Tuesday 13 December 2011

Visa .....

Since my early teens I had this dream of visiting Europe....The continent of castles, the continent with breath taking country side, the first developed continent and where i've got most of my beautiful and wonderful friends outside of India.  In 2010 after a lot of research and budgeting finally decided to travel to Europe in the summer of 2011.  Main purpose - to visit my friends in Poland, Lithuania, Romania, Slovenia and Turkey and along with it visit Germany and Austria.  

Applied for the Schengen visa through Polish Embassy in Mumbai with a travel itinerary of 39 days including Romania.  Indians need a separate visa for Romania as its still not part of Schengen.  One mistake the travel agency did and my application got rejected on the grounds that 'Why an Indian with business in India want to travel for so many days in Europe?'....All my excitement of getting the visa went down in a second :( and after having lot of talks with another travel agent, finally decided that I shall ask my very very good friend Dorota to send me an invitation on the basis of which I shall apply for visa again in the month of August.  I shall remain thankful to my friend Dorota for my entire life for her help, without which my dream would have never been realized.  Dziekuje DOROTA.... :)

So after Dorota returned from her trip to Bulgaria, she send me the invitation with the help of which I submitted my application for 19 days of travel....Mumbai - Warsaw - Mumbai with visit to Germany and Czech Republic....And after lot of documentation and curious waiting, finally on the 29th of Sept. 2011 while I was chatting with Dorota, I got the call that my visa application has been accepted....Oh my God, I was on cloud 9....Just thinking that i'll be flying to my dream destination and meeting my friends whom I met last year filled me with tremendous happiness....Booked my flight on 30th Sept. 2011. Costly one, but still was the cheapest amongst all....Turkish Airlines, Mumbai - Istanbul - Warsaw and Vienna - Istanbul - Mumbai.  As I didn't had enough days to apply for Romania or Croatia, I had to drop the idea of visiting any of this 2 countries....Felt little bit sad :(  but than thought, i'll visit Romania some other time....Who knows...?

It kind of always made me think and wonder, why this boundaries for people who want to travel and see this beautiful world, how everything is so very different but still so similar....I wish Indians had less boundary restrictions, so that it would have been easy to travel, but I guess its the immigration deeds of Indians only that people Indians like me are facing such problems....When I think of Europe I kind of compare it with India....But how is it possible ?  Both are totally different worlds, economically and culturally....Still there is a similarity which I really like....Any guess's ?

In India when you travel from one state to another which many times takes an overnight journey or even more, the language people speak, the clothing style, the food, work culture almost everything changes and yet you are in India....Think in the same way for Europe....Travel from one country to another and just like in India an overnight journey takes you into another country where the language, the food, work culture and many other things change....Its a western world yet I find it traditional in its own way....So 5 countries to visit Poland, Lithuania, Germany, Austria and Turkey....


Last 6 months of 2011

Its been almost 6 months that I created my first post here and then again became lazy....So much happened during this time....The best thing was my dream trip to Europe....Celebrated a quiet birthday in August, met some new people which I really like to, nice first few days of Navratri festival, some cool parties which don't much happen in a city like Ahmedabad, and after 2 months  or no 3 months finally got the Schengen Visa for 19 days.

When I came back from my awesome trip, the first thing I did after arranging for the laundry was went out to meet my grandparents from my mother's side.   While discussing with my grandpa all the experiences I had during my trip, he was quick to tell me 'Why don't you write' ?  I thought with a smile on my face, I guess I really should stop being lazy and start writing....So here I am resuming to write today after a new friend today morning asked me 'Did u start writing' ?  :)

So sitting here in my office and thinking where to start with ?....After all its been 33.25 years of my life already gone....Don't feel like going back in life and putting here what all i've lived through, but as my grandpa said, write all u'r experiences you had on your trip.  So i'll start with my dream trip in the next.... :)

Monday 13 June 2011

Finally I will write

So, finally I have entered the world of blogging.  Shall I thank couchsurfing for this or the couchsurfer who first told me with great seriousness that I should start to write ?  Its like after she suggested me on starting to write I got suggestions from many of my beautiful friends that I should write.  :)

So here I am putting so many thoughts of mine criss crossing and making some chemical imbalances (as in the bollywood movie - Munnabhai M.B.B.S) in my mind.  My liking or say habit of observing people and trying to understand life more closely somehow has helped me a lot in my life.  So I would like to put down some of my experiences here and lets see what else will come through my mind.