day 2

Well day 2 started of on a much better note. As i had mentioned earlier the hostel where we parked our car and rested, allowed us to freshen up a bit. We then went for some nice cakes and coffee. A few of them had amazing sandwichs. But my aversion to bread kept me away from it. Even after 2.5 years in europe i still struggle to eat a slice of bread. I really dont know why :(.

Anyway after the breakfast we went for a short hike up the falls in Triberg. The falls over there is supposed to be the largest waterfalls in Germany. But it is not single large drop, but a cascade of continuous drops. It was a nice 1hr we spent there. Next was some shopping. We went to buy the cuckoo clock. This place is the origin of the cuckoo clock and they had some amazing collection of clock. We also got a few other souvenirs from the place.

Next we all went to have some authentic German meal. I must say the cheese pasta i had was very nice. It was extremely feeling as well. It was just some goat cheese which was made like noodles and oven backed. It does not sound great, but tasted very cool. This was served to us by a waitress who was dressed up in a very typical style for that region. The food which others had also i suppose were good ;).

Then we made a way to one of many "worlds largest cuckoo clock". I really dont know how many of the worlds largest can be there. But every street claims to have one. All I can say about this one is "it was interesting".



We then started driving towards Fussen. This was the place of our next over night stay. The drive started by taking us back into the town and then once the perimeter of the town had passed, we came upon some amazing landscape. To our luck, it was also snowing ever so lightly.



What we saw next I did not expect. We passed through a canopy of trees, and we came across a landscape which was white. The road was twisting and turning a bit. But some amazing driving by our driver kept us safe.



We stopped for a lot of photos in the place and it was extremely beautiful.

The next stop was lake Titisee. Nestled inbetween a few hills an amazingly relaxing place. This is where we had our coffee break and some amazing black forest. Mind you by this time we were still running late to reach Fussen. But lessons from the previous night were learnt and we called up the hostel saying we would be late. They gave us the codes to enter the building late in the eve and a few more instruction. All the details were noted as there was no way we were going to repeat the mistake.



After this it was a non-stop drive to Radolfzell. This was a place where a friend of one of our drivers stayed. He was a wonderful person. It was his thale deepavali, we we had got him a huge black forest cake. It was really big, but tasted twice as good as it was big. It was really silly of us not to take a photo of the cake, so sorry readers no photos of what i would describe as sluuuuuurp.

Then there was a driver change. Mr. Youth took over from Gym Boy. I was sitting on the back seat and there was serious argument about life and what it means to stay in a foreign country. In the mean time there was huge snow storm kind of a situation on the road. We oblivious to that fact were debating away in a loud and boisterous fashion. But Mr. Youth really drove amazingly well in teh condiotion. Given that it was his first snow drive my respect to him. We did get to fussen safe and sound. The hostel keepers were still there and we all hit the sac as we were really tried from the "no sleep i tell u no sleep" situation the previous night.

The next section would cover about the castle and drive back, with a stop over for some very good food in Stuttgart.

Deepavali 2009

Well deepvali 2009 will be a very special one for a few of us. A few of us from IMEC planned to spend the deepaveli weekend at Triberg. It is a place is the black forest region of Germany. The trip started of a grand not. On Friday we went to pick up the rented car. We haev booked for BMW 3 series or a Merc C Class. We landed at the rental place and it so happened that they had run out of both the cars. So we got an upgrade to a Volvo XC 70. We all set of from IMEC at 530. But by the time we left Leuven it was 630 pm. We had told the hostel ppl at Triberg that we would enter the place by 11:30 pm max. But since we left 1 hour later than the scheduled time, we all got to Triberg only at 00:30. And the hostel was closed. We tried looking for places around, but for some strange reason there was not a single free room in all of Triberg. (FYI Triberg is one of the popular tourist places in the black forest region). So not finding a room was very surprising. The temperature had started to drop in the region. We all decided to put on the winter gear we had taken and go to sleep in the after parking in the parking lot of the hostel. Since we were 5 young men, we decided to keep the windows open, so we dont dies from lack of oxygen. It started to get seriously cold at about 4. All of us could barely sleep, due to the cold and lack of any kind of space to stretch. The next day morning we requested the hostel ppl to let us freshen up. He said we could brush our teeth and answer our morning calls but nothing more. There is a popular saying in tamil which is "Deepavali deepvali-ku dhan kulipeya" meaning "do u take a shower only once every deepvali. In my case, it was one of the few days where i could not take a shower. The deepavali of 2009, will be a special one for hte guys i went on the trip with. More detail of the trip and photo will follow shortly. But in the mean time photo of the car we traveled in.

Leuven

There are many reasons why i like Leuven, Belgium over Singapore. Singapore is what u call a "perfect" place. It can get boring beyond a certain point. But Leuven is not perfect. It is a not as bad as back home, but still there just a bit of chaos in the system here which makes life interesting. The photo below is by no way representation of what you see in here, but it is just a small bit to show that this is not perfect, and you can have "fun" living here :).

Google Street view for Leuven?

Well i had gone to the center to renew my residence permit today. On my way back i chanced upon this car with cameras on its roof. Is this the car for the Google street view. We will know soon i guess.

Trip to Leiden

A drive to Leiden 40euros
A falaafal in pita bread 5euros
A glass freshly squeezed orange juice 3 euros
1 samosa 2 euros
1 softee ice cream at Mac-D 2 euros

The amount of time spent in a car with 5 ppl, the drive to Leiden (it is in Netherlands), and the time spent at Leiden priceless.

There are somethings money can buy. For everything else there are friends to have a good time.

Doordarshan

Recently, after a very long time, i chanced upon the video below. It brought back memories of me sitting with my parents and sister on a small bed in a small house in the then suburbs of Bangalore and watching this video, with me being able to name every single athlete who used to come on the video and my sister passing comments which are just intended to irritate me. So when ever i watch this video far away from home in a foreign country those are the few happy moments which keep you going and act as an inspiration to move fwd. And i really wish i was home in this time of need when i know i will be of some help atleast.

Another one "bites the dust"

Being hit be a chappal or a shoe in India has traditionally been the highest form of protest to express ones anger at a situation.

It all started with the famous Bush incident ( http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=M8GOrc0-Ygg) when a reporter threw both his shoes at then President Bush. we are is election mode in India now. It is now that people can use this situation to express their anger the most. Not only this but also politicians are more in the "open" so they can interact more with the aam jantha. So when the Home Minister Mr. Chidambaram was giving his report on the action the Indian goverment is taking on terrorism and Kasab, a journo took this oppertunity to make a statement on the Tytler case. He flung his shoe at the minister ( http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mwUpKYVRh6U). This morning when i opened the news page, i see that another minister Mr. Jindal was "attacked" by the shoe ( http://ibnlive.in.com/news/pc-finds-sole-mate-mp-jindal-gets-hit-by-shoe/89958-37.html) . I think it has now become a fashion for journos to attack politicians with a shoe. But people never underestimate the thinking of an Indian politicain and what he or she can do to win an election. Because soon you might find a member of the miniter support team sitting in the crowd and throwing a shoe at him. Because being hit by a shoe is also important to the politician, as it shows that he is popular, and the Indain media on the constant look out for TRP (no idea what it means BTW) would blow the situation out of propotion and that perticular poitician will be on all the peoples topics (take this very blog for example). So now waiting to see how many politician adopt this strategy, and waiting to see who is the next one who "bites the dust".