What a Trip !!Started on a Saturday , flying into Stockholm and meeting up with Arindom and Sudeshna and seeing beautiful Stockholm. Spent the day and somehow ended up at the Beer and Whisky festival. Haven't tasted so many beers and whiskies in my life - courtesy the reindeer and wild boar kebabs.I like Sweden, and I don’t really mind the restrictions on alcohol there. 2.5 % alcohol, or rather lite beer as they call it - is not that bad and you do need to drink an awful lot to get drunk. A couple of days in Linkoping, eating and relaxing were just what I needed to get over 3 months of unthinkable toil of my last project. There were weeks where I had worked 90 hours without working the weekends !! On the Tuesday I got on the train to travel to Copenhagen. All those who say trains run right on schedule in the continent were proved wrong directly, the train was delayed by more than 30 mins - standing at the station.And then I sympathised with Bill Murray in Lost in translation during his photo shoot for the Japanese Whisky. While the train attendant would speak for ten minutes in Swedish (I hope) whilst all the passengers laughed at the jokes, in English he would just say "The train is late by 30 mins" if at all he said anything. I was always weary that I missed some important information - but I was on a vacation and didn’t really mind.Still getting used to cars driving on the right hand side of the road, I was taken aback in Copenhagen, when cars would pretty much charge on you even when the green signal was on. It was later on I realised that the right turn signal would become green at the same time the pedestrian lights turned green, and traffic depended on common sense and good driving to ensure more efficient flow of traffic. I was starting to like Europe.
Getting out of the station I was positively sceptical of Copenhagen, It did look a bit shady and run down. But god was I wrong. I decided I will walk around the city, and incredibly quickly I was completely awe struck with the effortless injection of class and sophistication in the Copenhagen architecture. The new buildings were incredibly intelligent and the old ones exuded charm effortlessly. I fell in love with Copenhagen, and definitely plan to go down there at a future date to bask in probably one of the most beautiful cities. The next day waiting for my train I walked into what must be the Leicester Square of Copenhagen and decided to have lunch at one of the many squares of the city. I sat down and had some food and just stared at the beauty of the square – I could have spent hours there , but had a train to catch – alas. And So I left Copenhagen. On the way to the station I entered a bar, and started chatting with a couple of guys from the Finnish Fire department who just came to the city for training. While they got over the surprise of why somebody would ever wish to go to Scandinavian country for vacation – which for some reason was completely incomprehensible to them – they introduced me to the “Fish”. Served in shot glasses, this is indeed a very lethal potion – very sweet and incredibly high in alcohol. I was still reeling on the after effects of the “Fish” when I boarded my train to Hamburg. They actually put the whole train onto a Ferry to cross the Ocean. What an experience. I hit Hamburg, grabbed a subway, and then got into the Night train to Munich. This is when I encountered the most frustrating situation. For the first time I was communicating with people who didn’t understand any Language I spoke. I don’t know why I was annoyed but I was – and the of course the guilt of my arrogance hit me hard and over the trip I tried my best not to get frustrated and annoyed. Never had this before!!
I hit Munich in the morning and caught the train to Salzburg, beautiful , Salzburg. Each building beautiful, Each Café comfortable and beautiful, each crossing , each view , each person on the road beautiful. I managed to get on a tour to the ice caves. Its only when I was on the bus that the guy told me that the place was 1600 mts above sea level and that we had some climbing to do too !!. Well I made sure I wore my light jacket all the way up the hill – god knows I needed all that trapped heat in the ice caves which were extraordinarily beautiful. On the way down I was pining for a pie – but unfortunately I was in Austria and had to be happy with beer and a frankfurter!!
I met some Americans on the tour and we met up for dinner and a few drinks on the way home. Boy was I sloshed – but it’s funny how easily you can make friends on these trips. You will probably never meet them again, but I remember Austria I will always remember that drunken funny evening in Salzburg with the bakers and Social workers of Seattle.
The next day I soaked up the beauty of Salzburg, did some shopping and boarded the train to Munich – The final leg of my vacation. I met Ahmed at the station and then we went to the Bavarian place for a fantastic meal. The Bavarians do love their meat !! After a huge dinner and a great breakfast when we headed to the Beer fest at around 12:00PM, people were heading back home drunk – the fest opened at 10 I think !!
We were late and had to line up for a couple of hours, to get in into the tent. We were already a couple of Masses (that’s how they serve beer in the fest 1 Mass = 1 litre of beer), when we entered the tent. There were so many people in the tent and not every one was from Germany – it was pretty clear that in that crowd of people I wouldn’t be able to talk with everybody even if I knew German – so we started singing to the music and clap at every beat and have a great time. I met so many people , with out really understanding what they said, but just happy to smile and have a good time. Was sloshed when I got out but knew I had taken enough shots on my camera to remember that evening for some time.
The next day I flew back to London, Home sweet home. Europe was beautiful, I loved Copenhagen , I loved Salzburg, I loved the people there, but I was happy to come back to London, the city I truly loved , the city I missed while I was travelling in Europe, the city that every body complains about but for some reason I cant get over.
http://picasaweb.google.co.uk/ddkanungo/EuropeSept2007
http://picasaweb.google.co.uk/ddkanungo/BeerFest
http://picasaweb.google.co.uk/ddkanungo/TheDayItSnowedLikeNoTomorrow
