Weekend II: Of Canceled Plans, Huge Cathedrals and Chocolates

It was Friday and our plan for the weekend was still undecided. "Sigh" I thought to myself "This weekend is gonna be so boring!". So I sat down to think on how I could make it a little interesting. I already knew that people from Swiss and Austria were coming to Munich.

So I started looking for ways to reach Munich and things to do there. And obviously I wanted to keep it as cheap as possible, so Happy Weekend Ticket was the way. The weekend ticket means I need upto 5 people, at least 3 to keep it affordable (since I was low on cash). I pinged Vivek to decide plans and they both (Vivek and Vinay) wanted to join in on the trip. They came to my lab and we sketched out rough travel plan. In the afternoon, I asked Om and he too agreed. After spending some time to finalize the fine details of the trip, we had a travel plan ready. I went to Treff to do some shopping, got back home and got ready for the trip, for which we were to leave early morning.

Then I get a call from Vivek saying that they'd decided not to go. My plan went to ruins in an instant. I tried to talk them into going again, but their excuses were unsurmountable :P. With just 2 people, we could not go on the weekend, so me and Om decided may be it'd be best to leave this trip and go somewhere on Sunday instead. On Saturday, Om sketched out a plan for Köln or Cologne.

So early morning on Sunday, we (Me, Om and Ankita, who is another intern student) were off on a train to Cologne via Saarbrücken, where Manpreet and his friend Abhinav were to join us. The route from Saarbrücken to Koblenz was pretty scenic and went parallel to the Rhine river. The weather too had cleared out, setting stage for a nice weekend trip. We reached Cologne by 11:30, where Ankita's friend Sonam joined in.
And so began our tour of Cologne. We started with Kölner Dom or Cologne Cathedral. It is a pretty big church with its towers rising as high as 157 meters.



We first visited the cathedral treasury. I clicked a few pictures there, until I realized that photography was strictly prohibited [:P]. (Yes, I know its common sense in a Museum but getting a few shots is good, aint it? [;)] )


We finished that in about 45 minutes and went inside the cathedral. The church was really beautiful from the inside (and too big to be captured in camera shots), with beautiful artwork on glass and the 3 giant halls. When we entered, prayer ceremonies were in progress and hence, we were not to enter inside the main hall, not for photography at least.

We had planned to climb the cathedral's south tower, which has a total of 509 stairs to the top. After looking for some time, we finally found the entrance and started climbing. It was quite a long climb and slightly tiring, but the view from the top (even though spoiled by the grill out up all around) was worth it.


Once we were done with the tower, it was time to check out the city. The major attractions of the city were the museums, at least according to wiki travels. And we found out from the tourist information center that it was Museum Fest that day in Cologne, so quite a few museums were free of cost (Sounds cool, right? Not so cool though :P). We first entered this design museum named Museum für Angewandte Kunst or Museum of Applied Art, it was free and boring, to say the least. They have a collection of what they call "popular" design items, including infi types of chairs, capsule style TVs, pen drives with wooden covers, different radios over the years (which reminds me, there is an old radio in my department here, and by old I mean it has vacuum tubes and not transistors [:D] ), you get the idea. We got bored of it way too fast and finished it in about 15 minutes.

Next target was a place named Kolumba, which was an art museum. There we found out that not all museums were free and there was an entry fee of 5 euros for entry (and we happily ditched it [:)]). There was still a lot of time, so we decided to give a last art museum a try. It was Wallraf-Richartz Museum, which has a fine collection of art since medieval times. There was one exhibition open for free, so we a tour it. I am a fan of renaissance art, but there was hardly anything worth appreciating in that exhibition at least and plus nobody else was in a mood for touring art museums, so we decided we'll take a break and have a snack at McDs.

Done with art museums, there was one main attraction for visit, the Schokoladenmuseum or the Chocolate Museum by Lindt. A small walk and we were there. By far the best museum I ever visited (Obviously, its chocolate after all! [:)]).

Infinite types of chocolate to choose from in their store, a free trial of liquid Lindt chocolate from their chocolate fountain and a view of how your chocolate is made. A quick tour and we were down in the store to choose from infinitely awesome chocolates. There were chocolates I have never seen in any store. Eg. Extra butter 99% Cocoa chocolate, Chilli flavored chocolate, Dark chocolate with Chocolate Mousse and the list goes on. Unfortunately I had little money to spend, so I bought 6 bars in all. I might go down to Cologne once more for just this shopping [:)].

The view of the Rhine from the Museum's rooftop was pretty beautiful, so we took a few minutes to appreciate it, and we were off to catch our train. On reaching back to Kaiserslautern, I was greeted by a site I had been longing for since I got here, clear skies and the crescent Moon, its beauty magnified by Venus (which was also crescent, as I later found out).

And so, another adventurous weekend trip came to an end.

PS: For anyone planning to go to Cologne, I would suggest you take about 5 hours and visit the Cathedral and the chocolate museum and, in case you still find time, maybe you can go to one of the churches, which are a little distance from the station.

PPS: Find the complete album here

Weekend I: Of delayed trains, Old Castles and Bridges

On Saturday, we decided to leave for Heidelberg on Sunday morning. The plan was as follows. We were 5 people. Me, Om, Vivek, Vinay (Vivek and Vinay are sophomores from IITB) and Manpreet. We chose to travel using the weekend pass which is 37 euros for 5 people. I was to leave from the 7 pm train to Saarbrucken with the pass from where Manpreet would join me with my bag as well and we would go towards Heidelberg and on the way the other 3 would join us.

Fortunately I did get up on time and I was on the train station by 6:45 pm but since when did things work well for me the first time itself :P. The train that I planned to take was canceled. I later got to know that the track had broken and they needed to fix it. I tried to find another way to get there through Homburg, to which there was a train at 7:32 am, but by the time I got to the platform to catch it, they announced that this train was also canceled until further notice. So I tried to inquire what had happened and to find a way to Saarbrucken, but to no avail thanx to the lack of German skills.

I came across a couple of Indians who were also going to Saarbrucken. I told them about the situation and I now had 2 more companions worrying with me :P By now, the next train to Saarbrucken had also been canceled. We waited there with no plans at all on what to do when all of a sudden the train to Saarbrucken opens up. We rushed to the train which left on time but due got delayed on the way. It poured all this time, so the weather was not helping the situation either.



After reaching Saarbrucken, I met Manpreet and I was finally reunited with my bag (Yay!!). We had to wait another half an hour for the next train to Kaiserslautern. There was a group of anime characters (:P) boarding the train.



Once on the train, we sat down and hoped that this train would not be delayed. On the way, huge crowds got on the train at every station.


We found out that there was a football match in Kaiserslautern between Kaiserslautern and Oxburg, so supporters of Kaiserslautern were flowing in from everywhere.

We reached Kaiserslautern late and consequently had already missed 2 trains as per our plan. There is a train every half an hour from Kaiserslautern to Heidelberg so we could board one right after half an hour. We reached Heidelberg at around 1:30 pm.

There we met Shashikant, another fellow from IITG, doing an intern at university of Heidelberg. We all boarded a bus, and then a little walk uphill and we were at the castle.


Frankly speaking, compared to Indian forts the castle was tiny. But it was well maintained.

Also, I noticed that they had renovated the castle (and more renovation was taking place)


The view from the courtyard was pretty beautiful.


There were big wine barrels in the museum which were the main attraction according to the guard there :P I wonder if they ever made wine in them.

Once the castle was done, we went to the garden took a stroll there. There was a beautiful tree there.


After that we started descending to the bridge. We ended up traveling further away from the bridge. We had to take a bus to the bridge.


By this time most people were pretty tired and we decided we should leave early. There was a good chance that we could have some party at Kaiserslautern, since Kaiserslautern were most likely to have won the match. We ate a bit at McDs and caught the train to Kaiserslautern. We were at the train station at 7:30 pm. The football match had been drawn but KL had made it from tier II to tier I (I have absolutely no idea what that means except that its supposed to be a good thing for the team :P)

Back at my room I was greeted with a beautiful sunset view.


I made pasta and soup (readymade obv) for food. By now my pasta has started to taste pretty good. Though I still am not sure how close to the actual pasta it is, but who cares ... it tastes awesome :D

Do check out the pics in my picasa web album.

So until my next adventure ...

The First Day

The day started off with my flight ... delayed by 2 hours. Finally reached Frankfurt airport at 8 am. It is so huge it took 10 minutes of bus ride to get us from the flight to the exit. Got the luggage and off to the train station. Train travel is very costly here. Cost us 19 euros for travel from Frankfurt to Kaiserslautern, a 2 hr journey on one of the slower trains. We (me along with Om and Manpreet from IITG) got on the train and found a few ex-IITians on the same compartment. The train journey was going fun. But Murphy decided to give me a bad day and the real fun began [:P].

Me, Om and another person Sivakumar had to go to TU, Kaiserslautern and were supposed to get off at the station "Bad Münster am Stein-Ebernburg" which was to come at 12:30. We did get down but on the wrong station, a station before Bad Münster. I found out from the station Information counter that we could get on the next train out straight to Kaiserslautern on the same ticket, which was quite a relief given the cost of tickets. So I give my fellow travellers tha happy news and I am suddenly struck by this grave realization: My baggage is missing! AAhhhh! Obviously I freaked out a little because we had no way to know whether it was on the train or somebody stole it. Fortunately Sivakumar had a phone and I saw a ray of hope. Now the question was whom should I contact.

First we tried to get a contact to the Saarbrucken station where the train was headed, so that somebody could pick up the luggage there but to no end as the number we got was not working. Now Om remembers the name of this guy who is going to pick up Manpreet at Saarbrucken and I thought that it would be my best bet. But Om doesn't have his number. So I call up my father to try and get the number of Ehad (the guy picking up Manpreet) by searching on the net. After 2-3 tries we got the right number. We called him up only to find that he's already left for picking up Manpreet. Fortunately, though, we were able to get his mobile number.

Murphy decided that he's done with teaching me a lesson and things finally started getting into place. The bag was with Manpreet and he'll keep it till I pick it up on the weekend. The good thing was that the bag had the less essential items and the major survival stuff and most importantly my passport were with me.

We got down at Kaiserslautern and Om's prof's secretary took us to the univ where I found my prof just when he was about to leave. In the meanwhile Stephanie (my prof's secretary) had been to the station twice to pick me up [:P]. I got to my apartment which is a pretty good place and started unpacking and slept half-way only to get up in the middle of the night to have some food. All in all I slept 12+ hrs. Long blissful sleep after a long time.