Restless in Barcelona

Two weekends in Barcelona since the trip to Rome: one a deliberate break, the other brought about by apathy towards travelling 24 hours to just get to Austria, and on the same ol' route through France and Italy.

But time's a-running out... I've in store a ten-day trip through Austria, Germany and maybe Scandinavia before the exams and possibly one final fling - a ski-trip to the Pyrenees in Andorra - after the exams.

Restless but not idle

Nov 18th - A visit to Barcelona's beaches, finally, and late by about a month for its sunny glory

Nov 19th - A failed attempt to scale Tibidabo, Barca's highest point, but made up with hot chocolate, watching Ronaldinho and co. thrash Real Madrid 3-0 at Santiago Bernabéu.

Nov 23rd - A Indian dinner for an international twelve at Moti Mahal, Sant Pau.

Nov 25th - This time, an international dinner: The International Gastronomic Festival 2005 at ESADE, with stalls set up be students from about 20 countries!

Nov 26th - Harry Potter y el Cáliz de Fuego, 2120 show at Icaria, Port Olimpic - in English with Spanish subtitles

Nov 27th - An evening walk through the heart of Barcelona - Arc de Triompf, Parc de la Ciutadella, Urquinaona, Las Ramblas - minus the camera, accompanied by just myself.

...and setting the stage for Vienna with the brilliant pair of Before Sunrise, Before Sunset (the guy was travelling with a Eurail pass!) and Salzburg with The Sound of Music!

The Vatican and Pisa

The party of 7 breaks up as people scatter towards Milan in the north and Napoli and Pompeii in the south. I still have the Aussie for company: Shannon is 24, drinks Foster's by the six-packs, is on track to visit 25 countries before he is 25, and speaks in an easy drawl as we set out to meet the Pope.

The Vatican Museums and the Sistine Chapel are closed on Sunday, but St.Peter’s Square is chock-full with people. The reason’s soon evident: the Pope makes an appearance at a window, waves his arms and goes on to deliver the same speech in Italian, Spanish and what-not. The interiors of the Basilica are stately but not ostentatious. Efforts to get a stamp of the Vatican City on the passport prove unfruitful and we return to Italy for lunch.

1400
The post lunch session is similar to the previous day as we walk across Rome, surprisingly small enough to be traversed on foot. The Pantheon, Piazza Navona and other landmarks fall to our advances. The final two stops on our itinerary turn out to be non-starters though: the Catacombs are closed and the Roman Baths at Diocletian are too pricey to enter.

1940

The train to Nice en-route to Barcelona leaves only at 2330 and I take an earlier train to Pisa to catch a glimpse of Torre Pendente.

2330

The Leaning Tower is right across the town from the railway station, but right across takes only 25 minutes. The walk is uneventful but memorable: a cold moon-lit November night, streets empty for the most part, and a solitary tourist backpacking at midnight.

An hour later, I am quite pleased with the night’s camera work and sip a cappuccino at an all-nighter close to the station. The Nokia’s FM receiver picks up dozens of stations, one of them playing Floyd to my delight, as I wait for the 0240 to Nice.

Monday
0700

It has been my worst night’s sleep on a train: six people in the compartment, no room to stretch legs, head rests at awkward heights. The fatigue stays with me the rest of the day: through Nice and Montpelier to Barcelona. I seem to have lost some of the appetite for travel... five weekends left in Europe.

A Roman Holiday

There's no shortage of clichés about Rome: All roads lead to Rome. When in Rome, do as the Romans do. Rome was not built in a day. Naturally enough, the seven of us (an overnight addition) do quite the clichéd Rome stuff: first stop is the Colosseum and the Roman Forum area with all its ruins. It’s a bit incongruous: ruins from 1^st century B.C. and 72 A.D. in a city of this century with hundreds of milling tourists on an off-season Saturday. I’m not quite transported back in time but walking around in a monument that is a city cannot get boring.

A couple of the other guys do the map reading and deciding where-to-go-next and I am content to take in the sights: Piazza del Campidoglio, Trevi fountain (where you throw in coins and make wishes), Spanish steps, Piazza del Popolo... with pit stops for pizza and gelato. The sun sets early at 1730 and we take a bus to Campo de’Fiori in search of watering holes. Dinner is at McD’s and a bar with a good happy hour deal – before we retire to the Cobra’s den.

Meet the Cobras

0615

I’ve slept as well as I ever slept on a Surathkal-Bangalore bus. The storm has passed and I watch the sun rise on the Mediterranean. Four Canadian boys soon get tired of whooping and jumping and are replaced on the deck by a Spanish tattoo artist from Barcelona. Together we watch as the ferry bisects the narrow strip of sea between Corsica (part of France) to the North and Sardinia (part of Italy) to the South.

1300

Lunch in the Colosseum leaves just enough time for an hour of sitting in the sun before land is sighted. I pack my bags and click a final few photos as we dock at Civitavecchia, fifty minutes away and the chief port of Roma.

1600

Three officers from one of Italy’s several law enforcement agencies stand on the platform as I enter the Civitavecchia station. I choose not to look in their direction and casually walk past them, or almost. “Document?” says the senior guy. I extract my passport and hand it over. Senior doesn't offer an opinion on the photo but the next minute he points to a small room serving as his office and motions me to walk in with them.

Of all the Western European countries, Italy has the most notorious reputation with respect to tourist safety concerns. The two-week old story of how P got relieved of a large sum of money by conmen in Rome posing as police officers is fresh in my mind. But walk in, I must.

Senior goes into an inner room with the passport. Junior 1 asks me to empty all pockets. Orders followed, amidst growing uneasiness. Credit card, debit card, ID card, the guy checks them all: the names all match, thankfully. Junior 2 frisks. Junior 1 next wants my bag empty. I try to pocket the wallet before I work on the bag. Juniors don’t like that: the wallet needs to be on the side table. A word of protest is met with scathing looks and firm Italian. Shrug and turn the bag inside out: nothing incriminating; Junior 2 look disappointed – they retire to the inner room and the passport emerges intact another 10 minutes later. Phew. I exhale in relief and board the train to Roma.

1800

North of Roma Termini, Rome’s central railway station.

The cheapest accommodation listed in LP overlooks a grimy street and I walk on in search of Fawlty Towers. As I turn into Via Magenta, a balding, bespectacled man with definite subcontinent looks accosts me. He is from Bangladesh and offers me a bed in his Student House. I am reluctant to abandon LP’s pick but the man reveals that 5 other Indians just checked into his place. The news tallies with reliable information that I already possess: Tommy and gang and Shubha are in the vicinity. Sure enough, in five minutes time, I am no.6 in the party.

2000

An Aussie mate and an LA girl with Punjabi roots check into my dorm room. The story is the same each time: a prospective Fawlty Towers resident is waylaid and poached by the Bangladeshi with unerring efficiency. As we learn during the next two days, this is just one face of a huge horizontally integrated operation run by a set of five (give or take a couple) enterprising Bangladeshis – christened The Cobra Gang for reasons obscure. The operations of the conglomerate include a two-euro breakfast place, a Laundromat cum surfing centre cum Corporate Headquarters, an Indian fast-food joint (Indian Mama!) and a pub named Julius Caesar. The Cobras reduce 6 hard-nosed soon-to-be managers into ardent admirers, not to mention satisfied customers.

Golly, how she rolls!

1830 hrs
“When was the last time you did something for the first time?” It’s my first time on a vessel of any decent size. As I check in, collect my boarding pass and excitedly walk the plank into Eurostar Barcelona, the world of Tintin again materializes around: decks, cabins, lifeboats and portholes. Alan the First Mate is missing but it is funny how many times during these travels one gets to experience firsthand what was first read in a Tintin or an Asterix or in another such window to the world.

2030 hrs
The lights of Barcelona just fade from view when the strong breeze on the uppermost deck turns into a rain-laden gale. A rough night ahead, I reckon, as the ferry rolls first to port, then to starboard and then back to port again. I spend a couple of Euros on Virtua Tennis on the onboard arcade but when the stomach turns wobbly, I call it a night – my first one on the high seas.

Which states have you been to?

The story so far...

Hola todos!

I've spent one whole weekend in Barcelona for the first time in 6 weeks. And to good effect - a birthday treat is out of the way, the 'party scene' of Barca has at last been checked out (and three hours spent walking back home), a Champions League match at Camp Nou attended and finally, The Diaries are up to date and ready for reading.

The October posts can be accessed here. The first entry is dated Weekend 3. Weekend 1 was spent house-hunting and getting to know Barcelona at just the righ time: La Mercè, the city's annual fest was in full swing. Weekend 2 saw a day trip to nearby tourist towns of Girona and Figueres.

Happy reading!

The Amsterdam update

I get back from Rotterdam and Amsterdam, late for the 0900-1200 Derivatives class but in time for lunch at home before the 1500-1800 Design Management class.

Writing an account of the travels in detail gets boring, especially when you do it in bulk, and about five week-ends, pre-dating blog entries.

I’ll spare you the precious knowledge of every train I took and every meal I had but read on for the Amsterdam update, written in brief.

October 29^th to November 2^nd

Rotterdam is reached via Paris. Ethan and Navya are on exchange at Rotterdam and this weekend play host to a whole cricket team: the 5 from JIBS, Kodhi from St.Galens, Tommy from Germany, ID from Liepzig, Phuku from Milan, Shubha from Nice and me!!

The evening of 30^th is spent chilling at home as people pour in from all over W.Europe.

30^th October sees ten little Indians in Amsterdam (an hour by train from Rotterdam). I am no longer touring alone and the company is appreciated. But people keep stopping every 10 paces and enter every third store, hunting for the perfect souvenir / gift. No real sight-seeing is achieved but a ride in the fair at Daam Square gives enough thrills for the afternoon. Come evening, and we check out the cafes of Amsterdam before heading for the famed Red Light Area. A good three hours are spent taking in the many sights in wonder before we call it a day.

31^st October – a revisit to Amsterdam after we get down at Den Haag (The Hague) and board the next train without visiting the ICJ. Similar story as the previous day – lunch and shopping in the flea market at Waterlooplein is all we have time for before it is dark. I don’t mind as the entry to Anne Frank Huis and the van Gogh, Rembrandnt museums cost money. Give me roaming the streets any day, well maybe not any day.

November 1^st – I manage a couple of hours wandering across Antwerp, Belgium en route to Lille, Paris and the overnight train home. A few pages of International Finance are also taken in before I dig into Reminiscences of the Cuban Revolutionary War by Che Guevera. The battle scenes are engrossing and bring to mind ACK’s Mahabharata. Che’s The Motorcycle Diaries captures the romance of travelling brilliantly while this book gives you a revolutionary hero...