Monday, October 16, 2006

Austria Trip

This weekend we went to Austria, Vienna and Salzburg. Vienna is mainly a city of museums and big buildings, nothing different from the capitels of Europe I have seen so far. Went to the museum of natural history and the royal treasury. Unique thing about Vienna are the innovative artists beggars. i have seen them in other Europena cities but no where as there as many as in Vienna. they would paint themselves in silver or some other paint and act like statues. Then there were others, one dressed up like a soldier, giving the full salute with a sword and all while the other was dressed like a ghost.

Salzburg is the real deal. Out of all the cities in Europe I have so far visited (the big one's are missing: Paris, Rome, Berlin, Barcelona), Salzburg has the most to offer. We went to the ice caves which is 40 kms by train, 5km by bus and a cable car ride flanked by a fair rek on either side. The ice caves themselves are an extended version of the Amarnath caves and a guided tour is informative and enriching. In the evening I went to a castle, the Hofensalzburg. Aprt from that the other things to see, which we couldn't are the "Sound of Music" tour and eagle's nest. Eagle's nest is high up in the Alps and is where Hitler held his diplomatic meetings. The place sells like hot cake. I am hoping to make a second trip to Salzburg. In the old city part of the town there was a huge chessboard in one of the squares. Soon i will upload its photos. Dubey and Raman went for a free concert while I visited the castle. Salzburg is where Mozart lived and the city earns its bread selling his name. There are music concerts everyday and everything from chocolates to condoms sell with the Mozart name on them.

I have posted some pics from bergen to Oslo tour in Norway. It was very scenic. The description will follow shortly. The link and password for photos remain the same. If you are looking for sensational content, don't bother.

Saturday, October 07, 2006

Oktoberfest (28th September)

I went to the Oktoberfest which takes place in Munich in 28th September with a group from my exchange school. Actually Oktoberfest takes place all over Europe but the one in Munich is the most famous. My guess is that originally it was celebration of harvest and provided welcome gaiety before the onset of the harsh European winter. Today it’s a festival of unbridled beer drinking.

Oktoberfest is a fair in which breweries set up huge tents which can seat up to 10, 000 people. Beer is sold in one liter mugs, nothing less. The beer is very good and even though quite expensive is worth it for its quality and the ambience. There is lot of local Bavarian music and one can see lots of people dressed in traditional Bavarian costumes. An amusement park is also set up and there are stalls selling food and memorabilia.

The visit to the Oktoberfest has been the highlight of my stay in Europe so far. Since us Indians have been traveling a lot it hasn’t been possible to mix with other exchange students so well. This trip was perfect for it as many exchange students went and, of course, alcohol is always the best ice breaker. And break the ice it did, I remember spending all my time with girls who surely don’t remember my name now that we have been absent from the school for ten days owing to our trip to Scandinavia. It was a truly multinational effort ranging from Germany to Hungary to Mexico to Russia to Turkey to China and even India. Guys before you get all excited it was all very platonic. Our tight schedules don’t allow for anything more at all. Okay, I am being both vain and presumptous.

An Indian friend of mine had a little too much too quickly and passed out by three in the afternoon. The security carried him to the bus and he slept peacefully for the next three hours. We had to catch a train to Copenhagen at seven and in between waking him up, our bus getting stuck in the evening traffic and us losing ourselves; by the time we got to the train there were less than two minutes remaining. Some adventure. We hadn’t taken any water along and with alcohol working its effects we were both bone- thirty soon. The water on the train was 3 euros for half a liter. Earlier we had been teasing somebody for buying water for 5 euros a liter at the Oktoberfest. Talk about poetic justice. It is funny how in Europe water is as expensive as beer, juice and milk; sometimes even more.

Brussels (16-17th September)

I saw very little of Brussels. Locals and the IIM A people on exchange in Brussels said there is very little to see. I saw the Grand place, which really is a courtyard surrounded by majestic buildings on all sides. Of course, the architecture of all the buildings looked very similar to my uneducated eyes. A friend of mine tells me that they might be different styles, e.g. gothic and renaissance. I also saw a thirteenth century cathedral called the ‘Cathedraal’. Took a couple of really good photographs but they aren’t remotely ‘interesting’.

From Brussels, we went to Bruggs, the real tourist place of Belgium. Really nothing much to see except once again a lot of old houses. It’s all preserved history. There were horse cart rides which we didn’t even enquire about, fearing the costs.

The real deal is the beer. Belgians are quite proud of their beer, and for once rightly so. Every region in Europe says their beer is the best but so far I have liked Stella the most. I had Stella and another one whose name I forget. Both were excellent, particularly Stella, which has incredible smoothness. The company producing Stella, by the way, is the oldest company in the world, now existing for some eight hundred years, almost the same time as Oxford and Cambridge, the oldest universities of the modern kind and times. Beer and scholarship have close ties.

Another thing about cities in Europe are the road side cafes, very classy looking. All cities have them. So far, we haven’t tried the food but hence forth we plan to.