Travelling business class with Qatar Air

I took membership of the Qatar Air Frequent Flyer program. I flew with Qatar last time. So I had gathered points. This time when I flew to Lahore, I had gathered the required 10,000 points to upgrade half of my return flight to business class (from Lahore to Doha), although this cost an extra 25 Euros. Well, the upgrade was worth it. First up, I was spared the check-in queues at Lahore airport and was checked-in at business counter. Then I was given a voucher, with which I discovered that there is a VIP Lounge at Lahore airport with free snacks, drinks and tea. There were PCs with Internet and a large TV. They informed the guests when their boarding started. I was also boarded prior to the queue. The seat in the plane was very large and had a multi-function remote control which provided a massage and could be fully to a bed. The meal was served in clay crockery and there was a large variety of drinks. The personal TV screen was also big. The blankets were thicker and they also provided eye-cover etc. There were disposable tooth-brushes and tooth-pastes in the washroom, though the wash-room size was same as Economy :)

Towards the end of flight, the head-hostess went to all the guests individually and asked about the journey. Then the pilot went to each passenger and chatted about their destination and invited to travel with them again. To me he informed of the Berlin Film Festival. From Doha to Munich, I traveled in the usual Economy class. However, only this time, the Economy cabin seemed too small and the meal too less presentable :)

I then realized, how just a few hours of travel in a different class made me very uncomfortable in the regular class people; what kind of mind-set would it be producing in the people who regularly enjoy that upper-class facilities, and some of them claim to represent us.

Trip to Nuernberg - trial place for hitler's generals

Some time ago, the university took us on a trip to Nuernberg in eastern Germany. It is a big and old city with the city center enclosed in an oval city wall with castles, forts and watch towers. Much of these is still preserved. A river runs in the middle. It was a three day trip so we had plenty of time to see around. The King's castle has been excellently renovated and converted into a youth hostel. This is thus one of the most beautiful youth hostels of the country and this is where we stayed. It is located at one end of the city wall, high up a hill. The first day we wandered down from the castle into the city and went through the city center to the other end of the wall and back. We also went to the 3-D cinema there to get the schedule of their shows.

Second day, after breakfast, we were taken to a museum to learn about the history of the city through models and see the life of kings there. Then we went looking for a market of Turkish residents. Once there, we found restaurants and shops of Turks everywhere. We are roasted chicken from one shop and prayed in a mosque. We also went to the 3-D cinema to see a small 4-D animation where they violently shook our safety belt laden seats.

On third day, we were taken to the parade grounds outside the city, where Hitler used to gather and display his military strength. It was a very big stadium where about 500,000 people gathered every year before the second world war. There we walked on the long parade road, a large portion of which was a bridge over water. Then we saw the unfinished building which Hitler was building to become the largest of the World. There was also an audio-visual museum about the complete history of Hitler's rise and fall. Even two hours were not enough to go through it completely.

Trip to Oslo, Norway

A few days back we 5 friends made a trip to Oslo, the capital of Norway. We bought return tickets of the cheapest airline "Ryan Air" for only 15 euros each. A combined room in a hostel in the center of the city was booked for about 20 euros per person. It was just a two day trip with one night stay. The airline Ryan Air offers such cheap tickets across Europe as it operates from non-regular airports far from big cities. The airport we were to fly from laid about a two hour drive from Frankfurt main airport. So we traveled there in a friend's car. We then took about a two hour flight to an airport in Norway from which it was a two hour bus to the Oslo city. This bus costs 40 euros for a return trip to Oslo.

Temperature in Oslo was not much below that in Germany, but strangely we felt extremely cold there. We reported at the "Anker" hostel at 11 am as required but they told us that check-in starts at 3 pm. Since we had the accommodation in city center, we didn't have to travel on bus or tram. We could go to the tourist places by foot. There were lots of Pakistanis on the streets. You could hardly walk for ten minutes without seeing a Pakistani. They were employed everywhere, from restaurants to security. The day was very short as Maghrib (evening) started at 3:15 pm. It is a city of just 500,000 people but it looked much more than that during the day (Wednesday). We saw the king's palace, Nobel peace prize building (where the ceremony was to be held on the coming weekend) and the (small) port. We also elevated to the 34th floor of a hotel to see the city. There were zebra-crossings on the road, but with traffic signals :) People were frequently breaking those signals and traffic had to stop even on green signals because of that.

One pleasing thing was that everybody could speak English, even on the streets and in shops. The old people could also communicate in English. We met only one old women and a couple of forigners who couldn't speak English. The most disturbing thing were the prices there. We were happy to receive about 5 Kronas but were startled by the prices even in the super market. A mere sandwich bread costed about 2-3 euros; 5-6 times more than in Germany. A small bag of chocolates candies costed about 10 euros.