German Chronicle 1

Hmm, so how do i start....well maybe with my scary trip to the airport in Blore. There was this major accident near command hospital and a huge jam on airport road ( whats new with that ?? ) ... I had to check in a hour before the flight departed... i was really worried abt mx check in whn micheal shumacher aka my dad chipped in riding like a man possesed and going into roads which themselves didnt know they existed... and finally we were there ... aah wht a relief.. i would be flying to Germany after all.. ( FYI Germany was the first country my dad travelled to and after doing my Electrical at UVCE just like him it was sort of deja vu for my mom,,hehe)

The Luftansa boing 747 is really small plane comapared to todays jumbo planes...It was a really boring flight with even more boring comapany... with all that bland food and the stoic air hostesses I really started appriciating our good old Jet airways...nothing to beat Indian hospitality....believe me guys after seeing stuff here I vouch you wont get better service than that anywhere in the world.

Landed early morning in Frankfurt and we had to reach a city called Mainz which is around 25 km from Frankfurt...so we caught a taxi..... a Mercedez Benz !!!! Can u believe it.... every other taxi here is a Merc...I was so eleated i felt like I shd pull my window down and yell that I was in a Merc..hehe..anyway out we headed into the worls famous highways of Germany, the Autobahn..with around four lanes for one side traffic itself imagine how fast the traffic moves there... the car was so silent and smooth I felt we were proababaly doing a 80 or 90 ....I just glanced at the speedometer and i sort of gave out a short yelp which made the taxi driver slow down and ask me if i was alright.... we were going at 175 kmph !!!!!!!!!! man now i know the differnce between a santro and a merc...It sort of amazing to see all the cars out here and all pure German..Mercs, audi, Vokeswagon, BMW..and the others like Renault, Nissan , Ford, Skoda, Toyota,jaguar, porche, volvö.... boy I am running out of breath... u do find an odd Ferrari or an Alpha Romeo....but nothing is more facinating I think than the taxis :)

We checked into the gunewig Bristol hotel ( we had planned to keep shifting hotels to get a taste of all of them ..right now I am in the Hilton Mainz)... first thing that struck me was the bathroom. It has no water outlet on the floor.. so to taka bath one has to get into the tub..i tried to sit in it,... but it was so short that half my legs were out of the tub... man was i looking stupid in the mirror or what !!! anyaway I decide to use the shower instead, but still i had to stand in the tub cause i couldnt do it on the floor... man,what a dumb country !!!!

The two things which srtike u first here are the cleaniliness and the silence.. It is so clean that even after wearing my shoe for a week I havent polished it cause it still looks new and polished .It was sun day morning whn we first ventured out and the roads were like as noisy as a cemetry..it was so silent u could almost here urself breathe...it was only ater we came to know that on Sundays everything is closed everywhere in Germany...nway had no other choice but to adjust to the silence.. reminded me of Kamal Hasan recoding the noises of the theatre to help hin sleep in Pushpakaviman ... hehe :)

I am the tallest in my whole family circle and have always felt happy about it. But the moment i set my foot on this country I felt like i was the shithole of evolution.... these ppl r so damn tall that I am sure the temperature near their faces would be a degree lesser than mine... even the women r so tall and to insult to injury thex wear bloody four inch heels..i hv to select size 'M' for my clothes.. if i select the biggest size the XXXL here ..it sotra looks like a night gown for me...man am I waiting to come back home and feel tall again !!! Not only ppl r the women tall here but also ugly.. seriously Germans shd be the ugliest women on the earth.. they such rotten skin, huge build, sad hair and old wrinkled faces...u really cant make out if the woman with the child is his mother or grandmother..and there r really no norman sized women .. either they hv a figure like Caludia Schffier or Queen Latifa... there is no mid size here mate... no chance..


Mainz is a real beautiful city, quite medival and laid back. It is situated in the south west of Germany on the banks of the river Rhine..sort of Mysore and Bangalore...lotsa ppl i think choose to settle here or retire to get away from the hustle and busltle of Frankfurt. The main city center has a huge theatre ( read opera house ) and cathedral. There are like a milion shops in and around... but the stupid thing is they close down all shops by 5 and by the time we return from office all we can manage is window shopping...anyway i dont think i can shop much here cause they seem to hv only shops for ladies garments...u do hv some for men but the clothes for ladies is really awesome.. the colours specially are very different from back home.. very sort and nice..but gERmany is shit expensive,, after thex joined the EU and the euro came into circulation prices hv shot up skywards and there are a lot of ppl actually moving out of the country. there a lot of pakis here as taxi drivers and they keep cribbing abt it alll the time.

The parks here really a sight to watch. Lush green grass everywhere... spring is round the corner..the trees here are blosoming with a strange coloured folwers which i feel is a combination of white ,light pink ( read not peach !!) and lilac..( oof i bet there is no name for it). The kids here r really adorable ..esp with all that cycling gear on them,,ahh now that reminds me, ppl use the cycle here a lot..mainly to keep fit i guess. they r like total fitness freaks..u can see them jogging at 6 in the morn , 1 in the afternoon ..8 at night... sort of reminds me of Rahul bose in Engligh August..

I am here for a month at the IBM office at mainz..it is a huge campus and it had a hard disk manufacturing plant here which is now closed..the cool thing is that everyone has two system..one thinkpad and the other a normal comp with "! inch monitors....looks lika TV in front of u..the strange thing is that there is no concept of cubicles at office to which we r so used to..there r these huuuge tables which is shared by only 2 ppl...man if u had such a thing back home in India we would need half of the buildings of blore..anyway there a huge change of work culture that it takes some time to sink in.. ppl come in early to office....realy early.. like 7 45 in the morning...man thats ,like mid night for me back home.but thex leave by 6 or 6 30. there r no long coffee breaks... coffee now that reminds me.. THERE IS NOTHING FOR FREE IN HERE.. u hv to pay for every cup of coffee in office....not only in the off. its everywhere... u hv to buy water.. anf hell to pass water also u hv to pay in every god dammn place..... I am surviving on French Fries here and ketchup is not free..at the same McDonalds or KFC back home at India i cant imagine buying my ketchup or paying too pee !! anyway I getting to know the kinda work Indian IT skills now.. these Gemans were a huge let down.


Anyway there is too much to write which i dont think i can do it in one mail...my thinkpad's battery is almost dead.. anyway Till then take care and have fun.....