It was early spring in 2010, and the last layers of snow had slowly begun to give way to tiny undergrowth in the European meadows. The kaleidoscopic splendor of cherry blossoms, edelweiss, gentians, buttercups and innumerable other wild flowers seemed to have completely offset the gloomy moods of the dark and chilling winter months. And amidst all this display of warmth and radiance, there erupted all of a sudden a mighty volcano in distant Iceland, spewing gigantic plumes of lava and ash over the entire northern Europe and reminding us mortals that it is the Nature that is still calling shots on this planet.
Eyjafjallajökull, this is how that volcano is called in Icelandic (or even Honoluluian). But for me as a traveler, the pronunciation of this word wasn’t really important. What was important, however, was that the entire European airspace had been closed on account of this eruption (picture) and my long and painstakingly planned trip to northern Europe was at stake. And as if to doubly emphasize the universality of Murphy’s Law, the SNCF (the French Railways) had called upon a three day nation-wide strike to protest against one of those issues which no one, whether that be Napoleon, Sarkozy or Paris Hilton, had ever been able to figure out.
“How to get to Denmark?” wrote Francis Fukuyama while discussing his ‘End of History’ thesis. A similar question, albeit in a less abstract formulation, faced me as I stepped out of my home in Grenoble in the French Alps and walked towards the tram station. Copenhagen was to be the first stop of this 10-day trip and it was necessary to land there by next morning if further glitches were to be avoided. So, placing full faith in the cardinal tenets of hitchhiking and arming myself with reels of patience and a sheet of paper, I reached a spot where the city road merged into the national highway network. After about an hour, seeing a rucksack-laden youth flashing “GENEVA” near the gas station, an elderly family stopped and agreed to lift me into Switzerland (picture). Three hours racing past the tunnels and the bridges, and first border crossed!
I met Prashant in Geneva and we hopped onto a train which took us to Basel, at the Swiss-German border. We then boarded a high-speed ICE to Freiburg in Germany, just to take a look around the town before the train to Copenhagen showed up. The town was rather pretty and oozed typical German ambience! A carefully preserved vehicle-free historical centre, beautifully designed trams and Saturday crowd enjoying a warm spring day – all worth a stopover (pictures). So after a few hours of roaming around, clicking pictures and munching on Döner Kebabs and baked local stuff, we came back at the station, only to realize that we were late. :P
Well, a minor scuffle with the railway officials at Freiburg station once again brought us back into the loop and we were allowed to board the next train. This new train was nothing but a long and slow-moving slab of junk that stopped at every third station, and took a whole twenty hours to reach Copenhagen. Late in the night, the trains coming over from Amsterdam and Berlin were also attached to the same Junker, so that a whole lot of gypsies coming from anywhere in Central Europe and going anywhere into Northern Europe were lying everywhere on this train, including the floor and the lobby. Needless to say, this was quite a spectacle by German standards, and provided everyone with an opportunity to collectively sulk over the vagaries of a distant volcano and kill time. At 12 noon next day, the Junker rolled into the chilly and hazy Danish capital.
Eyjafjallajökull, this is how that volcano is called in Icelandic (or even Honoluluian). But for me as a traveler, the pronunciation of this word wasn’t really important. What was important, however, was that the entire European airspace had been closed on account of this eruption (picture) and my long and painstakingly planned trip to northern Europe was at stake. And as if to doubly emphasize the universality of Murphy’s Law, the SNCF (the French Railways) had called upon a three day nation-wide strike to protest against one of those issues which no one, whether that be Napoleon, Sarkozy or Paris Hilton, had ever been able to figure out.
“How to get to Denmark?” wrote Francis Fukuyama while discussing his ‘End of History’ thesis. A similar question, albeit in a less abstract formulation, faced me as I stepped out of my home in Grenoble in the French Alps and walked towards the tram station. Copenhagen was to be the first stop of this 10-day trip and it was necessary to land there by next morning if further glitches were to be avoided. So, placing full faith in the cardinal tenets of hitchhiking and arming myself with reels of patience and a sheet of paper, I reached a spot where the city road merged into the national highway network. After about an hour, seeing a rucksack-laden youth flashing “GENEVA” near the gas station, an elderly family stopped and agreed to lift me into Switzerland (picture). Three hours racing past the tunnels and the bridges, and first border crossed!
I met Prashant in Geneva and we hopped onto a train which took us to Basel, at the Swiss-German border. We then boarded a high-speed ICE to Freiburg in Germany, just to take a look around the town before the train to Copenhagen showed up. The town was rather pretty and oozed typical German ambience! A carefully preserved vehicle-free historical centre, beautifully designed trams and Saturday crowd enjoying a warm spring day – all worth a stopover (pictures). So after a few hours of roaming around, clicking pictures and munching on Döner Kebabs and baked local stuff, we came back at the station, only to realize that we were late. :P
Well, a minor scuffle with the railway officials at Freiburg station once again brought us back into the loop and we were allowed to board the next train. This new train was nothing but a long and slow-moving slab of junk that stopped at every third station, and took a whole twenty hours to reach Copenhagen. Late in the night, the trains coming over from Amsterdam and Berlin were also attached to the same Junker, so that a whole lot of gypsies coming from anywhere in Central Europe and going anywhere into Northern Europe were lying everywhere on this train, including the floor and the lobby. Needless to say, this was quite a spectacle by German standards, and provided everyone with an opportunity to collectively sulk over the vagaries of a distant volcano and kill time. At 12 noon next day, the Junker rolled into the chilly and hazy Danish capital.
6 comments:
Splendid recollection even after 2 years :) And a good way to relax from all the studying :)
Thanks yaar :) I actually remember every single detail of every single trip!
Thats amazing! You rem every single detail. I would've definitely forgotten ethn and the photos would've been my sole back up unless someone accompanied me :D
hehe, yes I do remember all of it, hour by hour :-) n well, u wudn't go alone, I'm sure :-)
C'mon bahut saare words ke liye tujhe googlana to pada hi hoga :) ("Eyjafjallajökull" are you kidding me!). Also I would have liked to see gypsies filling up the junker/train apni passenger train types.
@Trisha: I am pretty sure you would have forgotten most of the trip details had "someone" accompanied you ;)
lol, u know what?? I actually know the name and its exact pronunciation; learnt that on the junker itself from a frustrated Swede who was abusing the volcano all along :P
But yes, to type the correct accents here, googlaya tha maine :D
And the European gypsies aren't too different from the desi ones.
Trisha would be wondering...
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