Off the Ground

From the edge of Iberia in the west to the frontiers of Siberia in the east, from the Baltic in the north to the Balkans in the south, Europe sprawls the center of the earth almost demanding destiny its central role in the world. For countless centuries it has been the proverbial ‘west’ which has competed against the ‘east’, sometimes beating it and sometimes beaten by it.

Europe is the crucible of cultures, the home of great discoveries and inventions, the land of great men and their deeds, the leader in the pack whom every one wanted to beat. Personally for me, Europe was the promise I made to myself when I was a kid. And finally the time has come when i visit this land of my dreams.

August 22, 2009, Saturday

The car zooms past the avenue leading to the Bangalore International Airport which appears almost fleetingly outside my window. It is the first time I have visited the new airport and it looks sparklingly new. As I step outside with luggage in my hand the whole experience seems surreal, almost dreamlike. I have arrived five hours before the flight which is at 2.05 AM. This gives me an excellent opportunity to look around the place and I am mighty impressed by what I see. To be honest I had not seen many airports. The only one I had memory of visiting was the old Bangalore airport which was small and cozy. Compared to it this was a giant leap. Travelling for me always meant chaos, used to as I was with railway stations and bus platforms. Hence standing in this brand new airport was a shock to my system.

Soon the initial shock was worn off by the reality of the impending travel. I had never travelled alone, never ever. Let alone outside the country not even out of town. I was always around people and was always in my comfort zone so to speak. What I was embarking on was truly novel and nervous for me. Once I bid everyone good bye and crossed the line and went inside the check in area of the airport I felt lonely. It was the loneliest I had ever felt.

In my nervousness I mumbled and fumbled through the check in and all the other procedures and then sat in line near the port of my air plane. Seeing fellow travelers around me I felt easy. As I waited there I watched around with curiosity. There were Indian couples, there were foreigners, single travelers like me, toddlers who played around as if in a playground. After an hour’s wait the Lufthansa cabin crew came along and everyone gazed at them as if they were the performers for that night, in a way they were! Soon everyone was in a line to board the plane. The novice that I was I did not realize the call for queuing quickly enough and was relegated to the end of the queue. I rushed to the end of the queue lest I miss the flight. Then eventually the line wound down and soon I found myself inside the belly of the massive Boeing 747. The inside seemed a bit crammed by all the passengers wanting to board the flight. I eventually settled at the penultimate row at a window seat.

This was my first flight, I was growing nervous again. How will the take off be? Should I take some precautions? As I juggled with these questions the flight made a steady start. Like a fast bowler sizing his run up the plane was slowly getting into its groove. It built momentum and speed and suddenly there was an announcement by the captain ’30 seconds to takeoff’. My heartbeat went up a notch. 30 second seemed like 30 minutes. As the big bird lifted its head and spread its wing it cut through the air and dived into the sky. Finally it was off the ground.

The ground seemed to be moving away rapidly. First the magnificent airport and then the city came into view. The city sparkled like a jewel in the dark crown of the night. Soon we were enveloped by the clouds and the ground became a distant memory. The monitor read the height as 30000 feet; I was literally on cloud nine.

The rest of the night went by quietly with me tossing and turning in my seat – I can never sleep in a chair even if it’s in an air plane. When day broke I lifted the hood of the window to find what seemed like land bordered by sea. I looked up at the monitor for help and it showed that we had just passed the black sea and had just entered Eastern Europe! I kept thinking about the travelers of the past who would risk their lives and spent years traversing Europe and Asia. And here we were lesser mortal hopping across these vast lands as if it were a child’s play!

Soon Bucharest became Sophia and Sophia became Budapest and eventually we were knocking the doors of Germany. Germany arrived and soon our destination of Frankfurt seemed almost in front of us. Soon Frankfurt came into view as the descent began. And what I saw was truly breathtaking. The weather was clear and the morning sun kissed the German city which glowed in a golden color. It was like a picture postcard with neatly cut roads amidst green fields and beautiful houses. It almost seemed like an aerial view that I saw of the tour de France. It was one of the most beautiful scenes I had ever seen. Finally our plane touched down on the run way and I set my foot on German soil.

23 August, 2009, Sunday

Just the previous night I felt I was in a dream and clearly after landing in Frankfurt I hadn’t woken up from it! The German city looked quintessentially German, very precise and very clean. The airport seemed like a world fair with people from almost all nationalities in its premises. As I had four hours of transit I decided to checkout the place. I roamed far and long inside this huge airport which made the one at Bangalore seem like a dwarf. The people seemed to be in different moods. Some like me were happy to be there while others were anxious about their next flight while still others went about their business as if it was a routine. The airport looked almost like a mall as it was dotted with innumerable shops and stores. I went into many stores and was shocked by the prices on the items there. This was no surprise as I kept multiplying everything by 70!

I went into what looked like a bookshop and found the morning editions of some of the legendary German news papers I had heard about, the Bild and Die Ziet. As I browsed through the airport I came across a huge eating place called ‘Goethe’ presumably named after the great German philosopher Goethe I thought. And sure enough it was, with the statue of the great man at the center.

As I roamed around the place I had something to drink which cost me a whopping 3.4 Euros. This is Europe after all I consoled myself. The port of my flight was announced and it turned out to be a port innocently named A40. Being early to any place was a habit of mine as I am paranoid of being late. I headed to this port a good one hour prior to the boarding time. What a good decision it was! As I followed the signpost towards A40 I realized that the size of the Frankfurt airport cannot be overstated. It felt like I was being deported to another city. I must have known as soon as I saw the elevator towards A40 as to the distance from it. It was huge, I kept going and going and going like the energizer bunny and A40 never came. By the time I hit A27 I was exhausted, I felt compelled to take a break but I soldiered on. A35 was my next pitstop where I paused for a minute before moving on again. As it turned out A40 was the last in its line of port and by the time I reached it I was totally exhausted and ready to tumble into the flight. Tumble in I did as I boarded the flight to Gothenburg which seemed a tad puny compared to its burly Boeing 747 cousin which I had boarded early that morning.

This flight was pretty uneventful save for the burger and the sweet Swedish lady I met on board. She was very friendly and as is my wont dragged her into a conversation which ranged from the weather of northern Europe to the lakes of Scandinavia to the archipelago of western Sweden. I was pleasantly surprised by the casual nature of the Swedes and their remarkable ability to strike conversations with complete strangers like me. The flight headed along without being disturbed by our friendly conversation and buzzed through Hanover and Hamburg. Cities that I had always heard about and seen on TV were passing right beneath me!

Finally Gothenburg arrived wrapped in a blanket of cloud and the plane touched down. I collected my baggage and was wished a happy stay in Sweden by my good Swedish friend. Here I was finally in Europe and the Euro Trip I had always dreamt about had started. What happens next? Stay tuned…