Happy Birthday, Manish!

Manish turned a year younger today and we had a fabulous day in Athens celebrating this occasion :) Amit and his parents even sang "Happy Birthday" in Portuguese as we ate lunch in a Greek restaurant. 

I love Athens so far - it's busy and active and every so often one chances upon an ancient ruin. After dinner today we walked past an old-looking building. Anywhere else, one would wonder about the dilapidated condition of such a building; here we wondered whether it was something important a long time ago ... what a difference context can make! 

Crazy Train, Fancy Cars

We took the train from Prague to Munich yesterday. We were repeatedly told that we didn't need any reserved seats for this train - just our tickets. We showed up at the train station we were supposed to depart from, and were told that we needed to go to another train station about 15-20 minutes away by metro. Taken by surprise, but too sleepy to dwell on the strangeness of this, we headed to the other station. Our train was already waiting on the platform. We walked through a couple of carriages without finding any seats and finally found a compartment with four open seats. I grabbed it right away and beckoned Manish and Huat Chye to come over quickly.

Of course, we weren't the only ones who had to deal with this. More people found their way to the new train station as the train's departure time approached. A fair number got on the train, but a large number were left behind. For those who got on the train, finding a seat was quite impossible. A girl grabbed the remaining seat in our compartment, while her brother and all their luggage remained in the passageway (he had a pillow and an ipod - and made himself quite comfortable on the filthy floor :)). The passage was quite full; even the doors to the bathrooms were blocked by people on the train without seats. I hadn't seen a train like this in a long, long time - the last time was in 1992, when my family traveled in the unreserved coach on a train from Bombay to Ahmedabad for an urgent last-minute thing. It was quite the experience - and I was amazed by how people adapted to these circumstances. Tourists really are hardy people.

Of course, it was only fitting then to head to the BMW Welt (where they show off their new cars) once we got to Munich. Manish ogled at the cars, Huat Chye marveled at the design of the building and I got engrossed in their branding videos on a table top touch screen (yes, I was ready to go work for them as I finished watching these - good job, design team!). It really is impressive that BMW spends that much money marketing their cars - a whole museum for the new cars (in addition to one we didn't visit that housed the old cars!).

In these last couple of days, I have rediscovered skirts as the weather gets better - more airy than capris, more elegant than shorts. Of course there are some circumstances in which the skirt doesn't work so well - like when one is pretend-riding a motorcycle :)

After the BMW visit, one of my future classmates gave us a great walking tour of Munich. Today, we are in Athens - while we toured the Acropolis, we ran into Amit (my freshman dormmate, good friend, and future classmate to boot). The world really is quite small :)

Rain and the Food Tour

We know we've been out of touch for the past few days. We've been busy eating! Starting last Sunday, it has rained wherever we were. Much of our time in Salzburg, Hallstatt and Vienna was marked by rain (the curse finally broke today and we had a brilliant day in Prague). However, we are hardy tourists - and refused to stay at our hotel for even a day. The result - we found shelter in the many eateries around town! In Vienna, we sat around in several local cafes - where for the price of a cup of coffee, one can read the paper and hang out for as long as one wants. We also sampled the famous "Original" Sachertorte at the touristy Sacher Cafe. Sachertorte (dry-ish chocolate cake) is apparently Austria's largest export. Various types of pastries and Kaiserschmarnn (pancakes with plum jam) also made their way to our stomachs. I still salivate when I think of the chocolate mousse cake we had at a famous pastry cafe that Rick Steves claims is the place Viennese people go to get fat. We got to Prague yesterday and were immediately caught in a thunderstorm. Undaunted, we went and ate yummy honeycakes at a cafe that is quite far from the tourist beat. 
In addition to eating, we have been very social. Huat Chye is with us this week. We also spent time with one of my future classmates in Vienna. She invited us to her house - and we spent time in a real home for the first time in 6 weeks. It felt good :) One of my classmates from undergrad happened to be in Prague today and we toured the city with him and his aunt. It's been great seeing other people! 

Prague is one of the most beautiful cities I have seen on this trip. I will be sad to leave it, but tomorrow we head to Munich, and from there to Athens on Monday. We hope that we will finally be far away from the rain! 

Jungfrau, Joghurt and Just Enough Time in Salzburg

Yesterday dawned bright and clear in the Swiss Alps, and we decided to seize the opportunity and head to Jungfrau - even though it meant delaying the start of our seven-hour drive to Salzburg by several hours. So, we climbed the steep slope of the Eiger on a train that was built a hundred years ago and reached the highest train station in Europe - JungfrauJoch. As we caught our first glimpse of the views afforded from Jungfrau, any doubts about delaying the long drive were completely dispelled. It really is one of the most beautiful places I have ever seen. Some of the pictures we took can be found below. I'm sure Manish will upload the rest at some point. I had expected that Jungfrau would be one of my favorite things about Swizerland, but didn't know beforehand that Swiss yoghurt would be a close second. The yoghurt in Switzerland is absolutely amazing. We were staying at a guesthouse in Gimmelwald, where there are no restaurants. Thus, all residents cooked their own dinner in a common kitchen. One night, we were having dinner with a few folks from Frankfurt who got to dessert before we did. They pulled out their cups of yoghurt and started making yummy noises with every spoon. They even offered to go back and eat the yoghurt in their room so that the rest of us wouldn't get jealous. A few minutes later I pulled out my lemon yoghurt and understood why the other travelers were so happy. The next day, I had strawberry yoghurt with coconut flakes and that was even better. After Jungfrau, I couldn't find yoghurt at the little store by our car, so I ended up buying pineapple-coconut lassi instead and that was great too!

We got into Salzburg really late - around 1 a.m. - after picking up Huat Chye from the Munich airport on our way here. We are glad that he is joining us for this phase of our trip. Salzburg itself has been underwhelming. The city is extremely touristy and doesn't have too much to offer. We watched a classical music concert today - and the organization, musicians and venue were all mediocre, especially compared to the Vivaldi concert we had watched in Venice. The day wasn't entirely a waste though - we did manage to connect with an old friend who currently lives in Stuttgart but was visiting Salzburg, and ate really good Indian food (almost tasted like a home-cooked meal!) at a restaurant called Spicy Spices.

Tomorrow, we plan to head to Hallstatt in Sound of Music country. That should be a fun break in the country before we hit Vienna.

Even When It's Bad, It's Good

Yes, the past couple days of our trip have been kind of like pizza (or other things, if you prefer). We're here in the Swiss Alps staying in a town called Gimmelwald (near Interlaken). The most notable activity here is to go up to Jungfrau, the highest peak in Europe. Unfortunately, the weather has bit quite cloudy and a bit wet, so we've passed on that because views of the clouds are quite good from our hotel/guesthouse. However, none of this prevented us from having a great time out here. Even the partial views of the mountainside are breathtaking and I would have no problem adding to the population of 100 (especially since they have internet). Gimmelwald is a pretty small town up above 4000 feet and we took a cable car up from the town below. They have several cable cars up here and I'm guessing some of them double as chair lifts (or rather, giant gondolas) during ski season.

Anyway, we spent yesterday hiking down into the town and finding shelter from the rain (sort of) at Trummelbach Falls. Basically, there are a series of 10 waterfalls, many of which are inside the mountain, that they've made accessible for viewing. With the glacier melt from three large mountains funnelling through here, it's amazing how much water rushes through in the summer. I couldn't help but think how much hydro-electric power they could collect from this place (at least I didn't see much evidence of it). Oh well, I suppose it's easier to charge admission instead.

Today, we had slightly better weather (well, less rain), but still not enough to justify the trip to Jungfrau. No worries, though. We just took a couple cable cars up a bit and did a nice, leisurely hike (mostly downhill). I'm sure pictures can't do justice to the wonderful feeling of being up here along the green rolling hills and mountain peaks (not that this keeps me from trying).

So, we've had a great, relaxing couple of days out here. We'll shoot for Jungfrau again on our way out of town. If that doesn't work out, we'll just have to come back. :)

-Manish

Too Good!

Okay, so it's been awhile since I (Manish) actually posted an entry. I also know that Wimbledon was a long time ago, but the men's final was so great that I still have to write about it. The match had everything -- drama, suspense, horror, the moral at the end of the story. No, wait, this wasn't (quite) a movie. It did have countless great points, rain delays, championship points saved, an excitable crowd, extra innings (so to speak), looming darkness, and two humble champions when it was all said and done.

Of course, as we were watching, we didn't imagine that people would later call it the greatest Wimbledon match ever. I remember watching last year's final on TV. At this point, it's really hard to compare the two since there's so much you miss either way. I definitely want to see the TV broadcast of the match (hopefully in HD), though I have no idea if that will actually help me pick a favorite. What I do know is that subsequent Wimbledons will have a hard time living up to this type of match in a final.

-Manish

A Sorta Fairy Tale ...

As we got into the car to leave Bacharach, I was quite sure that I had already seen the quaintest town on this trip. I was wrong. Three hours later we were in a walled medieval town called Rothenberg on the stretch of Germany known as the "Romantic Road" and i was amazed. The town essentially looked like a well-illustrated fairy-tale come to life! In addition to walking around town and eating a fabulous Italian meal (German food just doesn't do it for me), we spent some time in the Museum of Criminal Punishment and walked on the city wall containing the town. The museum was not very well organized, but quite informative, and the walk was wonderful.

From Rothenberg, we got into our little Citroen Picasso and sped to Bavaria. As we got closer to our destination we watched the temperature drop from 19C to 13C and I was quite sad. I then looked out of the window and was charmed yet again. I could see rolling green hills everywhere - with a variety of trees. The shades of green were dazzling and the Alpine peaks in the backdrop only made the sight more fantastic. Soon we were at our hotel in the middle of nowhere - the directions on the hotel website literally said: "Turn left after the school and find the hotel in the middle of the fields". Exhausted from our adventures, we ate our dinner and crashed.

Today, we woke up to a bright and sunny day - one which promised to be much warmer than 13C :) We hiked out to see the famous castles in Bavaria - Hohenschwangau where "Mad" King Ludwig grew up and Neuschwanstein, which King Ludwig built - and which inspired the Disney castle. Both castles were beautiful and we definitely got our exercise for the day with the hike between our hotel and the castles and one between the castles themselves. We had a really fun day!

Lake by Castles	Hohenschwangau Castle	Neuschwanstein Castle

We head to Interlaken tomorrow. Looking forward to more Alpine beauty :)