मेरो फूलबारी

Our Europe visit was possible due to French Cooperation because it provided us scholarship for M SC. in INT. After we arrived in INT, Evry, we had made plan to visit European countries. After collection of information, Bharat and I finalized to visit Italy. In the mean time, Prajwalan, our KEC colleague and currently studying in NTNU, also wanted to join in the trip. Our team therefore consisted of three members.

Accordingly, we planned for 5 days trip to Italy. To make plan concrete, we have taken help from Anusha Didi because she already lived there and visited many places over Europe and Gokarna dai, who is studying in Italy. We decided to visit 4 cities: Milan, Rome, Pisa and Venice. We planned to visit each city for a single day except Rome which was scheduled for 2 days: 1 day for core Rome and one for Vatican City.

We wanted to reduce money. Only one option for this was to book tickets as early as possible. Hence we booked plane for Milan (round trip) 2 months before the scheduled date. Obviously, it was risky since it was on December which, could be interrupted by snow. However, we didn’t care about it. For accommodation we booked the cheapest youth hostels, which are relatively cheaper than hotels. We also booked train tickets from one city to another.

Abha, class-mate of AIT, had arrived Italy in December. She wanted to join our group for the trip. We helped her by requesting one more room on the same hostels where we had booked except in Milan since rooms were already packed. Finally, our team had four members from three different European countries.

On 27th December I had gone to Orly airport, the nearest airport from Evry, to take care of Prajawalan, around 18:00. He had arrived on time. For Prajawalan, the flight was risky since if his flight from Oslo were postponed for next morning, he would miss the whole Italy trip. However, he was verified as lucky guy in the trip.

Day I-28/12/2007

Major activities on the plan for the day were:

• Flight to Malpansa,Milan
• Malpansa to Milan Center
• Places Visit
• Interesting Events
• Kale
• TrainItalia

In the morning, we woke up around 3:30 AM and went for Charles des Gaulle (CDC) around 4:30 AM. We were assisted by Sundar, a Tamil guy who work in CDC, to reach the terminal 3. We took train of 4:55 AM from Le Bras de Fer, the nearest railway station from INT.

We reached CDC on time, the check in had just started. We did check in where Bharat’s perfume was thrown in trace by the policeman coz it is strictly prohibited to take such items unless it is bought in duty free shop at the airport.

Although it was scheduled for 8:15, our flight started on 9:15 AM and reached Milan at 10:30. Although it was Milan, Italy, another country, there was no checking point. I felt that the whole Europe is a single nation and we are taking a local trip within that nation.