I finally get rid of my laziness to blog again and I start with my Eurotrip updates till date!
The trip began the night before Strat Man exam . I was more busy packing my bags and checking my documents rather than even glancing once through the text book for the subject . I feel that’s another one of those text books which can be resold at market price .IIM’s could consider reducing expenditure on books as part of the austerity drive!
The cab booked by MM came handy as we had to rush back to station by 3pm after finishing Strat man exam .The delayed lunch at Comesum , lucknow railway station was just about fine, and not comparable to ones at New Delhi & Bangalore. MM and me boarded Shatabdhi at Lucknow as Mr Love waited for his train down south .
As we reached Delhi its started raining cats and dogs and the whole station was waterlogged . The huge baggage I had made it difficult to even walk out of the station . If not for a very timely drop home from a good friend and his parents , the Delhi taxis would have taken me for a long ride. MM too managed to get a prepaid taxi to the airport .
The next two days in Delhi , I went currency shopping (Swiss Francs-CHF) but with no luck . Even the large private banks and PSB’s are short of CHF .Finally I got hold of an agent who got me 200 CHF , which he had recieved the same day morning from a Swiss tourist at a five star hotel.The Euro I had brought in had to be again converted to CHF here and so ended up paying double conversion fee.
After the 2 day currency crisis, a senior Synapsian treated to me a nice Italian Food near Priya. The Pasta feast started early !
The final day before departure I caught up with a couple of cousins after almost a decade, and had a good south Indian meal . The visit to Big Bazaar and a leather jacket at a addidas factory outlet kept me occupied throughout the day.
My cousin dropped me at the airport around midnight on Sep 7 and much to my surprise even the Turkish airline had a decent queue. It’s not just our beloved StEX team who had struck a bulk deal with them , but also TATA AIG group. And now the first difficult part of a foreign trip , parting with your packed luggage at the airport due to excess baggage. My persistent requests to the folks at the counter ensured that I didn’t have to leave too many of the items to at Delhi airport . Then for the next two hours I was accessing web through the computers provided by the airport as the electrical sockets for laptop were out-of-order.
The flight was bereft of anything like “Inflight entertainment” and I spent most of the time sleeping. I just woke up in time to see the Black sea , and flight i am yet to google up and check ‘why is black sea black’. I reached Istanbul around 8 in the morning . The 7 hour wait at Istanbul was long and I got bored of window shopping at the duty free shops. I did not find any difference in prices of Chocolates , though I am yet to check the prices of other stuff. I really wonder how many of these duty free shops are actually have profitable, for customers and owners alike.Finally I boarded the flight to Zurich at 4 PM.
So True , But Is it worth it !
For the uninitiated, MM stands for Maggu Man, a certain guy in Ajay’s class who answers to the roll call of PGP24###.
Mr. Love is a stupid misnomer – it should be Mr. Awesome instead… Ajay, make the change.
Why did you block out the ID no. in the previous post – internet censorship ???