Woah the last post got so long i dint realize. This one will be short i promise. Forgot to add we saw Sylvester Stallone up close as he had also come to visit the Louvre the same time as us..
Anyways, continuing from where I had left:
28th, London: Went by eurostar(The train connecting paris to london thru an underwater tunnel). It is not worth the hype at all. It just gets dark in the tunnel, felt like a regular train journey. We relaxed till evening in our hotel-Blair Victoria. It was owned by Gujjus. The manager was very friendly(thank god) and gave us rooms where we had some ventilation as rooms usually dont ve air conditioning or fans there(how do they survive?) and it is hot this time of the year. The bathroom was so huge I could just fit into it uncomfortably(please appreciate the evident sarcasm behind my sorrow) We went on a city tour in the evening and visited the London Eye:a huge ferris wheel right in the middle of london.
29th, London: Saw the changing of the guard at Buckingham Palace. The whole place was swarming with tourists but the ceremony itself was nothing to talk about. People came on horses and exchanged weapons and wasted one whole hour in doing so. Some guards were playing the orchestra(Why>?). We admired the grandeur of the palace and left for the Natural history museum. Amazing exhibits related to dinosaurs, trees taller than huge skyscrapers, minerals of all sorts greeted us. Surprisingly, we found the Kohinoor diamond here(we had heard it is in the Tower of London). After hurriedly visiting the museum, we boarded a cruise on river Thames. We passed the London Bridge(famous by the nursery rhyme), heard some interesting bits of history about London, the fire that destroyed most of it in 1666 etc. When we came back at 6 Pm, we were surprised to know that all the tourist places had closed by now so we went for shopping on regent street n oxford street. Later we had dinner at a restaurant named Las Portes Des Indeswhich appeared so good but the food was so-so and finally returned to the hotel.
30th, London: Went to the Westminster Abbey , a church that was splendid and 1000 years old. It contained graves of most of the monarchs of UK, scientists like Newton, Halley and Darwin, writers like Charles Dickens, Alfred Tennyson, PB Shelley, WB Yeats and other eminent personalities like David Livingstone n so on. Later we visited the Tower of London, a Fortress of ancient times. We saw the Crown jewels and by now felt that we have had an overdose of history. We raced to the science musuem to watch the IMAX screen but it was closed for the day. So finally we came to Piccadily Circus and saw a play called The 39 Steps. It is a comic adaptation of Alfred Hitchcock's thriller. It was hilarious unlike anything I have seen till date. 4 actors played around 150 roles. it was rivetting and we were mesmerized by the performances of the characters. After the play we hung around Picadilly for some time-huge crowd(trademark of london) just roamed on the streets and the pubs.
There were many Indians here(many as in seriously a lot) and this was the only place where we did not have language probs as well as vegetarian food was available comaparatively easily. The tube (London Metro) had a kind of tagline "Mind The Gap"(between the train and platform). I heard it from speakers more than 100 times a day(No exaggeration here too).
Friday, August 8, 2008
Thursday, August 7, 2008
Euro(pe) Trip Part 1
U know what, I had thought of an awesome starting line with a pun on my way from Mumbai to Surat for this post, but I have forgotten it. Anyways, there are two reasons to write about my recent tour of Europe: 1) frick, i forgot the first reason too...whats happening wid me...2) amm... ya got this one (lame joke right?).. we lost most of our photos of the trip when our laptop was stolen on the last day of our trip. This way I can remember the fun later.
Well, its not exactly appropriate to call this post "Euro trip" cos it was not exactly like the movie[;)] since i was wid my family, so i ll have to blandly call it "europe trip".
24th, Mumbai: it was raining cats n dogs. I had forgotten my umbrella n had to buy one from the pavement.. I went wid smit to churchgate to grab a bite n get a cheap pirated novel. The print was so bad i couldnt have read it so i had to pass.
flight: it was a swiss air flight(approve of it). saw the movie "one two three" in the night n surprisingly i liked it. it was a nonsensical comedy but i was laughing majorly because beside me, my brother Apurva was watching it without headphones, just by reading english subtitles n he was enjoying it too. wierd, i know!!
25th, paris: we checked into a hotel which was promised by our travel agent to be much better than it was. the receptionist did not allot our rooms straight away, said it ll take time to clean(why dint he clean it before i wonder) so we went to see the grevin wax museum in the mean time. had a lot of snaps in different poses wid the celebrity figures(reminder:all a waste of energy as photos wer lost). After returning to the hotel, we moved our luggage to our rooms on the 6th floor(it was heavy, believe me), rested for some time n went on a city tour. We visited the Notradame church that was pretty old(some 1000 yrs i think), beatifully constructed by the way. We ate dinner in a restaurant named "Gandhiji" which had a very small variety of vegetarian dishes ironically. Raat ko we went up the Eiffel tower after standing in a long never ending queue but it was worth the wait. Eiffel tower was magical at night.
26th, Paris: Saakshi, my sister and I got late in getting ready n heard(or rather acted like listening) some scolding. we visited the Louvre, took the guided tour n learnt a lot of new stuff. Apurva went out of the way to get photographed (but to no avail eventually). Highlights wer the Mona Lisa, a sculpture of Nike- Greek goddess of victory, one more naked woman i m sorry i forgot her name. it was an intellectual journey thru Mankinds past. went to montparnasse tower in the afternoon n took the seine river cruise in the evening after dinner at the Kashmir restaurant(best dinner for us in Europe). We saw paris in a different perspective in the cruise. The ppl wer extremely friendly, evrybody waved at each other from the banks to the boats. We roamed at Champs Elysses at night, saw showrooms of big brands like louis vuitton, porshe, mercedes and evry other brand i could think of. One thing i noted was that ppl are very civil(u hear merci-thank u in french atleast 100 times a day-no exaggeration). n ya few indians in paris due to language prob i guess.
27th, Disneyland: Disneyland is seriously a man made marvel sprawled over a huge area i dun remember the dimensions of. So many rides and shows it took very stringent time planning for us to finish in a day. it has five parts: 1)disney studio park: looked like hollywood 2) frontierland: like 19th century USA 3) fantasyland: for kids with a huge castle 4) discoveryland: modern sci fi theme 5) adventureland: into exploring
rides included aerosmiths rock n roll roller coaster in the dark which was heart stopping(dude looks like a lady played in the background), pirates of the caribbean from which the hollywood series is inspired, buzz lightyears lazer gun fight, indiana jones roller coaster, star wars simulation, a ghost ride and a toy train throughout the park. There were childrens stories enacted too. There was an Around the world theme which beautifully depicted people from around the world.
Shows included cinemagic: interactive show mixing films n cartoons, a stunt show that showed impressive stunts wid cars n bikes which wer hard to believe, once upon a time parade wid many of disneys cartoon characters parading. In the night, to top it all there was another parade that was visually appealing to the highest degree n the day ended wid fireworks that illuminated the sky.
We almost forgot to eat inspite of there being about 30 restaurants in there. Mom enjoyed aerosmiths ride a lot(just kidding-she was petrified) At the end of the day, our legs wer about to collapse under the strain of continuous walking.
This posts gonna be long so have broken it into parts. Cheers!!
Check: 4 months sicnce my last post. Thats bad. I should write often (just for the sake of it)
Well, its not exactly appropriate to call this post "Euro trip" cos it was not exactly like the movie[;)] since i was wid my family, so i ll have to blandly call it "europe trip".
24th, Mumbai: it was raining cats n dogs. I had forgotten my umbrella n had to buy one from the pavement.. I went wid smit to churchgate to grab a bite n get a cheap pirated novel. The print was so bad i couldnt have read it so i had to pass.
flight: it was a swiss air flight(approve of it). saw the movie "one two three" in the night n surprisingly i liked it. it was a nonsensical comedy but i was laughing majorly because beside me, my brother Apurva was watching it without headphones, just by reading english subtitles n he was enjoying it too. wierd, i know!!
25th, paris: we checked into a hotel which was promised by our travel agent to be much better than it was. the receptionist did not allot our rooms straight away, said it ll take time to clean(why dint he clean it before i wonder) so we went to see the grevin wax museum in the mean time. had a lot of snaps in different poses wid the celebrity figures(reminder:all a waste of energy as photos wer lost). After returning to the hotel, we moved our luggage to our rooms on the 6th floor(it was heavy, believe me), rested for some time n went on a city tour. We visited the Notradame church that was pretty old(some 1000 yrs i think), beatifully constructed by the way. We ate dinner in a restaurant named "Gandhiji" which had a very small variety of vegetarian dishes ironically. Raat ko we went up the Eiffel tower after standing in a long never ending queue but it was worth the wait. Eiffel tower was magical at night.
26th, Paris: Saakshi, my sister and I got late in getting ready n heard(or rather acted like listening) some scolding. we visited the Louvre, took the guided tour n learnt a lot of new stuff. Apurva went out of the way to get photographed (but to no avail eventually). Highlights wer the Mona Lisa, a sculpture of Nike- Greek goddess of victory, one more naked woman i m sorry i forgot her name. it was an intellectual journey thru Mankinds past. went to montparnasse tower in the afternoon n took the seine river cruise in the evening after dinner at the Kashmir restaurant(best dinner for us in Europe). We saw paris in a different perspective in the cruise. The ppl wer extremely friendly, evrybody waved at each other from the banks to the boats. We roamed at Champs Elysses at night, saw showrooms of big brands like louis vuitton, porshe, mercedes and evry other brand i could think of. One thing i noted was that ppl are very civil(u hear merci-thank u in french atleast 100 times a day-no exaggeration). n ya few indians in paris due to language prob i guess.
27th, Disneyland: Disneyland is seriously a man made marvel sprawled over a huge area i dun remember the dimensions of. So many rides and shows it took very stringent time planning for us to finish in a day. it has five parts: 1)disney studio park: looked like hollywood 2) frontierland: like 19th century USA 3) fantasyland: for kids with a huge castle 4) discoveryland: modern sci fi theme 5) adventureland: into exploring
rides included aerosmiths rock n roll roller coaster in the dark which was heart stopping(dude looks like a lady played in the background), pirates of the caribbean from which the hollywood series is inspired, buzz lightyears lazer gun fight, indiana jones roller coaster, star wars simulation, a ghost ride and a toy train throughout the park. There were childrens stories enacted too. There was an Around the world theme which beautifully depicted people from around the world.
Shows included cinemagic: interactive show mixing films n cartoons, a stunt show that showed impressive stunts wid cars n bikes which wer hard to believe, once upon a time parade wid many of disneys cartoon characters parading. In the night, to top it all there was another parade that was visually appealing to the highest degree n the day ended wid fireworks that illuminated the sky.
We almost forgot to eat inspite of there being about 30 restaurants in there. Mom enjoyed aerosmiths ride a lot(just kidding-she was petrified) At the end of the day, our legs wer about to collapse under the strain of continuous walking.
This posts gonna be long so have broken it into parts. Cheers!!
Check: 4 months sicnce my last post. Thats bad. I should write often (just for the sake of it)
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