Netherlands - Part 6

Hello dear readers,

Its been few months since i made a blog update. So i have enough material to share with you ;) 

Some time ago, i and Shan decided to go to Cologne (http://wikitravel.org/en/Cologne) for weekend city trip. Its a big city along the bank of river rhine and almost at the border of netherlands and germany. We had heard a lot about it as its very famous in netherlands for its christmas markets. Honestly we didn't found it so special. It just seemed like a big commercial city with some very old churches. But regardless, it was a nice break for us from our everyday life.

In front of Cologne Cathedral, a very famous gothic church 

Happy shan and Köln Hauptbahnhof in the background :)

Posing with the love padlocks @ Hohenzollern Bridge :)

Posing with the love padlocks @ Hohenzollern Bridge :P

If there is one place i have to recommend for an authentic local experience, it will be Päffgen brewery (http://www.paeffgen-koelsch.de/). Just go there. Its an experience! Good food, good beer, big and grumpy waiters, greasy walls and old school look makes it a classic german beer house! 

Päffgen!

enjoying Kolsh @ Päffgen brewery ... they serve beer like tea is served in India 

The happy couple shot ;)

Then on one weekend, we went to the Texel island. There are 5 islands in the north of the Netherlands. They are Schiermonnikoog, Ameland, Terschelling, Vlieland and Texel. Texel (http://www.texel.net/en/) is the biggest of these 5 islands and also most touristy. Its 20 minutes by ferry from Den Helder. We stayed there in a very pretty small village called Den Hoorn. It was an amazing trip. We cycled around the island, had some great food and spend some quality time together. A tip: If you plan to to texel for a weekend trip during summer, book your accommodation in advance. Germans and dutch are crazy about this island. On most warm summer weekends, not even a single hotel room is available!!

Cheers! :)

Eagerly waiting for food!! 

Those panda eyes, I tell you, are like tequila shots...

Beach time @ De Koog

Recently, betiya visited me in Wageningen. He was in norway for work and on his way back to Houston he planned to visit me in holland for few days. Well, long story short, he had not even reached Wageningen yet when he was called back to Norway! Anyways, we spent few hours together and next day morning, he took a flight back. It was great ... thanks to all the effort he took to visit me, we met after 6 years. 

no comments :)

At India Port restaurant in Utrecht with beti, shan and my colleagues Elia, Stephane and Pierre 

Food and beer, yummmmm ;)

Recently, i went to Parma in Italy for few days to visit my ex housemate Giuditta. It was my first trip to Italy, so i was pretty pumped. Parma is a small town in between Milan and Bologna. I stayed with her for 4 days ... in which we spent 2 days roaming around parma, made a day trip to Venice and another day trip to Monterosso, one of the 5 villages in cinque terre (http://wikitravel.org/en/Cinque_Terre). Well, Venice needs no introduction. The entire city is a world heritage site. Cinque terre consists of 5 amazingly beautiful villages along the west coast of Italy, just north of Tuscany. And you might have heard of parma from the famous parma ham and the parmigiano reggiano cheese. The whole parma region is crazy about ham and they use it literally in everything. It was hard to find bread without pork fat!! So it can be a nightmare for strict vegetarians.  

smile please :P me and Giuditta in a castle just outside Parma

Probably the only available sparkling red wine: Lambrusco, typically made from grapes from parma region

My portrait, drawn by a famous painter from parma :P

Dinner with Giuditta's family and friends

Italians are crazy about their tomatoes, no really, they are!!

Venice!!

For most Indians, first introduction to Venice was via a super hit bollywood song from 1979 movie The Great Gambler:

Do Lafzon ki Hai Dil Ki Kahani ....

Ye kashti wala kya ga raha hai? :)

No city in the world can be compared to Venice, and dont ever tell anyone that its similar to Amsterdam!

What a beauty! Probably the most beautiful city ever ...

Venice will not be the same without its small and decorated waterways

Just another beautiful balcony, imagine living there!

The "i was there" pic :P

Another one at Monterosso :)

with Victor, my colleague who came to visit us in Monterosso from Genoa

With Victor, Giuditta and her friends @ Monterosso

Just keep looking .... so beautiful ...

One amazing thing about Italy was the culture of Aperitifs. Basically after work and before dinner, you go to a bar and order a drink. And then you get unlimited small side dishes to eat with the drink for free. The best places for aperitif are generally bars with best/large choice of food. People sit here for hours drinking and eating, before they go for the real dinner :P Its really impressive. See this article for more details.

In the mean time, Sayantani went to India and met my parents for the first time!! I was so scared, but thankfully, it all went well.

Papa greeting her with flowers :D

My mom and Shan ... so much love ... i am jealous :P

So, as you can see, i am keeping myself fairly busy. The coming few month are going to be quiet, before the big storm in January 2015 ;)

Until then, keep travelling, keep smiling and keep loving!

Cheers,

Karan

Netherlands - Part 5

Hey everyone! What up?

I know, I know ... its been a while since my last post. But that just means I have a lot of stories and pictures to share :) 

This year, I, sayantani and some friends from Wageningen went to Delft to celebrate Holi festival. Amarjeet invited us and we just couldn't say no. And i am glad we went there. Holi to a European is like a techno music festival with colours. But for an indian, its so much more. The colours, the bollywood beats, the bhang, the carefree vibe, the memories from so many previous holi festivals ... its an emotional and moving experience. And by far, its my favourite festival.

Me and Amarjeet in Delft @ Holi 2014

Shan in her Goddess Kali avatar :P

We painted Delft with colours :)

Kodak moment :D

It was a day to remember! I will be in Delft next year for the celebrations, and you should join me this time! 

In the beginning of May, Aakash and Amrita came to visit me for few days. I was meeting them after 5 years! I made a small plan to give them a real dutch experience! We went to Giethoorn and stayed there overnight in a farmhouse De Opkikker (www.deopkikker.com). Its a beautiful farm with chickens and goats and 6 km by bike to the touristic village of giethoorn. Amrita didn't knew how to bike so we rented one tandem and one normal bike. It was so much fun. I think they really enjoyed the biking experience with beautiful scenery and sheeps everywhere :)  

One of the canals in Giethoorn village

Aakash enjoying the view :)

Playing with the chickens ... the one on the left was a very aggressive rooster :P

Biking Selfie and Ye dosti hum nahi tode ge moment! :)

Aakash and amrita on tandem ... it was a very scenic biking route from the farm to giethoorn

Aakash and amrita in Wageningen on a rainy day :P

After coming back from Giethoorn, we went to Amsterdam for one day. Sayantani joined us there. We did the Sandman's free walking tour and walked around in the Red light district. 

The one at Amsterdam Centraal ;)

Shan feeding the pigeons at Dam Square ... sooo happy she is!

Next day after coming back from Amsterdam, they left for Germany to meet another friend. I had a great time with them!!

In between all this, i got chance to go sailing with the Rotterdam Pilots. They are the people responsible for guiding the ships in and out of the Port of Rotterdam. It was a fantastic opportunity and i was very impressed by their work. To have an overall idea of what i did, see this video.

Ahoy Captain! :D ... enroute North Sea

Onboard the fancy Pilot Station Vessel 'Polaris'

Well, now the most important thing that happened to me recently ... i met Sayantani's parents :P

With Sayantani and her family @ durga pooja celebrations in Voorschoten

One thing that i find really interesting is the history of Indian community in Holland. There is a large bengali population here for some reason. And offcourse there are large number of Surinamese people who have ancestral connections to India. Here is a nice report on this topic. And here is a nice website for all the indians living in The Netherlands.

So thats it for the moment. But i promise you, there are exciting times ahead :) I will be in touch shortly!

Love,

Karan

Netherlands - Part 4

Hello hello lovely readers! How are you? Como estas? Hoe gaat het met jou? :P

I am back again with stories from my last few months :) A lot has happened recently .... I made a trip to India to attend Ranjeets wedding, I went to Hanover to visit Iris and I went to Spain for the christmas new years holidays! On top of that, Arvind Kejriwal became the chief minister of Delhi!! So I thought its a good time to share some pictures and experiences from past few months. So, I was in India for the last 2 weeks of November. During this time, I attended Ranjeet's wedding in Patna. I am super happy that I was there, with him, on Ranjeet's special day. 

Meeting him after 2 years on his wedding :)

It was a great experience for me in some ways. During the wedding, I realised that I have never really attended a real bihari wedding before. This realisation shook me a little as I realised that all my life, I have mostly attended marwari weddings! The amount of influence your caste and community can have on your life as an Indian is quite remarkable. Throughout Ranjeet's wedding, I could not help but compare bihari marriage ritual with marwari rituals. I was quite shocked to see that in the baraat, no girls were allowed. It was a kind of culture shock for me to see an all male baraat! But after enquiring a bit, I realised that this is quite common in most bihari weddings (and also in many weddings in UP area). Regardless, I enjoyed Ranjeets hospitality for 2 days with non stop food, chai and whisky :) And, I also got to meet couple of his cool friends (Sumit and Shashwat) and his loving family.

Ranjeet with this weird hat during one of the ceremonies :P

With the newly wed couple :)

After his wedding, I went home to Sitamarhi. This time, I celebrated my birthday at home after many many years. My parents organised a small party with some family and close friends. 

With my grand parents :) :)

Cutting the Cake for my 28th!

Mom organised Satyanarayan Pooja on my birthday 

Then it was time to come back to Holland. In December, I had few exceptionally busy days at work. But then it was time for Christmas-New Year holidays again :) Working at MARIN has an advantage here.It closes from 24th December to 2nd January for holidays! This is quite rare even for dutch companies. For this holiday, I went to Spain with few friends ... first to Barcelona from 24th Dec to 29th Dec and then to Madrid from 29th Dec to 2nd Jan. Spain is an amazing country and we had a blast during our trip :)

Smile please :)

We reached Barcelona on 24th late night and checked in our hostel HelloBCN (highly recommended for its location, friendliness and cleanliness, it's also quite cheap). As 25th and 26th December is a national holiday, the whole city was closed. Hence we decided to see nearby smaller cities for first couple of days. 

We went to Sitges (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sitges), Girona (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Girona) and Figueres (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Figueres). I would recommend all 3 of them for anyone who is in Barcelona.

@Sitges

LOL :P

We had an amazing time in Barcelona! I met Jaume, my spanish colleague from MARIN, had some amazing spanish food (although its hard to be a vegetarian in Spain!), did a lot of Dali and Gaudi stuff (sagrada familia church in Barcelona is awe inspiring... a must visit monument if you are in the city ... buy your tickets online tough, we had to stand in line for 2 hours) and took a free guided tour organised by Sandeman (look below for details).  

eating tapas and drinking sangria :D

with Jaume, eating paella in Barcelona :P

@ Girona's old town

Oh yeah! :P

Main ramta jogiiiiii, Main ramta jogi :P

Priyanka eating Dali's egg at Figueres ;)

The Royal Heart by Salvador Dalí!

Me @ Dali museum in Figueres

Roof top of Sagrada Familia church .... a mesmerizing structure

Priyanka and Jasper @ Park Güell

Mesmerising view of Barcelona from Park Güell

In spain, they sell meat (ham) as we sell peanuts in India! Quite amazing ...

Now for those of you who are unfamiliar with Sandemans, look at this: http://www.neweuropetours.eu/. They have free guided tours in 18 cities. I took 2 of them (one in barcelona and one in madrid) and it was an amazing experience! I highly recommend you to try it. Both times, we had a big group (around 45 and 75 people) and very energetic and interesting tour guide. This tour is a nice way to get the feel of the city and learn about its interesting history (and quite a lot of random trivia) while walking around it for 3 hours. Sandemans organises these tours for free as a publicity for its other paid tours. Dont forget to pay a tip to your free tour guide! 

After the Barcelona trip, we went to Madrid. For those who don't know, Madrid is the party city in Spain! Specially during new years, hoards to international and local tourists visit Madrid to eat 12 grapes at puerta del sol (one of the squares in Madrid). So when we reached the city on 29th, everything was already looking crazy ... jam-packed streets, people everywhere and everytime of the day! Here we boarded in Hostal Sotileza (recommended for location and cleanliness ... was located 2 minutes from puerta del sol, but the staff speaks no english at all ... also super cheap). On 30th, we went to Toledo, the old capital of Spain (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Toledo,_Spain). Its a extremely touristy town filled with souvenier shops, but it is very pretty ... and hence a nice option for a day trip from Madrid.  

Toledo during sunset ... a mesmerizing old town

Me and Jasper on our way to Toledo

On 31st, we took the Sandemans free walking tour during the day time. It was another amazing experience. I now know a lot of weird things about Madrid :P ... On 31st evening, we decided to join Sandeman's new years eve pub crawl - http://www.newmadrid-tours.com/daily-tours/new-years-eve-pub-crawl-madrid-2013-2014.html. It worked out great for us as we didn't had any pre arranged plans and everything (from restaurants to pubs to clubs) was either completely full or was charging insane amounts of money (i saw a club with door charge of 250 euros :O)! It was a fun night for all of us. Tough I wouldn't recommend anyone to go to puerta del sol on that night. In Spain, people welcome new year by eating 12 grapes. Thousands of people gather at puerta del sol to eat grapes and it is telecasted all over the Spain so that the rest of people can eat grapes by watching this live telecast on their television (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Twelve_Grapes). It was so crowded that I was fearing a stampede any moment. It was not comfortable at all and we had no idea when to eat our grapes (it was so noisy that we didn't even hear the bell ringing). I got so frustrated that i didn't even ate my grapes :P  and on top of that, priyanka's new and expensive phone was stolen right around midnight! Next day when we went to police station to report this, there were many other people who had their documents and phones stolen at puerta del sol on 31st night. So take my word of advice and avoid this square on 31st night. Go to any other place in Madrid ... the whole city is buzzing with parties this night!

@ Puerta del Sol in Madrid

Another recommendation in Madrid ... go to Teatro Muñoz Seca to watch Ballet Flamenco De Madrid (http://www.balletflamencodemadrid.com). Just amazing one and a half hour flamenco performance with live orchestra .... definately a lifetime experience for us.

Teatro Muñoz Seca

Overall, it was a great trip. We came back with smiles and souveniers for our loved ones ;) :P

Wishing you a happy and prosperous 2014! :)

Bye bye for now and see you again soon!

Karan