Long Journeys and the End of it all!

Prague was beautiful. We did a lot of Church and Chapel touring and finally left for Fussen, Germany, to see the Castle Neuschwanstein. For the uninitiated, it is the castle which inspired disneys castle logo. Very beautiful and nestled in the mountains. After the castle and some excellent bavarian dinner, we headed out to Stuttgart, the automobile capital of europe. The Mercedes benz museum was a masterpiece and it was thouroughly enjoyable! All of us loved the discounts students got at every place in germany.
After Stuttgart, we headed out to Cologne, another beautiful city nestled on the banks of the Rhine. The DOM Cathedral, one of the oldest and most revered church in christianity took our breaths away. Their treasury was even better and we had a chance to see the remains of the Magi.
Cologne gave way to Amsterdam. The hostel was clean and neat and we had a fun time walking around the city. The Ann Frank museum served another grim reminder of history and a family's failed struggle to get out of Nazi supremacy.

From Amsterdam, we moved to Paris via Antwerp and Brussels. Paris was AMAZING in all aspects. A Big city with a BIG History. Too many things here to describe, but the city was worth the visit! From Paris, we moved to Barcelona which is where I am writing this post from. Thanks to Bertha, our host, we had a flash tour of the city including the Campnou, Cathedral and the Pier. Tomorrow, we head out to Marseille from where we catch our flight to London. IF everything goes well, I should be in Minneapolis on Thursday morning :). Hope youve found this blog a BIT useful. Thanks again for the patience and have a great week ahead.

Avani

Mans greatest mistake. And some memories

People say eastern Europe is Scary and not as beautiful as the other parts. Although I should agree there are strong remnants of the War in Slovakia, the slovak countryside is one of the most beautiful scenes ever! The country is slowly making progress although movies like Hostel and Eurotrip have not helped it a lot :D From Bratislava it was a 4 hour drive to Budapest, Hungary. I HAVE to say it is one of the most americanised cities in Eastern Europe. There are 94 McDonald outlets in Budapest alone! Like every other European city, Budapest is BEAUTIFUL at night. We spent an entire day roaming around the city on the banks of the Danube and taking some awesome night shots of the bridge and the Buda Castle. Some of them will be up on my Flickr page shortly.

From budapest, we moved on to beautiful Krakow and met some of the friendliest people inside and outside of our hostel. Another night later, we headed out to the auschwitz and birkenau holocaust museums close to Krakow. I have to say they were the most depressing moments of the entire trip. I guess everyone who knows about the horrors faced by the almost 1.3 million who perished there would feel the same way. Every inch of the camp still bears testimony to the anguish faced by the inmates, right from the tons of human hair to Spectacles and Gas chambers. One cannot help but feel anger and disappointment towards our own race for committing such a horrendous crime against humanity, against our own kind.

Once done with krakow, our next destination was Prague, Czech Republic, which is where I am writing from now. It is the 2nd of June, 3 years since I lost one of my closest friends in a Motorbike accident. Looks like depression hits all at once :). Rest in peace Siddharth. Your loss becomes painful by the day dude. My deepest condolences to your family.

More on the trip in the coming days. Sayonara

More Travelling and Alpine beauty

So Rome was fun and everything went pretty smoothly, except for a few incidents which I will talk about in person :) The ferry ride from Napoli(Naples) to the island of Ischia was magnificent. From rome, it was a 6 hour drive to Venice, which blew us all away with its beautiful mix of ancient and modern building styles. A wonderful water taxi ride followed and we finally settled into our hostel in the night. The next day, we started out to Innsbruck, Austria, which has become famous for hosting the winter olympics. It was amazing fun to be back in the Alpine mountains again and seeing all those snow clad peaks tower upon us. After spending a couple of hours at Innsbruck, we headed to salzburg, the home of the dancing master Mozart himself. The ancient castle at Salzburg was a big treat and the icing on the cake was the visit to Mozarts house, atleast for me :). Due to some unavoidable circumstances, we could not visit Munich where we had planned a visit to the Bavaria Motor Works factory (BMW in short :)).
After spending the night at Salzburg, we headed to Vienna which is where I am writing this blog from. It is a beautiful place full of Castles, Churches and Cafe's. Did I mention we visited the Leopold Cafe in Vienna? That was one heck of an experience. After this, we leave for Budapest, Hungary via Bratislava. That should be a fun drive.

More coming.

Avani

PS: Some of the german words have cracked me up pretty hard. For instance, Exit is Ausfarht :D.. You can imagine what the rest would mean ;)

Fun Fact :)

How about 3 countries in a single day? We started of from Zurich to Lake Konstanz which is on the border between Switzerland and Germany but german territory Technically. Lovely place and amazing architecture. Seems the city was intact even after WW2 due to its proximity to switzerland. BEautiful churches and o ne of the biggest lakes in the world. Truly Mindblowing!!! After that, it was time to take one of the most beautiful drives I have ever been on, the one from Constanz to Milan. Ripping thro the alps at 130 kmph never felt better :)

Once at Milan we went hostel hunting at Bergamo only to be scared away by drunken revellers! :( Somehow, the movie "Hostel" flashed thro my mind for a few seconds. We had to settle for a slightly expensive hotel. But fortunately, we managed to catch up on some well deserved sleep. Now we are heading out to see the last supper and then move to Rome via Pisa, which I am super excited about. Two more nights in Rome and its off to Austria!!

More coming

Update: Marseille and Switzerland

Action action everywhere! First was all the running around london to get a bus to the Stansted Airport only to be politely shooed off by the bus ppl to take the train, which was another 15 pounds! 45 Minutes and a lot of anti british language(!) later, we were at Stansted and finally got on board the flight when VOILA, theres a fuel leak in one of the engines and the flight gets delayed by an hour. When we finally reached marseille EVERY place was closed and we ended up eating dinner at an Arab restaurent. Being the lone vegetarian, I ended up with the falafel :| Our hostel was nestled in a street no wider than a bus and we spent a good half an hour looking for parking space. After all the hurrying around, it was 3 AM when we went to bed/attic whatever :D

Wednesday, May 20: We leave marseille at 11 AM and start our 730 KM drive to Interlaken, Switzerland. DId I mention how happy i was to be back in a land which followed Kilometres and Litres?? Aaahhh bliss!! :) The drive was absolute bliss and was well worth the entire money spent on this trip. Amazing roads and no adherence to speed limits!! Europeans are the worst drivers ever!!! Another hostel and roaming around later, we were done for the day and all set to hit the alps on thursday.

Thursday, May 21: So we leave the hostel early in the morning and head to the mountains and the Cable car adventures at Schilthorn, made famous by Indian cinema and its countless romantic ballads! The ride was FANTASTIC and we were proud to show off our Minnesotan attitudes by roaming around in tees when the rest of the tourists were clad in sweaters and Jerkins and what not! Afterthat, it was time to head to Luzern, Switzerland which is another of those beautiful and historic cities which indian cinema flocks to. NEw York Nagaram from the movie Sillunu oru Kaadhal is an apt example. A couple of hours at luzern and we all headed out to Zurich, which is where I am writing this blog entry from. Its 1030 in the night and the lady at the motel was sweet enough to give us reduced fares. People in europe are FAR MORE friendly and hospitable than the Imperial Nation. Go there and you will see for yourself. As for me, I am super excited that I have visited 3 countries in 4 days :) More coming...

Avani

PS: Sorry for the delayed posts. My internet presence is next to minimal and I am not to blame :D

eurotrip 2009 Begins. FINALLY :)

Lovely day in the twin cities and all of us were super excited about beginning our 24 day road trip of Europe and London. Things went smoothly and we reached london right on time. It took us a while to realize why we had decided to spend a couple of days at London. To BLOW AWAY OUR MONEY! The place is such a rip off. Every minor thing at the hostel need one pound or two. And the exchange rates arent helping either. But we're hoping we make better of our financial situation in the other countries, ESPECIALLY the Czech republic!! :)

So, Day 1 began with all of us checking into the Smart Russell Hostel at Russell Square, London. We had a quick bathing routine and left to the Buckingham Palace to witness the change of guard. event did NOT live up to all the hype it created and all of us ended up being pretty much bored, apart from being badly Jetlagged already!

Once that was done, it was time to head to Madame Tussads and posing with the hot wax chicks in a gesture of hopeless optimism :D. Fun! Westminster Abbey was next followed by the London Eye. The Eye was great fun though we did not get to enter the final resting place of Isaac Newton owing to a Pro-LTTE rally very close to the Abbey. A couple of hours of posing in front of the London Bridge and mindless wandering later, we were back home tired and sleepy. I slipped out of the room to catch my share of free internet! But it looks like the great bladewarrior must succumb to sleep.

Cyanora and more coming.

Caffeine Wars

Its that time of the year again. The beautiful fall colors have set upon the student community; Classes in full swing; The chilly breeze; and not to mention, the sleepy students! Damn you down comforters, you win again.

Its that time of the year again. The pot of coffee in our apartment is finished even before we start; every other person walking on the street has a starbucks/caribou cup in their hand, even if its empty :D; there are more students sleeping in class than ever before and the professor knows it is an absolutely natural phenomenon, coz thats what he is going to do after class; my room mate buys a bag of coffee (worth $10) because he gets a cup of coffee (worth $3) free with the bag; multiple alarms between 6:30 and 8:30 save your day; you start loathing your decision to register for that 9 AM class 'coz thats when you notice your alarm did not go off ( maybe it DID and you were far too sleepy to notice it).

Its that time of the year again. Its the end of the Fall. The beginning of the Caffeine Wars.

Time for a quick nap before my next meeting!

Adios