Canvas of Random Thoughts: Bidi on the streets of Nurnberg

Being 25 and acting like a kid requires a lot of efforts. Specially when you are in a distant land where every word worth its money starts or ends with a Z and has Z in the middle to supplement the effect, it takes a lot of effort to throw out the composure of a mature person and do things that you always wanted to do as a kid(more about it later in the post). The scene was in Deustchland or more commonly Germany which I visited last weekend thanks to the fact that one of my project mates had been sent there much against his wishes of leaving Paris. So his double room in the hotel was the perfect abode that I required for planning such kind of a trip and ensuring that I need not pay much. Well it is a seperate story that the way I am draining out all the money from my BNP Paribas bank account, that I might soon have to sing on the streets and make people pay me money for shutting up the horrible cacaphony. I am pretty sure that if the darconian FERA was still in practice in India, these guys from the law enforcing bodies of India would surely have caught up with me to help me save some euros. So last friday at the holy hour of 1700 I escaped from office with tickets in hand for Germany. The holy hour of 1700 is just another holy hour including the holy hour of 1800 where leaving office is considered a henious crime. If only my manager would have seen me, he would have had a fit. I reassigned work here and there much against the protest of other lesser mortals and headed straight to Paris East to catch my train to Frankfurt with that big bulky bag that one of my roommates Sayee had given to me. It was a seperate story that the bag looked dead bulky if you put in just 3-4 T-shirts. So with the bag and the big fat 7th edition of Harry Potter in hand, I reached the Paris East station not before bumping my bag into some unsuspecting souls and getting to hear a mouthful of obscenities in French. I had a window seat and unlike others who appear real casual about not getting one, its an honest confession that I am really thrilled when I am given a window seat. Incidentally the person beside me, a German with a blonde moustache (man it was damn scary) also had the 7th Harry Potter in his hand. A father of two, he convinced his sons to solve the Sudoku while he glanced through pages of the Harry Potter. The German versions of the super fast trains unlike the Belgian versions or the French versions have a display that gives all kind of nasty informations in four languages and also shows the speed at which the train cruises. Soon we were cruising at close to 307 kmph. I mean imagine the shock of a poor guy who used to do a 12kmph on a standard blue and white bus of a specific company on the mother of all higways Hosur Road way back in Bangalore, being hurled forward towards Germany at 307kmph. The train journey on board the DB(DeustchBahn) ICE(Inter City Express) was worth every euro spent on it. And it did give me a chance to plan the acting like a kid stuff when I saw that the driver's cabin was only one glass partition away from the passenger seats.

An ICE

The next day after a sleep of less than 4 hours me and Anirban set off on yet another ICE journey (this time sitting in the cafe onboard the train sipping Bavarian beer) to the beautiful city of Nurnberg known for its castel, its famous Nazi parade grounds and the famous Nazi trials is a cute little city with a lot of things to see. The churches are old and really impressive with the typical gothic structures. They looked like the famous Notre Dame church of Paris. The insides of the church were serene and quite and the sunlight created amazing patterns when they passed through the tinted glasses. After going up the stairs and down the escalator and losing track close to 5 times we were finally able to land up at the tourist information centre of Nurnberg. The small old town with all its sceneic attractions finally of its fountains and the weekend markets, the churches and the museums, the town hall and the excise house finally lands you up at the foot of the castle which houses a museum too. It seemed to be a strange place with more museums than public lavatories on the street. The castle was small and typically German. The tour was of no help as it was also in German. There were hardly 5 people including us two who wanted the English version, rest all seem to have a fair idea of how german was spoken. The most impressive feature of the castle was the watch tower from which the whole city was visible and the well that ran down 305 metres deep into the ground. There were candles placed on a plate with the help of a pulley which were hoisted down to show the depth of the well. We had a Thai lunch in a Bavarian restaurant and sipped down Bavarian beer out of those huge glasses which store more than 500 ml of beer at one go. It gave me no doubts as to why Germans looked as big as boulders and had bellies as big as a 15 months pregnant cow. Post lunch we headed off towards the Nazi parade grounds on board a tram not before running into a store that was selling stuffs that looked very much Indian. And I was rather bemused to find the store selling packets of bidis at the exhorbitant price of 3 euros per packet. The guy from the store with his huge blonde eyebrows explained how bidis made in India were hot favourites in these parts of Germany. Considering the margin that one can gain on this kind of a business, I would have to look no further if I want to start a business. I would be happy enough to import crates of Dum Dum biri at around Rs.1 per packet and sell them at a whooping 3 euros per packet in Germany. The Nazi parade grounds were kind of scary and bore witness to the acts of Nazi. The guided tour of the rooms showed the story of the rise and fall of Nazism in Germany. It was a real pity that had ended in the trial and hanging of Nazi leaders in Nurnberg. After having another round of Bavarian beer and the famous sausages from Nurnberg we set sail again for Frankfurt on board another ICE. And this is where I turned into a complete kid much against the muted protests of Anirban. We had landed up seats in the front row right behind the drivers cabin and every bit of me was interested in landing up into the driver's cabin for once and seeing how they ran the ICE at that huge a speed. Suddenly out of nowhere there were two kids accompanied by their father, who had asked for permission from the train manager entering the drivers cabin. And seeing them go inside I felt the compelling need to go inside the cabin all the more taking grip of me. And finally I asked the ICE driver if I could make my way inside the small cabin and he readily agreed. And thus was fulfilled a dream to be inside the drivers cabin of a train, and since the train was running at around 250kmph, it was all the more exciting to be on board. The driver told us how the throttle was handled and which was the brake and the horns etc. It was 15 minutes of pure ecstacy at the end. Later on I realised that even the drivers feel bored and are happy to show people the tricks of their job rather than sit straight for more than 4 hours and gaze ahead on the tracks. After all even they need some entertainment which they get thanks to unsuspecitng souls like us. Sunday was spent in roaming Frankfurt which incidentally has nothing that interesting except for a boat ride on the river Maine and a metro that runs underground before suddenly appearing out of nowhere on the road and even following traffic signs. A metro on the streets is something that I have never encountered in any other city of the world. Monday morning saw me boarding another ICE and as a co passenger I got a very good looking German girl who seemed to know every language in the world. On the way she was seen reading an English fiction, which gave way to a German one before landing up on to a French guide about Paris. Talk about being multi linguistic!!