I have always wanted to go to Praha (also known as Prague), after hearing so many tales of its beauty. So early in my semester abroad in Rotterdam I had booked a flight on Smart Wings, a low-cost start-up airline, to Prague and invited classmates to come along. A few weeks ago, Smart Wing decided to cancel the flight. Weary from so much traveling already, the couple of us from Rotterdam decided not to go to Prague after all. Last week, my fellow exchange student Gretchen, also from Berkeley and who is now studying in Barcelona and traveling all over Europe [View Full Entry]

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I had a ten-hour layover in Milano on my way from Amsterdam to Prague, so of course I went into town for a looksy. From the Malpensa Airport, I took an express train to the center of town. I had heard from everyone who had been in Milano that the city does not have much to offer and that it is just a modern Italian city known for its graffiti (which if you have not guessed it is an Italian word). In fact it is Italy’s largest city, but my experience was actually different from what I heard from people. True, [View Full Entry]

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Having had a sweet taste of Rome, I was drawn by the ancient spirits to that other ancient Roman capital, Constantinople. The ancients apparently like to dramatize their power on even the feeblest among mankind. As with Rome, I was made to wait at the airport for hours, as if to say these holy places cannot be reached without first learning a lesson in patience and humility. The ancients, though, have underestimated the ability of the ultra-modern Americans to blame all travesties on the lack of good service in Europe. And if you have spent any amount of time in Europe, [View Full Entry]

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I followed up the trip to Spain with an immediate trip to Paris. Savitra came to Europe again on a business trip, and I was offered to stay the weekend. This meant that I was to hop on a train the morning after I got back from Madrid. At 6:00am my body begrudgingly awoke to the disturbance of the alarm on my mobile phone. Quickly I folded up the laundry I had just done the night before, and off I went to the Rotterdam Centraal train station. At 11:30am, after a switch of trains in Brussels to the super fast Thalys [View Full Entry]

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Note: hi all, thanks again for reading. I've added some pictures ot previous entries. Check them out. Keep them comments a'coming. Love them! -- The theme of this episode of my travelblogs is the perpetual quest to find my travel partner, Angela. The story begins with the trip from Barcelona to Madrid, which was maddening, as both Angela and I were worried about and busily working on our take-home finals due Tuesday morning even while the cleaners of the apartment we rented in Barcelona was kicking us out early due to some miscommunications. The four of us hopped on another pleasant [View Full Entry]

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Three of my fellow exchange students at Rotterdam, Angela, Carolina, and Sandra, and I spent a week in Spain. The trip began with a train ride to Brussels, where we had a pleasant if not expensive lunch. As it was Angela’s first time in Brussels, she had a great time looking around while getting three sets of advice on what’s cool in Brussels from her three travelphile classmates. After lunch we rushed onto a bus to the airport, having lost track of time. Meanwhile I was worried about my ticket, as the airline had not emailed me back the confirmation via [View Full Entry]

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Soon after I woke up in the morning at the pensioni in Mestre, I hopped on the train for a 10-minute ride across the lagoon into the island of Venezia, otherwise known as Venice. The minute I stepped off the train, I could sense the magic of Venezia. The train station was, like other train stations in Italy, packed full of people, tourists and locals alike. The first real task of the day was to find an affordable room in a hostel. After 30 minutes standing in line at the hotel reservation office at the train station and battling with hawkers, [View Full Entry]

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I rolled out of the hotel bed in Rome and headed to the train station. At last minute I made up my mind about taking a detour to Firenze, otherwise known as Florence. With ten minutes to spare, I rushed to my seat on Italy’s premier high-speed train. After taking trains in Japan, Germany, and even Spain, Italy’s trains seemed old and rackety. On the train I broke down and used my cell phone to call my roommate David’s wife, Yvonne, who was in Firenze studying jewelry making. After a few expensive roaming-minute tries, I reached her and arranged for meeting [View Full Entry]

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NOTE: Hi folks I am trying to catch up to where I left off on the blogs. Let me start with something more recent and then I will backtrack. A stereotype about Italians is that they are over-the-top dramatic. In the case of Conchetta (otherwise known as Connie), with whom I used to share a cubicle at the office, the stereotype is true. So last year when Connie invited me to join her when she goes on her first visit to her ancestral Italy, I jumped at the chance. A few months later, I found myself getting a big dose of [View Full Entry]

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Savvy, another MBA from Haas, had a business trip in München, otherwise known as Munich. He of course planned to coincide with Munich’s most famous attraction, Oktoberfest. This legendary tradition all started many centuries ago to celebrate the marriage of Queen Therese. Today the festival still takes place at Theresieweisen, which normally is a park. Oktoberfest is actually a misnomer. Though it started back in the days in October, these days the rational Germans have moved it up to September, when it’s warm enough that no one gets a cold from wearing beer-soaked lederhosen. [View Full Entry]

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