a languid weekend-out

perhaps i should get down to writing my diary entry again. not only would it help this cause, which i m otherwise opening out to the world, but i would also find a place for my musings. but anyway, this thought can have a better abode than this blog. so here we go again....

okay, so back we were from a harrowing trip to austria. golden lessons learnt -- dont try to plan a weekend out if u dont have a place to stay or food to eat, and if u r miserly enough to reject them, be a little more miserly, dont go out at all.

so here we were, with no plans for the first weekend of june, and a little skeptic of planning another country, with the previous weekend still fresh in memory. days went and it was already thursday until an idea scooped up, courtesy one of ravi's office co-workers. the trip looked inviting, and essentially it covered east germany, 3 days, stay, breakfast, plus guided tours at specific places, and all for €60. u couldnt get better than that. continuous phone calls did not yield any success. but we had plans for the moive potter 3, and so we went off. by the time the movie ended it was close to 9, and we were walking back home, when we saw as phone booth. an idea struck, and one phone call later, which was not altogether very promising, we were standing near LMU on a bright friday morning at 6:30am. turned out that the bus had enough seats for the both of us (we anyway needed only 2), and off we were to the east of germany for a weekend excursion.

we stopped at merseburg, a quaint, medieval city, where we were told of some castle, some history, involving some guy and some crow. u must have figured it by now. yes, we were tired of castles, cathedrals, palaces and museums, and each one was like, 'oh no, one more'. anyway, we stayed there till the middle of the day, got a few supplies, had an ice-cream, and for the first time since landing in munich, started opening up to people who were not from infineon. we moved on to leipzig, another beautiful city in the east of germany. we checked in a hotel, refreshed ourselves a little, and cleverly enough, moved out without an umbrella. the weather gods, as if seeking to lay revenge, came down heavily upon us. ravi managed with the overcoat he was wearing, which, btw, was mine, and there i was, with nothing more than a handkerchief to protect me from the pelting rains. but thankfully, ppl were jolly enough to offer me a 'lift' under their umbrellas from time to time, as we went on seeing places here and there. we went to a church from where the 1989 peace movements used to start every monday, stayed there for a service (jeez! i almost slept off), and then in the evening, took time off to see various places within the city, until it was time to return to the hotel. all of the ppl were by now separated from each other, but while returning, we ran into the italian students' grp with the two really cute italian girls, one of whose umbrella i repeatedly kept on bumping to, inadvertently, i must confess. and the smile returned was like, wooooo, did that floor me!!!

next day we went to dresden, abt an hr and half from leipzig, and another nice city, ruined only by the stupid rain that just kept on falling and falling. although this time we were careful enough to carry our umbrellas!! dresden is the type of city that has an old character and a new one, both being distict and discontinuous in the city's layout. we saw a famous structure, more like a courtyard of a palace when it started pouring. we went out into lashing rains, out into the city to take a walking tour, after we were let off by our guide for 2 hrs. we could have, and should have chosen to go along with the italian girls, had not a chinki come in just at that vital moment, and decided to join the two of us, see museums and what-nots. we left her too, eventually :)) and decided to walk alone.

we converged at the decided place around 2:30 and then went into an opera house right there in the city centre. gosh!! it was so beautiful. i felt pity for the lady who was explaining abt the history, architecture etc (i hope) in german, and i was sitting right in front of her!! poor lady! little did she know that the person who had a vantage position to listen to her did not understand even a single word of what she was saying! one of the highlights, was the tour to the volkswagon glass factory. this was quite a thing to see. for the next hr, we allowed ourselves to revel at the technological marvels that this country has to offer. when i look back to this trip, this will be one single most amazing part that i will reflect upon. pity we couldn't stay there long enough for every minor detail to sink in.

from there on, we took the bus back to leipzig, and we were there by late afternoon. it was a nice clear saturday evening, and the city was swaying in its colours. the stadtfest was on, and it seemed the whole of leipzig was out into the streets. there were music shows, dance items, games and bier stalls all around, and we had a memorable time that evening, trying to fight our way back to the auerbachs keller, which was our meeting point. this place has a very interesting history, it was one of the settings of Goethe's Faust, and will celebrate 500 yrs of existence two decades from now!!! there was no way we could not have had a bier there, and we talked with other ppl until it was time to leave, and back to the hotels.

next morning, off to weimar, which might strike a bell if u have heard of the musician Bach. we spent some time there as well, left it around afternoon, and back to munich in the evening, around 7.

that completed the weekend. why languid?? becoz there hardly was any bhasad over three days, and more importantly, we had food to eat, and a place to sleep.

into another country

days flew, as they generally do when they don't have anything else to do, and the next weekend, a 3-day one, was on us again. and the usual frenzy, where to go, what places to see, how to go, when come back. gets frustrating at times, but then it had to be done, so be it.

this weekend was dedicated to austria. saturday morning, train to salzburg, a cute little city at the border of austria and germany, with barely a population of 150,000. the place is so small that even in a day, u could do the rounds of the city twice, and still have enough time to have a heavy dinner, catch a couple of hrs sleep and take ur train to vienna. that is precisely what we did, or atleast tried to, coz we didn't have much that one can qualify as 'dinner', and that couple of hrs were an agonizing 4 hrs at a waiting room in salzburg, with the temperature no more than 5°C. hey, but i m jumping details. let's start from the start.

so saturday morning, reached salzburg, and got a map. most famous as the birthplace of mozart, this city is surrounded by alps on all the sides. we took an hr before starting the tour of the city, when we decided on the places that we were going to see, and picked up what would eventually be our 'dinner'. mirabell gardens was the first destination. u would know this place if u have seen 'sound of music'. it was here that maria and the children sang 'do re mi'. good place to see. from there we moved on to mozart wohnhaus, and my knowledge abt his life took a quantam leap. we kept on moving from one place to another, castles and churches, the mozart platz (one of the more beautiful city centres that i know). next we moved on to a very famous and old castle overlooking the alps in the south. gosh!! how beautiful that looked, with sunlight filtering in thru the clouds. u could easily spend an hr there, only admiring the details of the scenery. we stayed there and came down by a road track, coz a very cute ice-cream vendor suggested us that the view is really nice. we kept on jumping from place to place, until the day drew to a close. the last few hrs before hauptbahnhof were spent sitting along the bank of salzbach, doing nothing, just introspecting.

neither having a place to stay, nor an idea of a night in the middle of may in salzburg, meant that we had to make HBF as our home for the last 4-5 hrs. not the best of the times, i must say. it was cold and windy, and the icing on the cake was a toe of mine, gone sore. the train to vienna was right on time, at 2am, when we dragged ourselves in it and slept off (or tried to, at any rate) for 4-5 hrs.

sunday morning, vienna, the austrian capital, and their largest city. presented not the best of appearances at 8am, and we were wondering if we made the right choice of place for the weekend. but then the day opened up, and we went along to see places. another striking city centre (very different from others, bear in mind) with a huge and famous cathedral. then we moved on to the area around the parliament which was the main attraction of the city with wonderful buildings (mind u, i mean it -- its not just another city with just another 'beautiful' buildings), the most prominent being the famous sisi museum. we spent quite some time there. fatigue was coming along, not only for the lack of sleep, but also for the lack of proper meals. schonbrunn castle (we did not go inside) had beautiful parks surrounding it, which gave a nice view of the whole city. the best part was the maze and labyrinth, and a small children's park nearby. i don't know abt ravi but it sure refreshed me. my toe was getting more difficult by the moment, and i was even having trouble walking. any plans for using the holiday on monday were immediately dropped. we dragged ourselves to prater, had a ride in a giant wheel, tried going to donau beach, but it was too late in the evening and was empty. so much done, and a very exhausting tour completed, we came back to the station around 9:30. the train for munich left at 11, and we barely had the energies to droop ourselves onto the train seats when it came. by now, my toe was aching like hell. but i still had time to admire the fact that vienna central station was more beautiful and more well maintained than the indira gandhi international airport at new delhi.

came back monday morning. the part of the journey from ostbahnhof to munich passed on less than half awake and when we awoke after having slept for 5-6 hrs, it felt like it was another day. did not have the energies to go out, so we stayed at home, and somehow managed to pass our time.

so much for not planning properly, haa!!

first time out of munich

this had to come, because this was always on our minds, and came soon the following week itself. thursday being a holiday, we decided to take a trip to neuschwanstein castle. if u r a disney fan, and remember the castle that is shown at the start of disney cartoons, u have a fair idea of what it looks like. a result of some weird connection between 'mad' Ludwig and swans, this castle indeed presents a breath-taking view, when u look at it from marienbrücke, a bridge that ludwig 'gifted' to his wife on one of her birthdays. a typical example of late 19th century architecture, with tall turrets, and rising spires, supposedly this castle was never completed. gosh!! if that is true, i have no idea how much more beautiful did the creator wanted it to be. but nevertheless, here it stands.....

half a day spent there, back to munich in the afternoon, and planned to go to dachau. turned out that we were a little late, even for dachau, so returned back from the dachau railway station, roamed around in an area that we had now come to know as one of Munich's best, the 'triangle' circuiting Stachus, odeonsplatz, and marienplatz. being a public holiday, all that could be done was window shopping, which by know we had developed a flair for.

got up late after planning and innumerable printouts on saturday, but still decided to go ahead with the original plan of visiting nuremberg, Hitler's headquarters. reached there in 2 hrs time, and guess what, the first thing that struck me was the large indian population. i hadn't seen much of it in munich, so it was a kind of surprise. we got to docümentation-zentrum, the place that we had come to see, and spent some 3-4hrs going thru the history, the circumstances, the battles, and the repercussions. for someone who is interested in history as i m (okay, not a great deal, but so what??). at 2pm in the afternoon, the Congress Hall presented such a desolate appearance, with crumbling walls, flying waste papers, and an afternoon wind blowing across ur face, 70 yrs ago, it wouldn't have been radically different from this, except for the damaged buildings, which were a living proof of the great war. we went along the zeppelinfeld, the marchfeld, the größestr., and then decided to go back to the modern world. it was still some time though, as we next went to the famous kaiserburg castle to get the view of the entire city from 'up there'. it was getting late, so we came back, roamed around the place, had something to eat in McD's amidst sulking protests from ravi, and caught a train to munich in the night.

next day the story of the past two sundays was all but repeated, until we finally decided to get up at 11. not much to do, not becoz we didnt have much to do, but becoz we hadn't planned for the same. so we went to deutsche museum, got amazed at its sheer size. it was all the more interesting for us, becoz it shows the birth and subsequent growth of science and technology thru the ages, so fascinating to watch. another visit to that place is a necessity. since the evening was still left to us, we went off to the english gardens, and decided to come back there again someday with a bike. (do not loll ur eyes, a cycle is called a bike here)

when the world was weird

that is how the first few days went. luckily we got a house in a decent locality, with a decent price, and with a flatmate, who loves having fun, almost as much as we do. but even then, settlement was not easy. but it had to come, and it came fast. but then, it had a price of its own - a burned omelette, burned rice, and over cooked aloo bhujiya, not to mention a burned table cloth. it did not take us long to realize, that whatever we were, we were not the God of culinary skills as yet.

the dark and smelly images of the day were spent sitting in a theatre, watching kill bill 2, mulling the perils of trying to survive in an alien land. sunday was spent sleeping.

the weeks have a very similar story. get up in the morning, go to office, work(?) there all day, come back, cook, eat, wash and sleep. sometimes we need to shop big, to add a little spice to this routine. there never was anything special that happened during weekdays, atleast not worthy enough to pen here. but u get the idea, right??

the second weekend came soon after. saturday was spent watching a not-altogether-very-interesting football match. hey, hey, not on the TV -- LIVE, right in front of my eyes, sitting in the olympia stadium. 3 discos on back-to-back nights confirmed there was no way we could have woken up before 2pm on sunday, and we did nothing to help ourselves that day. a wet evening spent at Marienplatz, the city centre, was the only interesting thing that happened for us that whole week.

the first days

okay...okay.. agreed that this is not the fastest of recollections, nor the best way to do it, but so what?? whoever said u cannot teach an old dog new tricks, either did not have an old dog, or maybe he did not try hard enough. but why am i talking of animals?? hey, lets get started !! but bear in mind that i did not INVITE u here. u r here entirely by your own choice. it would be great if u have some constructive comments, but if u r lucky enough to be born with a caustic tongue, better keep it inside the yapper.

4th of may, 2pm local time: my first impression of europe, bleak, rainy, people speaking something i didn't know, people who till yesterday were only the part of television, suddenly right there before my eyes. All this after a 7 hr flight which finally convinced me that the hindukush exists, and that the caspian sea does have the shape my geography book of class IX said it has. no place to go, no one to talk to. the last time i had ever felt so alone, so insecure, was when i joined DPS, still a kid, and wondering at the new world that was opening up. Here also the story was not entirely different, except for the calendar maybe. thankfully things fell into a rhythm soon. gosh!! these ppl r so friendly, ever so helpful. i have never found such cheerfulness, such healthy environment back in india. the first week was the quashing of my two greatest myths - 1) IITians r Gods. 2) europeans, especially germans give a cold shoulder to anyone who is not them. i dont think it would do any good, but i found more racism, more hard-nosed feelings in india than here.