Switzerland, the costliest place in the world!!!

The trip started with uday coming to Stuttgart. Picking up sarang(colleague from behr India) and uday from the main station and taking the 3 day Swiss pass for a whopping 151 euro each, we headed home to see kunal prepare a Bakwas dinner for us. Irritated as always we slept to start off early in the morning next day………………

But before going to the details of the trip, I would like to mention the great confusion that went into planning for the trip. A week of continuous instant messenger chatting (a feature of lotus notes) in office by me and sarang to decide how to go, where all to go, how many days to stay etc etc.. it just went on for hours and hours. Finally when I found 2 places in the car pool and was happy, entered uday and said he would join. So the problem started again. Further investigations led us to plan for a 3 day trip with a swiss pass. Googling helped us decide a handful of places to visit. And a joke worth mentioning is when I forgot the Hindi word for miser..and the great hindi pundit uday says very confidently “Gharelu” and feels very proud of his hindi proficiency. And as usual the day ended with me and sarang confirming that it was Kanjoos and laughing for atleast half an hour.

The trip started at last………………….

We took a BW ticket from stuttgart to schaffhausen. A 3 hour long train filled with Indians and almost only Indians. We got down at schaffhausen and an Indian family asked us the way to the waterfalls, only then we realized that a waterfall existed there…and felt very proud of our exceptional planning and knowledge.

We headed to Zurich, found out the train to pfaffiken after a 30min search in the huge station and finally reached the Alpamare. The most famous water park of swiss was just awesome. Stupid brains of ours let us down once again as we had forgotten to take our swim suits. Tried to buy one at the counter only to find the cheapest one for 50 CHF(swiss francs). Using the typica Jugaad policy, we used our jockey and adidas shorts to get down into the pool without any more problems. And 4 hours it was all about water and sexy girls in designer bikinis!!!!!!!!!!!

The rides were adventurous, the climate was amazing and the pools were too good. Got our money’s worth at last. Felt very hungry after a whole lot of swimming exercise, but still wanted to go boating to make sure we used the swiss pass to its fullest. My idea of walking to the boating point was almost seeming to be ridiculous as it was too long for us, but the locations mid way where we clicked a lot of snaps encouraged us. Got back, had some food which was atleast double the times the cost in germany or else where in Europe and checked in at Lucerne youth hostel.

Next day it was time for the famous Mt.Titlis. and again as usual our uday’s conversation with the lady at the ticket counter was funny as he understood the cost of going uphill was 243 CHF. Absolutely amazed and disappointed at hearing the cost we almost cancelled the trip when just by mistake wanted to reconfirm it and found out that it was 43 CHF. Laughed at ourselves and went ahead. Again the train was filled with marathi and tamilians. Sarang found his way of passing time with marathi guys while me and uday chatted in telugu J the cable car, rotating car and the locations were mind blowing. Clicked a lot of snaps with the SLR and heard a woman rightly saying to her friend on phone that this was a place worth visiting in a lifetime. Came back late and went for a 2.5 hrs boat ride. The locations were scenic and very pleasant. Made us forget every bit of our exhaustion and frustration in life.

Meanwhile every time we felt hungry, noticed that we were falling short of money and the food getting costlier place to place. A lot of Indians kept asking us where they could find a cheaper restaurant, but it was a place where we couldn’t help ourselves, so it was difficult giving suggestions to someone else. Roamed a bit in Lucerne, visited the dying lion statue and finally after uday’s atm card worked, had our dinner at the burger king(of course we had all dinners at the same place, appeared to be the cheapest of the lot). Burgers seamed to be the food to forget after continuously having them atleast 10 times in a span of 3 days.

We decided that Interlaken would be the final place to visit on the last day. As the name suggest, it’s a village between two lakes and surrounded by mountains. Took the Harder bahn to go uphill and walked for a while, clicked some snaps and enjoyed the wonderful atmosphere. The climate also encouraged sexy girls to wear really small clothes…and it was a treat to our eyes.

As time was nearing for our travel back, we changed trains to Bern and then to schaffhausen. We found the ticket counters closed by the time we reached there, and now were in a fix how to buy a BW ticket back in the machine. A bosch guy helped us and it was a safe journey back to Stuttgart.

Came back had our dinner, watched some XXX in the german channels and went to bed.

Next day kunal accompanied us to the Max eyth see lake where we enjoyed a beer in the sunshine and girls surrounding us.

All ended well when uday also found his way to get back to aachen, and we as usual lazily strolled our way to the office.

Oberstdorf, a perfect place to Ski

Skiing is something which excites one as he enters Europe, and after watching our movie heroes do it with ease, we were awaiting a chance. Then came our Jaffa(Sandeep akkanapragada) to Italy again, don’t worry its just about a 2 week trip as usual!!!

So with the enthu of completing a whole eurotrip in just 2 weekends, he urged me and hari to plan something a Friday night. And being bad planners we couldn’t obviously decide upon a common place. Oberstdorf was far away for hari, Amsterdam was not feasible for either me or sandeep. So one weekend wiped out. So last weekend Jaffa was fired up. This time hari could not come because of a ‘On call’(wonder how people work in the weekends in Europe)

So time for uday to join us amidst his exams. The plan obviously finalized by me, was to go skiing to Oberstdorf on Saturday and to Neuschwanstein on Sunday.

After a long day in Pforzheim building EGR coolers, I went to pickup uday who came by carpool and Jaffa by Airberlin. So the old gang met again for a drink of Red label and a delicious dinner(I think it was dal rice…or kichidi???) made by me.

Generally people go very early in the morning when they decide to cover a place in one day. But being Bitsians it was next to impossible. So by the time we woke up it was already the time when people would have reached Oberstdorf. Nevertheless we waited for Uday to complete his makeup(all for his marriage) and boarded the train to Oberstdorf. The schones wochenende tickets are always good for people like us, and it certainly helped us this time as well. We reached Oberstdorf and were so excited to ski that we immediately approached a ski school, and then got the shock of our lives. The girl said skiing would close at 4pm and to our horror when we looked to our watches it was like 3.45pm!!!

After some internal discussions we decided to quit ski and look around some good places. We went to Breitach klamm. A wonderful place looks like a heaven on earth. Germany is so full of places famous for nature, waterfalls etc etc. The hills, crystal clear water flowing, snow slowly melting and lush green trees….it was some sight!!!

We had the SLR camera with us(of course uday did not know the various settings yet in it) and then started our photoshoot. And the as usual ‘on fire’ jaffa was so excited to see snow that he started playing with it like a small school boy. Anywhere there was some snow, he wanted  a photo. An hour long walk in the hills, tired but absolutely worth it.

Then started the dark part of the journey. We had to go back the same way we had come, but trying to be more adventurous we wanted to take a longer path to enjoy more nature. And we walked and walked and walked for atleasa and hour and half just to be terrified enough to hear wild voices from the forests than surrounded us. Thanks to a jogger, we accidentally found our way to the bus stop. 10 minutes later, after a comedy of errors in opening a restaurant door by uday, we were informed that the last bus would come 10-20mins later. We waited instead for 45 mins to find nothing that could take us to the main station. I found a family finally to ask them about the bus. And they simply answered that there was no public transport at that time of the night!!! Shivering in the cold and really hungry, we entered the same restaurant to have dinner. We called for a taxi and went to the station to find that our last train had left ‘ONE MIN’ before. Now it was time to find a hotel. The first one we entered – no vacancy. The second one – one night 250 euro( breakfast incl :)). Uday finally used his brain to call his friend and find a youth hostel in the internet. We found one and I talked to him on phone and when he said that he had a room vacant, we were over the moon. But he wanted a mail confirmation about our booking before we reached there. So it was time for udays jaffa na jaffda friend to write a mail. We took a taxi again to reach the youth hostel and then came the next surprise. The one who talked to us over the phone had mistakenly said that there was a room available. 5 mins we did not know what to do, we just stood there looking at each other…and sometimes to the guy at the reception. He tried to help us and found a hotel nearby just for 210 euro/day. Having no choice we decided to go for it, but when we came to the hotel, we were offered for 186euro, so a small discount at the end of an eventful day.

Next day we woke up fresh to have a good breakfast(except our jaffa, who doesn’t eat meat, bread and fruits..and the germans of course do not offer anything else)

We reached the ski place Sollereck. There were innumerable people from all Europe who had come to enjoy the holiday, and we couldn’t find a ski teacher. So first we planned to go on the rope way up the mountain to get a feel of what skiing is about. On the top it was so beautiful with loads and loads of snow, and jaffa was again so excited that…………………

We came down and decided we were going to ski on our own. First uday said No, and finally came along to rent the ski equipment. Took a while to put on the shoes and just to walk with them was like an IIT exam for us. Finally we reached the ski zone for beginners and got ready for the time of our lives!!!!!! And what happens……we fall a 10 times before even moving a metre. Then we went to a plain land, and again steadied ourselves. And the next hour was great fun, falling down getting up skiing for some time and it went on and on. We were sometimes helped by some Bosch tamilians as well :)

And while even children aged 3 were skiing, our jaffa who came about so excited from Italy to Oberstdorf, was afraid that he would fall down and break something that he stood and watched all the people as if it were a movie shooting. So many times we advised, suggested, ordered and finally even requested to ski, but in vain. I have never seen such a coward in my life, useless guy!!!

Uday and myself, we enjoyed a lot and finally wanted to go back. Then we went on a small roller coaster ride, and even there our jaffa was going like a snail. I liked it so much that I was speeding and there I find jaffa in front of me waiting for a collision. And it had to happen, I went and collided so hard, luckily nothing happened to us nor the hardware. And from then on I really made a lot of fun of jaffa.

It was time for a quick snack and we rode back in the train to have some more pegs of red label and a very bad potato fry, this time by uday and slept very tired. Next morning my friends went back and I as usual to my office.

Time for Spain

Time of christmas, and importantly a long holiday for all Europeans. so we decided this time it was time for Barcelona, to escape the cold of Germany and Belguim.
i took the eurolines bus for the first time, and after being so experienced in travelling by buses connecting almost all the major cities in india, this was just another one. i reached belgium early in the morning, hari came to pick me up and it was time to meet his new roomates. the day was a lazy one, taking rest rest and only rest.
next day hari, dutt and me took our favourite ryan air flight to barcelona, not before waiting for 2 hrs for the flight to start because the runway was so full of snow. after almost 20 years it was the first time there was so much snow in europe, and the time when there was a lot of delays in all kinds of transportation.
luckily we reached barcelona without much problem. we stayed at the Etap hotel, a room actually for just 2 ppl, but the world is always a place of adjustment, so all 3 of us just managed.
we decided to take the hop on hop off buses, which is actually a very attractive concept for tourists. the cute open top buses keep moving around the cities covering all points and there was an option to get down and board it anywhere we liked. so then started our trip, after our 1 hours long bus journey from etap, which was in viladecans, to the center of the city.
it was a cool day, just the climate we wanted, very comfortable.we covered a lot of places, difficult to mention the names(i have a bad memory :)

But looking at the wonderful pics you can get a basic idea of the scenic beauty and infrastructure of the city. it is actually quite a different city from the rest of europe, very busy with lots of people, and interestingly more 2 wheelers when comapred to 4 wheelers. the fact is that this is the place with the most number of mopeds in europe!!!
from the beaches, olympic staduim, the sea port to the sagrada familia....we had an awesome time visiting lots and lots of places till night. we also had the opportunity to taste some good spanish food and wine.
we admired dutt, who was our virtual guide come information gatherer. somehow is very patient and interested to talk to people taking the finest of details about any place we wanted to go. hari and as usual myself were sometimes frustrated, but he never was :(
the most important part of the trip came when we wanted to go to viladecans(which we later realised was another town in the outskirts of barcelona). we tried to be adventurous by trying out the metro instead of the bus. it was a break journey, and we reached the place we had to change. barcelona also has a different ticket system, where the ticket once taken can be used for only one journey, which is unlike germany or belguim. so we kept buying tickets, and once we were out of one station, we could not go in even for just getting information. so the break journey was getting more and more frustrating than adventurous. we did not understand where to go and the language barrier was an additional hiccup. finally dutt found some indians who showed us the way. we landed in viladecans, and by the time we reached the place was completely deserted. if you think we had reached sometime at midnight or even later, you are mistaken. it was just about 10pm, and not surprisingly on the highway we could not find a single guy whom we could ask the way to etap. we walked, saw boards, tried to get a clue....but all in vain. when our hopes were becoming fainter, as usual god proved he is great. we saw a man who came out for a walk with his dog, and it proved much better for us when he spoke ENGLISH!!! finally we found our way and got back. sometimes it feels like india is a better place where one can get help anywhere and at any time of the night or day.
next day it was time for the Tarragona beaches. Very deserted because of the rains which came in suddenly, but the nature was just awesome. we again walked and walked this time with much more enjoyment. i came up with a weird idea of taking a bus and just touring around till we came to the last stop. it was proving to be a good idea, when we got down at a place to buy some food, and from then onwards we had to wait hours before the next bus came in. so finally we reached the station and got back.
these kinds of trips indeed are adventurous and gives you a lot of maturity. there is linear growth in the general knowledge of a person, and it increases the dynamism of any person because of his thinking and planning to visit places and getting back safely.
Italy was for Michael angelo, this time it was time for Gaudi. his sculptures had some uniqueness, there were very comically constructed, and most of them he left incomplete, may be for the next generations to understand how great he was. He was a genius, and Europe had a lot of them. i think that is why a lot of importance is given for creativity and art.
we came back to have a good 4 days of laziness and rest once again in brussels. i enjoyed having the indian food which naresh cooked, and i can never forget he tandoori he made. it was awesome. but it has been hard for me to digest my hand cooked food since then. so its high time i stopped comparing and felt that i am the best cook again!!!