Butterflies and Hurricanes

“Which was your favourite place in Europe?” they ask me.

“What was the best thing you did?”

“Why don’t you write a travelogue?”

And I just sigh, and smile, and stall before I can give them an answer. The truth is, no matter what I say to them, it will never do justice to what I really felt when I was there. My favourite city? I can’t choose, because each place amazed me in a different way. My best moment? My happiest memory? Writing about it?

It’s all too difficult. It’s almost as daunting as writing my college thesis paper. I can never feel ready.

It’s sad that the once-intrepid writer in me is lurking somewhere in the obscure recesses of my brain, overshadowed by my own self-criticism. It took a healthy dosage of Angus and Julia Stone to inspire my fickle head and my weary eyes to assimilate all my flittering energies to focus on this word document.

Before I even began my journey, I was already sad thinking about the time when I’ll have to come back. I made three trips to the visa office that was over an hour away from my office, I ran around collecting scraps of paper, to get another bit of paper that would allow me to visit an alien country. I knew it then, that this was going to be one of the best trips of my life. And I wasn’t wrong.

Amsterdam in the summer is beautiful, so I had read online. But what I experienced there was better than what I could have ever possibly expected. The city is breath-taking. The alleys, the bicycles, the canals, the boats, the amazingly cool summer breeze, the silence. Oh, the silence.

I remember standing there in awe, as I saw everyone, from men in suits, to grannies in skirts to little kids with their mothers on the backseats riding bicycles. I can sit here and write about those beautiful buildings, and cafes with that amazing food and wine. I can talk about those street artists, the smell of marijuana wafting through the brilliantly colourful, cobbled boulevards, I can talk about the sexual freedom, the street lamps, the foliage, the museums, the architecture, Anne Frank’s house. I can talk about the glorious Zaanse Schans, the village that was no less than a painting, with windmills, ponds, and sheep running amuck. I can talk about it, but here I am shaking my head at how trivial it all seems when I write it here. I cannot choose between the places I visited, but gun to my head, if I had to choose, it will undoubtedly be Amsterdam. Because here, you can experience freedom, in the truest sense of the word.

Prague literally felt like a dream. Standing on the Charles Bridge, lapping up those deliciously lit-up buildings, the cathedral, the king’s castle, the Old Town Square, listening to violinists performing ‘Hallelujah’, was surreal. The magnanimity of the old city, its old world charm, the Vltava river, the haunting gothic statues… it felt unreal. I felt as if I’m another person, in another world, in another form. I couldn’t help thinking about Stroud’s famous djinn, Bartimaeus, and how he had built the bridge and the buildings with his own hands in the 14^th century.

There was something insanely, eerily beautiful about the place. It was the seat of the Roman Empire, it saw the Renaissance, it endured both the World Wars and has withstood all of it for over a thousand years. It is achingly old. Which is why, it shines with the glories, wisdom and stories. It has character. It attracts you, much like that old uncle you couldn’t get enough of, who enchanted you with his stories. With his tales of days gone by, that only his wispy, faraway eyes can explain. Yep, Prague was that old man for me. And I fell in love with it.

Switzerland is beyond description. All I can say is, the hype about the Alps is totally justified. They are magnificent, and they completely sweep you off your feet. We stayed at Interlaken, situated between two unbelievably beautiful lakes. We went to different villages, we went hiking from a place named Mannlichen, to another named Kleine Scheidegg. I can’t believe I’m writing these words here. The cows, the meadows, the smell, the cheese, the chocolates, the cable cars, the snow at mount Matterhorn, the gusts of wind that threatened to blow us away.

I can sit here and explain every little thing in great detail to you. From the moment I sat in my flight, positively jumping with excitement, to the time I came back, lifeless, like a deflated balloon. But I won’t. I don’t have it in me. I can’t describe what it meant to me, what it did to me. I wrote this post with a view to chronologically mark it in the calendar of my blogitude. Yes, I went to Europe. I went to fucking Europe.

God bless kind souls like didi and DJ. Thank you for giving me a lifetime of stories, and a lifetime of memories that will warm up my rickety bones in my cold bed a few decades later.