Thursday, April 24, 2008

Rise of Indian Economy - "Die Indische Wirtschaft im Aufbruch"

Recently I had a chance to give a presentation "Rise of Indian Economy" - Die Indische Wirtschaft im Aufbruch at Rotary Club, Hamburg. The presentation was in German ;) Thanks to my mentor Mr. Merkel who gave me this opportunity to highlight the progress of Indian Economy. I always enjoyed giving a talk about India to the westerners simply because of the fact its a great challenge...I highlighted some statistical economic facts from various sources and ofcourse a movie to end with...Thanks to my friends Richa, Bernd Schmidt and also my mentor who helped me to translate the text from English to German, certainly not an easy task to do....My mentor gave me a gift "Die Schönsten Reiseziele Europas" --- "The great travelling guide for Europe"...A book which I will definitely use to the core ;) All in all I was satisfied with the talk and it was a great privilege for me to give a talk to the higher sections of the German society...Vielen Dank Herr Merkel!!

Cheers,
Sathish Kumar S

Monday, April 14, 2008

Barcelona, Spain

It was before 16 years when I was in 4th standard, when I got up at early morning to see the olympic inauguration ceremony in Barcelona, Spain where a person shooted an arrow from a long distance to the olympic torch at the top of the stadium to ignite the olympic torch...it was a dream come true to explore this place and include in my European Voyage...Barcelona one of the top class city I have visited in Europe...amazing architectural buildings, awesome beaches, small little mountains and importantly sexy spanish babes ;)

It was a great group who can make any trip enjoyable, Andreas the American, Juan the mexican and my good friend Veera....we took the bus top tour which covered the important places...the whole city is built by Gaudi...the name which I heard everywhere in Barcelona ;) Museo Picasso, Olympic stadium, FC Barcelona football stadium, Parc Guell, Passeig de gracia are some of the important places worth visiting...The beaches in Barcelona were awesome...with amazing tall sky scrappers, palm trees near the shore...the city looked grand and one of the most expensive cities in Europe...Parc Guell is about 500 m high gives a lovely panaromic view of the city and there is cable car which takes to the top of other mountain where one can get lovely view of the whole city of Barcelona....any cable car ride in Europe is awesome...If anybody wants to know the night and western life, Barcelona is the right place...tonnes of dance floors...the youth hostel which we stayed was amazing...one of the best youth hostel I have ever stayed...the weather stayed really fine...Barcelona has got amazing climate stays warm throughtout the year not as cold as northern Europe....it was warm and sunny all along...

Barcelona Beach:

The beach which we went was really nice, the sun was shining, we started to drink Jägermeister as soon as we entered the beach and it really worked ;)..there were two spanish girls who were playing beach volleyball invited us to play beach volley ball ;) we managed to hang around with them by speaking few spanish words Por favor, Gracias ;) long stretching coastline, amazing weather, Jägermeister, Spanish girls, beach volley ball...couldnt have asked for more... ;) All in all it was a great wonderful trip which will reside in my memory forever...Thanks to Andreas Jägermeister master ;) who made the trip lively and awesome...While returning back we travelled by car from Lübeck airport to Hamburg...was skeptical about Andreas's ability to drive the car after Jägermeister..but he did exceedingly well by driving at 200 Kmph ;) Barcelona definitely the city to be visited in Europe

Cheers,
Sathish Kumar S


Sunday, April 06, 2008

East European Smell !!

Recently I included East European countries in my European Voyage...Hungary, Slovakia and Austria. Thanks once again to Ryan air which provided cheap tickets to Bratislava, Slovakia. The weather stayed great and more importantly all the members of the group were in sync, in the end turned out really well and we thoroughly enjoyed every moments!

Bratislava, Slovakia:

If Ryanair didn't operate service to this place, nobody would care to see this place...;) But thanks to geographical location of Bratislava...Vienna is one hour and Budapest is three hours from it...Bratislava, the capital of newly formed Slovakia situated on the banks of Danube river is the only national capital that borders two other countries (Austria and Hungary)...They use Slovakian Croners...initially thought we would be rich guys with our euros...but not much of a difference in the expenses...nothing much to see in Bratislava except for the Bratislava Castle which is worth seeing..gives panaromic view of the whole city...had a great time walking across the town and ofcourse night life !!



Budapest, Hungary:


Budapest is three hours travel by train from Bratislava and one of the scenic cities in eastern Europe....the frustrating part in Budapest was the currency..they use Hungarian Forint..the denomination starts with 100 and one burger would costs 1000...heheheee I guess everybody would earn millions of Forint every month to lead a life there...I dont see the point of having larger denomination may be just to give a feeling to their people they earn really high amount..but the actual value isnt to be....;) the most striking feature in the city is the Parliament house situated across the river Danube...Buda castle, Szechenyi chain bridge, Fisherman's bastion, the great synagogue are worth visiting...Thanks to weather....it was sunny all along the day...people hardly speak English...Budapest didn't fascinate me much, but worth visiting once on a sunny day!!



Vienna, Austria:

Vienna (Wien), the capital of Austria is a city of architectural buildings, culture, music, theater and opera...quite similar to Munich but supercedes Munich with gigantic buildings...they speak a dilect of German...which is quite different from Germans and Switzerlanders...Schönbrunn Palace, Kunsthistoricsches Museum, Naturhistorisches Museum, Karlsplatz, Austrian Parliament, Stephans dom, Rathaus are worth visiting....we didn't have enough time to explore Vienna to the core but covered the most important places...



All in all, I thoroughly enjoyed this trip, three countries in three days with cheap prices, three different currencies and more importantly we had a group of 8 people who can make any trip interesting ;) Thanks to weather god..she stayed fine all three days...in any European voyage if weather stays fine...50% of the trip is successful....A trip to remember!

Cheers,
Sathish Kumar S