Many of my friends have been pinging me on Gtalk with aur, kya chal raha hai yaar (or paale in place of yaar, if it's kaifu) and it gets a little boring sharing my experiences in Germany with all of them individually, so I’ve decided to write a post about it. Also, I twisted my ankle yesterday and to be honest, I can’t really do anything more exciting at the moment. So, here are my initial impressions of Deutschland:
The German People
Germans are often portrayed as hot tempered, callous, beer guzzlers by Hollywood movies (remember Beer Fest?) but in truth they are courteous and amicable people. Yes, they drink a lot of beer but I haven’t yet found a German drunk senseless (Alright, there was a drunken man who had trouble recalling where he lived, but he wasn’t German!). In my relatively short stay here, one thing I’ve noticed is that Germans are very social people; I’ve already been invited to barbeques, dinners, birthday parties, beer parties at pubs and even a classical concert . Thanks Jan, for most of the invitations.
Another aspect of the German personality that I wasn’t aware of is their patience. A lot of my colleagues at the institute have trouble understanding my English but they’ve never shirked away from a casual conversation or a scientific discussion. In Berlin last weekend, during a meeting of Indian Students interning in Germany organised by the DAAD, there were only 3 people serving lunch to 200 plus students. To put things in context, that’s the sort of pressure under which every chotu in an IT mess would freak out and run away back to his village. But a young German man at the vegetarian counter (whose task was even more difficult since he spoke no English) maintained his calm throughout and politely greeted everyone that he served, even a guy from IITK who pointed at boiled carrots and asked if that was vegetarian food (“Vegitarish?”Duh, would have been my reply!). Talking about patient Germans, Hilmar deserves a special mention. He’s a Ph.D. student in my group, who lent me his spare bike for the duration of my stay and being the clumsy idiot that I am, I wrecked it (details at LC). Yet, not only was he cool about it, he also offered me his second spare bike, for the remainder of my stay!
Places I’ve Visited
Before I left, a lot of you joked that I would end up working all the time (which definitely hasn’t been the case) and hardly travel. Well, I have travelled a little and visited some places besides Halle. Although the list of places below is fairly modest compared to the number of places Pari has been to (by the way, he almost got arrested in Poland, bug him a little to get the story), it’s still worth mentioning.
Halle- Serene
Before coming here I was really excited because of the Halle Open (for the non sporty types: it’s a tennis tournament played as a warm up for Wimbledon and Federer generally plays it), but when I got here, Jan told me that there are two Halles in Germany and the other one hosts the Halle Open, :P ! Despite this very unpleasant surprise, Halle is a really nice city, very peaceful and comfortable to live in. I love jogging along the river Saale and loitering in the City Centre with friends.
I’m not sure if Weimar is officially a city or a village, but I’m pretty sure it has fewer people than Connaught Place on a working day; nonetheless, if you look up the list of its famous residents on Wikipedia, it reads like the who’s who German culture. Many famous German artistes resided and did their best work here; Bach, Goethe, Schiller, Hummel and Liszt to name a few. Weimar is also a UNESCO World Heritage Site and I really enjoyed a guided tour through the city.
Berlin is a great place to be if you are looking for an uber-modern metro or a historically fascinating city, imagine Delhi and Varanasi in one! From the Brandenburg Gate to the kaDeWa (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kaufhaus_des_Westens) - the largest departmental store in Europe according to Berliners, second largest after Harrods, London according to Londoners; either way it was colossal(at first I thought it was a castle)- Berlin was the total package! I managed to do some sightseeing during the day and sampled some of the city’s nightlife too and it was all very enjoyable. The whole trip would’ve been even more enjoyable had SP not freaked out when some Norwegian girls invited four of us for... (details at LC again).
Leipzig- Typical Metro
On the day I visited Leipzig, the city was hosting a gothic music festival and it was interesting (read hilarious) looking at people dressed in gothic fashions. I did not have the opportunity to see a lot of the city but it seemed like a bustling metro.
Cultural Misadventures
I have been in Germany for a month now and there have been plenty of exciting times, too many to mention all at once. So, I’ll fleetingly mention 2 things that happened last weekend. I was in Berlin for the DAAD scholarship holders’ meeting. The total number of scholarship holders that showed up was about 220 and since we’re talking of people from Indian engineering colleges, needless to say there were hardly any girls (only 15 to be precise). The DAAD had organised 2 boats for a boat trip in the river Spree (pronounced Shpree) with the entire group split into half. My boat had about 100 boys and 10 girls -of course I was on the boat with more girls- and to any of the people strolling slong the river bank we must’ve seemed like a gay cruise. About ten minutes into the trip a German couple mooned us! Some of us thought of mooning them back, but we decided against it, not because we were shy but because that would have made us look even more like a gay cruise!
The second thing also happened in Berlin, at dinner with some of Jan’s friends. I had many interesting conversations with a man named Tobias who was part of the invited group. After dinner I got up to leave and return to Halle. Tobias also got up to say goodbye, unsure of what was appropriate - handshake or a hug - I extended my right hand and then realised that he had extended both of his arms for a hug. So, I started to extend my left hand for a hug, when he figured out that I wanted to shake hands and started to retract his left hand. The final gesture was a hand shake, with the shoulders leaning forward and the left hand towards the other person’s right arm. Rather than just letting the left hand hang there in no man’s land, I decided to pat his right arm and simultaneously he also made the same decision. Forgive me, if you can’t picture this contortionistic feat, but let me just sum up by saying it seemed like an African-American gang greeting. Though it felt stupid, people told me afterwards that it looked really synchronised.
I’ll write another post about the second half of the trip once I come back. Comments, as always, are welcome and peskily encouraged. Ciao(I am still not saying tschüs).
