The Eurotrip... Ooh la la la!!

People! For the last three months, I lived in my dreams. Since the first Eurotrip I had always dreamt of some things. So this! was that time. I lived in my dreams, just to make some memories.. the memories which are to stay for ever. But more than that, expose me to this culture and kinds of people who have shaken my very fundamentals.. with whom I shared some priceless moments. And most important was this recession! Worst time had to hit when I am doing an MBA in such a screwed up state. So why not consider these as the last few days of the best times of life :)
Here are few of those best things... censored version :)

Exchange@IIM... Surprisingly, even to me, this has been more than the best take-away from IIMB. You can go around somewhere in the world and not just live a non-IIM life for 3 months, but by Indian standards - a crazy student life for some time.

BEM School of Management... :P :P .... Life at a lukkha college in the lukkha country of France is beyond the thought of any Indian student. It turned out to be a big time blessing in disguise that I was kinda alone from IIMB which made the first few days terribly boring, but helped to completely get into the real student culture there. Learning french would have solved almost all the big problems I faced, but anyways I optimized over that difficulty. I experienced the lukkha times at its peak, pathetic standards of hard work, unbalanced gender ratio (actually too many girls), the "coolness" and above all the crazy parties all along. So this school was the official reason for my 3 months Eurotrip :P

Bordeaux, and in general France... After going around too many places, I got kinda bored of being in Bordeaux and in France too. People looked pretty sophisticated and the chaos which I could see in Italy and East Europe was missing. Actually, I got bored because things were good :P. But I love the country for all the sweet people and nice places and Bordeaux was one of the best of them. I learnt from French people that life is not about slogging to satisfying some desires but actually enjoying the things already at hand. Also, wine was the cheapest available drink!

Schengen Visa and the Eurail Global Youth Pass... My Best Souvenir of Europe, just like the magician's wand, this pass was for my Eurotrip. This Europe rail pass costed 800 euros but if I had to buy all the train tickets it would have crossed some 5,000 euros! Hats off to the German train website bahn.de on which I searched for my train connections to the extent a trader would use bloomberg.

Oktoberfest... The best way to start the Europe experience! Some 6-7 million litres of beer in a period of 3 weeks in 14 tents with around 8-10K ppl per tent is not a joke! This fest opened my eyes to an altogether different level of partying. I have a dream that I will visit this fest sometime once again.

Belgium and The Netherlands... In our childhood we used to have the scenery drawings with awesome nice houses with triangular tops, canals and projecting some exotic feel of the place. Places in Holland are like that. I loved the houses constructed in brick walls throughout Belgium and the Netherlands. People there are very very tall and speak nice English. Not a day went without eating lots of fries, chocolates and ice-creams. I will always remember the chilly winds in sub-zero temperature at Bruges.

Paris... I have visited Paris some 6-7 times and no wonder its such an amazing city that I have seen something different every time that I visited there.

Italiano... On the way to Milan, as soon as I changed over from a French to an Italian train, scenes drastically changed. There was a lot of "life" around and I was into a kind of the most awaited disorder. Italian people are incredible and so much relatable to Indians. I tasted some real pasta and pizza for the first time. I never got bored of seeing anything in Rome and Florence. And Venice! .. If I have shitloads of money when I marry (:P), Venice shall be THE honeymoon place.

Prague, Czech Republic... I just checked a book Unforgettable Places to See Before You Die by Steve Davey. There are no hi-funda cities to visit in that book, just some amazing exotic and mystic places. Gladly, Prague is one of them. The scenes of the Charles river and the bridge will stay as eternal snapshots in my memory. It was the right place to taste some exotic cuisine as well. And.. crazy night life was there :)

Barcelona!... People in this city live a typical IITians' schedule. They hardly sleep at night! This city showed what really, nightlife is. Sangria was the drink ;). Three nice days at this place and I loved it. Lisbon also turned out to be a nice place. But it was a totally wrong time to visit the right places, should have been in the Hot summer.

Budapest and the East Europe... This part of the world rocks! I had to cross Germany and Austria to reach all the way to Budapest but was totally worth it. This place has some crazy shit! I can actually think of making a complete tour of East Europe which is not so costly as the western countries of Europe.

Exchange junta... 100+ ppl were there from every corner of the world. Spending so much time with these fellas, I found out how fcuked up my ideas about life are. Even if I felt they were pathetic in the knowledge and wisdom of academic courses, they had strong fundamentals of life in them and I could just see and try to understand. And above all, these people knew how to party :D.

True to my mission statement - "Exploring places and people in Europe", I guess this trip was a grand success. To live in this real world, I guess now is not a time to create some kind of a bucket list for the future.. but just to find something (job?) to which I can hang on to live in a survival mode for at least a few years. Even though I feel like being back to square one, life has been completely changed by this Eurotrip experience and the nostalgia shoots up quite often to fill up my thoughts completely :)

Rocks! .. \m/