Food and travel with Kanaya

  As you all know that I am vegetarian, I used to survive on corn flakes, mueslis, breads, croissants, cappuccino and some Gujarati snacks that I got from India. I was bored to have the same type of food everyday. After doing an extensive research, I found two restaurants having Indian food on their menu card. One had a buffet food system, available between 12:30pm to 3:00pm, since I had classes till 5pm, I preferred to go to the another restaurant near to the main market of Antwerp . Expecting the increased bill, I ordered a plate of jeera rice and paneer butter masala, which I found worth paying for. While talking to Charlotte, my first friend at the University and my co-researcher of "Social Food Lab"; she expressed her love for Indian food. Another team mate of Antwerp, joined  us in having the Indian cuisine at the Indo-Nepali Restaurant . We ordered some good food and to my amaze, Charlotte loved the thick saucy paste of Paneer Butter Masala, so much that she dipped i

 It was my second day at Antwerp . Fill with excitement and a competitive pressure, I walked down to the University of Antwerp . Direction to reach the class was well depicted on sign boards and A4 size posters. Since, it was the first day we were introduced to each other, introduced to my research guide, Mr.Ramon Pino. We were divided into team, and our team had a blend of Mexico, Switzerland and India, all of us belonged to different subject discipline. Since, in our selection form we shared same interest, i.e; Food; we were clubbed as a team and the research we were going to perform was on "Social Food Lab". My study at summer course and specially on the research provided me an extra angle to explore the culinary taste of Belgium. While interviewing the samples that we selected statistically, I visited few famous chocolatiers of Antwerp, like, "Neuhaus", "Leonidas" and "The Chocolate Line". After my classes were over, somewhere around 5 in the

The weekend was about to start and I had another two days to explore. For the first day, I thought of visiting Antwerp and for the second day, I was a little confused between visiting Amsterdam again or visiting some other city. I decided to explore Paris- City of Love. Late evening I decided to board a Euro-Bus, take a six hour journey and reach Paris. As planned, I reached Paris around 1am in the night, and guess what I had no hotel bookings done, and as I said I had no international internet connectivity on my smart phone. Found a hotel near to the bus station, but  they were full. The main agenda of visiting Paris was to visit one of the seven wonders of the world- Eiffel Tower. So, I decided to walk down the street and reach to the Eiffel. On my way, I bought some souvenirs and found out that the shop owner  hailed from Pakistan. He directed me to board the bus number 7, the last bus to Eiffel Tower. Back in my mind, I thought I have so much time, why not walk and find my way towa

  Before boarding my flight, from Birsa Munda Airport ; I did quite an extensive research upon Antwerp. Historical places, stories behind them, best chocolatiers, best ice-cream parlors and many more. Amsterdam was fun but coming to Antwerp was the main agenda, since I was a part of the summer school course at University of Antwerp. I had one day at hand to explore Antwerp, since my classes were scheduled from the next day. Early morning, I went to the nearest big Mart, picked multigrain -bread, croissant , cherry tomato and hummus dips. I picked a regular cup of coffee went to the Antwerp Station, fetched a map in French and Dutch (Oh Gosh! Maps in English were out of stock). The person standing next to the Ticket vending machine asked me to go the board next to the exit gate, and click a photo of the map printed on the board. I genuinely wanted to hug him, he made my plans execute so easy. Since Antwerp is a small city, finding my way towards Antwerp Zoo was not difficult. Being

  June 2018, it was. I was selected to be a part of Summer Course at University of Antwerp , Belgium. I was extremely proud of myself to represent India in an international level. I was excited , since I would be studying along with students of other countries, and receive first hand experience about their culture. Though I have always lived in a small little corner of Jharkhand, I had that courage and excitement of exploring Europe. Flight tickets, train tickets, hostels everything was arranged by the University. Passports, Visas and other paper work was done. And then I left to Delhi from Ranchi and then after a six hour journey, I reached Schiphol Airport . So, this was my first landing at Amsterdam. I followed the other passengers and led myself to the exit gate. Since, I had sufficient time before boarding my train, I planned to explore the happening city of Netherlands (Inspired from the Bollywood movie, Queen ).  Oh My God! Such a beautiful city, clean water, so many beautifu