The europe tour :)

Some best things in life are unplanned and never foreseen. Who knew that an idea over a 'Samosa' in office's cafeteria would lead us to Germany and France. Let me get back to where it all started. There was a lot of noise about this competition in office which called for 'Innovative Ideas'. As always, such things go over my head, I have never understood how people come up with totally crazy ideas and have the wherewithal to support the idea. May be I have been wrong all through these years.
So, the Samosa-born idea was selected for the first round and then through the second round to the finals. And yes, the finals were to be held at Waldorf, Germany! The finals were just 5 days after the 2nd round. That meant a hell lot of running around, lot of paperwork and a lot of advice :). We finally pulled it off ( of course working in a German company meant we managed to get our visas in just 3 days). On 19th June, I was at the T3 terminal, IGI airport.

The plane took off, stopped over at Dubai and we were at Frankfurt in 9 hours. As a child, everyone has a hidden resolve to get into those flying things and it finally happened and happened in style. After a cab ride of one hour at 150-200 k mph ( Germany's cars and roads are best). Here I was, in a foreign land, in Europe ( like DDLJ's Kajol?, as much excited ), 7000 km away from India. Of course, I cant describe the feeling of those moments in words.

The next day, we presented our idea and lost the finals. After that, it was a weekend, we had return flight on Monday evening and we were 'officially' free to roam. Visited Heidelberg the next day. Obviously everything for us was new. Shining roads, cars, trains, trams and buses (looks like everything is replaced every few years). The local food is very different but McDonalds and KFC are always there, though very expensive! ( remember Germany and France are the richest Euro-zone nations). Malls and all felt very much like Gurgaon but local shops had a distinct flavor.

But wait for it, the most awsome part was the visit to Paris.We took a bullet train to Paris and we stayed at one of the hostels of Paris University. Paris is a wonderfully beautiful city. Almost every structure is made of stone, there are very few concrete structures. And yes, top of the Eiffel Tower was the zenith. You can literally see the whole of Paris from Eiffel top. The metro ride in Paris, dinner at Indian restaurant with some students, Mona Lisa at the Louvre, those are unforgettable moments of my life.
The flight to India was from Paris itself with stop at Dubai. The Dubai airport is a great shopping mall. There wasn't enough time else we would have loved to tour Dubai. One thing we noticed, Dubai feels very much like India, one can easily get pure veg food and airport staff understand Hindi.

P.S The 'Samosa' idea: Stand alone compiler for ABAP, a language internally used by SAP.