GET ME THE HELL OUT OF HERE!!!
That's pretty much been the theme of
Nice (where we are right now). You see the French apparently like to strike a lot. So it is no coincidence that when we arrive in Nice the ticket sales people for the French National Rail are on strike/work-to-rule mode.
Poor Ankur has spent more time at the train station trying to get a ticket to Paris than walking around Nice (which is lovely I must say). Oh I miss the
Deutsche Bahn.
We've come up with little monikers for each National Rail service based on the quality of service:
Deutsche Bahn - You'll arrive before you leave.
Italia Bahn (aka
TrenItalia) - What's the hurry??
French Bahn (aka
SNCF) - You're lucky if you get there!!!
Hahaha. Now onto the stuff you really want... photos. (Ahem, Sarah Sy :P) But first let me update you on where 'ourventure' has taken us.
When we left off we were about to enter Italia. What a wonderful country!!! I love the food, I love the atmosphere... and I definately love the women ;) From overly crowded and touristy
Rome to peaceful
Cinque Terra to colourful
Florence, Italy certainly captured my heart like none other. It was probably the amazing
tiramisu!!!
All right so onto photos!!!
This is the size of the couchettes on the overnight trains.
Hello Ankur!!!
Prague
Bird's eye of Prague
Rohit trying to get rid of Ankur
Ok the next photo deserves a story. So we went to the
Hofburg Palace museum in Vienna. The first section was seriously a walk through Ikea. It was a freakin' dish museum!!! Well at least the "royal family dish collection" This was the the most exciting for me.
Why you ask. Because I swear I've eaten pranthas on those exact same plates.
Rally for the local soccer team in Vienna. The three of us went in screaming "Gandhi Ji, zindha-badh!!!!"
After Vienna was Munich. There's only one thing you do in Munich really. DRINK BEER!!! And boy do they drink beer in Munich... by the litre :P
Ankur's happy with his TWO LITRES!!!
Beer-stache
Gorgeous view of the
Bavarian Alps. The above view was taken from the following castle
Neuschwanstein castle
The beginning of the leaping series. Me leaping in front of the alps
Funky GQ mirror shot in the
Deutsches Museum in Munich. Basically Germany's largest Science and Technology Museum. A VERY cool place!!!
Rohit leaping in the Deustches Museum.
Aasthaa I'm sorry to tell you but Rohit got jiggy with the locals in Munich.
After Munich was Florence. The hostel we stayed at in Florence was amazing!!! It was more like a home than a hostel. Clara did an amazing job of taking care of us. Ciao Bella!! Clara if you are reading this, grazie :)
Good friends that we made in Florence: Michelle (pink) and Arlene (black). They are actually sisters!!! Thx for the company M&A :)
If you take only one photo in Florence this would be it.
Michelangelo's David. Words can't describe how impressive this bad boy was.
Bird's eye of Florence.
Part of Last Judgement in
Duomo.
Ankur leaping on top of Duomo.
Me practicing my photography skills. The wine in Italy was pretty good. Best story was when we randomly were walking around Florence and wandered into a local wine shop where the owner let us try 5 or 6 diff't wines. She had a wine tap!!!
After Florence was Rome where we met up with...
Hello Anja, Karam and Aliya :)
Portrait of a Brown Man in front of
Colloseum.
Trevi Fountain.
Can you guess who the three are?
The Colloseum... AT NIGHT!!!
Piazza di San Pietro in
Stato della Città del Vaticano. St. Peter's Square in Vatican city for those of you that don't speak Italian ;)
Inside
Basilica di San Pietro. Inside St. Peter's Basilica.
School of Athens by Raffaello.
My best shot from
Sistine Chapel. It was quite a mission to get these shots. But I used my cunning and guile charm to snap a few ;)
The
Roman Forum
Pantheon. Bit of a let down if you ask me.
Next round of photos will be from Cinque Terra onwards. Tonight Rohit and I take off for
Barcelona!!! But we also say goodbye to Ankur :( Ciao!!!
Hello Italy!!!
Well, not quite yet. We will be in Florence by tmrw morning. For those of u that don't know already, our little 'ourventure' has expanded to include Ankur!!! He met up with us in Prague.
Prague. Hmmm... it was a nice city and we had tons of fun but it was a little more touristy than I thought it would be. I think Prague 7-8yrs ago would have been awesome and was more in line with what I thought it would be. But it was still enjoyable. I think Krakow right now is where Prague was 7-8yrs ago.
After Prague we went to Vienna. Vienna is a very cultured city with plenty of art galleries, museums and operas. I really don't know what I expected in Vienna and to be honest I left there very neutral. I didn't hate it but it wasn't an amazing time. Nonetheless I do intend to go back.
Oh wait there is one cool story. So the three of us (remember Ankur is with us now!!!) walked into a small cafe to have some dessert. At the bar though the hockey game btwn Canada and Czech Republic is on. So, being the passionate and patriotic Canadians that we are we planted our asses, bought some beers and watched the game. To make matters even better our waitress was from... Czech!!! We had fun booing and cheering during play. In the end Canada lost... and we had to pay the bill :P
Munich is where we are right now. This is our third day here. It is a nice city but honestly it is best for the beer gardens. Yesterday we went to the castle
Neuschwanstein which is a beautiful castle in rural Bavaria. It is actually the castle that Disney modeled their castle from.
More importantly our goofiness came out yesterday. On the train to the castle we wanted to have the compartment to ourselves. So the best way to acheive this is to make sure people don't want to come into your compartment. How to do this?? Well, imagine you walked on a train are walking down the hall looking for empty spots in a compartment. All of a sudden you walk by a compartment with three brown guys sitting cross legged chanting '' Hare Krishna, Hare Ram! Krishna Krishna, Hare Hare!''. Rohit has his eyes closed, I am moving my head and body around in a circle and Ankur is using his Water bottle as a musical instrument. And of course we are all clapping!!! Needless to say we had a nice secluded ride ;)
Well that's all for now folks. Tomorrow we will be in Florence as the second half of Ourventure kicks off. Talk to you soon :D
Sobering Thoughts
Rohit and I went to
Auschwitz Concentration Camp today, which is the largest Nazi concentration camp in all of Europe. It is about an hour out of the town of
Krakow, Poland.
The Nazis and
SS succeeded in killing nearly 1.5 million people (men, women and children alike). Gas chambers (using
Cyclon B), hunger, slave labour and disease were just some of the means through which people were killed.
The weirdest feeling for me was when we walked into the only gas chamber still in tact. It "only" could hold about 700 people (The other main ones could kill 2000). When I walked in it was almost as if there was a stench of death in the air. And looking around it was difficult to imagine I was standing in the same spot where just over 60yrs ago thousands of people lost their lives in a matter of minutes. Their crime: being Jewish, educated, Russian, Homosexual, politically opposed to the Nazis. People died simply for being people...
It is quite difficult to imagine the horrible attrocities that can be committed by humans and a place like Auschitz is certainly a sobering reminder that such terrible things should never be forgotten so they never happen again. Unfortunately for mankind even our recent history has examples of mass genocide (
Cambodia,
Rwanda and
Sudan).
Goodbye Deutschland :(
WOW!!! Germany has been amazing!!! From beautiful and peaceful wine country, to friendly locals in Cologne to 50 mins of trailers and commercials BEFORE the movie begins at the cinema in Magdeburg to breathtaking architecture and partying till 530am in Berlin this country has been a great arventure :D
Now you guys have been bugging us for photos so I figure that's what you really want. This post is a photo post with a couple of captions. If you want full details check out
Rohit's blog.
Photo of your hot author
Cathedral in Cologne
Stained windows in Cathedral of Cologne
Andrew from Texas
Bird's eye view of Cochem from the castle
Self-guided winery tour in Cochem
Possibly the gayest photo Rohit and I will ever have together... I hope :S
The castle in Cochem... at night
Me punching Rohit
Making up afterwards
Our sheesha buddys in Frankfurt
Saluting the Flag (in Berlin)
The
Pergamon Museum in Berlin (link to learn about
Pergamon itself)
Brandenburg Gate
Portrait of a Brown Man in front of Brandenburg Gate
The Holocaust memorial in Berlin
Standing on top of Hitler's Bunker (not much to see actually)
The Berlin Wall
Our newest friends from Paris, Huegues (sorry for spelling dude) and his wonderful wife! (I'm sooo sorry I forgot your name :S) We'll actually be staying w/ them in Paris!!!
Rohit happy 'cuz we're eating @ a vegetarian restaurant
Clubbing till 530 in the morning in Berlin!!!
See you in Poland ;)
