looking for the station. Spotting tracks by the river, we ran along it, eventually spotting a train at the station. Not wanting to go all around the entrance, the four of us jumped in tandem, spiked bars notwithstanding, across the fence, running across to the shutting train doors. The checker immediately opened the door again, and he did not understand a word of English. Life was harsh, and we did not know if the train would take us to Frankfurt. Our connecting train to Paris at 4.50 pm, and the next train out of this station at 4.10, we were doomed to miss this train. Hungry since morning, feeling wretched, tired, and without a way to get back to Paris, we tried every combination to get to Frankfurt in time. But the soonest we could get there was 5.40, far too late. Worse still, Tards would be catching the train from Frankfurt (and we were to join him there), his phone wasn't reachable and there was absolutely no way we could reach him.

Frustrated and looking for a way out, the only option was to get to Frankfurt and take the Paris train at 7.10, shelling out another 15 Euros and assuming the reservation counters remained open.

We did exactly that, again having to catch a connecting train to get to Frankfurt - this time under a minute (you can imagine it as a comedy - four chaps with heaving baggage, running madly across platforms, trying to get our legs in before the doors to the train closed. My pant too was falling off, so I had one hand on my belt, one on my bag, a jacket on my forearm, another bag on another forearm and a backpack at the back). Getting in just in time, we couldn't stop laughing at what was transpiring.

A perfect day gone all wrong.

Reaching Frankfurt at 5.40, navigating our way to the reservation counter and getting a Queue number of 27, we began designating duties- one hunts for vegetarian food, two guys stand for reservations, and another looks for alternate booking ways.

We heaved a sigh of relief when we got our reservations on the 7pm train, and feasted on huge Falafels at 3.50 Euros a piece. We met the rest of the ESCP gang in the same train, and the day finally was back to normal.

Only it had to get better. Tards messaged, we met the train ticket checker who had been informed of us missing our train and with a big smile sympathized with our situation. Watching the French SCNF(The French rail company) and the Deutsche Bahn(the German rail company) checkers discuss our predicament and decide to refund our 15 Euros was quite a sight. I sheepishly was murmuring Danke and Merci under the same breath.

Everything suddenly sorted out, we relaxed, caught up on lost conversations with others from ESCP and settled down comfortably into our ICE Train, cruising along at 180km/hr. I spoke to the people I love most, and drifted off to sleep yet again.

A mighty 4 day stubble, soiled clothes, unkempt hair and 12 days of unadultered madness. Eurotrip had begun in style. And how.

Day 14: Even the rains had to stop for this one

2009-09-27T16:59:00.000-07:00

Munich!!! Oktoberfest. Yoo-hoo. Being a teetotaller, I have little idea why I am so excited to visit this beer fest in the centre of Bavarian Germany, but having now done so, I can say that Yoo-hoo all over again.

Reaching Munich at a comfortable 11pm, doing our routine searches (almost in order - search for Boingo, Luggage Lockers, City maps, tourist information centre and Subway - it reminds me of Hermione casting protective spells outside their tent while on exile). Doing the usual, we encountered a very rude Tourist information guide - a chap who spoke in monosyllables, pointed to a 0.3 euro map every time we asked a question and seemed to say, "Oktoberfest. Why bother with anything else". Walking a few hops across Munich and encountering tall, gothic bell towers, we reached the fest grounds. And oh, what festivities!

The entrance we took had super neurotic rides everywhere- being plunged from a 13 storey tower, having your body twisted and turned like you are in a washing machine or being hung upside down in a weird position several feet in the air, it made my heart skips several several beats. I wanted to be on them! But probably not now. Not now.

Next - water. We need water that did not cost 3.5 Euros to a litre, and walked around a little of Munich trying to figure out where we could. An evangelical charity came to our rescue finally, with the volunteers (who worked with people in Africa) allowing us to fill our bottles.

Our thirsts quenched, we returned to the fest. And that's when we encountered the "tents". Temples of debauchery, they would put Bacchus and Dionysus to shame, such was the revelry and merrymaking.

Sporting local beer brands, and each tent having its unique, distinctive charm, we hopped around, dancing to the loud German music, watching people go absolutely crazy with their kegs of beer. It is a place no mother would like her son to be at, but weirdly, I saw that entire families came here together. Grandfathers, father, sons, and their respective girls. They were all decked in traditional Bavarian clothes - knee length trousers strapped to the shoulders for men with white shirts and wacky caps. The women were in frocks with plunging necklines, their hair done in pig tails and a blush of red on their cheeks. It was a way of life here, much like our Dusshera or the Gujarthi Garba, an annual tradition of sorts.

Beer flowed in huge litre high tumblers, and a kind old family allowed us to watch the festivities from their table. And oh, what mirth! Even being teetotallers, we could join in the fun, humming to unknown german songs and dancing on chairs, getting photographed with complete strangers and watch people go totally "Talli". It was so crazy; I knew we had done the right thing taking this diversion to Munich.

Affection flew between couples, and it could get rather embarrassing even for us at times! Ha-ha. It was pseudo drunk love all around, what with old men flirting about with young girls.

The "temples" were decked completely in finery, and each different in its own way, probably reflecting the traditions of the brewery itself. With mascots as hungry lions or gremlins, stud horses or traditional German farmers, they all charmed in their own way. The massive tents were football field sized, with a few tables reserved for those who would pay a premium for being at their favourite brewery's tent, the rest filled with merry hoppers. Most came in huge groups, all dressed for the occasion and laughing and partying boisterously.

Leaving the crazy fun temporarily, and wanting to watch it once again at night, we headed back to station. We still had to decide what we were doing for the night- Munich was sold out, anything available would be far too expensive, all overnight international trains were full, and we could find absolutely no connection out for the night. Thankfully, Munich station never shut, and resigned to the pleasure of spending another night at the station, we grabbed our customary subway, and headed for the sub lines, which were now free! We went across to Marinetplatz, climbing the steep St. Peter's Church spire for a euro, getting a spectacular view of the city. Bells struck here at odd hours all day, sometimes in tandem, mostly not. Watching the setting sun, we could spot the Munich Olympic stadium, the Bayern München dome, several church spires and even the first lights from the Oktober fest.

Getting down again, we walked about a bit, covering fantastic unmarked buildings on the streets, got a fantastic bargain at Pizza Hut for their margarita pizzas (okay, I admit it, we shamelessly begged for a discount. The kind chap almost threw 40% off on the price!), and returned to the Station catching up with Josen and Rex from Wimwi. Both of them are always a pleasure being around with, and they gave us company to the October fest again, this time in lights. We soon crossed paths with what seemed like half of Wimwi - Ankur, Mohit, Abhiroop and Jhoomer, and we also let out our customary “ZigZag” tempo shouts there in the grounds. For once, we were the ones shouting. It felt good being back with Wimwi crowd, and another tent later, we took a walk around the park. Strewn with bits of glass and crazy drunk people, I knew I’d probably never come here again, but I loved the place while I was here, if it was only for the completely different experience.

Meanwhile, out of the blue, we made plans to head out to Koblenz for the night. We could at least spend the night in those fantastic ICE trains, and see a new place while we were at it. Heading back to station, we had apples, filled water and headed out to the platform to board our train.
Germany will be fun when we return. For now, settling the hopelessly complicated expense accounts and putting a tired exhausted body to sleep.

Day 13: Finally, the clouds run out of steam

2009-09-26T16:51:00.000-07:00

26.9
By the end of today, I had quite some difficulty in figuring what I did all day!

4 countries, 4 people, 3 trains and lots of sleep. We were moving away from Scandic Europe back to mainland, through a short stay over at Munich.

Oslo greeted us in the morning, with Baba joining us who was in apparently in the same train as ours since last night. Our first train was to leave to Goteberg in Sweden at 8.30 in the morning. Routing out the Subways in Goteberg early morning on the net, we set forth in a thoroughly uneventful journey, traversing the Nordic countryside deep in sleep after 10 days of country hopping. Breakfast was sandwiches and Marie biscuits, and we anticipated a yummy lunch at Goteberg.

Currency conversion in the Nord countries is always a pain, and doing so especially when you have less than an hour between connecting trains makes life rather painful. We picked up 4 12inch subs, boarding our next train to Copenhagan in Denmark. Having side seats to sit on, we feasted on our lunch, chatting about. Life seems so much different from the craze of first year, the work during internship and the good old CA Days.

Time passed quickly and we changed trains yet again from Copenhagan, boarding a train to Munich. We had made a countless changes over the last 10 days of our travel schedule, and in fact, we hardly had a concrete return trip planned before leaving. Just this morning, the plan was to spend a day at Goteberg, spend the night in a hostel and move through Sweden into France. Suddenly, we were reaching Germany the same night, and with completely different plans.

We now planned to see what all the fuss about the Oktoberfest was about, and we planned to do so from the heart of Bavarian Germany itself- Munich. Our train was to leave Copenhagen at 6.53 and the journey included an 8 kilometre journey under the sea! Next morning, Munich. Some more sleep beckons, as I write this staring at a 60 year old woman reading the New York Times with a 110 litre backpack (almost as big as me!) and her tent, sleeping bag propped against her. Wow. And night.

Day 12: Glacial rain finally!

2009-09-25T16:48:00.000-07:00

Today was a day when I was enveloped by nature.

Seldom does a day start immediately after the previous one ended, and here, by 6.30 am, we were boarding the train to Bergen, heading to Myrdal, from where we were to begin our fjord cruise.

Oslo to Bergen had been described by people we knew as the most scenic journey by train we would witness in all of Europe. And how!

Having slept until around 10, catching up on lost sleep, I woke up to scenes lifted straight from an LOTR description. Steep black mountains jutting out of the plains, its sides lined with trees in autumn bloom - every possible shade of yellow and green. The hills had a crystal clear river flowing by its side all through. Waking up to a sight like that, my first impression was that of an enormous giant, wearing a dark green fleece coat and a silver sheath by his side. The river meandered, filled to the brim, and looked icy to the touch.

A few miles on and the landscape completely changed, and effect was quite dramatic. In a few minutes, we were passing by snow capped mountains, with glacial river streams falling down by the sides. Thousands of water cascades fell by all sides, the effect mesmerizing.

The train chook-chooked away between crystal blue lakes, their frigid water lapping the banks as glacial cascades fell into them. To top it all, the person sitting next to us was the president of the Bergen-Oslo rail link himself, who spoke fondly of having recently celebrated the 100th year of operating the line, and was curious as to how we felt watching what we are. He gave us a beautiful rail calendar, a souvenir that is bound to create a lot of in-fighting unless we reach an amicable solution, that marked the Bergen-Oslo line through the seasons - the bright green spring from may, the orange hues and waterfalls of September, the frigid sheath of ice of January, the wonderful melting snow of April.

Opening the emergency windows, bitter cold wind streamed in as we passed tunnel after tunnel, some miles long, opening to exotic views of cascading waterfalls, snow caps and swiftly flowing rivers. I fell in love. It was absolutely paradise.

It soon started drizzling as we reached Myrdal- a little town straight out of a fantasy novel. A wood log cabin and a tiny cafe marked the station, and our dark green train from Myrdal to Flam stood on the other platform. Around us, rain drizzled down gently amidst bright green trees.

Buying tickets to our next line, this scenic one hour journey from Myrdal to Flam has been voted the most scenic train journey ever. An engineering marvel, it descended 800 metres to sea level cross a steep gradient and 20 tunnels, the largest 6 miles long. Wow.

Words are difficult to describe this journey, but here, we passed by truly what Norway was - shifting panoramas of thundering waterfalls and lush green vegetation, with rivers descending into the sea at Flam, Norway’s most exotic fjord cruise.

As the train descended into the valley, it stopped by at scenic spots for the shutter bugs to go crazy, and a stop at the mighty Kjosfossen falls was the hallmark of this journey. Churning down the hill with ferocity, billions of gallons of frothing, icy glacial water thundered down the valley, our train at a brilliant vantage point where the froth hit our faces hard and the mist rising up the hill drenched everything in sight. It was a sight to behold.

We passed by quaint towns with black roofed houses and waterfall after waterfall, eventually landing down to sea level at Flam. Here, the Sognefjord began, sea water coming back many hundreds of miles into deep crevices, with towering black mountains on both sides. Our cruise ship, the Fjord1 was to flow between this scenic journey to Gudvangen.

Standing on the deck, with icy cold wind blowing across my face and through my hair, this I felt was a moment that could not even be captured on film. And towering hills on both sides, with hundred of tiny rivulets crashing into the sea from the mile metre high mountains. You really must visit this someday.

Passing through incredibly narrow gorges through the canyon-like fjords, we were in Nærøfjord, the deepest arm of this fjord and perhaps the most dramatic one. We also came across the Undredal chapel, Scandinavia's tiniest church, which was a pleasure to watch. The serene two hour journey lulled me to a short nap in between, after which I went to the front deck, standing in the frigid cold air as evening bent on, munching on bread and carrot. Carrots are probably the most nutritious thing I’m eating on this journey.

Docking at Gudvangen, and out of Norwegian kroner for the next leg, the kind bus driver allowed us to get in, as we promised to pay her at Voss. It's the first time I’ve witnessed a lady driving a bus, and this Stalheimskleiva road trip twisted and turned through an incredibly narrow road offering views of several waterfalls. She drove with amazing dexterity! I was tired, and the one hour trip far too soothing to the eye, and nearly everyone on the bus fell asleep.

Landing at Voss and paying her in NKr and thanking her profusely, we walked around Voss, visiting the camping site (too expensive!). It was a beautiful town, a huge lake by its side, snow capped peaks around it and gentle rain falling down. We wanted to camp here for the night, but too expensive for us, we headed on the next train from Voss to Bergen, had a dinner there of Cup Noodles, “jugad-ing” boiling water from our store paying 2 kroner for a cup, had noodle sandwich and boarded the train back to Oslo at 11pm.

Technical problems meant that we had to switch from the train to a bus at Voss at 1 am in the night, and back to train at 4am, but little did it matter cause I was sleeping far too quickly and far too peacefully in practically seconds. There are even rumours that the buses were ferried across a lake in the night, but I was too dead tired to figure that bit out.

Another day gone by, and inevitably, every journey is now 24 hours of action packed adventure, and not just the customary 18. Next stop, Oslo. Phew.

Day 11: Night Swimming

2009-09-24T16:32:00.000-07:00

Today. Extraordinary. That's the only word I can think of. Outrageous Oslo.

Oslo is a capital that possibly is the smallest capital city in the world. And for the capital of one of the most visited countries in the world, it has surprisingly little to offer. Perhaps not.

We started the day at Stockholm. This is my 7 countries so far in roughly 10 days. Germany, France, Belgium, Finland, Sweden, Norway and Denmark. And to think I was content and happy with the thought of being in India before IIMA happened. And staying here in Europe, I just realized how much I love India!

Starting at Stockholm, we left Stockholm University early morning to the station, again avoiding tickets and even picking up complementary bags offered by a book exhibition. The bags are going to be immense help here, and we get a banana and juices (a single banana costs 50 bucks in Scandinavian Europe. 200ml of Fruit juice is around 70 bucks). Living on the shoestring that we are, having some part of our breakfast sponsored made us think, wow, and a nice start to the day.

We board the Intercity Express, using our Eurail passes and flowing into Norway. And how. The entire 6 hour journey was dotted with at least a 1000 lakes, beautiful serene lakes, crystal clear water, flanked by tall windswept pine trees, the sun shimmering on the water. And the train dotted and curved alongside these lakes, until a mighty river came along that we followed for the rest of our journey. And to top it all, beautiful black tiled sloping roof houses dotted the countryside; the houses often nestled deep in the trees or on the lake banks.

We reached Oslo at 2.30p.m, did some painful conversions to Norwegian Kroner and finally landed up at the tourist information centre, picking up our customary maps.

The Oslo journey was to be completely on foot. Few capitals can boast of having a glorious medieval history, a sea shore and mountains dotting it all side like Oslo. We first hopped over to the adjoining Opera House, a marble and metal structure, shimmering in the blazing autumn sun. Cold wind blew across the adjoining sea, and the sloped terrace offered excellent vantage points of the city.

Hungry now, we began our walk to this place called Blitz. This neo-activist place was something we were totally unprepared for.

For starters, some facts- Oslo is the most expensive city on Earth, so claim the statistics. We needed food. Vegetarian food. And our travel guide recommended this place, Blitz.

Going to the road where this was supposed to be, we hardly could find the place. A bit of searching, a bit of asking later, we figured it was this totally unmarked white building with some graffiti on its walls. Entering, I encountered the weirdest people ever. Punk rock stars, tattooed arms, a million piercings and outrageous green and pink hair, they told us they were about to protest against the establishment in 15 minutes, so we should hurry with the cafe. They wanted us to join them- apparently a Pakistani national had been arrested. This only vegetarian cafe offered sandwiches, bread, coffee and juice at steal away prices- entirely volunteer run, they were now waiting to leave for the protest, drums and placards in hand.

Watching the goth punk people, we were half scared, thoroughly amused, and our stomachs partly full, we left to the city palace, admiring the armed guards patrol the area. Beautifully uniformed and walking in absolute sync, their batons and feathered caps, their black uniforms and white stripes immediately commanded respect.

The early evening atmosphere was rather insipid, with few people on the streets, no activity absolutely. What this gave us was little to observe except cars- from Saabs to Citroen, Volvo to Audi, and good old Mercedes, always designated to being a taxi here, as we walked along the roads from the City Palace to a landmark garden.

We next headed out to Vigeland's Sculpture Park, a landscaped park with pseudo erotic male, female and child sculptures depicting the various phases of life. It really was striking, watching those stone sculptures in fantastic poses against lush green trees, superb gardens and a lake passing underneath. We came across a huge tower of human bodies them, beautifully intertwined, flanked with humans in various postures- depicting, as I saw it, grace, power, solitude and the cycle of life. With the evening sun glowing on one side of the tower, the effect of light and shadows on the sculptures was mesmerizing. It's difficult to describe a moment when you just stand and stare in awe at human figures so beautifully carved. I stood there for several minutes, lost in thought, before proceeding to explore the rest of the garden, comfortably watching a gang of skateboarders performing stunts with the sun setting as a backdrop.

Early evening brought with it a cold chilly weather, and as always, hunger. We hunted for an Indian Restaurant- encountering several - Gandhi's India, Krishna's Cuisine and Gateway of India. Exorbitantly priced, we moved on to McD'S, unable to find a Subway, munching on cheese burgers. It was a bland dinner, but until we get to Paris, it satisfies. On an average, we are doing walking tours of European cities at the rate of at least 15 kilometres a day.

We walked, comfortably getting lost in the streets of Oslo. And the atmosphere of the city had changed in its entirety. Cars zipped by on roads, pretty pretty women wore their Friday night fineries heading to the nearest clubs, the buildings were wonderfully lit, and the posh shopping streets seemed alive.

Boisterous young chaps hung around pubs, and we could hardly believe it was the same city we were walking in in the morning. Street music rung through the roads - violens, flutes, even a tabla. Love was in the air, everywhere.

We stopped by often, breathing in the atmosphere of this new city.

At 9.30, we walked over to the royal castle, closed sometime earlier, which looked quite eerie in its solitude and strong halogens lights creating a wonderful collage of lights and shadows. As we loitered around, two royal guards found us, and told us we were not supposed to be there (I was waving a flashlight reading castle sign boards). They actually gave us a full escort to the gate, almost giving us a sense of royalty, with their heels clicking in unison and their hands swinging in tandem. Never once would I have imagined being escorted (out, but what the heck) by the guards of HM! Never.

We walked on exploring, tiring ourselves out. Finally heading to the station, where we would be spending the night in peace, waking up for a 6.30 train to the fjords.

I found internet access at the station, and made good use of it.

But little did we know this would the most exciting European night we had as yet experienced.

At 1.30 a.m., an announcement rung that the station would now close and open again at 4.30 a.m. cursing under our breath, we asked the Politi (police) where we were to spend the night. He gladly suggested the streets!

Outside, on the streets, the three of us contemplated several options. The stairs and the benches around the station were far too cold, with an icy gust blowing across. Realizing the open space around the station was far too open; we realized the only other option at that hour of the night was to spend the rest of the 3 hours walking the streets of Oslo.

And we were in such a shock. The only street that was alive was full of punk BOYS and girls, sporting weird tattoos, hairdos and terribly drunk. The cold hit us hard, and if things couldn't get worse, some kind of a police case occurred right where we were standing. Few cafes were open, the ones that were seemed too shady. And the only road that wasn't deserted was.. it was lined with hookers.

In retrospect, and to be honest, we were scared. 3 hours in an unknown city with what seemed like an aggressive crowd can never be funny.

We needed a refuge, and shuttled between the station and that road, and finally decided we were going to spend the night in... hold your breath, a Seven Eleven(7-11). We explained our situation for this 24 hour open store, and he allowed us to stay the night there. The problem was there were no chairs, the store was the size of an average bedroom, and it was stacked with goods. It was the safest place we could find that night, and as things go, it was popular with the punks too.

From then on, it got amusing. Not one character we saw seemed what may be described as normal- gay youth in a merry mood, hookers with their customers, policemen, and drunk men, they all dropped in and out. And the three of us, standing in one corner of the store, blessed the cashier attendant for allowing us that comfort of the store- it was warm, and I had internet. And terrible company.

Standing continuously for 3 hours, we were tired, miserable and bored. We ran for our lives to station the moment the clock struck 4.15 am, thanking the cashier for his asylum.

Dead tired, we crashed at the station, the other two sleeping and I writing this.

This was an experience liked no other.

Thinking back, there was nothing at all to be scared off, we were three guys, not once did anyone threaten us or was aggressive, cops were all around us because we were at the scene of a crime, the we were at least warm. Still, I knew I would never want to experience this again, doing all this in a totally unknown city, with almost no one you could rely upon; it scared us at one point.

I guess it is all part of the great European experience. It is 6.30 now, the train to Myrdal is about to leave.

Love, peace, tranquillity, and stay warm.

Day 10: 28 kms, walking in the rain

2009-09-23T15:37:00.000-07:00

Stockholm again, waking up in the ferry docking at 6 am, counting crows over time zones and getting 5 people to check out of the deck. It was now much colder, much cloudier than we had last been here. Contemplating the 6-7 km walk up to the Central Station gave me quite the shivers. I had almost got down to asking for a hike, and in retrospect, I should have. I mean, what the heck, what could possibly have gone wrong?

We took the long long walk – a heavy backpack, a bottle of water and a winter coat, my uber cool muffler along with ear pads – and I was all set to go. Walking across highways, cross roads, waiting for endless pedestrian signals to turn green and a growling stomach, more cross roads, more avenues, more signals – we trudged along. We had our first pit-stop at this beautiful park, and resting for a while, Patwaji came up with this stupid silly step-counting game, and as much as I hated the game, it was fun! We shared a “chota” pack of Parle-G on the way, arriving at Central station, heaving, our calves begging for rest.

Picking up a relatively underpriced coffee latte at Burger King, which was surprisingly very refreshing, we all headed to the Subway, getting an awesome bargain deal there. We did some “jugad” with the ketchup (a Sub just doesn’t taste good with Ketchup, and no one seems to stock Ketchup here!). We walked all around the city, admiring moored yachts, sail boats (including one called the Black Pearl), pretty pretty woman, fast cars and rip-off bike rentals. We walked across the Seansen bridge, and it was suddenly as though we are in an entirely different part of Sweden – the majestic Nordiska Museet (Nordic Museum) greeting us at the entrance of this royal park – the Djurharden. This museum was housed in this massive castle, and we were pleasantly surprised when we discovered that the museum would be free that day after 4 p.m. Every 6 Euros saved is another Sub, and we were more than glad to come back later knocking at its doors.

Our next stop – Skansen. A huge, huge open air museum, this giant spread across an entire hill, a miniature Sweden, Sweden at its best, almost a theme park. Skansen housed everything that was Swedish, in fact, everything Nordic, from homes of the Nomadic Sami tribes to ancient Finn houses, from exotic animals from the Tundra belt to glass blowing shops – everything here was wonderfully recreated, overlooking the city of Stockholm.

Walking across cobblestoned paths to live size Swedish Manor houses painted red – their exotic tiled black sloping roofs and the gardens flanking it; climbing bell towers and watching a tiny stream lazily drift by the entire length of the park – the entire effect was surreal, surprisingly soothing. The Europe you would dream about, the Europe you would see in movies.

I also met this Sami lady – Morit, who explained the ways of their people, of their indigenous traditions and their ancestral nomadic culture. Following reindeers, rearing them, living in a hut made of many poles that kept the cold away in winters and the insides warm, with chutes for smoke to go out without snow falling in. It was brilliant, their ways humble, and completely interloped with nature.

We walked across to the most exotic zoo I’ve witnessed yet – reindeers and brown bears, elks and grey owls – housed in habitats that were painstakingly recreated to match that of their wild cousins’. Having walked at least 18 kilometres from dawn, we were now terribly tired, crossing miniature market place, ancient chapels and windmills, many summer farmsteads, watching old carpenters and a live glass blowing unit from up close. We witnessed molten sand being converted to beautiful globes of gold, in innumerable colours, shapes, designs and contours. As evening drew on, it grew far colder, and having experienced much colder temperatures up north, we were here without jackets, shivering and exposing ourselves to every bit of the sun before it set for the day.

Out of Skansen, we visited the massive Vasa museum – Vasa – a 17th century sail galley that sunk an hour after its first sail. Much commemorated during its time for its might and the power it would bring to the Swede navy, it sunk off the cost of Stockholm to the bottom of the Saltsjon Sea. Miraculously lifted in 1961 – 333 years after it first sunk, the Vasa is now preserved in a museum that is more engineering than history, 500 sensor points that constantly map every sign of decay, the massive ship standing tall in the museums main hall, with galleries of artefacts and recreations all around.

Magnificent.

Old wood, the structure almost the size of a football field, most of the guns and turrets still intact, flanked with wooden busts of ferocious lions, Roman gods and ancient mythological creatures, it seems every bit of the Vasa was built to invoke fear in the enemy. Only one tiny detail went wrong, the hull was apparently badly conceived, and top heavy, the ship could not withstand the winds it encountered. The artifacts built for the museum are mindboggling – from movies to huge huge globes, from a reconstruction of the entire deck to recreating the faces of those who were then on board, this museum was so much science, so much art, history, Nordic geography and politics - all packed into one brilliant entertainer, all coming together as the Vasa.

Bansi, who had joined us for this museum, had to leave then so that she could shop for us. The four of went to the Nordisk Museet – we had a good 45 minutes before the museum closed, and we wished to make the most of what we were getting for “gratuit”.

The museum was accompanied by a superb audio guide, and although the museum claimed to be a Nordic museum, it was entirely about Swedish culture – its progression through the ages.

We finally took the long walk back to the Central Station, the weather now extremely chilly, reaching Bansi’s home dead tired. And bless her, for she had a steaming hot meal ready for us –Pasta, French fries and Rasam rice, a weird but utterly delicious combination for 4 starved vegetarians in Stockholm.

Hit the sack. Period.

Day 9: It now rained as we cycled

2009-09-22T12:32:00.000-07:00

Another day. Now, Europe seems almost paradisiacal. Almost, if only we could water for free. Sigh.

Today, we are at Turku, a rather medieval town on the eastern coast of Finland. Although amongst its oldest cities, very little of Turku really was old, except probably the name. Turku apparently is an archipelago of 15,000 islands!!

We were to be joined by Pissu and Kidu, who were coming in from Helsinki. Pissu always is splendid company, and I was quite looking forward to meeting him. Waiting for half an hour for their arrival, and feasting on a single apple for breakfast, we, as has now become almost a routine, headed to the tourist information centre – exploring the city using a map with Patwa at the lead.

Soon after, we crossed a bridge to visit the pseudo ancient cathedral, with beautiful white arches and some of the most spectacular stained glass windows I have seen in Europe. The atrium also had a painting of the last supper, and it was the first time I actually witnessed an organ playing live at a church. The feeling invoked melancholy for some reason, with the heavy bass and the long notes. Also, the chrome and gold plated tubes looked brilliant, reflecting the low church lights. The church also had beautiful arches, high and white, giving the church a very airy feel, something quite surprising for a cathedral.

We next stopped by a little, picking up snacks, before proceeding to pick up cycles, only to find the shop close. This was something we all really wanted to do, to do a cycling tour of a European city, and this was as good an opportunity as another. A couple of quick calls later, a man rode up, opening up his shop to allow us to choose our cycles. I picked up a beautiful red cycle – a Tunturi, with a silver blue helmet and some of the best gears in a cycle that I have seen. I loved the bike on first sight, and she was to be my companion for the day. And oh, how we fell in love! And she was quite a bargain at 4.25 Euros for 5 hours (by European standards, that is).

Riding along the riverside, flanked by beautiful moored ships and yachts, I was enjoying every moment of the ride, especially since nearly all of Europe has dedicated bike tracks, and vehicle traffic almost makes way for cycles when they see one. Riding on gravel tracks along the river, we stopped by every so often to click photographs, do a few skids or just go in circles in glee. I was happy to ride a bike for so long, and a cycle this good deserved more than just a few pictures.

We then headed to Turku Castle, a large castle with a rather “un-anaesthetic” facade. Huge interiors with high vaulted arches, the castle had little to offer by itself. The only thing that interested me was an Indian tourist contingent that was rather happy to see fellow Indians there. The castle had a museum that was expensive (4 Euros) and thoroughly boring. The feeling was unanimous – we would rather cycle around town than spend time there. Our Indian fortresses are far more interesting. However, I’ve heard so much about the German and French castles and am excited to go there.

I headed back to city centre, filling my growling stomach with a foot-long sub. Ah. It was sumptuous. Energised, we next headed to a small island off the main coast. Ruissalo – this was Finn countryside at its best, beautiful, untouched, pure, pristine, fresh and surrounded by water. A gruelling 8 kilometres away, the bike ride criss-crossed with the highway, crossing the harbour and finally, over a bridge into some of the most beautiful cycle tracks I have seen yet. With Pissu around, and with so much to catch up on, there was never a dull moment around. We drove unchartered, eventually stopping over at a wooden platform jutting out into the bay – to be greeted a wonderful view of the sea, the flush greenery and the city. Prits, Bansi and Tardi stopped over here, and the rest of went ahead further, into the wild. We were delighted to see a hydro-boat there, moored by the bay. The four of us clicked many snaps in with it, before heading out further by vast green acres, to cycle down to a sandy beach with hundreds of seagulls perched in content glory on it. Pissu tried to shoo them away on his cycle, and I half expected them to come back down, pecking at him for disturbing their peace. It was hilarious watching Pissu charging down at them on the beach.

The ride back to the wooden platform was delightful, with Pissu sharing what was to be a quite a revelation to me! Haha. The genius! The ride got even more interesting with gentle, cold rain beating down our backs, and my tired calves begged for rest even as my charmer of a bike egged me on. A long ride later, we reached Turku city, did the usual grocery shopping, dropped away the bikes ( I hardly wanted to leave it) and headed to the station picking up our bags and to the harbour where we were to pick up the cruise to Stockholm.

On board the Siljia Europa, a much smaller cruise ship, we had sandwiches, cup noodles and watched Friends to end the night in peace, and much needed rest for our aching bodies.

A quaint, beautiful day well finished.

Day 8: It's showering everywhere!

2009-09-21T11:52:00.000-07:00

Rovaniemi. Lapland. The Arctic Circle. To visit 66º 32’ N latitude was something unthinkable just a few months back. To do it was unbelievable. We landed in Rovaniemi, expecting it to be frigid. Surprisingly, it was rather pleasant, bright, sunny.

There was something incredibly romantic about the place, about Lapland, about the trains we were travelling in, the awesome wilderness and the way nature was interlinked with people’s lives, the tundra forests and miles and miles of pine trees all around. The clear blue skies and air that air that actually did not smell of tobacco and gasoline.

This is something I’ve now almost begun to expect from Nordic Autumns, pleasantly cold (10º to 12º C) and very sunny. The warmth of the sun is actually pleasant, and you’d look for sunny spots to stand in.

Dumping our bags in lockers, we picked up maps, navigating to the tourist information centre. A delightful old lady greeted us there, giving us brochures, nice carry bags and enough information to pass off the day. She even filled our bottles with water (which rather unusually is hard to find unless you’d like to buy bottles).

I heard Colbie Caillat’s Bubbly outside on the pavement, and it immediately brought about a smile, for several reasons. We walked across the road to a scenic river flowing across this quaint little town. It had a suspension bridge across the river, flanked by yellow trees in autumn bloom on both sides, the water lapping against a pebbly bank gently. Sitting there, feeling in the atmosphere, the atmosphere of a little town wrapped in nature’s sunny embrace, the last one before a white blanket spreads across the town, shrouding it in snow. We were probably not at the best time of the year, but the place was ruddy beautiful.

We boarded the Santa Claus Express, the bus from Rovaniemi to the Arctic Circle – this bus was delightfully coloured, in a way a kid would imagine the mythical express taking him to Santa’s Land. I, shamelessly, didn’t mind being that kid at all. It had a “Christmas-y” feel to it, especially since Bansi and me were singing Jingle Bells at the bus stop.

Santa greeted us at the Arctic Circle in his very own village. Apparently, the place is a sight to behold in the dead of the winters. Even otherwise, in Autumn, this cobblestoned town, with little houses marking the different buildings of the village gave it the feel of being a theme park.

Crossing the Arctic Circle, which passes over the town was a momentous feeling, the feeling that you’ve done something so few others have done. I would love to go further North later in the trip, but not right now.

We met the grand old man himself, Santa! Every bit the way I imagined his house to be, we also came across the machine that is supposed to make the earth rotate.

Many photo-sessions later, including a paid one with Santa which was far too expensive for us to afford it, we had a small picnic amidst tall pine trees. Santa’s village is apparently very popular, and I even saw a super cool photograph of the Finn band Lordi with him. Peace.

Returning to the city, hungry and famished, we headed to Subway, eating a superbly delicious sub each. A lot more relaxed now, with our thirsts quenched and tummies full (never thought these things we’ve always taken for granted would be such a pain), we headed towards the city church, a Russian Lutheran church, almost entirely made of wood and very typical small-town. The walk through the church cemetery, walking across the epitaphs of what seemed like a war memorial was an awefully pretty, yet in a way, saddening sight.

We always take our time at places, skipping “must-visits” rather than hurrying through everything at once, relaxing, sitting around, walking the cities – that really to me is what a vacation is. To do this for three months would just be perfect. I miss people back home, friends who I used to call and chat with at whim, eating spicy food that didn’t cost a bomb, studying. This is a wonderful experience, but I’m glad I’ll be going back to the life I lived in 3 months. Till then, woo-hoo!

We walked across meadows, frequently stopping over to see toadstools (which were everywhere here, in all colours, all shapes, all sizes, growing amidst the grass), it reminded me of Sylvia Plath’s Mushrooms – amongst my favourite-st piece of poetry.

The town had very little to offer, but the feel of a small town, with a little river flowing by, quiet citizens disappearing into their homes by duskfall, we were all rather glad to just lap it up without doing much.

A wonderful day well spent, we boarded the train to Turku, tired, exhausted but superbly content.

Day something...

2009-09-21T07:28:00.000-07:00

Edit: Will keep posting soon. Keep checking below! Photograph edits later.

Holidaying in Finland. Absolutely beautiful. Will post detailed entries around 28-29th.

Day 7: And it rained far up North

2009-09-20T17:20:00.000-07:00

In the heartland of Nordic Europe, Finland, finally. Getting off our huge Siljia Cruise, we were greeted by a brimming, sunny Helsinki, with its de facto symbol, the pearl white Cathedral, looming large over the city. The city overlooked the vast harbour, and to watch the yachts and ocean liners flow into them makes you realize how everything to do with Helsinki has something to do with water or the sea.

8tanyac, the super cool pseudo-Russian friend from WIMWI, was supposed to meet us at the port, but she didn't. As luck would have it, we didn't have her number and had absolutely no way of reaching her. Giving up, we decided to walk towards the city centre on our own, when suddenly this chick walks up the promenade, all bright and smiling, saying "Pooooooooch!".

She was to be our tour guide for the day, and poor Patwa, who was doing an absolutely fantastic job with the map so far, had to take a backseat. We visited an orthodox red bricked church first, with a tall blue spire. This church, overlooking the sea, was nestled in the most delightful of surroundings, green meadows and hundreds of green, lush green maple trees. It almost seemed like autumn had skipped Finland.

People love their dogs here, and i saw a couple playing with their dogs, almost 10 to 12 of them of these meadows. The Scandinavians so far seemed to live an unusually relaxed life, taking their time to enjoy the scenic beauty around them, the markets closing at 5, and nearly everyone outdoors.

We lugged on with our backpacks in tow towards the Central Station, stopping over at ornate fountain squares and for exotic cars (The Ferrari still eluded me though). Dumping backpacks at the station (4 Euros), 8tanyac took us to the Parliament building, mighty pillars and an imposing facade, this neo-modern building imposed heavily on the street, standing out with its solidarity and size.

From time to time, pretty flowers in the gardens excited the macro-photographers amongst us, I personally do not like plain macros of flowers and the like too much (don't hold me on to this one though)

Tarsi and Bandi posed for several photographs together, and the 4 of us urged them to pose more and more as couples do, all mushy et al, Shameless and brazen as I am, at my requests, the two always just smiled on, never for once making the rest of us feel awkward or unwanted. Hats off to them, a perfect pair totally.

Now, Boondiii, next in line, shameless as he is, still hasn't called his girl from Europe, or so he claims. Sigh. And lol. Commonly known as ‘budhao’, ‘Uncle’ and ‘loadu’, this lad is the comedian of the group, with his sharp wit about him, and almost blunt rebuttals leaving us all speechless and smiling.

I noticed the Europeans used every form of transport, super cars that zipped along at 200km/hr, super fast bikes, umpteen cycles, roller blades, skateboards, Segways, Nordic poles, even shoes which had little wheels where the sole should be, and of course, what seems like their favourite- walking.

We then retraced our steps to the town centre. Town centres are a pleasure to visit, bustling with activity, from exhibitions (Pablo Picasso) to live musicians.

By then, starving, our guide offered to take us to the "UniCafe", which to our disappointment was closed. We searched on, finding for ourselves a food court in a mall, and were delighted to find our yummiest vegetarian meal yet.

The salesman, a tremendous seller, offered us falafels - bread with some kind of pulse cutlet, an assortment of greens and ketchup. The chillies, tomatoes, cucumbers and cabbage were extremely juicy, very very delicious. He offered us all this for 5.5 Euros, topping it with awesome cappuccino, jugs of water (very expensive otherwise) and a 10% discount. He was a funny man, and kept repeating "for you, I give discount", with hand signs as if he's slicing off our throats. We could only bless this man for the sumptuous meal he had to offer us, after miles of walking around hungry.

We visited the pearl white Cathedral next, the Tuomiokirkko, which unfortunately was shrouded in scaffolding due to maintenance work. A beautiful church, I’ll let the pictures talk. To me, the highlight of this church was the enormous organ pipe, gold, silver and copper beautifully settling together to make up the ornate instrument. Statues of Martin Luther stood inside the church, and the interiors reflect the simplicity of the reformation of the church at those times.

Tanya soon took leave, and the rest of us proceeded to Suomenlinna, a sea fortress which was a ferry ride away.

I was on a call with mum and dad for the first 5 minutes, and strange as it was, I did not notice anything at all around me while I was speaking, so engrossed was I in their talks. Imagine my surprise then to find myself in the middle of a beautiful fortress wall at the end of the call, almost suddenly and out of nowhere.

What followed was perhaps the most beautiful part of Nordic Europe we had seen, nature at its pristine best, wooden bridges, sail boats, old fortress and tunnels, cobbled roads and sweeping views of the sea, the island had it all.

The leaves glowed green and red here, and the tomb of Gustaf III, a king who apparently died defending this country, before it fell to the Russians. His tomb was beautifully encased as a boat, capped with a copper shield, helmet and sword it was beautiful. Suomenlinna itself was constructed as a fortress by Sweden, defending Finland against the Russians, until it eventually fell to them.

Walking across meadows, true countryside heather, we reached a clearing, opening out to the sea. The wind here was gusty, and with the sun beating down on us, it is now a moment imprinted in my head, clear and unforgettable. The Finn countryside here was dotted with benches, with waves below crashing on to the rocky stones out at sea. We came across ancient cannons, and at one amusing instant, PritS was butting his head in one of them for some reason, insisting for a photograph.

We left the place soon, boarding our train to Roveniemi, towards the north of Finland, to Santa Claus land!

Day 6: And it's party time in the sky

2009-09-19T00:23:00.000-07:00

Stockholm. Finally. The satisfaction of reaching this place was immense. Getting up to the last few drops of water in the morning at 6 am, I folded up my jacket and blanket on which I’d spend the night, rather comfortably, crouched across 2 seats. The realization was now creeping in, I was actually backpacking across Europe, with little planning done and a lot of enthusiasm.

Bansi came to pick us up, and we were all immensely happy to see her. Bansi and Tardi make a great couple, and when she first saw Tardi, her smile said it all.

At the station...

...And in the subway

Switching to the metro, we went to the University Station, her hostel block a few hundred metres away from there. Wide roads bordered with sprawling meadows (including woolly cows that looked absolutely dazed), few cars and nearly no people around. Bansi’s room was cosy with a beautiful view overlooking tall coniferous trees and lush green meadows.

The enormous, woolly cows!

Bansi actually treated us to bread and baked beans(which PritS loves), and, as Barney would say it, wait-for-it.... idlis!!!

Rava idlis in Stockholm, I was already loving Stockholm, and bless Bansi for providing the ultimate feast to a pseudo-south-Indian.

It was Bansi’s turn in the dorm to clean the kitchen, and we all pitched in to mop floors, do the dishes, dust the cutlery and pans. It’s all brilliant, learning the ropes, doing things you’d never imagined you would do in a totally new country.

Helping Bansi do the chores - watching her work, clicking photographs..

Bansi guided us to a nearby cove, very close to the apartment, and it was breathtaking, to say the least. She was to join us soon, and we walked there trying to find our way there. Stopping by at a children’s play park, PritS and me were see-sawing on a pseudo-swing that resembled a wooden log.

A shutter-bug's delight

Water so clear, I could photograph the pebbles in the water - 2 feet away

Walking further, amidst huge trees flanked by meadows and a road passing through it, you may want to imagine our delight in finding a beautiful inlet of water, coming up from I think is the sea. We were greeted there by two huge Alaskan wolves with a lady walking them. We took turns petting the dogs, and they seemed to bask in the attention we were giving them.

The Alaskan Wolves, and the tiny nice lady with them

Photographing along the banks of the cove and watching the numerous contrails criss-crossing the sky, as crystal clear water lapped the bank.

Walking back, Bansi took us to Gamla Stan (old town), one of the most beautiful cities I’ve witnessed yet – saffron and terra coated buildings comfortably mingling with deep blue water and a skyline dotted with towering church spires. The lanes were all cobblestoned, flanked with historic buildings on one side and several open air cafeteria, ice cream parlours and souvenir shops on the other. We could see several Indians around, sharing a familiar smile with them in a completely unfamiliar country. My first impression of Gamla Stan was old buildings that almost seemed to fall onto each other, separated by narrow, almost claustrophobia-inducing roads and bright orange buildings.

Notice the roads - narrow, boarded and cobblestoned!

We walked by the Riddarholmskyrkan Cathedral next, where the Swedish royalty is buried. Its central tower rose several feet into the air, made of wrought iron and giving it almost an eerie feeling. Made of red bricks, Bansi told us this church had been burnt down and rebuilt several times, almost of all them accidental fires. Standing tall against a background of aircraft contrails, staring into the tower gave an awe-inspiring feeling, of the might of the bygone Swede kings and what they all ended up being. Philosophical? Almost. Too bad it was closed from September to May. Nevertheless, it was reputedly the only church that has charged believers and non believers for entry – for the past 200 years!

The towering spires of the Church

PritS going crazy!

A Gustav above and a Gustav below?

A statue of Gustaf III brought about a huge smile on my face; the mighty kind shared my name(well, my chosen moniker for Europe). Lucky him. To all the Gustavs and Gauravs of the world, lucky you.

Walking around, we went about the garden of the former Parliament, Riddarhuset, also called the House of Nobility, a pretty building with an ornamental and neatly laid out garden, with huge conical trees. Walking around souvenir shops and checking coffee prices, we reached the Palace of the Royals, Kungliga Slottet, the entrance of which was an impressive building with a baroque facade, lined with several French windows, surrounding a huge cobblestoned courtyard.

Smartly dressed marine guards in blue suits, a glistening rifle and baggy green berets stood guard to the palace, with remarkable stillness when they were not patrolling the palace. Oops, almost forgot. Today was the first time I spent money on something non-essential – and what better than icecream to do the honours.

We witnessed the Change of Guards ceremony. It wasn’t too elaborate, but their performance against the facade of the royal palace, amidst ancient howitzers and the near circular courtyard made it look imposing. The marine band however took the show away with their performance, with the xylophone being one of the favourite instruments I witnessed today.

And the guards now officially change.

A row of boots!

Simply beautiful, ain't she?

PritS then introduced us to his delightful friend Naina, who walked us around the commercial districts of Stockholm, skipping the tiny maze of cobbled streets for the frenzy of localities basking about in the last few days of bright sunshine. She was familiar with the places, loaned me a few Kroners for my souvenir, grabbed a huge glass of coffee and seemed all chirpy and happy!

Everyone, say hello to Naina!!

Where the loyalties now lie..

BanDi and TarSi, TarSi and BanDi..

We returned to Bansi’s place soon, and promising to come back soon, took off soon for our ocean cruise to Helsinki, Finland. The first sight of the cruise ship – huge, mammoth, gigantic, big! Picture perfect, it was one of those cruise liners I always wished I’d travel in some day. We were welcomed on board by enthusiastic attendants, who positioned themselves (with their quirky smiles) at the entrance, clicking photographs of passengers boarding the ship. Walking through the labyrinths of corridors and what seemed like an entire mall inside the cruise, we immediately dumped our bags into our sea facing cabins, and rushed up to the deck, to wave a goodbye to Stockholm. Atleast for now.

The huge Siljia line - Stockholm to Helsinki

Views from the deck

Standing on the deck, the wind blowing across the face, and deep blue water frothing by the sides of the ship steaming through it, it inevitably, pardon the cliché, reminded me of the Titanic.

Tagged!

Bakar-ing away through the evening

We could spot beautiful little houses housed on the many little islands that formed past of Stockholm’s coastline. Most houses looked like summer homes of rich people who could afford them – coloured nearly always in a distant shade of red, and black tiled roofs, surrounded by lush coniferous trees. It was a sight meant to be enjoyed.

Chatting about on the deck for long, we went down to the Promenade after watching the sun set over the horizon.

The sunset and the awesome hues following after

PritS on the Sunset

Late night-ish

Greeted almost immediately by a live Swede-Finn singer, we walked from shop to shop, checking out expensive perfumes (Boss, Gucci, Bulgari, Burberry), casinos, pubs and restaurants. The sauna above also looked attractive, but we decided to give it a skip.

The way up to the Casino and ballrooms

I have also finally begun to think of things in Euros, don’t find the need to convert constantly to INR. The thumb-rule: anything below 1 Euro is inexpensive.

We witnessed a performance by superb circus artists – with a knack for getting the attention of what I would have assumed to be the rich and snooty crowd. They also gladly posed for the shutterbugs, myself included.

The circus artists

We returned to our cabins to enjoy the cold dinner of baked beans and bread, which still was sumptuous. Bansi slept away immediately after dinner, while the 4 of us crept around, watching old folks dance to retro music in the ballroom. The night culminated in the moonlight club, where karaoke night enthralled the local audience for hours before actually clubbing began. By this time time, I could hardly keep my eyes open, falling asleep even while walking.

Somewhere, reading back, I know that they way I’ve described the things I’ve saw does not do justice to the magnificence and grandeur of the sights, but I’ve done my best. Now, all prepared for Helsinki. Over and Out.

P.S. I take credit for many of the photographs on this blog, although not all. Several of them are PritS', a wonderful abstract photograph, with a knack for observing things everyone else misses.

Day 5: Dark Dark Clouds Everywhere

2009-09-18T16:51:00.000-07:00

As things were meant to be, we are finally on our first leg of Eurotrip. Yeah, say it with me, “Yippee”. Feels good, doesn’t it?

Paying some 35 Euros for the super fast (300 km/hr) Thalys from Paris to Cologne (in Germany), it was a smooth journey, with little to report from the countryside except for towering church spires, many flat bladed wind turbines and endless meadows (especially on the German side). A brief stopover at Brussels later, we reach Cologne, site of my “favourite-st” building on Planet Earth. Being the bit of the brat that I am, I refused to get inside the Cathedral in the one hour transit period that we had, and instead, all we did was admire the imposing Gothic facade. Beautiful, but I’d describe it on a later date because this is not what this trip was intended to be about.

Boarding another train, the Regio DB from Cologne to Hamburg, we were surprised when an ancient carriage lugged into the station, with almost no markings signifying which coach is which. Armed with reserved tickets (that cost us 3 Euros each), we were determined to get our seats. Shocked, and to our dismay, we found out that the train was infact completely unreserved. We were ripped off our 12 Euros. Sigh.

Some clever thinking later, we all got seats in different corners of the same coach, comfortable coaches, but now few things compare to the Thalys. When the ticket checker finally did come around, I convinced her to cancel our reservations (instead of demanding seats) and got ourselves a refund of the money we paid! Cologne to Hamburg, for free!

Drowsy and rather bored, I drifted off to sleep soon. I woke up to the sound of a few kids quarrelling about, and the seat opposite me was now occupied by a Mom and her 3 kids. A pair of twins with clear blue eyes, and a cute elder sister, they were playing about, talking in German, occasionally casting curious glances at the non-German me, and passing off shy smiles. By the end, one kid and I started to make faces at each other. Try imagine me doing that for a moment with a six year old kid and you’ll understand why the mom burst out laughing loudly!

Switching trains at Hamburg, we got into the ICE 2112 (InterCity Express). Seldom does one travel on trains that are more sophisticated than airplanes, but this one was, complete with an audio entertainment system, revolving bedroom sized washrooms and automatic doors. Little did we realize that this would become the norm soon. The journey, comfortably paced at around 5 hours, was scheduled to reach Copenhagen at around 10 p.m.

A 3 hour ride later, while I was on a call, the train lugged into what looked like a station that was completely walled. I saw a hurried rush of passengers getting out of the train, including PritS and Tards. Confused, I followed out, expecting it to be safety drill.
Imagine my surprise when I climbed what appeared to be a station to find myself on the deck of a ship! My train was in the belly of a ship, whole and complete!

Take a deep breath and read that again. The possibility of an entire train fitting into a ship, and suddenly setting sail on a luxurious cruise liner was unbelievable. This short journey from Mainland to Denmark was on a ship, and our train journey was to continue from there on. And all this for just a 3 Euro ticket. I loved it. Absolutely.

Armed with a thin tee and a muffler, for in the delirious state that I was in, I had left my winter coat in the train. We climbed on to the deck to face an icy cold wind shooting through our spine. We were on board the Scandiline, a huge, 5 star ferry. Watching the sunset from the starboard, and extremely cute couple from our train coach took a photograph for us. Scandinavians so far have been extremely polite.

It is difficult to explain the scene I was witnessing. Frigid seas, a gigantic ocean liner, shops selling luxurious designer brands in the ship’s promenade, my train in the belly of a ship, a shimmering orange sunset, cold wispy air and very thinly clad for the weather, all I could let out was a fumbled “wow”. It was beautiful, to see those wind turbines on the coast, frothy water on all sides and the feeling of being on a ship – completely unexpected.

We love the half ride completely.

At Copenhagen, we had precious few minutes to decide what we were to do next. Head to Malmo, spend the night at the station here and proceed to Stockholm next morning. Or spend the night in Copenhagen and go to Stockholm next morning. Unable to find the tourist office, we rushed to the DBS train counters to enquire about tickets. It was hilarious, in retrospect :
PritS: Sir, do you speak English?
Gentleman in Grey: (fluently) Yes, I do speak English.
PritS: We wanted to go to Stockholm.
GiG: When?
PritS: Today or Tomorrow.
GiG: Your train leaves in 2 minutes from Station 4.
PritS: (Something about tomorrow morning’s train)
GiG: Your train leaves in a minute and a half from Station 4.
PritS: (Something about Eurail passes)
GiG: (Completely unfazed, almost bored) One minute if you want to go to Stockholm.

The rest of us almost dragged PritS to Station 4, to see the train from Malmo lugging in. Ticketless, for we were refused reservation, we got in with the “Jo hoga, baad main dekha jayega” – Dad’s philosophy.
A superb train again, we were curious if we would be fined and thrown out for being ticketless. An awesomely sweet ticket checker quickly checked our Eurail passes, and deciding that this journey indeed was free, dished out valuable information on our connecting train to Stockholm from Malmo (which would be at a 5 minute gap). Thank her profusely, and blessing the Scandinavians for being so polite and going out of their way to help people, we got out at Malmo.

Here, another dilemma we faced was if we could board a sleeper night train without reservation. When you are new to a country, an entire continent infact, and have done little research, everything worries you.

Dad’s philosophy again, we boarded the train, sitting in the last coach, a chair car. Finding ourselves an unoccupied cabin, and with a what-the-heck attitude, we sat there, dumping our heavy backpacks.

Before I continue, let me retrace a bit to explain that by this time, our throats were burnt dry due to lack of water (too expensive everywhere, and too little time to find public drinking water booth, what with all that running around).
Continuing, once aboard, we sat in this cabin, the only one in the entire coach, drawing curtains, waiting for the train to start moving. Once it did begin, PritS and I decided we needed water, and quick! Finding a ticket checker in the adjacent sleeper coach, we asked him for water and the polite man said, with a thick Nordic accent, “But in Sweden, you must carry your own water!”.

Explaining a little about us having been travelling since morning, traversing several thousands of miles from Paris and switching trains in record time, we said bye bye returning to our cabins.

A few moments later, this chap comes, asks for our tickets, entering in an almost hilarious hop-skip-jump movement, saying “Hungry and thirsty, can I have your tickets please?”.

Approving the passes we were carrying, he walked away, safely drawing curtains and shutting the cabin on his way out. He somehow brought a smile on our tired faces.

Resigned to our thirst, we decided we had no option but to got sleep thirsty and miserable. Patwaji handed out candys (Ravalgaon) to help sooth our thirsts, and we decided the best we could do was to sleep.

Imagine our surprise when the same gentleman returned with four cartons of water for us, offering a broad smile and leaving without saying another word, as if embarrassed with his own generosity. I loved these guys, and the feeling was unanimous.

Our thirsts quenched, I sit here under this reading lamp, scribbling away on a borrowed notepad, my memory still fresh. For tomorrow is another day, another adventure. 5 countries covered in a single day, and tired, I drift away to sleep.

Day 4: The first of many heavy showers

2009-09-17T17:24:00.000-07:00

Day 4- Wow. Just that word.

Waking up in darkness and to the sound of Patwa asking me to call my landlady, I spoke in a half sleepy tone asking Katia to do something about our electricity. Expressing shock, she promptly arrived in an hour, switching on a simple tripped meter. Sigh. Technology. Which reminds me, technology here is everywhere. The door to our apartment has a alphanumeric entry code, credit cards necessarily have a chip, petrol stations are (wo)man-less, cycles can be hired without anyone’s assistance. Everything is just automatic!

We had a breakfast of toast and jam, and set off to finish chores – calling cards, tickets for our trip, rice and tamil street. Splitting into two groups at Gard de Nord, Patwa and me headed towards Tam street and were awed. It was Sri-Lankan Tamilian stores everywhere, selling everything that can be passed off as Indian. As Indian students on a budget are, we asked nearly at every shop for the cheapest calling card available and got something that can be as good as it can get. Too bad we will not be in Paris for the next 10 days to use it, cause we indeed got tickets to our trip outdoors finally. Albeit at an expensive price.

Venturing further into Tam Street, we stumbled upon this rather ancient church Eglise Saint Bernard. A towering gothic spire and some fantastic gargoyle-ish creatures kept me fascinated. The thing about Paris, as I have observed thus far is that every avenue ends in something that would make you go “wow”. The city is just that beautiful.

Taking a deviation on our way back, we hit Ed Superstores, buying apples at a bargain (a Euro a kg), milk(Euro .7 a litre) and cornflakes, we met the other two guys and picked up a calling card. The journey back also had us seeing one of those famous Parisian labour strikes, men and women in orange demanding greater salaries. A silent march, with drums and placards marked their protest. Interesting. Very interesting.

We retraced our steps to home, stumbling upon another church, something nameless. It was unmarked on the map, on the roads leading to it, next to it itself. Almost mysterious.

Coming home to a lunch of parathas and maggi, we worked on our finals profiles till almost 5 p.m. Inevitable delays meant our Paris trip began at almost 6 p.m., with Patwa ji taking the charge as the lead guide. Walking by pretty cafes, women, avenues and buildings, we walked across a labyrinth of streets, all the time heading towards the Siene. No one really bothered which way we were headed, all that mattered was we were seeing things. And today, almost unanimously, we saw the Paris that the world sees. And we fell in love with it.

A city is difficult to love, and today, it almost came instantaneously. We first walked across to the Church of Mother Mary, or BEATAE, Marie Virigini Lavretanae. It was Patwa’s first time at church, and it vaguely reminded me of the school chapel, although it was much larger in size. Next, we walked to the Eglise Sainte Trinite, the Church of the Holy Trinity.

I have always loved churches. Their spookiness and towering structures, their cold silence, the candles, the tiny chapel chairs and the organ, they all just evoke a mixture of emotions – many of reminiscence of bygone school days. Lighting candles in these churches is expensive, although it is completely optional to pay up for them.

Paris, now darker, just got better. We stepped next into Galaries Lafayette, our first Parisian mall. And wow. I say it again, wow! As much as I love to shop, this one would make my bro Sau go crazy! Every single brand that you’ve gone “damn, that’s expensive” was here, and how! Hermes, Louis Vuitton, Dior, Versace, Chanel, Mont Blanc – and these are the brands that only I have heard of. A not-so-fantastic Burberry trial perfume still lingers on my hand, the lady at the counter was feeling a bit too altruistic, spraying around euros like that. I’m coming back to this mall before leaving, to see that fantastic dome again, to explore all of its 5-7 floors and to shop! I shall. Soon. Dad, money!

The Most Celebrated Brands : Side by side

We crossed Avenue upon Avenue of fantastic architecture, fantastic wrought iron lamp-posts, gold embossed angelic statues anointing buildings, you can just absorb so much if you just keep your eyes open.

(Keeping the nose open would make you smoke as much cigarette smoke as a chain smoker). See the Academie Nationale de Music, honouring music greats such as Beethoven, Mozart and Spontini. Flanked by two beautiful statues holding what looked like musical instruments, it was my favourite building thus far in Paris

.

The National Music Academy - Honoring greats like Beethovan and Mozart

And the Church of Mary Magadelene, formerly a Jewish Synagogue before being razed

Strutting across a few theatres and many more cafes, we reached the end of another avenue to find Place de la Magdalene. Almost reminding me of the Parthenon at Greece, it had superb pillars towering over us. We sat there many minutes, taking it all in. It awed us, to watch the Egyptian Obelisk across the road, to watch traffic zip by, to watch silly tourists use a flash at night.

The Obelisk in the distance, wonderfully lit up

To breathe in Paris is something few can do, and that’s when it began to sink in, we are at Paris. We are in Europe. Paris. Love. Fashion. Cafes. Cigarettes. Buildings. The Eiffel.

Eiffel?

But where was the Eiffel?

Elusive so far, our first glimpse of it was so totally unexpected that we went “wow, man, this is awesome” almost in tandem. To catch Eiffel towering in the background with its spotlight revolving across the light, a dazzling beam of lights – it was lights all over.

A few disasters with the traffic later, I almost decided I’m going to follow traffic rules here the way Parisians do. Religiously.

Some outstanding photographs, and we came to the Egyptian Obelisk, apparently a gift from the Egyptian empire to the French empire.

Here we were – at Place de la Concorde - standing in a square that was surrounded by few of the most beautiful architecture marvels in all directions. Imagine. Imagine facing the Louvre in one direction, the Arc de Triomphe on another, the French Parliament on another and the Temple of Magdalene on the last. We sat there for what seemed like an age, just admiring it. My first sight of the Eiffel with the Arc, sitting in that square, and I said aloud, “I would want to bring my Mum and Dad here”. It was really that beautiful, speaking about it would only dilute its charm. And what has not been said about the Eiffel before.

The Obelisk, with the Eiffel in the Background. Place de la Concorde indeed

We walked down on the banks of the Siene, watching an occasional restaurant or tour-of-Paris-by-the-night boat steam by. We even saw a Segway!

Coming down to our last stop for the day, we wanted to see the Louvre from up close, and man, the Louvre at night was outstanding. The slow trickling fountain, calm water falling down into the gutter, it was music to my ears in the crystal clear cold chilly day. And the glass pyramid, the miles of the former palace, now museum glittering in beautiful tungsten lamps, a facade more beautiful than anything I have ever seen.

Music from a distant wind pipe player could be heard streaming through, a gang of American cyclists, a couple of skaters who were dancing on skates, everything was really really wonderfully Paris.

The Louvre. If you look carefully, you'll see the Eiffel in the background

We walked back 2 kilometres to our home, crashing in around 11.

And Another Weird Photograph

Dinner was bread and maggi, we had too much to pack, too much to do. The next 10 days will be good. Very very good.

Hitting the sack now.

Day 3: Suddenly, it's less cloudy...

2009-09-17T05:20:00.000-07:00

And Day 3.

Today was bound to be packed. Morning started off with me coughing violently and a slight fever. Don’t worry if you are reading this, I’m all great. Nevertheless, I was to open a bank account in France, and armed with the documents and quickly revising my French, I stepped into the nearest branch of Societe Generale. I surprised myself with my French, and the bank manager was a kind chap who could as much English as I French. A half hour procedure, two signatures and an invitation to visit India later, I had a bank account!

Heading back home, I followed the morning’s bread-jam breakfast with a Khichdi lunch. We were to go to Norway tomorrow, but we are not getting reservations currently. So, for now, it’s stalled and we are exploring Paris tomorrow!

A brisk walk to class later, I was attending 3 hours of an arduous “Financial Analysis and Strategy”. It was Prof. Ramesh Gupta revisited, and that can never be fun.

I finally got my course allocated, which meant that I was going to attend another 3 hour course. Now, this professor, well, he was superb! He was ebullient, brimming with energy, spoke a lot of sense, and had a quirky US humour. Coming into class dot on time, I got the front row seat, and looking at a towering 6.4” man from that angle is never funny. He was raining spit too, but I thoroughly enjoyed his class.

We came back home switching 4 metros! Line 3 to 5 to 7 to 8. And then we hopped on to Carrefour and picked up bread, a bottle of milk and orange juice.

At home, we treated ourselves to the last vestige of lemon rice in the near future, and I don’t plan to do much now. Off to sleep. Need to get well soon again.

Tah!

P.S. The power suddenly went off. This will be a night spent in darkness, but we are all quite exhausted, so I don’t think it matters too much.

Day 2: It's still looming grey

2009-09-16T03:06:00.000-07:00

Day 2 -> Paris

As compared to Day 1, Day 2 was quite a fizzle. Or so I thought. Promptly waking up at 6 am for the first day of classes in a new country, in a new world, I was ready for action. Helping myself to a quick breakfast of only an apple (juicy, red, very yummy, cost 0.3 Euros), a muffler and a monkey cap on my head, we set off towards college. It was indeed funny carrying heavy rucksacks to class, we had no other alternative indeed.

Carrying a heavy rucksack is never never fun. In Paris, though, it is.

Sights on the road during the morning walk. It's always gloomy, rather cloudy here.

Walking along the roads of Paris is always beautiful. The city seems to be alive at 8 in the morning, the roads buzzing with traffic, men in superb suits cycling along on the cycle tracks, women in outstanding hairdo and beautiful dresses walking along, going about their work. The one thing you notice here is how staid the colours people wear here are – it’s always an overcoat in black or grey. And nearly every person here has their hair done beautifully (around 20 Euros, less 10% for etudiant).

A nice church we found on our way. I would get the name soon.

The mopeds and bikes people use here are crazy – contrary to my perception, there are far too many two wheelers here, in far too many shapes, sizes, and even colours. I’ll post pictures soon of fancy scooters and scooterettes. Everyone here seems to enjoy zipping around in them. We reached class around 8.45, got ourselves entry speaking in broken French without an identity card and settled down into our first class. The professors so far haven’t marvelled me, but well, that’s that. People from other schools(especially European) are far too enthusiastic, not particularly the best though. My second class got cancelled for some reason. That gave me an opportunity to finish some admission formalities. We then went around a short walk around ESCP, with the magnificent Saint Ambroise looming large. It was just beautiful, staring into those almost Gothic spires and the plain, dual toned stones blocks. Too bad it wasn’t open, else I would have loved to see it from the inside. I will be doing that soon anyhow.

Obsession disclaimer: Scooters. All Shapes. All Colours. All Sizes. So delightful.

We walked on to the G20 supermarket, and my suspicion came true, beer indeed is a lot cheaper than mineral water from the alps. Good that I’m a teetotaller. Most breads have eggs in it, and I can now say I’m almost an expert and reading ingredients in French. Almost. We lunched on, believe it or not, a yummy banana each, and lots of around .5 litres of mixed fruit juice each. It wasn’t much, but we were just preparing for dinner, I guess.

An outstanding church. St. Ambroise I think. I played around with Lightroom to get this effect

More sights from the same church

Another class got done, and I once got lost in the blocks at ESCP. It’s not much of a college, a lot like Jain college in the kind of things it’s students do, and therefore, as a corollary, I love it completely. I love the way people carry off their hair here. Would get one hair cut before I come. Just one. Now I’m waiting for my hair to grow up.

At 8, when our last class ended, we were exhausted. The backpacks with the laptop seemed an enormous burden now. And we decided we’d invest in going back home by train. Probably the best decision in the day. We switched 3 quick trains, armed with a map and a destination, Gard du Nord.

At one of the train stations. Opposite a garish advertisement.

We happened to stumble open this Pakistani chap here (indeed, it’s like the Indians, Bangladeshis and Pakistanis share a unique cross-cultural bond) who helped us to the nearest “Indian” street which was a minutes walk away. Not too long, it had many Indian restaurants, a few Bangla stores and lots of South Asians.It was a feast to our eyes.

We jumped into the nearest Bangla store and picked up Ready-to-eat Parathas ( 2 packets of 5 for 1.6 euros a piece). We were starving, and this seemed cheap! We also found directions to a few Sri-Lankan Tam stores, which we would be rummaging through soon. We then took the arduous journey home, and the laptops were really proving to be a burden now with their weight. We happened to stop over at Carrefour supermarket, and it was almost a “Yippee!” moment when we found bread without egg at .69 Euros for a huge loaf. Grabbing on to it, we picked up butter and 2.5 kgs of potatoes (which I don’t like at all, but it’s vegetarian atleast!) and doing so, picked up our breakfast for tomorrow.

We almost crashed into home, and cooked almost right away. We picked Chana Masala (MTR Ready-to-Eat, I highly recommend it now), “microwave-d” it. We picked parathas, heating it. And together, huddled into our small kitchen, we just had the most delicious meal of our lives. Starvation and exhaustion don’t augur well together, but with food, especially Indian food, it all just vanishes. We gobbled 8 parathas (I did the cooking), and topped it off with plate-fulls of lemon rice each. Bless Tardi. Prits does an amazing job of managing it all. And I like cooking!

Prits and Tardi then drew out and elaborate plan for the planned journey to Scandinavian Europe this Thursday. I quickly arranged my documents and was to open a back account the first thing in the morning. Tired, sick, almost feverish and coughing violently, I slept like a log, prepared for another day tomorrow in fascinating Paris.

And the first clouds gather..

2009-09-14T13:58:00.000-07:00

Day 1 : Bangalore – Mumbai – Frankfurt – Paris

It was a day everyone had been waiting for, for as long as I had first announced it. Mom, Dad, Bro and Bhabhi, everyone had come to see me off at the airport. It is always an emotional moment, I try not to look back as it can get teary at times, but this time, it was all smiles and a hasty goodbye.

Mumbai was uneventful, and I stopped over at Raut’s place, a beautiful sea-facing apartment in Versova (thanks to Pritesh). Life looked awesome going forward. We reached airport far too early, and after all the security checks, we were all ready and set for boarding.

All smiles!

The extra weight we carried was all adjusted amongst ourselves, which meant we faced little problem checking in. A decent in-cabin dinner, a seat refused to recline, a sumptuous breakfast and an on-time flight, I had little to complain about.

And then, Frankfurt. Fraport. The size of the airport was mindboggling. Everything was sparkling, and there were miles and miles of shops, check-in gates, and few annoying security checks. And efficiency. Everything worked to the clock, and we actually were able to board our transit flight quite comfortably, with only one hour between the two flights. A pleasant surprise. What amazed me about the Europe I had seen so far(just one airport, rated to be amongst the best in the world) was the way technology comfortably imbibed in everything you did. Whether it was checking in yourself or your baggage shifting flights without requiring any intervention, it all works seamlessly.

Fascination Disclaimer: I just love clouds far too much to not give them a cameo

We reached Paris’ Charles de Gaul airport, but not before catching a glimpse of the towering Eiffel on a clear Autumn day. Flights landed and took-off like almost a taxi service. And the airport was old, almost a labyrinth, and nearing dilapidation. A super quick transit rail took us from the airport to the RER station terminals, and luggage hardly ever proved to be a problem. We took the RER from CDG to Gurd de Nord, and it was then that our Paris experience started. Paris was around 17 degrees, pleasant, with a cold wind blowing across.

Transiting from the airport to the metro

Thanks to our landlady, we decided to walk around the station, finding our way to our apartment. Armed with a map and our luggage, we followed what we could from the map, and asked directions in the little French we knew.

I’ve heard so much of the French being rude, and it was indeed a surprise when an old gentleman patiently explained the way to our apartment from the station, and almost backtracked on his cycle to ensure we were not lost! Blessed be he, cause indeed we were quite lost.

The buildings, of what we’ve seen, are rather similar. French windows, clean lines and two-toned buildings. I’ll try observing tomorrow in greater detail. Sigh. Thanks to the map, we reached our place fine, and it was everything as was promised.

The first of many group photos - Outside home. Finally. Backpacks et al.

Fully furnished, it already had everything we could have asked for all ready. There are some issues with the internet, nevertheless, the landlady has been most helpful and the place is delightful, clean, cosy and very comfortable.

We had to reach college in an hour and a half, and we did so after helping ourselves to a quick lunch of two servings of maggi. The first one had far too much water, the second a little too less masala, but it was amongst the most delicious meals I’ve ever had. What with the hunting around for the apartment in a totally unknown city for more than an hour!

College for the next three months

We figured the quickest way to get to the college was taxi, but heck, it would cost too much! We hopped onto the Subway (which is different from the RER Metro system, and probably more connected) and paid almost INR 100 for a 8 minute ride to our college. It required one stop over at Gard de’ East, and switching trains.

Place de la Republique: Rainy almost suddenly!

In Paris, and committed. Sigh. Poor him.

In Paris, and definitely not committed. Look at him!

Walking the Avenue de la Republique made me realize there is so much of the Cafe culture here, with one dotting every street and delightful Parisians smoking away and sipping on to their holy water. It’s a way of life here, I guess. Smokers are everywhere! And there are far too many. Cigarette butts line the road, but somehow, it fits in. Everything so far does. It just seems right.
ESCP-Europe in many ways reminded me of Jain College, and I’d confirm once I have more details on hand. We finished what little work we had and decided to walk back to our apartment, to save on money and to see Paris in the best way it can be seen- on foot.

Weird photograph?

Fascination Disclaimer: Signboards! Couldn't film the graffiti dotting Paris' walls yet though

And that’s when I realized how beautiful the city is. It was massive, full of people sporting fantastic hair-dos and spectacular clothes, where mopeds zipped by the streets amidst BMWs, yet stopped every so often to let pedestrians cross streets. Dedicated cycle tracks, brimming cafes, light rain, unafraid pigeons, beautiful women and superb cars- I knew I would like it here.
We reached home in what was the shortest way possible by foot, stopping every so often to check grocery prices or see if we could anything vegetarian. We picked up a few apples for tomorrow’s breakfast. And came back to clean up a room that was thoroughly messed up. Katia, our landlady, was rather sweet, effortless handed us out instructions on everything we might need and promised to sort out our internet problems soon. She seemed good.

We settled in finally. To our home. In Paris. In the heart of Paris. The feeling is beginning to sink in. To stay in Paris is awesome.

But home was home. We rounded up the day with Lemon rice prepared by yours’ truly and TarDi, made more delicious by a hunger, a body clock fighting to fit in. And we watched Dil Chahta Hai.

Eurotrip has begun.

And how!

The journey starts

2009-08-31T13:01:00.000-07:00

And the story begins...
Picture a young boy, his life more or less set. Many hundred hours spent in front of his accountancy books, content with the idea of ghastly 20 hours article ship. And that’s when the roller coaster ride began.

Today, I have a long to-do list set forth in front of me. There’s a lot I can tick off on that list now, a lot more is still to be done.