Cambridge UK

My first stop in Europe (if you call UK part of europe. I don't) was in Cambridge, UK. I flew directly from Boston to London on an overnight flight and then took a bus to Cambridge. I had arranged with a friend of mine in Cambridge that we would meet at the bus station. However, I was not sure how long it would take me to get out of the airplane, go through HM customs and HM passport control (HM stands for Her Majesty -- this was everywhere!), so I did not know which bus I would take to Cambridge. We have decided that when I get out of airplane and before I board the bus I would call Mark from the pay phone. However, the lines to HM passport control were too long (not to mention that I was the last to exit the airplane due to my sitting in the last row, it took a while for me to get to the other side of the passport control. Sweating profusely, I ran to the bus station and bought the tickets. I was told that the bus should arrive shortly, so I actually did not have time to call Mark from a pay phone.
There was a problem with buses -- my bus never came. Therefore, I boarded a slightly different bus (my original bus was an express to Cambridge, but it came so late that the bus that I boarded would arrive to Cambridge before my bus even with local stops out of the way).
Since I had to reach Mark somehow, I decided to risk using the phone that my professor gave to me. I took an exciting class in the Spring in which we programmed in Python on Nokia phones. The class was "Pervasive Human-Centric Computing" and it involved writing programs for highly-mobile devices, such as mobile phones, PDAs and crickets (indoor-location devices). At the conclusion of the class I asked my professor if I could borrow the phone to use in Europe since I had no other quad-band handsets. The professor allowed me to borrow the phone under one condition that I would not use the class-issued SIM card and would use my own SIM card (which I planned to purchase upon my arrival to Cambridge). However, when i boarded the bus to Cambridge, I had not yet bought an UK SIM card, so I had to use the US SIM card to call Mark. Yeah. Not a nice thing to do, but I had no choice. I did not want Mark to feel that I did not care. He is such an amazing person. Besides I thought that if I could keep the conversation under a minute, the charges would not be that large.
I was Staying at Mark's college in Cambridge. He was a student at one of Cambridge University colleges, the Sidney-Sussex College, which is right in the middle of the town on Regent Street. It turned out to be a really convenient location, close to other major colleges (King's, Trinity, etc...) and close to shops and pubs.
The first thing that I wanted to do was to get a new SIM card. I was feeling guilty to my professor that I used some of US minutes in UK, so I wanted to avoid doing that again. Mark and I visited various phone career shops, but none of them would offer an International SIM card at a reasonable rate. I wanted a SIM card that would work in both UK and in Europe, but at every place they told me that I would have to buy a separate SIM card in Europe, and I could use UK card but at higher rates per minute in Europe. I went ahead and bought the T-Mobile SIM card. Shortly after I sent a text message to Tina, a friend of mine whom I knew from the summer before (we were in California together), and on who I had a short-lived crush. I knew that she already had a boyfriend (in Cambridge), but I still wanted to see her as a friend.
Later in the day we all finally met. I invited Mark to come along with me to the dinner at Trinity dining hall. There were a handful of CME students in our group, and I knew some of them already. We all decided to go punting the day after.
After the dinner in the Harry-potter-like dining hall at Trinity College some of us stuck around in Tina's room and played Monopoly until later into the evening.
Then I thought of going to the BeerFest and try out the fine English beer and ale. Mark and John (his best friend) were already there and I believe more drunk than me =). i was totally sober. The beer fest was awesome. There were many booths with kegs behind them offering different varieties of beer. I rented a beer mug and then paid like 1-2 pounds (1pound = $2) for each fill of the mug, depending on which beer I selected. Too bad I arrived within the hour to the close time, so I did not get to try many varieties of beer. Mark lost his prized MIT brass rat that evening at the fest. We joked that he lost his ring of power and might. Although the event staff tried to help him find the rat, he still does not have one anymore. I hope he got a new one to renew his power.

The next day the weather was perfect. It seems that I bring clear skies wherever I go. It was cloudy and rainy not long before my arrival.
I saw Jess Lam at King's. She was as adorable as always and we had lunch and she gave me a tour of King's College. I feel so lucky to have great friends. Jess' room is huge! It looks like a room from renaissance with (I think) oak doorframes, oak bookshelves, probably oak or redwood table. I am probably making this up, but the wood looked pretty nice and expensive to me. The room reminded me of a scholarly study room. I also saw the King's library and some of other King's students cramming for the tripos exams. there was certainly an aura of ancient-ness. Everything looked old but in good shape -- boooks, bookshelves, caged windows, desklamps.

The weather was perfect and despite the fact that some Cambridge students had to prepare for the finals (I timed my trip to be in town right after Tina was done with her finals), many CME (Cambridge MIT Exchange) students came to go punting. I saw Arjun! We rented two punt galleys. It was awesome.
Punting was awesome. Tina originally planned to punt to Grantchester, but it would take all day, and we only started punting late in the afternoon. So we had 2 boats, and the 2nd boat was pretty slow because the Cam river was packed with other boats and they had difficulty navigating hen there are many boats that can block your path. At one point we encountered the river lock (the water level was higher than where we started from), so we had to climb out of our boat and pull it on rolleys to the upper river. It was pretty cool to experience. There were other boats who used the same rollers to descend into the lower river. They would release the boat and let the boat roll down and land on the water. Kind of like a roller-coaster ride. where you ride a log down the water slide and land in the water.
The next morning I had a flight that departed at 6am from a different London Airport. This meant that I had to catch a bus as early as 3am to Luton. I had already booked a flight -- it was an EasyJet flight to Paris. EasyJet and RyanAir are two low-fare airlines -- my EasyJet flight costed me about $60 (after taxes and airport fees). I did not think about how tired I would be on the first day in Paris, but I felt that my urge and desire to see the most beautiful city in the world (I was not sure that Paris was most beautiful city in the world just yet) was greater than my tiredness. After a 1-2hr flight I landed at Paris Charles De Gaulle International Airport. EasyJet is pretty cheap, so it was no surprise to see that the terminal was a cheap warehouse as well. So much for glass and modern-architecture terminals. More to come in next blog...

flight from Boston to London

Virgin Atlantic is an amazing airline! Their seats recline comfortably -- although I was sitting in the last row, there was ample of space behind me for my seat to recline almost fully. When you recline your seat, the seat pad also moves forward, giving you a sense that you are more of lying down. Also, the padding on the seats is closer to leather than on most other airlines.
Another cool thing about Virgin Atlantic planes is that they have almost complete home entertainment system. There are TV screens in the back of every seat, and they are larger than screens on any other airline. As far as I can remember, we could choose from a collection of more than 50 movies, we could watch some TV shows (not live), or play games either by ourselves, or with any other passenger on the same flight. The controller was sort of like a handset and could double as a game controller (think wii-sized controller). The service is excellent too, food was nice, but not superb. If you had to choose any flight between U.S. and London, choose Virgin Atlantic!!!!

EUrope trip recollections

Everyone has a dream that they would like to achieve at some point in their lives. For me, one of these dreams was to visit Europe and see the snow peaks of Alps. I wanted to do so before my graduation from MIT, and it seemed like an impossible task at first because of time constraints and enormous workload, but after some careful planning, I was able to choose classes that have no finals for the spring term before my graduation. The graduation itself was 3 weeks away from the last day of classes. This gave me ample time to tour European sights. Originally I wanted to come with a friend or more friends, but most people I know either had finals, or already made other plans , or did not have money. I don't mean to sound like a rich guy -- I am not, I just happened to save money from my past internships with the purpose of using it on this trip.
After the unsuccessful attempt to sign up friends to come with me, I resorted to plan B. I thought that I would tour europe alone, by myself and visit some of my friends on the way. I had some friends studying at Cambridge University in UK, a friend who lives and works in Heidelberg, Germany, a friend in Munich, a couple of friends in Zurich. So I carefully planned a route that would include these stops. I talked to some of friends online to make sure they had time to meet with me. Some of them offered me to stay at their place.
My initial itinerary was:
Boston
Cambridge, UK/London (2 days)
Paris, France (3.5 days)
Strasburg, France (1 day)
Heidelberg, Germany (2 days)
Munich, Germany (3 days)
Zurich, Switzerland (3 days)
Neuschwastein Castle, Switzerland (1 day)
Interlaken, Switzerland (2 days)
Zurich, Switzerland. (0.5 days)
Fly to Boston from Zurich
I wanted to visit a romantic town after Paris -- a town on the Rhein, Strasburg would fit that profile perfectly, but that meant leaving Paris on an overnight train a night earlier as opposed to traveling during the day and seeing the French landscape. Dan (a friend in heidelberg) suggested that I skip strasburg altogether and just come to Heidelberg (which he believed was a town as romantic as Strasburg). This made me wonder if I could take a high-speed train from paris to Heidelberg, but there were no direct hi-speed trains during the timeframe I would be there. The only fast service would connect Paris and Koln (Cologne) in Germany via Brussels/Belgium. Unfortunately, my Eurail pass only covered three European countries: France, Germany, and Switzerland. This would mean that I would have to pay extra for just whisking through Belgium. The train would be nice -- it is a high-speed Thalys train departing from Nord terminal with a transfer to high speed ICE (Intercity Express) train in Germany from Koln to Heidelberg, direct. That would mean traveling north and south again. I decided to just take a slower EuroCity train in the east direction to Karsluhe from Paris-Est terminal with a short ride on ICE train from Karsluhe to Mannheim, and then on a regional S-Bahn commuter train from Mannheim to Heidelberg. This sounds like a lot of hassle, but was cost-effective at least. I wanted to fit at least one high-speed train into my traveling itinerary. A short ride on ICE would satisfy that wish.
Then it came time to plan train travel from Heidelberg to Munich and from Munich to Zurich. I planned to travel alone, but Dan said that he would be happy to accompany me to Munich and perhaps to Zurich as well. We both had friends in these two cities, and Dan wanted to visit some of them. This was perfect! I finally ahd a travel companion! No more lone rides and no more struggling to speak German. Bitte?
I also decided to take the trip to Neuchwastein Castle out of my schedule. Dan said that it resembles Cinderella Castle in Disney World too much and that there would be too many tourists there. Heidelberg has its own castle which Dan said is Romantic and should satisfy my desire to see a Bavarian Castle that would be nested deep in the mountains. Well, Heidelberg Castle is on the hill, not near any mountains, but a trip to Neuchwastein would mean a deviation from my planned route (it was in the other direction from Munich than Zuerich, and would involve taking a train and then a bus). As much as I wanted to see the Cinderella castle, I ultimately decided to follow Dan's advice.
I always wanted to visit Geneva, but it was not possible for me to squeeze it into the 2.5 days of my trip. This would mean shortening some of my stays, and all of other cities and places deserved more stay time than Geneva. I mean there's nothing so special in Geneva, perhaps a view of Mont Blanc and the U.N. When I went online to find flights from Boston to Europe and inside Europe, the trip from Geneva to London was cheaper than a ticket from Zurich to London. It was costing like $63 for a one-way trip. However, because I took too long to decide, the price went up to $113, nearly double the original price. The Zurich ticket rate also went up. So I ultimately decided to take a late afternoon train from Interlaken to Geneva and then fly the next morning. This would give me some time to tour Geneva late at night and then early in the morning. I thought that a stroll on the lakefront would be enough.
I have made other changes to my itinerary on the fly while in Europe in response to environmental conditions, but I will talk about them later in my blog. The Beauty of Eurail Pass is that you can use it on any select number of days during the 2-month period. I bought a 6-day 3-country Eurail Pass which would allow me to travel on train on any 6 days within the months of June and July. I could jump on any train on any day without having to buy tickets beforehand. This turned out to be a good investment of time and money. I highly recommend getting select eurail pass if you are on tight budget and plan to travel a lot by train within a certain timeframe and would not like to wait in lines to buy tickets. Eurail Pass gives you a lot of flexibility! Youth flexiSelect pass offers amazing savings for people 25 years or younger.

My final itinerary became:
Fly from Boston to London
Cambridge, UK (2.5 days)
Paris, France (4 days)
Heidelberg, Germany (2.5 days)
Munich, Germany (3 days)
Zurich, Switzerland (3 days)
Interlaken, Switzerland (2 days)
Geneva, Switzerland (1 day)
Fly to Boston from Geneva

More time in Paris!
So I had to buy a lot of tickets.
Round trip plane ticket from Boston to London Heathrow direct on Virgin Atlantic (~$610)
Bus ticket from London Heathrow to Cambridge central bus station (bought on site)
Bus ticket from Cambridge to London Luton Airport (bought on-site)
One-way flight from Luton Airport to Paris DeGaulle Airport on EasyJet ($60)
train ticket from CDG airport to Paris Nord terminal (~$10) (bought on site)
EuRail Select 6-day Youth FlexiPass (France-Germany-Switzerland) (~$310)
one-way flight from Geneva to London heathrow on British Airways (~$113)
Here is the link to the mapped route of old itinerary:

View Larger Map
and new itinerary:

View Larger Map

More to come, including my recollections at each of the places that I visited.