Euro Diaries

Warsaw Chopin Airport, Poland

Flight Attendant: Sir, you can't travel to India.

Me: what are you saying?

Flight Attendant: You don't have Visa to travel to London

Me: What are you saying? I am not travelling to London. It's just that my flight is flying to Mumbai via London. 

Flight Attendant: If your flight is flying via London that means you are at London.

Me: Sir, I applied for visa with this air ticket. If I am not allowed, my visa would have got rejected there itself. Please figure out something.

Flight Attendant: Sorry Sir, we can't do anything.

I wanted to take this trip for a very long time. However, I had been postponing my long due Euro trip for last two years. This time I just closed my eyes and booked the tickets. My point of entry was Vienna and Warsaw, Poland was my exit.

First thing you will notice when you travel to Eastern Europe is its cleanliness. Second thing you notice is less crowd. Atleast in all places I traveled. Coming from Mumbai, where you will find crowd almost everywhere every time. In Eastern Europe, no matter how beautiful palaces it may be, you will find very limited crowd. 

I had my first challenge with language barrier when I set my foot at Vienna, where most people could not speak English. I had a hard time locating my hostel. My sim was not working and had no internet. I had to ask local people to help me locate my hostel. I roamed around everywhere only to come back to where I started. Such problem you can face when you travel to eastern part of Europe. Best thing download the map on your mobile or tablet and find on your own. I use map.me app, this works even when you don't have internet on your phone. 

Innsbruck is part of Austria that touches the beautiful Alps. This place is so beautiful that you will forget all the tiredness of walking 40 km in a day or lack of sleep due to jetlag/ travelling. You will enjoy Europe more when you walk around the city. Believe me, most European cities are small and you can cover all the places by just walking. Don't waste your money on taxis here. Instead use local transport (buses, tram or metro).

From Innsbruck I traveled to Salzburg. First thing that comes to your mind when you hear this city name is movie "Sound of Music". Another part of Austria that touches the mighty Alps. If you have watched the movie "Sound of Music", you must have noticed the beautiful architecture and the scenic beauty of the place. I hired a cycle and traveled all across Salzburg. The beauty of the place just remains with you forever. If anyone wants to travel to this part of Europe, I would suggest, just hire a cycle and get lost. 

I had to go to Brno, Czech Republic. This city was not in my itinerary. I had to go there to meet my sister Bonny and her husband (who works there). Brno is another quiet and beautiful city that has the mix of both city and village life. I could stay there only for a day. The next day, I had bus to catch to Warsaw from Prague.

When I was in Class 9 and 10 I read a lot about World War II. Warsaw was one of the cities that was very badly affected by this war. When you visit any of the castle at Warsaw, you can get the feel of how these castle which was used to shelter war affected people were targeted by the Germans and thousands of Polish were bombed during the war.

I traveled 5 countries (Austria, Germany, Slovakia, Czech Republic, Poland) and 8 places(Vienna, Innsbruck, Salzburg, Munich, Bratislava, Prague, Brno, Warsaw) during this trip. It was an amazing experience. Of course I had some hiccups as well including my credit card getting blocked at the start of my trip and running out of Euros in between the trip.

Meanwhile in some club at Bratislava, Slovakia 12:00 AM
(Background Music at max volume: So far away)

Me: Do you like working here?

Girl at the bar: I like sometimes..

Me: Sometimes....
Girl at the bar: (After some pause) I work two jobs,  day time, I work somewhere else
Me: Are you from here?

Girl at the bar: No (she named some place 300 km away from Bratislava which I don't remember) Why are you here?

Me: I am on holidays, I am travelling across Europe

Girl at the bar: ok

Few seconds later, she got up, walked straight past me and climbed up the stage. She danced round the pole. Then, she dropped her bra.....

Some facts:
In Europe:
WC stands for Toilet
Danke means Thank you in German
Czech Republic Currency is koruna
Poland Currency is Zloty
Austria, Germany and Slovakia use Euro
Austrian speaks German

Messy

When Rafael Nadal entered men’s tennis, with big biceps and high top spin forehand, his game looked too boring for tennis. In the dominating era of Federer, whose forehand and backhand look classy and effortless, Nadal was a complete contrast. Federer likes to keep rally short and close points early , Nadal on the other hand would keep on rallying and force opponent to make mistake. If Federer's game was neat and classy, Nadal's game was messy. In short, Nadal’s game was a disruption to tennis world.

Being messy is not bad. Some of the world’s best invention has come to light by exploring this path. One can see messiness in all discipline of life. Be it sports, movies, academia, science or business. Some of the successful and highly paid football coaches exist today because they had the patience to try out different strategies and filter out strategies that did not fit to a team. None of these coaches knew that exactly this and this only strategy is best fit to the team. It all starts with the mess where you have amalgam of ideas and you are not sure which will work and which won’t. 

When I first started to play tennis, all my shots were flying outside the court. On TV, when Federer or Sampras plays, the game looks so easy. Hitting a six with a tennis racket seems far easier than placing the ball within the court. My game was a mess. Then with time, as I start to learn the game, my frequency of dropping the ball inside the court increased. Life starts with a mess, and within this mess, one has to figure out which which one works for them which one does not. 

I still remember when our chemistry teacher told us how benzene ring was discovered. The scientist was still figuring out what could be the possible structure of benzene. He had been spending months and months however he could not find any structure that would fit the chemical formula. Then one day when he was sitting on this chair, he saw a dream where a snake was trying to catch her own tail and eureka he discover the famous benzene ring. Such discovery is no new thing in the field of science. Science and discovery is all about experiments, where you make tons and tons of experiments and hope to get lucky with one. Ofcouse these experiments are not random experiments, these are good experiments. Random experiments have no objective, good experiments are done with right intentions and have objective. 

How many times on seeing a successful CEO, we wonder what a life he/she has? However, his path to that success might have not been a clean one. He might have had lot of dilemma on whether the path he had chosen is correct one or not, he might had lot of doubts, he might have had lot of failures. To find that right path he might have been in wrong roads many times. Many times, his friends might have told him to not take that path and had told him “you life is mess man, stop what you are doing”. What his friends did not know is that every time, he had chosen wrong path, he came closer to correct path, every time he had doubts, he came more close to clarity, every time he failed, he learned what to do. What many of us don't realize is that he is exploring his creative potential by embracing mess. 

Just yesterday

It been almost 8 years since I saw her last time. Lot had change since. I have become 8 years older, I have more hair on my face then on my head now, cryptocurrency is the new currency traded today, oil price have become Rs 81. Perhaps my feeling for her is also no longer the same. 

Today I am returning back to Mumbai from Kokrajhar. I was at home for 2 and half days to see my parents and relatives. Generally whenever I come home, I stay for atleast a week time. However this time I could not manage more time as back in office there are people chasing me to make my life hell. More importantly I am saving my holidays for my Euro trip in May and Marathon at Leh, Ladakh in Sept. In this 2 and half days at home, I met all my cousins staying at Kokrajhar and few friends whoever could accommodate their time for me. I had to catch flight at 5:00 PM today and my house is 220 km from airport. Since I already had my boarding pass with me, I had asked the taxi driver to pick me up at 11:30 AM. I left home at 11:40 AM for airport after saying good bye to mom and dad. Along the way I had a long conversation with the driver. Since I had been away from my home for the last 7 years, there are lot of stuffs to catch up upon. These are the guys who had travelled in far corners of the state to know the ground reality of the issues our states are facing. We talked about lot of things, he told me about his family, his children, about immigration issues we are facing, other political issues. I told him about life at Mumbai, how life goes on 24 hours in this city. 

I reached Guwahati airport at around 3:30 PM. There was a long queue at security checkin. That's the reason why I always feel safer reaching early at smaller airport. You never know when you have to stand in such queue. I stood in queue for around 20 to 25 mins to get my check-in done. Once I was done with security checkin, I still had some time to grab a coffee and relax. I went to a coffee counter, grab a black coffee and sat down waiting for my boarding announcement. I had tried to gave up coffee some months ago. However after 3 months of soberness from coffee, I started consuming it again. 

After the boarding gate announcement, I went to the gate and saw people standing in queue. So as usual, instead of standing in a queue, I decided to walk around the airport and let the queue die down. As I was walking around I saw fair girl just passing by me. In no time, a name hit my brain and without even seeing her face clearly, I called up the name. She stopped the moment I called her name and looked towards me. She seemed a bit confused. Perhaps, she might had wondered who is this dark guy with a beard. Before she could guess, I told her my name and gave her my introduction. I could sensed that she could recollect.

It been almost 8 years since I saw her last time. Lot had changed since. I have become 8 years older, I have more hair on my face then on my head now, cryptocurrency is the new currency traded today , oil price have become Rs 81. Perhaps my feeling for her is also no longer the same. 

We talked about our whereabouts and what we are currently doing to meet our expenses and our travelling needs. She told me what brought her here for a month and is currently flying back to her so called home for the last 5 years. We could talked for about 10 mins and then I had to say good bye to catch my flight. 

She still looks as beautiful as she was 8 years back. Perhaps time has only made her look better. Back then I could still remember the time when I used to call her at 1:00 AM in the morning to talk about my love for living in the mountains and being with the environment. The days when I bunked evening classes just to walk alongside her in the beautiful campus and just discuss random stuffs. The memory of saying bye to her for the last time still feels like yesterday.