Forth and Back

The time off we had so impatiently craved for is at its fag end. And indeed, time off it was! Three months away from the ceaseless tensions of college have emptied my mind (thanks to the outrageous number of sleep hours and unprecedented time to waste), while adding vastly to my already vast mass (Junk food coupled with laziness beyond compare had to show up somewhere).

Nonetheless, not all the time has gone in gorging and gaping without reason at the computer screen. I’ve kept busy, however intermittently it may have been.

Mussourie

A short trip of four days along with my parents and cousins took me once again after a long time to the popular hilly retreat of North India, Mussourie. Quite uneventful, but a load of fun since my cousins Namita and Naina are two people I get along with marvellously. Sharing a room implied full time masti all night long, and puffy eyes in the morning. A walk down the steep road just to have a plate of roadside cooked Maggi and other simple pleasures is what made up this trip which by the end of it was well worth the unreasonably long drive.

Eurotrip

No, this isn’t another movie review (Sighs of relief will not be well received). A visit to our neighbouring continent ensued a little too early in my vacation for my liking, not giving me time enough to reorient myself in the pollution and population that our country is so famous for, and that I am so fond of (No sarcasm here. I’m a total dilli ka dilbar).

Even so, after endless fights and infinite bad moods prior to our departure (a standard feature of our family vacations, which mostly extends on to the trip itself), we finally managed to board the beautiful, blue KLM jet (I stress on ‘beautiful’ as it had been over three years since I last saw the face of any airline other than Indian Airlines or Air India, barely staying airborne and just about transporting me to-and-fro from Dubai…You get the picture hopefully. If not, the next post should provide a fair idea).

The first country on our itinerary was Netherlands. It’s quite shameful that even though we’ve been to Holland the most number of times out of all the places we’ve visited, it’s the place that we were least familiar with. Till now that is. This time around, we really saw the place. Really. Staying bang next to Leidesplein, the hub of Amsterdam, we had most of the action going on right under our noses. That is where we picked a random pub to watch the deciding World Cup match between Holland and Portugal. Though I don’t much care for any sport in particular, catching a match of global significance among a crowd of enthusiastic (albeit drunk) customers, and that too sitting in one of the participating countries, has its own charm. Would’ve been better off though if Holland had qualified. Oh well…Hup Holland Hup!

Apart from the hustle bustle of the city centre, we thoroughly enjoyed absorbing the more serene sights of Volendam, a suburb of Amsterdam that has retained its rural nuances till today, complete with the wooden shoes and traditional windmills. Madurodam (Miniature Holland built exactly to scale) and Madame Tussaud followed suit (where I satisfied myself - no pun intended- gazing at a wax figurine of Kylie Minogue. Did you know she’s just 5 foot three?). On the whole, we finally saw what the world sees in Holland, a place so perfect that it almost hurts the eye.

Our next destination was Switzerland. Our expectations of this place had been raised substantially because of the endless praise we’d heard from everyone we knew who had gone there in the past. And even though I’m no fan of hills and mountains, undeniably it really does deserve all of it. ‘Picturesque’ is the word that most aptly describes Switzerland. Enormous, blue, crystal-clear lakes surrounded by mountains so white that one can’t even hope to look at them directly without sunglasses perched atop the nose, meadows with rich green grass that is unruly enough to look not disorderly but just natural, and cities so modern that one can hardly believe they’re resting on some of the loftiest hills in Europe.

We remained mainly in two popular locations of the country, namely Interlaken (a tiny town that leads up to Jungfraujoch, the highest point of the Alps and also the Top of Europe) and Lucerne (a more commercial, cosmopolitan area famous for a wooden bridge that has survived constant erosion by river water for centuries, and even a fire). Jungfraujoch is reached by nifty mountain trains capable of climbing immensely steep inclines. The ride was an extraordinary experience and the location, a sight to behold. Valleys drenched in snow along with the lack of oxygen and low air pressure make it hard to keep one’s bearings. Though this feeling was immediately elevated after ingesting some good Indian food (Just imagine. An Indian restaurant called ‘Bollywood’ at a site as exceptional as Jungfrau! Shows just how much influence Mr. Yash Chopra has had on this exotic location, which is showcased in almost all his films).

There were a number of snow-based activities going on which we missed (or rather chose to miss since the last train back down was at 4:30 and we late risers had barely made it there by 2). But we managed to catch them on Mount Titlis instead, another famous peak of the Swiss Alps. Unremarkable really, compared to Jungfrau, apart from the snow boarding and tubing that we indulged in to our heart’s content over there. Other things in these two places that are worth mentioning are the ice caves, and breathtaking cable car rides (both in open and closed capsules) which provided us with an aerial view of the undulating valleys, and Brown Cattle with the trademark Swiss bells around their necks clanking away, as they steadily munched on the healthy mountainous vegetation.

From Lucerne, we caught a TGV, the second fastest train in the world, to the city of lurrve. Paris, mon ami. Paris. Since it was my third trip to the place (the first visit being with my family a long time ago, and the second on a Cultural Exchange between my school, D.P.S. R.K. Puram and a French senior secondary, Lyceé Marguerite de Valois, in my eleventh year at school), the novelty value barely existed. Nevertheless, Paris truly does define the word romance. And now that I’m in the hormonally active age at which one begins to recognise the word’s true meaning, it really was a dreamy experience (if not slightly marred by an unfortunate fever I caught for about two days). A stroll down Champs Elyseés, one of the most elite streets in the world, a cruise down the river Seine and a peek into some of the obvious sites in Paris such as the Eiffel Tower and the Arc de Triomphe served to act as the most typical bit of this holiday. A visit to the Louvre (made famous through the phenomenal success of The Da Vinci Code) was also a sure shot in the places to see. Museums, in any case, fascinate me to no end, perhaps linked with my general interest in History. A trip to EuroDisney too was inevitable. Oddly, I had been harping about it from the beginning of the trip (I really had no reason to do so, as we’ve already been to every Disneyland in the world more than once. Childish instincts still prevail I guess).

But what really made this trip to Paris shine was a rendezvous with my French correspondent (my host during the French Cultural Exchange), Florian Ponson. A torrent of pleasant memories accompanied him. My family finally got to meet him and as I expected, they totally hit it off, for Florian is certainly not one of those stereotypical, cold, racist Frenchmen. He’s most definitely fun.

Another remarkable happenstance that coincided with our stay in Paris was the victory and entry of France into the Finals of the FIFA World Cup. The celebrations, the sheer excitement in the air was immeasurable. The metro doors refused to close, people beating at the doors with the all-too-familiar football cheer…Dhum dhum, dhum-dhum-dhum, dhum, dhum-dhum-dhum-dhum-dhum-dhum…Umm, you get the point. Champs Elyseés converged to a jammed Arc de Triomphe, the plaza invaded by a boisterous mass of blue, white and red. It was on that night that I saw living proof of the multiple opinions that exist in people’s minds about sports. My hotel window looked out towards another hotel, a number of windows of which were see through. While one had a television screaming the highlights of the explosive match and its after-effects, another had a dull war movie on. And yet another had its lights off altogether!

This brought two weeks of my extended holiday to a close. Perhaps one of the most uneventful, yet enjoyable vacations we’ve had as a family in a long time.


Mumbai, Meri Jaan

The travel mania didn’t end there. Barely two weeks after returning from the exhausting yet exhilarating Eurotrip, I set off alone to Mumbai to spend a week with my aunt. Once again being inflicted with a mild illness dampened my trip, and caused me to get pricks upon pricks returning to Delhi to diagnose the reason of this recurring problem. Turned out to be nothing more than reduced immunity as an after-effect of Pneumonia. This enraged more than relieve. You know my sentiments towards needles…

Anyhow, it was a week full of exquisite meals and plenty of shopping (through which I actually managed to revamp my entire wardrobe!). I was supposed to meet Swathi (one of my closest friends) twice, in the week I was there, but the fever prevented it from happening. Nevertheless, we did manage to catch up for a whole day, even if we couldn’t do much.


Other than that, the vacations have basically involved boring myself to a wasted, bulging lump of fat. A previously unresolved issue between me and some others almost got solved. Almost. But that’s pretty much all that was of major significance in the time that I’ve spent in Delhi in these three months. With just another two weeks to go before I start off with my second year at BITS, Pilani – Dubai, preparations have begun, the wheels have started to turn and my stomach has started to churn. All in the apprehension of what the new academic year has in store for me. But till then, better bored than overworked!