As you can see from the lags between the posts, being married is a very time consuming activity. Not that I'm complaining or anything, Just saying.. Why this sudden burst of writing after all this inactivity.. you wonder? Well this is September, and as many of you would know by your religious belief next month the "Great Hindu Festivities" start, which in the North is famous as Dusshera, for my new found family is madly popular as Durga Puja or getting the lingo right just "Pujo". And I want to be able to give real time updates for that without wasting time. So clearing out my backlog as fast as I can.
Ok.. so what was it that I had promised to chatter on in this post? Oh yeah Switzerland! Paris was a touch and go affair, but we had two and a half days in Switzerland. I was an amazing transition from Paris to Zurich, and amazingly long one. It practically took our whole day in that bus ride to the favorite Hindi movie destination. Throughout the way what I noticed was that the European way of Hooliganism is confined to graffiti, it was all over the place. Every flyover/underpass had it's walls decorated with those colored messages (Pun intended!) One more thing you grow to appreciate while you are spending most of your time on the road, is the quality of the road! Europeans sure know how to maintain this lifeline. While it is expected that the national (or shall I say.. International) highways would be good, what was astonishing was that even the local roads were the same standard. We didn't run over a single pot hole the entire 10 days. Remarkable! And for someone who's now living in Gurgaon (The land with no roads) unbelievable!
To be very honest, I'm beginning to forget my journey. It's been so long, but writing about it is bringing back nice memories.
Now let me begin about the experience about our next stop. Zurich was spot to rest between all that beauty, it doesn't itself have anything very fancy to offer in terms of tourist spots, but hey what do I know, I was on a guided tour!
Zurich was the one place where we were on our own for a full day, while others made a visit to every bollywood crazy, The Alps!! To be precise the location where DDLJ songs were shot. Oh no it's not that I didn't go to the Alps, I went to the Alps the next day, which was every train crazy (Husband) would kill to go : Mt. Jungfrau, it's the highest railroad ever built in Europe. Don't ask why I agreed to this, I just melt when I see him go all puppy eyed about something.. But more on that later. First, the alone day. So remember how I've been very vocal about the fact that I was on a guided tour? Well.. this was the day we could get a flavor of being on our own. And let me be very honest, first one hour we had no clue how to even get out of the hotel! But then we figured out the train station was close by, we reached there and looked for the ticket vendor, but turns out Europe is short on people to work, so they have ticket machines, which are fairly complex to decode for people like us. Somehow we got the ticket. Now the next challenge was where to get off, if you think our stations are confusing, you should see their's. Needless to mention we got off at the wrong station where we were greeted by a very scary hoodlum, somehow we ran off from there, only to come out and realize we were at the completely wrong place with no human in sight, then all of a sudden we see a girl. Now the next confusion was if she knew English, the only way to know was to ask if she knew English. Luckily for us she did!! So we were now back to the station after receiving the correct directions and again with great difficulty surpassing that hoodlum again and a station later we were at the station we intended to be at! And now begins the onward journey to start the search for the Toy store my puppy eyed Husband had marked to buy his fancy game from, don't ask me again why I indulge him, I've got my own way of dealing with situations!
As I've mentioned before, Zurich is more like a pit stop among all that beauty, where our rich politicians park their money and where you could also shop for all the fancy Swiss brands and the Cow bells!! Man! The Swiss sure love their cows and every thing about them! Every where I saw there was a miniature cow, or a cow bell, or milk product derivative or just cow to eat :P!!
But have to say this for sure, an hour on our own we had begun to enjoy the freedom to not do everything by the clock. Not having a plan also makes you explore more. This was the place where we bought most of our souvenirs from (and at exorbitantly high prices to be honest!) and this was also the place we went into a completely desolate Museum which housed the biggest succulent plant collection in Europe, OK may be I made up the biggest part. But that was the height of being aimless!! But the take away from the trip was discovering three churches while wandering, each so beautiful and serene! We shopped like the locals do, in their big bazaar, which they call coop ( it surprisingly had a very big bazaar type brand coloring as well.. hmm.. coincidence??) A word of advice, please do resort to these stores when in Europe, they house all the stuff you might need (Even Booze) at very reasonable prices. It was only from here we got our stash, of FOOD!! What were you thinking?!?
Day two in Switzerland was for the Mountain top tour. That's when the real beauty revealed itself! I have never seen such huge lakes, and never seem such picturesque locales!! And never heard such random nonsense as this : "This where they shot one scene where SRK drove his car through the road", " This the bridge where Kajol and SRK danced" and all that random nonsense. Having said that it should come as no surprise that every where I went I saw a huge group of Indians (yes more than what we were already carrying in our bus) Ooohing and Aaahing about these stupid facts (Made up or true, whatever way I didn't care much!) But this was the first time I went up a mountain peak so up and close. This was also the first time I saw snow.. it's a shame for me as my ancestors are essentially mountain people, but in my defense I'm a true blue Delhite with all the flaws!
First time snow I think is an experience of a lifetime, it was amazingly pretty. In fact the whole place was! Yes, this was the place where romance could bloom! And because there was nothing else except for the bounteous beauty, there is nothing much to tell. Only one things, you must go and experience it yourself :)
