Back Home!!

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So we arrived back home late last night.. had a great trip, but it's also great to be back home. More on that later..

But we've been meaning for a while now to answer some of your questions, so now that we have unlimited internet access, felt we should tackle them first:

Renjith, yes, we went to the Louvre and saw the Mona Lisa. However, it is really not that impressive, particularly compared to the painting they have directly opposite - a huge wall-sized painting by Veronese that is really breathtaking. It's the 'marriage at cana', look it up on the Net. We spent quite a while looking at that and ended up just glancing at Mona Lisa just because it was there.. some of the other paintings in the Louvre were also quite impressive. Unfortunately, they have all descriptions only in French, much of which I was able to decode, but still didn't give us the full impact of knowing the history, etc. Some of the other museums we went to had audioguides that came along with the entry which delved into detail on a few paintings, which really helped.
And yes, we did have the misfortune of having to go through Charles de gaulle airport twice. It is seriously the most badly planned, confusing and disorganized airport we have seen - and that includes the indian airports which definitely are not the best themselves. For example, when we first landed there, there was nobody telling anyone where to go, and of course, no signs either. So everyone ended up following the person in front of them randomly, and were standing in the line to re-enter security for a connecting flight. After a little bit of waiting randomly, we decided to go figure out what was going on, and anand and I and one other couple, figured that actually we were supposed to go in an entirely different direction! I only have to wonder how long the others were standing there, and when they finally figured it out! Even leaving from there, it was a little more easy as there were a few signs as well as hundreds of people taking our same flight, but still .. the one good thing about it is that it is well connected to paris by public transport (its 40 minutes away from the city). Actually though, that was kind of funny when we got there, because we’re used to airports being right in the middle of the city (from the SF airport you can easily see the whole landscape, the bridges, etc, it’s beautiful), so we were hoping to get a glimpse of the Eiffel tower from the plane. We were looking and looking, and only when we got off and realized how far away from the city we were, did we feel quite dumb 😊.

Tikku, yes, we want to now see DDLJ again and see the trains there, etc that they went through. And abt the rest, what happens in Amsterdam stays in Amsterdam .. right? 😉

Kartikk, yes, we took the train between all the cities, including 3 night trains. Both of us prefer trains to planes by far, and it also allows us to look around at the countryside while traveling.
It’s interesting, that the sleepers there are very similar to those in India, with one or two big differences - the middle sleeper in europe can’t be pushed down to allow people to sit - so no matter what time the train started, everyone pretty much slept right away. That was fine for us as we were usually tired after a couple of days of sight-seeing, but the flexibility would still have been nice. The other difference of course, is the TOILET!!!! And particularly, how clean they are. One really has to see them to believe how clean they are. The first train toilet we saw (in Germany) was seriously the cleanest that either of us has ever seen in our lives, not just in a public place. Anand stated that it was such that one could even pray there - the toilet altar 😊. And all over Germany and Austria, the standards were like that. Amazing.

Also abt yr q abt Allianz, yes, we went there, and took a few pics, for you and Renjith. No game was on at the time so we didn’t see the colors changing, but heard about it - sounds quite cool. Anand says it was an amazing stadium. I guess I’m not as big a football fan, so it didn’t mean too much to me - but given the size I can imagine the exhilaration of going there with thousands of excited football fans. The next day that we were in Munich, there was a Bavaria (Bayern Munich) vs. Koln game planned, and all day we saw excited Koln fans dressed in the jersey, with huge towel-type things tied to their hands that they could wave around. Many were already drunk and randomly would start yelling loudly even in just the train station - so can imagine how they would be once they actually got to the field!

All right .. this post is alerady getting a little long, so will finish up with this for now. Will post more in the upcoming days - pictures (we took 1300 total) etc.

Thanks all for yr comments while we were there - felt great to be connected to everyone through this!

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Comments

[Sirisha]

Interesting Blog...
Hi Amritha and Anand, Very interesting and detailed blog. Had fun reading it. Motivates me to vsiti Amstredam, Germany and Austria in my next Europe trip. Can't agree any less about Charles de Gualle...We spent 2 hrs when there trying to figure out where to check in!! Oh..by the way..don't expect the same trains everywhere in Europe..especially Italy.. Look forward to some pics:) Wishing u more such fun filled trips:) Sirisha