My second trip to Deutschland

I went to Germany in Jan 2007 for some project work and after that project got over, I was shifted to some different domain and I thought that it will take long when I will get my second chance to go to abroad, but time passes very fast and came the time when I was again to go there for some project work. This travel was planned for the month of May-2008.

I was feeling agog for this travel since I had completed a basic level german course and was highly confident that I will be able to use it for some very basic conversations and also wanted to get practical experience of german language. Also, by this time since I had already been involved in three projects, I was knowing much more number of persons in Germany than I knew last time. Again being bit experienced, I was also having more confidence about my work. But the most exciting part was that the travel was scheduled to be in the month of May and I really wanted to see how the same land which I saw full of snow looks in Summer.

After all the required preparations and similar stuffs, I was ready for flying. I was not feeling nervous like last time since all of that had gone with the last travel. The flight journey as expected went fine and finally I was in Munich. On the flight, the hostess asked me what drinks to serve and I replied in German, to which she was astonished as she didn't expected a German reply from me. This made me more confident about using German language. After landing at Munich, I went to the Isar Hotel and occupied my Zimmer (room). After taking a rest for some time, had something to take care of the hunger and then went to see the outside view. It was looking very different than what I saw in my last trip. There was greenery everywhere and the sunlight had spread everywhere. At around 6pm, it was giving a feeling of around noon !!!

Next day I went to office, met the colleagues and occupied my cubicle. I left office in evening at 7pm, but it was still looking like 3pm in india. I went to look at some shops and then for dinner. I returned at around 10pm and still some sunlight was visible. First time I was seeing sunlight at so late hour of the day. Days were going fine there and it was not so much of work load as last time. I got some time for planning sight seeing and there were also 2 extra holidays in May in Germany. I visited Neuschwanstein, Berchtesgaden, Munich, Salzburg and Werfen ice caves. Each one of these places was better than the other. Another point to mention is that I travelled to all these places alone.

Since there was no per-diem option available, and the meal expenses was to be borne by TI, I used to eat a lot. I didn't feel like I am in a foreign country as I used to have a proper dinner everyday at one of the Indian restaurants nearby. I used to get Indian flavor vegetarian food there. On my previous travel, I was unaware of this restaurant and hence used to eat some stuff just for the sake of eating. Also this time, I used to pick up some chocolates/soft drinks from the cafeteria often as it was not to be paid by me. So from food side, this travel was very good.

Now come to experience with the German language. Whatever I had learnt in German was not even an iota of what I need to make proper use of it in Munich (because of difference between standard and bavarian language). I tried to understand what people are talking, but it was completely futile effort. Coming to positive side, this helped me a lot. I could understand the numbers properly and this was a big help as sometimes people will tell "catch this number bus" or "bus will come at this time", etc. Even small, broken sentences along with hand language served to get help from people who don't know English. The humorous part in one of these encounters was that someone asked me some question in English and to show-off that I know German, I started replying in German and that guy after listening everything says that he doesn't know German !!!

Finally it was the time to return back. My return flight was from Munich to Delhi as I had planned a week of vacation at Delhi with my maternal uncle and his family. I also had a plan of meeting old friends in the NCR region. With all these excitements, I bought lots of chocolates for all and left the country. I reached Delhi and after a week's stay, finally back to Bangalore !!!!