Scribbler on the Move

Note: This post isn’t structured for the hurried voyeur – come back later…major rambling and pointless deviations ahead….don’t say that you weren’t warned..

7^th July, Stockholm,Sweden

The year that flew..

Amsterdam,Rotterdam,Prague,Sofia,Budapest,

Istanbul,Belgrade,Sofia,Bucharest,

Mumbai,Stockholm,Skopje,St.Petersburg,

Vienna,Bonn,Cologne,Frankfurt,Brussels,

Bruges,Ljubljana,Bratislava,Istanbul,Vienna,

Amsterdam,Rotterdam

….and finally Budapest again…

In case you haven’t guessed already, these are the places (in chronological order) that I packed my bags and headed to,in the course of the past year ….If you believe like I do that the individual is largely a product of his or her experiences, then you must agree that the past 12 months couldn’t possibly have left me the same..

As I try to type what this year meant to me, I realize that it’s not the easiest task and the only reason why I egg myself to keep typing is that I know I owe this to myself…a self indulgent catharsis of sorts I guess.

So here goes..

In the beginning...

April – June: Right before a Bulgarian National Conference….People talk to me ..I talk to people ...the GN board seems like a cool thing to do … I decide to apply, multiple interviews and LONG waits follow, selected along with I.R, we celebrate with beer and have no idea what’s going to happen next…I leave for another conference and also start with the visa process to Hungary.. and I am blissfully clueless how much of my precious youth would be spent in embassies and related institutions in the coming year...

These are the Pre Jan 08 days…I figure out that I need visas to both, the Netherlands and Czech Republic.. and then I figure I need to make another visa for Czech Republic to match with the cheap flights.. my learning for life about traveling cheap officially begins…I start saying my goodbyes.. the team goes for coffee to this amazing picturesque café with a panorama like view..and then we go to my favourite Apartamenta.. Emo gives us diaries and we have all the goodbye type talks… Lenny and Emo see me off in the airport with Banitsa and Ayran.. ahhh,I will always love these guys..

Netherlands- multicultural, egalitarian, liberal, flat – literally and figuratively … I liked it .In Rotterdam it was an interesting time spent with the old GN board ….and the people that I would be working with .. Russel Peters chats,eating pizza after the Saturday market, beer with the team in a fancy Rotterdam pub, meeting Pruthvi , and getting to know the people I will be working with .. it was interesting and I was getting ready for what was to come.. or so I thought..