Chamonix

We took the TGV { :D :D :D } from the Gare de Lyon in Paris to Lyon, and then changed three regional trains to reach Chamonix by 4 30pm. By then we were in a disastrous state. One wheel of the big strolley bag that Minu and Payal had, had come off, and it was barely possible for two people to struggle along with it. The fact that we did not know the directions to the hostel seemed a minor blip on the radar. Eventually, we got out at the main Chamonix station, walked to the tourism office, and got to know that the Youth Hostel was 2 train stops before town. Now for very dumb reasons, and due to the shut down that our brains had undergone after a very hectic last 48 hours, we got onto the train back, and got off just 1 stop later! As a consequence, we were hauling up a hill, around 9 heavy bags, sacks, one with a broken wheel. We tried catching a bus, but nothing worked. Eventually, we reached up to the hostel at 7 20 or so, after cursing the hill we were climbing, and were more than happy to go and crash in our rooms.

An awesome journey this was, not to say, hilarious in light of posteriority.

And now, today is Sunday, the 19^th, when I sit in the Chamonix hostel room, too tired to coax myself to move from bed, content to sit and type onto my laptop the happenings till now.

On this Sunday, the others went hiking into the mountains, as a result of which they had some pretty pictures to show. I contented myself to sit and type into this journal for the entire morning, stretching well into the afternoon. We discovered that, we could travel free in the train till the end of France – to a place called Vallerene on the France-Swiss border. Having nothing better to do with our time, we decided that going on this 40 minute journey was the best thing that we could do with our time at hand. Climbing down from the hostel to Les Pellerines train station, we took the train to Vallercene. The travel was really scenic, with Mont Blanc and other snow clad peaks constantly in view. The Europeans have build so many cable cars, and to such heights that I keep getting astonished at their engineering. Cable cars reach upto heights of 3800m to a place called Augere du Midi. Apparently, this place is 8km from the Mont Blanc peak, and offers stunning views of it. However, being on a shoestring budget, we contended ourself with seeing the cars from Chamonix – from a height of 1095m, from the comfort of our train. During the 40 min journey, I was invited to showcase my singing skills by Minu and H, and needless to say, I grabbed the opportunity, my newfound confidence in my voice egging me on. Since then I have been singing a lot on the trip. :P

Vallercene was quite a disappointment. We were hoping to have dinner here, but were disappointed at the lack of eateries here. So we took the same train back to Chamonix. We were in Vallercene exactly for 10 min – from 5 50 to 6pm. :D In Chamonix, we headed to Elevation 1904 – a place recommended by the Lonely Planet guide. 1904 did not disappoint. The nice cool bar, with the friendly barman, was enticing, and H and I decided that this might be the best time to get high. We started with some Vodka and Tequila, and by the time we were done, we were 12 euros lighter in our pockets, and more light in our heads. The best thing about getting high is that you speak things as soon as they come to mind. You do not stop to think about whether what you say might sound stupid, and this was great fun! We took the bus back to hostel. H and I then played pool, which again was good fun, despite our obvious lack of judgment and concentration! We headed back to our room, me quite sleepy coz of the alcohol. Chamonix was the first place where all of us were in the same dorm. After chatting for a while, I turned in at 12 30 am or so. Irritatingly for me, H and Minu were chatting right across from my bed.

After a sleep punctuated by short gaps of “Shh…” we had to wake up early, taking the early morning train from Chamonix to Lyon. We had a short 1 hr 20 min or so gap at Lyon before our connection to Marseille. After packing some lunch from Subway, I went for a short walk around the station. I moved from the back of the station, from a blatantly office district, from under a under-rail bridge into the main Lyon downtown. Without any particular plans I entered ‘Carrefour’ the famous mall chain that I happened to spot. There were plenty of ‘Soldes’ (Sales) on, despite which, the prices were mostly unaffordable to me. I found a shop selling 3 euro tee shirts, but still I got a feeling that the cost should have been 2 euros each, and I did not buy anything. :P

People and cities

Paris is perhaps the most beautiful city on earth. It has so many monuments by the French, who are great lovers of art. As I said before, every building is a postcard of its own, having its own history. The French are also very proud people, and do not like it when you talk to them in English. At times, I also found them plain rude – they will tell you they do not know English even they do! Being proud is good, but the French pride borders on arrogance. It seems they are proud of their history, much like the Indians like talking about Vedas, and ancient glory. It is high time that France woke up to the new world order, where they are not the rulers of the world. They would do well to remember that they had their asses saved by the Americans when Hitler was in town. De Gaulle himself sounds more of an opportunist rather than the great leader he is made out to be.

I may be wrong on this count coz of my lack of reading on French history, but this is the opinion that I have formed till now.

The French are more the painters, the artists, the connoisseurs than engineers, fighters or anything dashing. They have had their moments in the limelight when Napoleon was the emperor. They would do better to wake up to the new world. However, their architecture, museums are definitely worth admiring. Also at one level, I hope that Indians learn to be proud of themselves, their country, and what they can do, (rather than the pride at their history and mythology). India still has not completely shaken off its colonial yoke of her back.

Germans on the other hand are technical people, and like you would expect them to be, their systems work like clockwork. To give an example: all trams in Bremen were accurate to the minute, unlike Paris. Also all of them were functional. In the two days in Paris, our metro stopped a stop before its intended destination, and once we had to run to the TGV station to board our train in time coz of this. Also, all announcements are in French. In a city like Paris, bustling with tourists, you would expect the announcers to be bilingual. Ticket vendors, tourist info centres, lack proper English speakers, people at best can talk broken English. Irritating.

I found the Netherlands much like India. It’s got a huge population density, like India, and traffic signals are taken to be suggestions rather than rules by the public!

Paris II - the most hectic day on the trip!

Next morning, all the others went to get the Free Tour of Paris, while I headed to the Musee D’ Orsay – the French National Museum – which houses French painting and sculpture from 1840s to 1910s. Again, needless to say, I was visiting it for Van Gogh. It also houses his French contemporaries, including his friend Gauguin, Renoir, Monet, Pissarro etc. Gauguin’s art comes a bit close to Van Gogh, but is nowhere as near to him. There was also Neo-Impressionist art, which is the evolving of Impressionism into an exact science, with studies made into the effect of putting opposite colors into the same frame, so as to accentuate the effect. I loved that too.

Due to the lack of time, I left the Orsay without visiting the first two floors – the sculptures. I headed from there to the Palace de Louvre, home to the famous museum. I joined here, the free tour which the others were taking. We walked along the famous 7km long road in Paris, which is the most interestin part of Paris. We saw no less than 8 different palaces, the Eiffel, the Arc de Troimphe, the Obelisk from Egypt, the Grand Palais and the Petit Palais, the cathedral at Sacre Monte etc. Totally worth it! We then headed to the Eiffel Tower – which he had not gone up – at 4 30. After a short wait, we were on the elevator to the top. And it was a breathtaking view on offer! We could see Paris from end to end, all of its glory, from a height of 58 stories! A tip: Carry your woolens to the top! Its real cold up there. Brr!

Tired as we were, we straggled up to the Louvre, and forced ourself into it, to see the one thing we knew inside, the Mona Lisa. Friday evenings offer a free entry to students, and that was the deciding factor for the visit. I also managed to crawl and see a few Greek, Roman, Carthage-ian sculpture. I saw a few Renaissance furniture too, before it was closing time. I must say that I could relate more to the Orsay than to the Louvre. Again, it must be said that it is huge, and probably impossible to see the entire museum with anything less than 3 days in hand.

On the way back to the hostel, we took the wrong metro, had to get off, and climb on another one back, and we were as dead as logs by the time we reached the hostel. We had to leave early next morning, and we did not even bother to look at the directions to the next hostel, which then caused a lot of pain in Chamonix.

Thunderstorm at Eiffel!

Then it rained. It was a huge thunderstorm, as we were on the Seine, and it turned up our umbrellas, and we had to rush to a kiosk, not managing to stay completely dry as the wind ran askew. It was an awesome experience, and deserving the big mug of beer I had there. Dizzy from the beer, and maybe all the happiness, high on life, we headed back to the hostel, again changing 2 metros.

Versailles. and Eiffel!

Versailles, is a sleepy suburb, maybe unremarkable but for the imposing shadow cast by the palace. The palace is for lack of words - grand! The grandest thing I have seen, maybe conceived by man. It is huge. The gates are gold, and the building is striking. It is a C shape, and again the tour is definitely money well spent. We passed many chambers, the chapel, the Hall of Mirrors, the Royal bedchambers etc. This is what it must be to be royalty, the imperiousity, the elegance and the grandeur. Lesser (or less moneyed) kings would have been stunned, astounded to see such opulence. At times, no corner of the room was left uncovered. Walls covered with paintings of Greek mythological figures, and later, paintings depicting Louis XIV as the supreme ruler, the unquestioned God. It also showcases the disconnect that the Royalty would have had from the masses, which famously led to the French Revolution, when the people stormed in, and Marie Antoinette, the queen, had to escape from a secret bedside route. She had replied to the statement that the Parisians no longer had bread to eat, with “Then let them eat cake”. Was it ignorance, or arrogance, or sarcasm, I do not know. But if she never ventured out of the grand palace, and their opulent gardens, it is likely to be the former! The gardens are so huge, that it would put the Mughals in Delhi to shame. Definitely visit Versailles if you can, when Paris.

Later that evening, we headed to the Eiffel Tower. She is a beauty! We wanted to see her at night, and by the time we reached there, it was quite late, and we decided not to wait in the 2 hour long queue for tickets. We instead roamed around the Seine again, before lying down on a slab of concrete on the bank.

Paris I

In Paris, we got the ticket to Clichy – where we would be staying. The hostel here was pretty sophisticated, although a tad crowded, and the room gave us a view of the Eiffel Tower! Aah! Its indescribable! Later that night, Minu and I tried walking to it that night, only to discover the next day, much to our chagrin, that after walking about 40 min, we had covered about 1/6^th of the intended distance. The tower is 324 meters high, and is visible from almost everywhere in and around Paris.

The next morning – really conscious of any money that we spend – we headed to the Arc de Troimphe – the huge arch started by Napolean, and completed only after the First World War. It houses a memorial to the unknown soldier at the bottom, which we didn’t visit, considering that it would be another 5 eur. Most of the morning, we spent walking around the Ile de la Cite – the old Paris. It’s taken straight out of a postcard – not almost – but fully and wholly! Every building is picture perfect, most build in an age long gone, singing paeans to a glory long gone. Most of them seem to be build in sandstone, giving the entire area a ‘yellowish’ feel. We walked along the Seine, capturing images of bridges, the Neuew bridge, the Alexander III bridge and many more.

We saw the famous Cathedral of Notre-Dame, but saw no hunch-back! Grand, it is, no doubt. Again, it reminded me only of the power the church exerted over the bourgeoisie, and the unquestioning faith such an institution would have commanded from the people, of the excommunications, of the executions carried out in the name of God. It was still in use, the priest giving sermons in French, to the sanctimonious, morally stunted and hollow masses.

We passed by the Louvre, which we see later the next day, and the Musee D’Orsay (more later). We then took a train to Versailles, the historic suburb of Paris, which was stage to so many world shaping events.

Brussels

Late into the night we returned the car, and walked back to our hostel in the Jordaan area. Next morning, we headed to Paris, the capital of France, and maybe the most chic city in the world. H and I were travelling by Bus via Brussels, while the Bremen people headed there via train. We got around 3 hours in Brussels, in which we walked to the ‘Grand Place’, the centre of Brussels. It is grand in the true sense. All building are from an age long past. Especially remarkable is the hotel in the square, built in a Gothic style, and very impressive. The hostel was the intended target of a French bombing in the 17^th C, and ironically, it was the only building in the square that remained unharmed! Haha – at the French. We also saw the Mannekin Pis statue. It is a statue of a small kid, 2 feet in height, and pissing about 2m far! As expected, we use a lot for our PJs – Man-you-can-piss jokes come up about 3 times a day… Apparently this is the Belgian National monument. What were they thinking?

Then I bought a small pack of the famous Belgian chocolate Godiva. Also had the famous Belgian waffle with ice-cream, which left an incredible taste in my mouth. Mmm Mmm!

The business district of Brussels was just outside the Gare de Nord – or the North Station, where we were in transit, and we were more than pleased to capture some of it in our grateful lenses. We caught the 4 30 pm to Paris, and it reached sharp 8 30 to Paris. H and I were so tired that we never saw any of the French countryside on the way to Paris. We once woke up to see the city of Le Mon, and it looked just like Amsterdam, so much so that for a moment I thought we had boarded the wrong bus.

Amsterdam II and Madurodam!

After chatting till 3 in the morning, transferring pictures, and browsing the net at the slightly-gone-to-seed Christian hostel we were staying at, we finally slept. The irritating part about a Christian hostel is that they had a prayer at 11pm each night. And the next night, when Hrishikesh stayed up, the guy there tried giving him sermons into Christianity, and the meaning of Christ. Blah! At prayer time, we went out and sat on a corner on the canal, clicking pictures of the city, getting gr8 night shots. Canals of Amsterdam is another famous idea. I guess with the city lying under sea level, using canals was the intelligent way to provide transport in the early ages. Amsterdam was the world’s leading city (according to the Dutch) for most part of the 16-18^th Centuries. There are a lot of shops selling Indonesian food, I think coz the Dutch share the same relation with the Indonesians as the English do with Indians.

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The next morning, Minu and Payal went to Anne Frank house, which the guys were content just to see from outside, (maybe coz we had not read the book) before heading to the Madame Tussads in Amsterdam. Tussads was also very interesting, although I guess it would not have been as big as the one in London. After seeing a lot of life-like wax figures of famous people including Hu Jintao, Gandhi, Dalai Lama, and doing a few crunches with David Beckham, we were given insights into the making of the statues by a sweet young lady. Each statue costs around 150,000 euros and takes 2 months to make, with 35 different technicians working on various different aspects of the statue like the eyes, hands etc. Each hair is sewn into the scalp separately! Imagine that! The eyes are now painted the exact shade of the celebrity, before being coated with fibre to make them life like. A clay cast is first made, into which wax is poured. The wax is only a cm thick, with the inside hollow. The eyes are then inserted from the inside!

We also the saw the Neuw Kerk – the New Church – at the Dam “Central Square”. It isn’t exactly new anymore, dating back atleast to the 1700s. Now it is used as an exhibition hall, with important ceremonies like the wedding of the crown prince, and the coronation of the king taking place here. Again, not worth 4 euros that it costed us :P

We headed to Madurodam in a Peugeot – this time manual transmission – at 1pm. Thanks to Sanjeev for this great tip. Madurodam is simply not worth missing. If you are in the Netherlands to do one thing, do Madurodam! It’s the entire of Netherlands in miniature, with scale versions of important building in Amsterdam, Rotterdam, Haag, Utrecht, and other places like the Schiphol Airport. We clicked about a thousand snaps in the 7 hours that we spent here! There were also about a dozen working models of bridges, ships, ship locks, etc. Although interesting, the technology used was quite antiquated by now (as it is every 10 years!), and they would do well to use more electronics than pneumatics, and mechanics they use now. But heck, I am an Electronics Engineer :D

When leaving Amsterdam, I agreed to the statement that I read somewhere – the city is over-rated, not to say very expensive. In the Netherlands, I had ended up spending atleast 80 euros per day, which was double of my intended budget here!

Amsterdam... Van Gogh and more...

From Rotterdam, we started our journey back. Chin would be heading back to Bremen, after dropping us off at Amsterdam. Amsterdam, the most liberal place on earth, where prostitution, gay marriage, drugs are legal. Amsterdam, which had once been the capital of the world, not unlike what Ney York is considered today. We reached the Stayokay hostel in Amsterdam at 7pm. We bid Chin adieu at 7 15, and H and I headed straight in search of the Neuwe Markt, which borders the famed red light district of Amsterdam. We roamed around a bit on the streets there. Almost naked girls, gestured, postured at us from shop gallery windows, gyrating hips, in a manner more suitable to animals, than humans. Girls of all shapes, sizes, race, color and age stood in the display windows, waiting to be used, f****d in any manner for petty cash. Cost: 30 euros for a quickie, or for oral favours, 50 for both.

Prostitution, and prostitutes have fascinated me (and a million others, I guess) for quite some time now. Women willing to sell themselves, their most intimate selves, physically, to some frustrated, self hating male – would they not have reached some kind of Nirvana, some higher state of giving, to be able to do what they do. Do they think about all this? Are they not the providers of the most basic human pleasure? Are they something akin to charity to the poor? Do they think about all this? Or are they just animals, incapable of thought, just doing what they do, unmindful and ignorant of the higher spiritual and moral plane that we tend to attach to physical act…

Again, all of this selling was unappealing, and a tad over-rated I thought, maybe coz I had seen Pattaya. In Pattaya, there was no pretence, nor any show. Nor any shops. There was a long queue, 4 km long, of Thai girls, waiting to be picked up by mostly Western tourists. Quiet, mute to all that they would go through physically. Here, it was much more glamourous, maybe more suited to a western style, than to the Orient.

Not too impressed, nor amused by what the city had to offer, I was already skeptical about Amsterdam the next day when I woke up. I went for a long walk, again at the city centre, to see the same windows deserted, shorn of all the glamour, and vice (to the god fearing, maybe) that they had to offer the previous evening, and for every evening since times immemorial, and for times forseeable.

I guess legalization of the ‘business’ would have its benefits, giving the girls some protection, and atleast legalizing their status in society. In the short time there, I did not figure out the social acceptance that the profession would have. It is likely that they are day-time students, looking for quick money, or in case of the more mature women, mothers, with kids and families to fend for. But that is not affected by legalization, is it? I read that just 5% of them are Dutch, with others coming from other lands…

After breakfast, we headed to the Main station to pick up Minu, Payal and Varad, who would be arriving by train from Bremen at 1 pm. After a coffee, we made plans to go to Madurodam the next afternoon. The exciting part about this would not only the enticement of Madurodam, but also that I would be driving again!

That afternoon, we went to the Van Gogh museum. Van Gogh, the Dutch master, who lived an extremely troubled life, fighting his demons for the most part, apart from painting some of the most exciting canvasses that I have seen (although that is just a few). The Dutch master never learnt art formally, at first learning from the paintings of past masters that he saw, treading conventionally in the early years, before exploring his own brilliant style of art. He was miles ahead of others, and maybe unlike any other genius in the field. Pointillism, impressionism were a few of his styles. I particularly liked the Pointillist paintings. Pointillism, is where the painting is created from dots of different colors, the overall effect observed from a distance, is what is desired to be a complete picture. Impressionism is where the artist is not bothered with the accuracy of the depictions he makes, rather concerning himself with the image he leaves on the mind of the viewer. These art forms were used by Vincent van Gogh, to create a effect far surpassing that of what could be achieved by forms developed earlier.

Van Gogh was born in Holland, and lived his early years there, before shifting to Paris. He painted from nature around him, from city scenes, in his own demented manner. The paintings in his last years especially look to be created under the effect of some hallucination, or dement, that he was suffering from. The forms are weirdly contorted, without much regard to perspective. I felt Van Gogh was to art what Pink Floyd were to music. Works of both appear to be created in some drug induced high, simply not conceivable by a sane human mind. Paintings which I remember off-hand now include the view of his room in Paris, a painting titled the Wheatfields, where he shows a farmer harvesting his wheat field, and shows the wheat as a devil, a raging and advancing fire, huge and monstrous, capable of swallowing the farmer in one giant leap. The peasant continues fighting with this devil, untiring, and unflinching. The colors he uses for his field are shades of yellow, and the sky is almost green. The emotions his painting created in me are indescribable. Lets say, I could relate to his genius, far different from the world he lived in, and more troubled by it, than what is good for his own good. Towards the end, he cut of a part of his own ear, saying it was done as a command from God, before admitting himself to an asylum voluntarily. His paintings from the asylum, at times depict the mental agony of his fellow sufferings… At times, he has painted brilliant nature scenes from his memory. After leaving the asylum, he committed suicide within two months. His last paintings, show his melancholy, his impending sense of doom, that of approaching death. By now, you must have guessed that I am a big fan of his, and I think, after visiting two museums with his paintings, I might be able to recognize his definitive style any time I see it. I especially like the way he yellow, and blue, and orange, in contrast to create a surreal effect.

Enough said about van Gogh. He was well worth the 18 euros we spent on him!

Casteel de Haar and Rotterdam

The next morning, which was the Sunday the 19^th, we wanted to see as much of Netherlands as possible. First we headed to the Casteel de Haar, a medieval castle, near the Hague. The drive was 1.5 hours, and the GPS failed us here for the first time, coz the road we were travelling on was newly built and still under construction. After making 2-3 trips along the same road, we finally reached the castle by 1 or so. Like all European castles, this one was extremely well hidden by the woods around it, and consequently, it was again an exercise to find it. Entry to the complex was 14 euros per person, plus parking for the car. The castle complex was a revelation again. It had an open air market, with items ranging from 20 eur to 13000 euros! The place was bustling with tourists, and shoppers, and there were well over 200 cars parked in the parking, right in the middle of nowhere. An alien would have been very surprised to find such dense human concentration suddenly :D

Roaming around the souvenir shop, and the market, we eventually reached the castle, a tour of which would have costed us another 5 euros! Stupid Europeans. Due to lack of time, and the costs involved, we turned back towards the car. Thie 15 euros spent here, were definitely not amongst the more well spent ones, considering that we did not see the grand interiors of the castle. An interesting buy would have been a huge 5 person garden tub, 10x10 feet alteast, worth (or not worth) 13000 euros! 13000 euros! Who buys something like that! It had innumerable faucets, and other knobs, which we did not stop to decipher, especially we were not likely to be buying it anytime soon!

We headed to Rotterdam, the grand port of entry to Europe from here, with me at the wheel. Seeing Rotterdam was a childhood dream, based on what I had seen in the Childcraft series’ World Atlas. The city did not disappoint us, and we had a gala time, driving around the streets, making an error or two at signals, eventually reached the Port Street, which offered breathtaking views of the port, the ships, and the huge Erasmusburg bridge. It being Sunday, we got free parking! Aren’t we lucky! We parked right outside a shop offering Surinamese food, and walked along the harbor, click-happy, and very happy having reached our destination without losing our way. Coming back to the car, we had a Surinamese sandwich. It tasted especially good, coz it was quite spicy, not too unlike Indian food. And the chics serving it weren’t too bad either! ;)

Netherlands: ASTRAL, Dwingeloo to Stayokay, Doorwerth

The next day was Friday and we rented the Merc. Due to usual laziness, we reached the shop only at 3 30 pm. From there got onto the Autobahn! GPS is a Godsend, without which it would simply not have been possible to get out of the parking lot! With it, we were at ease, like driving in the back of our courtyard. The journey was real cool, and we were feeling beyond cool, the least coz we were driving a Merc on the Autobahn!!! Stopped at a couple of places, and then entered the Netherlands, at 8 or so. My plan was to stay with Asgekar at Dwingeloo. We had some trouble finding the place, and eventually reached there only by 10 45 pm or so. At the guest house, mostly there were summer students from all over the world, who were interning at ASTRAL. They were pretty chilled out guys, as would be expected, considering that it was an excellent vacation for them. Especially coz in Holland, weed is legalized! I got offered some that night itself. I contented myself with a beer, instead. Then Chin and H had to drive to Doorwerth. They reached only to find the hostel locked for the night. Unfortunately, they had to spend the night in the car itself, while I was comfortably enjoying the heater in Ashish’s room.

Worth mentioning along the way here, is the way we discovered the numerous appliances on the dashboard of the Merc! Who would have imagined that the car has no knob at all for filling up on the petrol! When the key is in the ignition, you just go and press the lid, and presto, it opens! Discovering this was an interesting exercise, well worth the 15 minutes it took, and the oh-we-are-so-stupid feeling once we got to knowing how this works!

Next morning, looked about the ASTRAL institute, and was impressed especially by the Embedded Systems Group. Although the working there would be brilliant, it boils down to the lack of interest in the eventual goal of all that I would design. Is it ever possible to design something, without really caring about the purpose for which it would be built?

Chin and H reached Dwingeloo to pick me up by 3 pm or so, and we decided to drive down (or up) to the North Sea! The drive was mostly along the Dutch equivalent of state highways, single laned roads, in an impeccable state, with speeds of upto 100 kmph! All along the way, I got a feeling that Indian highways are now catching up with the Autobahns and other highways here. The autobahn is just 2 laned, while the Pune-Mumbai e-way has 3! India 1-0 Europe! We wanted to go to a beach, but Texel is on an island, and we would have had to pay for the ferry onto it, and decided against it. We contented ourselves with a drive to the dykes. A dyke is a tall wall constructed all along the coast of Holland, to protect it from the sea. This is required because most of the country is under sea level, and without these embankments, it would all be flooded. Netherlands, what I will remember for the most part is the windmills, and the number of sheep they have there! From what we saw on the dyke, there are likely, more sheep than people. The dyke was a stone wall. It had many different hues to it. Some coz the humans who built it, found it necessary to color it yellow, and pour tar over it at places. Then the sea played its part by creating layers of colors. Olive Green – where the moss and weeds were growing, Ochre – where the moss had dried out due to summer sun. And then there was the sea itself, a glum, dark blue, playing support to a sky of the same color. Imagine a long wall, sloping out to sea, stretching for miles, and of different hues, with sheep grazing on it. The effect created by it was immemorable.

At 7 pm or so, we started the drive back to Doorwerth, lest we not reach in time again, and have to sleep outside for the night again! After grabbing some sandwiches at the gas station (courtesy Shell) we reached the Stayokay hostel at 10. This was going to be the last night that Chin was going to stay with us, and we decided that the occasion deserved a toast. The bartender was a plump guy called Ric, who was quite chatty.The drinks were really memorable. The first that we tried was Blue Curacao mixed with Sambuca. Curacao I believe is a Dutch speciality, and Sambuka is a Brazilian drink. Ric offered this to us for free! Despite assurances from him that it was not strong, we would disagree, definitely. This was definitely the high point of the night, after which had some Tequila, and Beer, and chatted with a few non-descript foreigners. The drink made us sleepy and we collapsed as soon as we got into our dorms. Unfortunate, coz we missed out on the convo that we could have had.

Bremen

The next day, went to drop Minu off at the tram stop. Later that day went to the car rental office and to the University to check that out. The infrastructure there is really good, with a huge library, which is 5 floors full of books, mostly on sciences, although most of them were in German. Then H and me went to the Werder Bremen stadium. There was no tour at that time and could only the building from outside, plus the fan shop. Caught glimpses of the stadium from corners though.

After meeting Minu at 4 or so, we toured the Schnoor area, the old town in Bremen. Narrow winding lanes having shops selling souvenirs on both sides, in buildings built as early as 1452! Made patties for dinner, with a filling of potato and spice!

Departure, and arrival

Left Mumbai at 2 50 am. For some reason, was not at all in a senti mood, except for the time when I made a few phone calls to friends… Mostly coz I was going to Europe before going on to study. Also, probably coz I was going to be with friends and other known people, so the effect of being alone wasn’t there.

We reached Frankfurt at 8 15 local time, and immediately ran over a kilometer at Frankfurt airport, from terminal B to terminal A, where our next flight was at 9 am, and reached Bremen alongwith our baggage at 10am. Right outside the airport was the tram station, ready to welcome us to City of Trams. Chinmay left us to figure out how to reach Elizabeth Strasse where we were going to be staying. It was just Chin, Hrushya and I in the house for the entire first day. I slept off :D and when I woke up, these guys had got tuna pizza for me. Fish isn’t all that bad, when compared to meat. I don’t like the dryness of chicken even after trying so much.

Later that evening went to receive Minu and Varad at the Hauptbahnhoff – the central train station, where they would be coming to back from their course at Bremerhafen – some 40km from Bremen. Seeing Minu again was great. Old friends… Had some cheap coffee at the Back Factory, before catching a tram back and walked the last few stops. Chatted a bit into the night, and then slept off coz we were all pretty tired.

Europe!

The next posts are dedicated to my trip to Europe, made after a lot of contemplation as to whether the trip deserves the honor of a separate blog, but eventually deciding against it. I have tried to make the posts as descriptive as possible, trying consciously to diverge from my usually overly analytical and contemplative style, since I am talking of places, not ideas.

DISCLAIMER: At a couple of places however, I have not been able to refrain about putting up my thoughts on some of the things I saw. You may read them as my travel memoirs, although I must confess that I am new to the writing style for this descriptive format. Frankly, I have not found reading about people’s travel musings even mildly interesting… However, since I wrote these for myself to read later in life, I have written so as to evoke the imagery of the location in my mind. Writing seems to clearly be insufficient to describe all the places I see, and my laziness permitting, I hope to upload a few pictures as well.

NOTE: My trip started on the 8^th July dawn from Mumbai, and will culminate in my flying off to Pittsburgh on the 3^rd August. I have made the narrative conversational (to myself :P ), and in an effort to make it informal, have not mentioned a date at most places. Read on…