When I was backpacking in Europe - I

I’m not going to discuss about the countries I visited, the number of parties I attended, the number of girls I dated (which btw is obviously a ZERO). I’m just going to mention some of the unique and interesting experiences I had during this trip in chronological order.

One night at Copenhagen

We had to crash at the Copenhagen Railway Station for the night for about 6 hours before we could take the train to Stockholm the next morning. The Indianness in ourselves was insuppressible and out came the colorful blankets which were spread on the station floor and we started sleeping right there. Almost everyone who came across our group was starting at us curiously. Finally the cleaning guy came and asked us to move (it is a different story that he never cleaned the place that were lying on). We then moved to a bench, but now the same colorful blankets were draped over us (freaking cold it was). The station was surrounded by pubs and bars and unruly crowed flowed in and out of the station from time to time to use the free restroom in the railway station. Though the crowd was drunk, they never missed to take our picture in our colorful outfits. It was so embarrassing and entertaining (for others) at the same time. A memorable night in many ways. We were expecting our pictures to be flashed in newspapers tomorrow.

Cruise to Helsinki

It was a last minute decision to take the cruise from Stockholm to Helsinki. My first cruise ride! At around 2 am in the morning, after the discotheque was closed, I went to the deck (open air) in freezing temperature and lied down on a wooden bench with my mp3 player on. With a cloud-free sky filled with stars, a picture perfect moon, surrounded by sea all around, windy conditions and Ilayaraja songs to listen to, I was in a state of bliss. Thanks to my 122Euro jacket that kept me warm till 430am in the morning.

The Nightwalk in Bergen

After safely delivering one of my lightheaded friends to the hostel, I decided to take a walk along the waterfront of the beautiful city of Bergen (Norway) at around 10 pm in the night. The wind and the rain couldn’t stop me and I just walked along the entire port area enjoying the vibrant sea in a deserted night. A walk to remember!

Stuttgart beer festival

Just Brilliant! Each one of my friends in exchange program was making sure to attend Oktoberfest, but we decided to attend this Stuttgart Beer Festival instead for two reasons – first: out of laziness to travel to Munich and second: we wanted to be different. And what fun it turned out to be! This would remain as one of the memorable experiences of my life. It once again proved that you need your friends to create memorable experiences, not just the events.

United Nations at Geneva

Of all the tours I took, I enjoyed the visit to United Nations office at Geneva the most. I missed the UN tour in New York, but made sure that I wouldn’t miss one this time. I was so impressed with UN that I started researching on the possibilities of getting a job at UN.

Biking in Switzerland

We were tired of looking at buildings, monuments, museums. We desperately wanted to do something different. So, we took rented bikes up to Grindelwald (Swiss) by a train and then came all the way down. The ride was close to 3 hours and was fun. Note: Our asses hurt like anything for a day after the biking that we were afraid to sit on chairs.

Thermal bath in Budapest

Eastern Europe was exciting and vibrant and was quite different from the other parts of Europe. The exchange rate in these parts is better than India. At one point, I had 46000 of Hungarian currency in my hand! In Budapest, we spent a relaxed morning in the Turkish thermal bath – a 38 degree celcius swimming pool. BTW, don’t get any pervert ideas. It was a thermal bath for men and all we got to watch or rather turn our gaze away from, was old naked men.

Doing a Jason Bourne in Budapest

We had to catch a train in about 20mins. Being the fittest person in the group (naturally), I was assigned the responsibility to run to the station to do a couple of errands on behalf of the group. On one of the busiest roads of Budapest, I was running flat out at full speed jumping over obstacles, pushing at pedestrians and trying to get to the station in time. I almost did a Jason Bourne. The reason I say “almost” is because the group that ‘walked’ behind me reached in a few minutes after I reached the station :(

Sky diving in Prague

The weather was not so great. It was cloudy and was about to rain. But we still decided to go through with it. While I’ll never know how the experience would have been had it been a clear sky, I experienced this 10 second madness where I entered the freezing dark cloud from above the sky with no idea what was beyond the clouds. Was truly awesome!

Pub crawl in Prague

While I wouldn’t go into the details of what exactly happened, all I can say is that “You can put me in an island with 1000 drunken super hot models and shower me with AXE deodorant. Yet the most exciting thing that would happen in this island is NOTHING! Thanks to my culture (or rather my inherited inability to make the move)”. One unfortunate soul received an SMS that night “I was there to protect Indian culture”.

What else can I say? There have been better smaller and interesting moments which are beyond the scope of this blog. I never realized that I could be such a great cook, thanks to the chromosomes from my mother. I was checked for my passport about 5 times in a single train ride. I put my debit card in the slot where I was supposed to put currency notes. I have lost weight. I love writing junk.

Well, I’ve still got Greece, Italy, Germany, Spain, France (I stay in this country for god’s sake!) Portugal, Belgium, Netherlands, Luxembourg to visit. As this blog is posted, I’m at Greece trying to digest the Greek food.