Can I call this a Eurotrip?

I think my latest travel can be called a Eurotrip because unlike last time I saw more than just one city. In Feb 2009 I was in the EU and I spent five days only in Paris but this time I’ve been to Munich, Lindau, Zurich, Bern, Luzern and some small towns close to these cities. Getting packed was complicated and I think I’ve lugged around at least 25 kilos on my back all this while. Thanks to all the couch surfing hosts and well-managed hotel bookings, I did not have to carry that load while I was sight-seeing in the cities.

Interestingly, this time all my long journeys have been one-way rides. Here’s a diagrammatic representation of my journey:

After a little drama at the Heathrow airport and some wait, I reached Munich in the evening. The landing at Munich airport was quite dramatic. Until the airbus touched the runway it felt like we were going to land in the middle of a field. Munich airport is quite far away from the city and it took a while to reach Studentenstadt (in English, student city) a region north of the city centre. I was being hosted by a very-well travelled American couch-surfer who was studying in Munich and had started hosting only a few months ago. The time I reached USA had just scored the equalizer against Ghana. So as soon as I off-loaded my bag we went to the bar to watch the remaining match.

So there I sat with my American host and a Bavarian beer in my hand surrounded by Germans who, for obvious reasons, were supporting Ghana. As it turned out, Ghana won the match and proceeded to the quarter-finals. After the match I was tired after a long day, so we sat and had an ice-cream with another couch-surfer and his Indian guest. Although, I had to leave pretty early in the morning, I chatted with my host till quite late and conversations went from family life to European culture to soccer to travelling. She was a very interesting person. My first couch surfing experience was a lot of fun.

Before heading to Lindau the next morning I had a few hours which I thoroughly made use of to see the city centre of Munich. You can see the pictures here. I will write about my travel to Lindau in the next post.