Well time to get the euro trip started, with a good long tour all the way from Bergen to the mainland Europe. All the way from the Scandinavian expensive countries to the more reasonable and definitely more fun mainland. Time to get that camera out and a whole lot of history books as well as some guide books. This is Europe as was dreamed of, Europe with all its glamour, countless places to visit from museums to palaces, races to marathons all in these 3 months and it all starts with a stupid decision. Since the Bergen Oslo route would be busy on the Friday that we were beginning our trip we decided to reserve the seats, 50NOK and we would be safely on our way to Oslo. But alas since our pass expired on the same day we were wondering wether to go ahead and reserve the seats and then come back because the station would close by 730. (Cant even do tht online.. technology it seems!!) So we ended up at the Bergen station at 630pm to wait till 11 pm when the train would finally make its trip to Oslo. Met a Marathi family on the station and at the same time a professor from Boston. He had some interesting theories to share about how the brain works and what changes he planned to bring to the education system. The train finally left station at 11pm and the journey to Oslo was pretty nice. Good comfy seats, no internet in the train but a charging point atleast. Could not sleep properly and kept rolling up and down that same seat. Finally at 628am precisely the train reaches Oslo. With 2.5 hrs to spare till the next train we went to see what Oslo was upto at 7 in the morning. And it was COLD..
And no one was up till then, dammit how can people sleep at 7am, everybody should be up by then. Well time to roam around looking for the sun and lo we ended up at Sentrum and Galleriet (places which were there in Bergen as well ) and finally met the sun in sometime.. Felt good to have some warm sunrays, even if it was still early.
9 am and we were on our way to Goteberg, we came to know that since a part of the track between Oslo and Goteberg roughly near the border (Salzburg area or something) was under repair so we would have to make the middle part of the journey in a bus. This would be interesting. As always the train was good and went about the whole journey pretty much as quiet as sitting in the meeting room all alone in the office. And then came that place where all on board were supposed to get off the train and guess what they had arranged 3 luxury buses to get us to the other side. Wow. Can seriously never expect something like that in india for some reason. Well the bus journey was pretty uneventful except one lady who kept getting up to go to the driver to check how much more time. Even we were worried since we had some half an hr lead time before the next train to Copenhagen. Eventually we came to that station after an hour and then the train took us pretty quicky to Goteberg. For the first time we heard the Train Manager announcing that the train to Copenhagen would leave 5 minutes after we reached Goteberg that too from the adjacent platform. And that was such a relief. And it was a pleaseant surprise as you never expected something like that from the Indian railways. This is what we learn in marketing, understand the customers needs. So we reached Goteberg and then the train to Copenhagen. Crowded SJ train and not so comfortable as the NSB of last nights or the one we boarded today morning. But then we were not complaining, however one thing which you always fear as a global pass holder is that when you settle down in a train someone will come to your seat and ask you to get up coz u are occupying his seat. (That’s how the euro rail pass works, u r allowed to get into any train and occupy a second class seat as long as its not reserved by someone) We had been fearing this till now, and finally it did occur in the SJ train to Copenhagen. So with no free seats in that compartment I went to the next one where they did have a few empty seats. Of course I was skeptic as to wether I could sit there or not and after bothering one passenger I did get a seat to let my back side. Sitting next to me was a swede who was going home to meet her parents. Some 40km from Goteberg. We chatted for quite sometime as she explained how she had gone on very few trips across Europe but she was definitely very aware of all the food delicacies from all over Europe. She specifically mentioned the ones to try in Berlin and Milan as well as Paris. She got down at her stop while we continued on our way to Copenhagen (She was the one who taught us how to pronounce Koln :P). If u clearly see the map of Denmark you would see that there are an awfully large number of places where there is no land connectivity between stations and Copenhagen was one such place. So we were expcting one mega large dam or a tunnel at the end of the journey but we were definitely not prepared for this one.
A huuuuge dam which the train was covering at some 150kph and on the distance you could see a whole lot of wind mills. Wow what a site. Recommended for everyone to do it once. Having reached Copenhagen at 5:20pm we were expected to be at the station till 614pm when we had a CNL (city Night Line) from Copenhagen to Koln. Copenhagen was the place where some of the guys from K were studying but we were not sure if they would be there (weekend time pe forex ppl r not expected to be at college J) So we roamed around Copenhagen for a sometime (saw a group perform some awesome music using some weird flute instrument) while the Tivoli circus also caught our eye.
Copenhagen is definitely a stop over on the way back. And then on the train from Copenhagen to Koln. This was a painful journey. We booked the CNL but that did not have recliners so we paid 5 euros for very very bad seats and finally at 7am we arrived at Koln. The first stop in mainland Europe. What a trip coming ahead.
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