Eurail- We are even now!

There is a general perception that Indian students who visit Europe on exchange program attend classes the least and travel across Europe the most. Well, I have two questions: What took so long for the universities to figure out? And what gave it away?

For my part, having a few years left in the European age limit for youth, I got a Eurail pass for 3 months of continuous travel. When I bought the pass, I had absolutely zilch clue of why I was spending almost a €1000 on the pass. Well, I was already quite confused about how I became eligible for the exchange program in the first place; That moment, figuring out whether the pass was worth the money was beyond me.

Then everything changed when I reached Europe and had to travel by train to the university. Just the reservation charges for a single journey with the discounts of the pass was higher than a reasonable first class ticket for an similar journey in India. God knows what the full fare was!

Anyways, I learnt from the others around here and quickly made up my mind about the purpose of this trip- reaching the 'break-even' on the railway pass. After all, half an MBA should come useful somewhere. Thanks to those endless (and pointless) calculations we all do in the cases, this calculation was pretty easy. We arrived at a conservative estimate of 150 hours of train travel (though 120 could be a better approximation) to reach the supposed break-even.

Equipped with this information, we set out on a 'short' trip. Now, we realize that the place we were in was in the middle of god-forsaken nowhere and reaching human habitations from there thrice would itself give us our money's worth. Could there be happier people than us on earth that day! We were excited. A little too much, in fact. And we went on travelling (train-hopping would be a more accurate description): Copenhagen, Amsterdam, Brussels, Lille, Paris, Munich, Berlin.

Well, I hadn't gotten my vendetta yet, so I traveled further, alone to Marseilles, Bordeaux and Paris again. And after 14 days of hopping around, having made sure I got more than the 1000 I gave, I set out to return home, now even more confused about what I should do next. Do I go all around these amazing places all over again or do I go where there's nothing and nobody?

Well, when I figure something out, I'll make sure you know...



 A more detailed account of my travels and travails are at: knmanish.wordpress.com

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