"The Layman on a Eurotrip" - Vol 2, Berlin - Hamburg - Copenhagen - Malmo - Stockholm - Goteborg - Oslo - Bergen - Myrdal - Flam - Oslo - Rail Jail

This ironically will be a very non travelogical post because, thanks to Eurail and its grossly inaccurate timetable, till we reached Oslo, we were only at railway stations and couldn't actually visit the places I mentioned so proudly in the title of this entry! So much for plans going berserk. From 11.30 am on Monday morning to 7 am Wednesday morning when we finally managed to set foot on a road in Bergen outside the station, we were successfully held to the confines of various railway stations around Scandinavia. I call it "Rail-Jail". But some of the things to come out of 43.5 hours in 9 trains and 9 railway stations were -
1. I can now rattle off prices of the 5 cheapest burgers and fries at Macdonalds and Burger King, and compare the subtle differences in taste between say Sweden and Norway.
2. I successfully erased any trace of the brahmin in me by eating what Burger King (BK) successfully claims in Sweden "We assure you that our hamburger is made of beef and only beef!". What a decline from the namam days not many years back. I hate this fact.
3. I can even pass blind tests in differentiating between Cheese burgers made in Mac and BK. I totally understand the Operations Management case I studied last years which said "Mac is standardisation, BK is customization". My respect for BK and its tagline of "Have it your way" has gone up hazaar, post the "Terminal"ization I underwent.
4. I totally think India rocks when it comes to pay and use toilets. At one point of time in Oslo railway station, I had to give up a burger I planned to have for dinner to urinate. 10 kroner or 75 rupees for pissing! Indian toilets are cleaner maintained for the 1 rupee they charge.
5. Hot dogs and the way Pressbyran (A supermarket chain) runs is another fascination for me now. Hotdogs are yummy, and the supermarket chains like Pressbyran have this fetish for maintaining store alignment. Walk into any store and you know where to go to find a Coke or say a cigarette. Infact, its standardized across supermarket chains if I am not wrong. It was the same in Lidl in Germany too.
6. Norway is NOT the place to live in - if you plan to save money and return to India or Live a life or Both. So too Sweden. They are SO expensive. Scandinavia also closes shutters and goes to sleep at 6 pm. The booking counters were closed, the information centres were closed, and the LOO closed at 6. We were literally stranded the first time we entered Malmo Railway Station in Sweden.
7. Stockholm railway station has these 2 newspaper boys freely distributing copies of a local newspaper early in the morning. Being unfortunate enough to hit the Stockholm railway station on 2 different days and seeing the same thing happen in front of my eyes - I noticed that the styles of achieving max distribution adopted by the 2 guys were very different. One of them was smiling, singing songs that his IPod was playing and murmuring pleasantries to the hundreds who bustled past him, while the other was using sleight of hand and jugglery skills to attract attention. Whatever it is, I was entertained.
8. The card-game of 28. Thanks to being imprisoned in the station at odd hours and while waiting for the next train to god knows where, I can now say that I learnt and mastered this game in these 3 days. I may not be as good as I am in say our good old "4 cards", but I am getting there.

Makki will tell me there is nothing close to a travelog in this entry, but the 3 days being covered had only trains and train stations in offer, and all the trains are prettu much the same, so nothing much to describe there too...But yeah, there are some things I have tried to convey in this entry. I think there is some MBA level cock thrown in too...But it was entirely unintentional, and don't worry, the next entry will have more tourism.

Till next time...
Tata only