Aachen, Eupen, Brussel & Antwerp.......but i liked Car Pool the most :)

It is good to meet Indians in Europe...and it is even better to meet a couple of Bitsians. I started on Friday early morning to meet Mark nikolau, who was supposed to ride me to Aachen as a part of the Car pool. After a lot of phone conferences and mails exchange Hari, Uday and me planned to celebrate Ganesh chaturdi in Antwerp(Belgium) and roam around Brussel. It was a difficult trip for me, because i had to find ways to reach Aachen after which it was easy, courtesy "Gopass". So then with the advise of some colleagues i found out about "Mitfahrzentrale". Since then it has been good to find riders to so many places with which you could go along and pay him an amount which is less when compared to any type of travel in europe.
After having a quick breakfast with our purchase head, reached the venue for pickup 5 mins late. it was OK!!!
A 4 hour journey and we reached Aachen...and luckily very near to Uday's house. So 2 hours of lacha...Bitsian style...and then went to see some places. As usual a castle, church, hangout places etc etc. Then to Busof and a 40mins busride to Eupen. To increase the intensity of travel immediately another 1hr 45 min travel took us to Brussel, and to receive us came a very frustrated(certification failure :)) and enthusiastic(to show us belgium) Hari and immediately took us to Grand place..which is very stylishly calls Grandpla. So completely exhausted we went back to have a couple of drinks in his house and my favourite tomato pappu.

Next day we left for Antwerp and visited the Diamond meuseum...lots of information and very less to see. Kind of boring to Bitsians!!!

Next came the treat to every eye in the world...the Aquotopia. We exptected it to be a normal acquarium and went inside but we got more and more than enough for the ticket price...

just see the pics and it explains all...open air streams with so many kinds of water animals, octopus, sea horse, piranhas, the Nemo fish...what no. It was amazing. We planned to visit the zoo as well, but we were out of time, so thought of seeing the port and river. Was a wonderful evening with the cool breeze and lots of the belgium youth relaxing at the shore of the river. We came back late in the night to Belguim..and guess what we did not even visit the grounds where lord ganesha was put. sorry to him, but out of timeeee

Next day unfortunately i had to leave early to aachen to catch up with nikolau and drive back. so moved quickly to have a glimpse of Mini Europe and Atomium. Excellent places to visit indeed. we had enough time to see Mini europe and great to see the mangificent prototypes of the even magnificent structures of Europe. Sad not to climb up the Atomium and have an adventurous journey coming down...we just had to be content by seeing someone else do  it.

We hurried to the Main station and by that time Hari was almost a lifeless creature, he headed back home leaving us to find train to Eupen. Half knowledge is very dangerous, we had been studying this since childhood...and of course never took note of it. But when we saw the Eupen train just passby our eyes and we still thinking that it was an ICE and we were not supposed to board it. Then tension started creeping up because i could not reach Aachen by 5pm at any cost. To worsen the moment my phone stopped working...and there was no point of contact for nikolau. Good that hari and uday were there to coordiante and finally made nikolau and another guy riding with him for 2 hours. It was an embarassing moment but finally was the last chance i had got. So reached stuttgart at 12 in the night. Exhausted i just slept....................Next day it was time for office...

Busy weekend...as usual

After a bit of advise from a colleague, the plan was to see Esslinen & Rosenstein on saturday and Marien platz(Bier fest and Dinkelacker) on sunday.

Saturday morning arrives...as usual i wake up late and sit down to ponder over the stuttgart map to find out the way to Esslingen. Experience makes things easy for me now.

I reach in about 20mins and...........

Rathausplatz is the center of the area. I did not make out anything special from the monument but it was good to see an Indian flag outside alongside 4 other different flags.

You can also witness a romantic scene in the picture below(if u can really focus or zoom and see :)). I continued my journey to see a lot of shops...and 90% of them as usual for food. This is the place where the Neckar flows through and its a real picnic area for the people. you can see innumerable people just relaxing and cut off from the world. a little later i set off to see the fort on theing e hill. after seeing a lot of beautiful forts in pune, this was obviously disappointing...absolutely nothing when compared to pune. but a lot of walking made me so tired that i wanted to skip Rosenstein and get back home.

Reaching Bad Canstatter i found a beautiful route to Feuerbach(my home) through a natural park...a 5 km walk thru a beautiful park so full of trees...so i walked and after a long time came out of the park to Loweturburg, very near to Feuerbach....i came out and looked back..name said "Rosenstein park"

So sometimes God is on your side and makes a trip successful. I came back exhausted and just slept off waiting for a beautiful sunday to come by.

Sunday turned out to be horrifying......so many things to do, washing, cleaning, ironing, cooking. after doing all this i really have a respect for Indian women who are patient enough to do so much of household work. working for a company to make money is a much easier job!!!

After a day full of boring work, i wanted to visit some vineyards on the hills. a small trek but an interesting one led me surprisingly to the vineyards as well as a Bosch hospital. wonder what it was doing on the top of a hill.

I visited another part of the Rosenstein with some beautiful fountains and small pools with a lot of children playing and enjoying themselves.

Future plans are much more interesting...Brussels, Hannover, Munich, Italy........list goes on. Hope the Eurotrip brings some fresh life into my life.

If Pilani-->BITS.........Stuttgart-->Mercedes

So yet another weekend...and again set for a ride to the city.

This time too just alone, set myself for another adventurous journey. but it turned out to be very tiring......of course after a ten km walk...any human is exhausetd!!!

Set out to go to the volksfest(beer fest and amusement), but to another disappointment of mine, i was there to visit it before 2 weeks of its inaugral date :)

Kept walking along to find the Mercedes strase(street) and soon found out the Neckar park which has the Mercedes and Porsche arenas...another 100m and you find the Great Mercedes Meuseum. This was where Mercedes started...the Bad Canstatter.

It is of course difficult to upload all 200 pics of the magnificent cars.........but a few you can find here. http://picasaweb.google.de/siddu241/Stuttgart?feat=email#

After the long 4 hour visit of the meuseum, i made a visit to other parts of the Neckar park to find some Boating venues with luxury cruises and motor boats....and a e german having fun...so again you feel having company would have interested me too, to have all the fun. so waiting for my colleagues to come on sep 12th to stuttgart.....

Strolled along to find the Minerbad Lueze...a wonderful resort with beautiful swimming pools(i am not sure if a swimming pool can be described as beautiful, but i am sure you got me). its actually interesting to find many pools with varying water temperature(20deg to 50deg). and you have the sun bathing etc etc etc

Having been tempted after such wonderful visits happened to find a railway station, so thought of visiting the konigstrase to have a better look of the girls!!! After another conversation with a german of which he or me could not understand a bit...somehow found out how i could go to the Hauptbahnof(main rly stn). There was still 10mins left for the train to arrive, so i went to visit the Minerbad bonatical garden, it was beautiful. It had so many birds and at a corner found a girl feeding them. Gathering all my inner strength, went and started talking to the girl as if i was interested about birds too...yeah but of course i was studying Ornithology there!!!

But God is so cruel sometimes, he gives you strength "the one time" and then makes you realise the train is just 2 mins away...i hurried back...

The Hauptbahnof was extremely crowded as usual....and the konigstrase was just too good on a saturday evening..........you just cant understand which way to sway your head...every nook and corner is just HEAVEN...But roaming so many places, i was really exhausted...slept and on sunday it was around 1pm when i woke up.........so the same usual activities of cleaning, washing, cooking...............LIFE GOES ON AND ON

A weekend!!!

The 2nd weekend comes to and end in Stuttgart, and this has been an interesting one. Never in the past did a single guy from my company come to Germany, probably the first time and so fortunately or unfortunately there is no one to guide me in the city. But just with the confidence after touring India alone,  i set off to try myself where to go and how to go on my own. The Hauptbahnof or the main railway station is the City Center and the most populated(of course the total population of stuttgart might be just half or less than that of Visakhapatnam). People surrounding you are always helpful, so with a lot of asking i could finally operate the ticket machine, understand the stuttgart map and...............i visit the Schlossplatz, the Schlossgarten, the castle and the Konigstrasse. There is also the walking street(just like MG Road of Pune) where there is huge shopping and eating stuff.

So after an interesting day....i come home and before i just relax the time ticks 8pm, and i have to COOK!!!

May be the most uninteresting thing i always felt in my life(although i love to EAT) and confidently felt would never do in my life. But everything that happens...........is always for the good, may be now i can live all alone and anywhere in the world...and there is no need for marriage :)

Sunday very enthusiastically i set myself to go for a swim because it was a warm sunny day........and you can expect what you can find in swimming pools on a sunny day..of course i prepared myself only for that...but to my disappointment...SUNDAY IS A HOLIDAY :( So i just strolled by to find the Killesberg park. An amazing place, lush green with trees, flowers and fountains, lots of activity related stuff and lots of families and friends enjoying the sunday afternoon. This sort of times remind even a hard hearted guy of all the things he is missing in India. Nevertheless.....it was a good weekend and its time for office again.....................................