Sunday, October 12, 2008

The Grand Tour

Meantime, Ramu and I had both taken our prelim exams that were equivalent to a Master's degree but since we both had this degree already from India, we did not bother to register for that. By now, our sights were firmly set on the Ph.D. - we meant to start on that in right earnest once summer vacation was over. The sudden three country trip that I had to undertake led to a new decision - to take a brief holiday in Europe after my officail travel ended with Iran. Babu and Prabha were then working in UK and they decided they would join us. They were to come by road in his car, and we would join them in or near Frankfurt, where I would land after Teheran.

Ramu found an extremely cheap fare via Icelandic air, and despite my touching exotic places such as Iran and the Phillipines, I was envious of his short stopover in Reykjavik. He did have enough time there to see its famous hot springs that heat the entire town during winter, and serve as spas otherwise. He got off at Luxembourg, but had no time to see any of that tiny principality.
When we set about getting our visas and tickets, the local travel agent who was arranging these told us we did not need visas at all for any of the six countries we planned to touch. Amazed, we reminded him of our nationality but he assured us that there had been a recent relaxation of the rules. So, after landing in Frankfurt, I took a train to Cologne, a short hop away, where I met Ramu and later, Prabha, the one coming from Luxembourg and the other by boat across the channel and train, I think. And Babu? He had to drop out due to work pressures, and with him went the car trip too.

Despite the scaffolding all around it, the cathedral at Cologne's facade was magnificent and inside, too, it was glorious. We took a boat trip to Heidelberg next. It was a fascinating town- said to have the oldest university and press in Europe. The university was a castle-like place, with dank prisons where students who defaulted on their studies etc. were punished by putting them for several days on a diet of bread and water!

We also saw huge barrels of wine in this town. It was perhaps that first evening that we were confronted with a menu card all in German. I had with me a German-French tourist dictionary and so volunteered to help out.. ok, I found the word for chicken that Prabha wanted and some veggie dish for R and me, grandly ordered it, and lo and behold the waiter brought us in some minutes a plate of fish and a veggie dish alright but totally different from what I ordered! I had in my hurried rendering of my translation abilities, ordered poisson mistaking it for chicken [poulet in French]! How the veggie dish got transformed into a barely edible mess I don't know.

We had so much difficulty in getting veggie food in Germany and even for P the available choices were so costly that we resorted to going to a grocery daily thereafter for our lunches, and picking up some bread or rolls, cheese, fruit and a yoghurt, juice or beer – this last for r and occasionally Prabha. it was much quicker too, which matters when one is sightseeing.

Our cruise down the Rhine was most enjoyable taking us down to Heidelberg and Stuttgart. H has the oldest university in Europe dating from the 15th century [the Renaissance and Reformation period], with some strange features. The tourist is taken to the students' prison that recalcitrant students were thrown in, fed on bread and water for days! The graffiti on the prison walls was most revealing of the types of 'crimes' the students were punished for – certainly almost every modern student would have ended up in incarceration if they were considered such today.

Heidelberg also houses an old brewery, a fascinating sight with its huge wooden barrels and vats for beer brewing. A quaint town, one of pleasantest we saw on the trip. Stuttgart was also a good visit, thoroughly modern with lovely gardens, museums and good walks. For us three, it is more memorable however for our little drama at a local grocery. As usual, we were picking up our lunch, but when we handled the apples from a pile, the shopkeeper came gesticulating and spewing an angry barrage of German. Naturally we did not understand much but gathered that we were not to touch anything – he would give us what we wanted himself. So, one of us showed three fingers pointing at the apple pile. To our horror, he took a brown bag and put in huge quantities and weighed us three kilos of it! We violently shook our heads and pointed to each one of us and the apples , still keeping aloft three fingers. O.K., here are three bags of three kilos each! Our faces and shoulders drooped in such despair that he got the point and disgorged all the apples back, looking angrier than before, if that was possible. Then one of us had an idea – show the brown bag already filled with rolls and cheese and point to the garden nearby and gesture as if eating and then show one finger and point to each one of us, and finally make as if to eat an apple. Now, he got it and put three apples in one bag; seeing us smile our acceptance, he too beamed and now talked in pleasant tones as he took the money. Whew, that was quite an experience in sign language!

From Stuttgart, we made our journey by train. Our next and final stop in Germany was the mediveal town of Munich famous for its beer halls. We had to experience that though only Ramu ordered a mug of it. A man sitting next to us got to chatting with us in English, and he insisted that we were insulting Munich and its most famous beer hall by not tasting its most famous product. So Prabha ordered a mug, but the face she made at the first sip was a give away. Still, our friend asked her how it was, and when she replied that it was terrible, he got really angry! We were happy he did not assault us to uphold the honour of his city!

Off to Salzburg in Austria; but at the border immigration stop, the Austrian officials shook their heads at our passports and said 'naughty, naughty' at our lack of visas but stamped a tourist one for a small fee, all this quite pleasantly. Pleased at this, we spent an enchanted time in Mozart's home town, which is also the locale of the 'Sound of Music' story, including an unforgettable descent into a disused salt mine in a speeding salt train. Train? Rather a set of open trolleys that plunged down the precipitous rails meant to transport the mined salt as well as workers. Several of us were herded into this holding the person before one tightly. Our screams as we hurtled down were quite piercingly impressive. We ended this short Austrian visit with a charming puppet show that Mozart had composed /created.

Next country on our list was Switzerland where again the immigration, this time a bit stern, chided us but issued our tourist visas. Cursing the travel agent, we vowed never to trust one again! After a few most pleasant days in Zurich, we took the train to Paris . Instead of waking up next morning in this dream city, we found ourselves awakened at the border at around midnight somewhere on the border. Trouble once again, and this time the immigration police were quite brusque. We could not convince them at all, and were rudely ejected out on to the platform in what we learnt was a town called Basel , till then not even a name to us. Somehow we found a taxi that took us to some modest hotel and we tumbled into bed exhausted for a few hours of sleep. [we later learnt the French had been increasingly plagued by illegal Indian and Pakistani immigrants]

As luck would have it, all this had happened on Saturday night, and we cursed the travel agent even more! Now the task of getting a French visa had to wait for Monday. The only 'new' sight in town was the zoo and rather dispiritedly we wound our way there. It turned out to be a great zoo and we forgot our disappointment and anger enjoying it. Thereafter getting the visa on Monday morning and taking the train that afternoon were just a breeze. The French visa was amazingly easy to get. Now delayed by a day and a half, we trundled into Paris. Once again, for R and myself, the sights of this fairy-tale city unfolded and this time we went to Versailles also.

Even the veggie food was delicious, beyond compare with what Germany could offer. However, it was almost next to impossible to get a glass of water in any restaurant. The waiters either gave us strange or dirty looks. Not that they could have thought of us as cheapskates, as they could only give us mineral water and that was costlier than wine.
Our final tourist stop was Brussels. Apart from the Pissing Boy Statue, we visited a Centre for African Studies, and its museum for which we had to take a delightful tram ride nto a forest. The museum was also very interesting. Well, our European adventures were over at this point. Prabha took a ferry train from Brussels back to London, and Ramu a train to Luxembourg en route to the USA. I had added London on my ticket as I wanted to visit Babu for a day, before I in turn left for Urbana.
Landing at Heathrow airport, I was in for a grim shock. The immigration authorities were convinced I was a potential illegal immigrant. A thousand questions – why was I coming only for a day? Why did I not get a visa or work permit [no matter that being a citizen of a Commonwealth country, was not supposed to need one for just a short stay] . I showed all my papers, tickets, U of I id and credit cards, and explained all I could, but he would not budge. Then in exasperation I said, 'Alright, I do not want to come into your country. But then you must fetch my nephew who has, I know, been patiently standing outside waiting for me. I will just give him a hug and go back'. That seemed to finally break his resistance, and he allowed me through!
I had asked Babu to book tickets for us for a play, but he could or did not. Luckily so, for immediately we got to his place I fell asleep for so long we were barely able to make it to a simple dinner.

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