Yorop Yodellings - Episode 3: Travel Update
Good day, me lovelies. I'm back from a bit of gallavanting, trying to get my life and thoughts (in that order) into some order.
Before I get into my ravings and rantings, I think it's a good idea to maybe list out for me lovelies the kind of itinerary that I've been keeping. Update for you, ego-boost for me. Like the king who sits in his counting house counting all his monies while blackbirds are picking peoples' eyes out. Never mind.
19th Sep: Leave Bangalore, arrive in Leuven. Speechless Moment #1.
20th Sep: Day 1 of Orientation at K. U. Leuven.
25th Sep: Day 5 of Orientation. Gosh. They just went on and on. I think I'm right and properly oriented now. Next step: figure out what 'orientation' means.
26th Sep: Classes begin.
1st Oct: Trip to the coastal Belgian town of Oostende with Nikhil and Nandita. Day at the beach and the loooong jetty.
5th Oct: International Party at the American College. Pretended to make ravishing Indian curries that were actually bought readymade from a nice Indian supermart, but don't tell anyone.
8th Oct: Trip to Brussels, capital of Belgium, with Nikhil, Nandita, Marie (Belgium), Guillaume (France), Paula (Romania), Thomas (Canada) and Ching (?) (China) - all fellow-American-Collegers. Saw the Grand Place (pronounced Graw Plaas, and meaning "Large Square" and not the rather dumb English transliteration of that name), the Chocolate House, the Mannekin Pis (the little boy whose pee and wee-wee are all carved in stone; interesting story, remind me to tell you sometime), and several large cathedrals.
11th Oct: Attended stand-up comedy by Nigel Williams and Thomas Smith at Leuven with Marie (Belgium).
13th Oct: Trip with Nandita, Nikhil and Rachit to the Ardennes - Namur, with its great citadel and beautiful riverside. Darn fellows had all shops closed at 6, so couldn't do much even walking around.
14th Oct: From Namur to Dinant, again with an imposing citadel with a lot of history. Trip to Han/ Rochefort postponed for lack of time, so sat for hours at a riverside Cafe and did our Belgian duty (see Yodelling 1: "A Reason to Be").
21st Oct: Travel alone to the quaint and beautiful Belgian tourist medieval town of Bruges - canals, the Grote Begijnhof, the Lady and Child church, windmills and the awesome 1000-step Belfry - and the student town Gent - canals and the Gravensteen castle.
22nd Oct: Travel to the amazing underground caves of Han-Sur-Lesse. Bump into Nikhil, Nandita and Marie on their way to the same place by the same train, so spend the day with them. Stalactites, stalagmites, the marriage of the two that they don't have a very memorable name for, and a good barge ride out of the caves. Good fun at the speleogame too (a 3D kiddie video tour of the caves, with game and all, good 10-year old fun!).
23rd Oct: Belgian Residence permit turns up. Now able to travel outside of Belgium.
24th - 25th Oct: 24-hour run at K. U. Leuven. Event of the year. Department Apolloon wins. My department (Erasmus) comes second. There's a funny story, remind me to tell you this one.
27th Oct: Eurail pass turns up from India. Economical travel outside of Belgium now possible.
29th Oct: Travel alone to Amsterdam - canal tour, the Amstelkring, and a great city walk. Sin City here on earth, and some funny stories to boot (It would be a waste if I didnt have stories for THIS city!). Coming shortly in a succeeding post, to be found on newsstands near you.
31st Oct: Leave on the long Rome trip with Nikhil and Nandita. Arrive in Paris late evening. Stay with Dugar & Co. Watch the worst movie ever - Jaane Mann. Strongly recommended. I hope you suffer as I did.
1st Nov: Visit the NotreDame in Paris before catching the train to Rome. Italian trains are great belly-dancers. It pays to be a fat Italian, so that you don't get thrown from side to side in those narrow corridors.
2nd Nov: Arrival in Rome. Go to the Vatican and see St. Peter's Basilica (big Speechless Moment #2), along with Sonia, Abhishek and Aseem. Spend the evening walking to the Pantheon, the Fontane de Trevi, the Piazza Venezia and other great places.
3rd Nov: In the Vatican again. Climb to the top of the St. Peter's Basilica cupola. Spend the evening at several other terrific places in Rome, including the Repubblica and the Spanish Steps.
4th Nov: Time for the Vatican museums (after waiting in a queue 2 km long for 2 hours, no kidding), and the astounding Sistine Chapel (Speechless Moment #3). See the Roman Forum, Colosseum, Arco de Constantino, Circo Massimo, etc, in a hurry in the evening before leaving for Florence, the home of the Renaissance and Leonardo da Vinci.
5th Nov: No room in Florence, so spent the night in McDonald's, buying toothpicks at regular intervals to avoid being thrown out. Original plan was to spend a day at Florence, then move to Venice, then me to Vienna. But we ended up parting ways; the couple left for Greece, I left for Nice (rhymes, yay!) after seeing a bit of Florence - the Ponte Vecchio, Piazza San Lorenzo, the Duomo Square, etc. Day train along the awesome Italian and French Riviera - the train followed the coastline, making for a good joy-ride. Change at Genoa. Evening on the beach of Nice (Speechless Moment #4). Night with Mojo, Tanay & Co.
6th Nov: Morning all over Nice, including the historical center, the beach and the Chateau overlooking it. Afternoon and evening at Monte Carlo (Monaco), with its casinos, the Garibaldi Forum, the Prince's Palace, the Cathedral, the Exotique Gardens, Ferraris, Jaguars and Lamborghinis in droves all over the place, the race-track views, and a great coastline.
7th Nov: Train back from Nice to Brussels.
8th Nov: Attend Jalamar (terrific, soulful Mexican folk singer) concert with Ania (Poland).
9th Nov: Party II at the American College.
Yeah. That's it so far. So to the burning question: how exactly are we able to do all this traveling? Don't we have a course going on?
Course? What course?
Ok. Here's the deal with Exchange. One class per subject per week. Classes on Wednesday and Thursday, occasionally on Monday. But generally a long weekend. That's longer than the week. That's good fun: travel around - broadening perspectives - and study whenever on a break from traveling. All cheap for cheap students.
Yeah. Boring life, I know.
But that's exaggeration, of course. On a more serious note, I am not kidding when I say that this is not merely some great holiday, no. An experience like this has so much to teach, it's invaluable. And coming at the best time in my life for me to be able to learn something from it. And the travel is the greatest contributor to that. There's very little I can say to describe the effect it has been having on my perspectives, my ways of thinking.
That's about as much serious talk as you're going to get out of me. Raving and ranting, to thee I now return with a vengeance.
Before I get into my ravings and rantings, I think it's a good idea to maybe list out for me lovelies the kind of itinerary that I've been keeping. Update for you, ego-boost for me. Like the king who sits in his counting house counting all his monies while blackbirds are picking peoples' eyes out. Never mind.
19th Sep: Leave Bangalore, arrive in Leuven. Speechless Moment #1.
20th Sep: Day 1 of Orientation at K. U. Leuven.
25th Sep: Day 5 of Orientation. Gosh. They just went on and on. I think I'm right and properly oriented now. Next step: figure out what 'orientation' means.
26th Sep: Classes begin.
1st Oct: Trip to the coastal Belgian town of Oostende with Nikhil and Nandita. Day at the beach and the loooong jetty.
5th Oct: International Party at the American College. Pretended to make ravishing Indian curries that were actually bought readymade from a nice Indian supermart, but don't tell anyone.
8th Oct: Trip to Brussels, capital of Belgium, with Nikhil, Nandita, Marie (Belgium), Guillaume (France), Paula (Romania), Thomas (Canada) and Ching (?) (China) - all fellow-American-Collegers. Saw the Grand Place (pronounced Graw Plaas, and meaning "Large Square" and not the rather dumb English transliteration of that name), the Chocolate House, the Mannekin Pis (the little boy whose pee and wee-wee are all carved in stone; interesting story, remind me to tell you sometime), and several large cathedrals.
11th Oct: Attended stand-up comedy by Nigel Williams and Thomas Smith at Leuven with Marie (Belgium).
13th Oct: Trip with Nandita, Nikhil and Rachit to the Ardennes - Namur, with its great citadel and beautiful riverside. Darn fellows had all shops closed at 6, so couldn't do much even walking around.
14th Oct: From Namur to Dinant, again with an imposing citadel with a lot of history. Trip to Han/ Rochefort postponed for lack of time, so sat for hours at a riverside Cafe and did our Belgian duty (see Yodelling 1: "A Reason to Be").
21st Oct: Travel alone to the quaint and beautiful Belgian tourist medieval town of Bruges - canals, the Grote Begijnhof, the Lady and Child church, windmills and the awesome 1000-step Belfry - and the student town Gent - canals and the Gravensteen castle.
22nd Oct: Travel to the amazing underground caves of Han-Sur-Lesse. Bump into Nikhil, Nandita and Marie on their way to the same place by the same train, so spend the day with them. Stalactites, stalagmites, the marriage of the two that they don't have a very memorable name for, and a good barge ride out of the caves. Good fun at the speleogame too (a 3D kiddie video tour of the caves, with game and all, good 10-year old fun!).
23rd Oct: Belgian Residence permit turns up. Now able to travel outside of Belgium.
24th - 25th Oct: 24-hour run at K. U. Leuven. Event of the year. Department Apolloon wins. My department (Erasmus) comes second. There's a funny story, remind me to tell you this one.
27th Oct: Eurail pass turns up from India. Economical travel outside of Belgium now possible.
29th Oct: Travel alone to Amsterdam - canal tour, the Amstelkring, and a great city walk. Sin City here on earth, and some funny stories to boot (It would be a waste if I didnt have stories for THIS city!). Coming shortly in a succeeding post, to be found on newsstands near you.
31st Oct: Leave on the long Rome trip with Nikhil and Nandita. Arrive in Paris late evening. Stay with Dugar & Co. Watch the worst movie ever - Jaane Mann. Strongly recommended. I hope you suffer as I did.
1st Nov: Visit the NotreDame in Paris before catching the train to Rome. Italian trains are great belly-dancers. It pays to be a fat Italian, so that you don't get thrown from side to side in those narrow corridors.
2nd Nov: Arrival in Rome. Go to the Vatican and see St. Peter's Basilica (big Speechless Moment #2), along with Sonia, Abhishek and Aseem. Spend the evening walking to the Pantheon, the Fontane de Trevi, the Piazza Venezia and other great places.
3rd Nov: In the Vatican again. Climb to the top of the St. Peter's Basilica cupola. Spend the evening at several other terrific places in Rome, including the Repubblica and the Spanish Steps.
4th Nov: Time for the Vatican museums (after waiting in a queue 2 km long for 2 hours, no kidding), and the astounding Sistine Chapel (Speechless Moment #3). See the Roman Forum, Colosseum, Arco de Constantino, Circo Massimo, etc, in a hurry in the evening before leaving for Florence, the home of the Renaissance and Leonardo da Vinci.
5th Nov: No room in Florence, so spent the night in McDonald's, buying toothpicks at regular intervals to avoid being thrown out. Original plan was to spend a day at Florence, then move to Venice, then me to Vienna. But we ended up parting ways; the couple left for Greece, I left for Nice (rhymes, yay!) after seeing a bit of Florence - the Ponte Vecchio, Piazza San Lorenzo, the Duomo Square, etc. Day train along the awesome Italian and French Riviera - the train followed the coastline, making for a good joy-ride. Change at Genoa. Evening on the beach of Nice (Speechless Moment #4). Night with Mojo, Tanay & Co.
6th Nov: Morning all over Nice, including the historical center, the beach and the Chateau overlooking it. Afternoon and evening at Monte Carlo (Monaco), with its casinos, the Garibaldi Forum, the Prince's Palace, the Cathedral, the Exotique Gardens, Ferraris, Jaguars and Lamborghinis in droves all over the place, the race-track views, and a great coastline.
7th Nov: Train back from Nice to Brussels.
8th Nov: Attend Jalamar (terrific, soulful Mexican folk singer) concert with Ania (Poland).
9th Nov: Party II at the American College.
Yeah. That's it so far. So to the burning question: how exactly are we able to do all this traveling? Don't we have a course going on?
Course? What course?
Ok. Here's the deal with Exchange. One class per subject per week. Classes on Wednesday and Thursday, occasionally on Monday. But generally a long weekend. That's longer than the week. That's good fun: travel around - broadening perspectives - and study whenever on a break from traveling. All cheap for cheap students.
Yeah. Boring life, I know.
But that's exaggeration, of course. On a more serious note, I am not kidding when I say that this is not merely some great holiday, no. An experience like this has so much to teach, it's invaluable. And coming at the best time in my life for me to be able to learn something from it. And the travel is the greatest contributor to that. There's very little I can say to describe the effect it has been having on my perspectives, my ways of thinking.
That's about as much serious talk as you're going to get out of me. Raving and ranting, to thee I now return with a vengeance.
posted by Simon Says at 9:38 PM
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