You Never Know Whats Going To Hit You

Dont worry, Im fine and so is everyone else. 

What Im referring to is the shower here in the dormitory shower room. You seriously never know what its going to hit you, with respect ofcourse to the water jet streams. From where I come, the hot water geysers and iron rods are sufficient, so its almost unheard of using a hot water hand shower unless the system is modern and oh-so-cool. Here the system is simple enough, a hot water tap and a cold water tap, attached to a hand shower. 

The challenge is to find the perfect mix of the two, which is close to impossible, throughout the entire duration of the visit at the shower. Here, you'll either get burnt with the hot water or feel a chill almost every time. If you get a nice temperature, be sure its short lived! The shower functions at switching levels of the degrees of the temperature and if you're lucky, you'll figure out the trick. However various and many tricks have been tried, discussed and tested! Its slightly difficult, we're still trying.  

I think more than half the time we spend in the shower, is adjusting the temperature of the hand shower! 

All in a day's (shower) work! 

Mein Familie

So after a long break, we had our German classes. Trying our best to show interest in the class (for we had had a long day in the university), we scraped through quite a bit. But what was exciting was the part where we had to write a paragraph titled 'Mein Familie' or My Family, all in German.

With much excitement, I started the essay, not caring much about the grammar or the sentence structure (which is precisely what we were taught!) , all I wanted to do was write the paragraph! So with smiles and confidence, I wrote whatever I could manage and it read something like this (after the corrections by Frau. Kaiser)


"Mein familie name ist Chakravarty. Meine elten leben in Indien. Mein vater heist ist Aniruddha und meine mutter heist ist Falguni. Mein vater ist 55 jahre alt und mutter ist 50 jahre. Ich habe eine schwester. Ihre name sind Diya und sie ist verheikatet und sie hat ein Baby, ihre name ist Aanya. Ich habe eine Hunt, sein name ist Muddles. Ich liebe mein familie. :) "

translating to

"My family name (surname) is Chakravarty. My parents live in India. My father's name is Aniruddha and my mother's name is Falguni. My father is 55 years old and my mother is 50 years. ( I got the ages wrong) I have one sister . Her name is Diya and she is married and she has a baby, whose name is Aanya. I have a dog whose name is Muddles. I love my family. :)"

Yes, I wrote the smiley as part of the paragraph, I was excited! It was a fun thing to do!


But then suddenly it hit me, the first signs of homesickness.

Grant-ed

As students we are always low on money, not just talking about being in Germany, but in India as well.
But once we got here, it was a different kind of low! Everything was calculated, looked at carefully and then only decided if to be bought or not. In these two weeks, I dont think I have spent too much on myself and the most expensive thing was probably a fresh set of watercolours that I bought.

Down to my last 15 this friday, everyone of us had started cracking jokes on ourselves on how much we would like to see money! Promises were made, icecreams were dreamt of, shoes and jackets were planned, all waiting for that one grant! So when we walked into the bank, to randomly check up on our balance, Srikanth's eyes popped out. The scholarship fee had been granted to us (let the amount not be told) and we all checked and beamed with smiles that reached the eyes.

To celebrate the arrival of our grant, we decided to treat ourselves to a wholesome lunch at a Vietnamese street kitchen, the lunch was delicious and we all ate guilt free, one of the first lunches eaten as such! We further moved onto some window shopping, carefully analysing what we could buy and what would be useless. Window shopping was great, we spend nothing and just felt good about all the money we had!  The evening was spent casually, a beer and packed of chips in hand, we walked around the town late into the night, enjoying the place and soaking everything we could.


Granted were our wishes!

Joggen Joggen

The place where we live is close to a lake called Maschee. The first time I heard it, I wasn't sure of what quite to expect.  We went boating on it once, as part of the International Study Camp Fun Event and ended up loving the place. We walked back home and the three of us decided that we would come back to jog.

Yes to jog. Because thats what almost EVERYONE does around this lake. If nothing else, its inspiring and makes you want to jog along. Whats wonderful is that everyone jogs at their pace, with their partners or alone, of all ages and does it with full dedication. There is a special lane for the joggers to jog and what is more amazing that one jogs along the lake, which is beautiful. The wind is pure, pristine and extremely fresh. Its an experience that how much ever I talk of, will be not enough to explain the beauty. It makes the fitness freak in you want to get up!

In my excitement, I could only take pictures of the place with a low resolution camera, but its worth a look! The plan is to keep jogging and be fit!!

I dedicate these pictures to my dear father, who is a fan of jogging and exercising and for the longest time I know, the one who I look upto for being fit! . He would have loved this place! 

Men & Women

So it would be weird if I, a young 20 twenty something, while in a foreign country, didnt notice how the women and men dressed and looked here. So with no qualms about saying this, the men are very good looking and hot and the women most definitely hotter.

It doesn't surprise me, this observation, after all it is Germany, but in a city like Hannover to find everyone impeccably and beautifully turned out more than anything else is a pleasure. The ladies, from all ages, kids, teenagers, working women, mothers and grannies look wonderful. They carry themselves wonderfully, wearing and carrying things that suit them extremely well. To me it seems they carefully plan what they will wear and coordinate it with the other things that they wear and carry. Its just amazing. Not to sound like a stalker, but I do too end up looking at them (just like the boys). We try our best to not gawk.

Then on the other hand are the men, I fail to understand how can the men be so impeccably dressed and awesomely gorgeous. Full points on the fashion scale and yes, when they begin to talk (in German, which I have a no clue of) I cannot help but stare! Creepy, no, not much! Im just appreciating!

Finally, there is me, I think if there was a Hannover Fashion Police, I would be put into custody on Day 1. With my one jacket and one pair of jeans and neon pink shoes, I think I have already toured half the city. But so what! Its comfortable I tell myself.

So, here is to the beautiful and gorgeous men and women of Hannover.
I now need no more lessons in styling! My observations shall help me ALL my life!





(As I write this post, in parallel, my list of clothes, shoes, bags, coats, dresses, sweaters etc has been made. What well all need now, is just a lil bit of cash to get me through! )

Nina and Gregor

Those are  the first names we read on our German Coursebook for learning the A1 Level of German. We were introduced to our teacher, Frau Heye who made us feel very comfortable and gave us the best first day ever. Full of laughter and games and funny comparisons and pronunciations. She had a way of her own. Petite and sweet, she is reason why I have started liking to learn German. She was also the one who told us for the first time how Nina and Gregor are pronounced.

Nina and Gregor figure throughout the book as part of dialogues and we always have to impersonate them. We throughly enjoyed these impersonations, from hellos, byes, hobby conversations and what not! The reason why it stayed with us is because we enjoyed the lessons and everything within it. That was also thanks to Frau Heye. She was always part of our jokes and laughed along with us when we did and never ever scolded us for getting something wrong.

We have conveniently given ourselves these names, me being Nina (and two more for the other two). Its fun to get back to learning something from the basic, making mistakes and trying hard to get it correct. Its even more fun and satisfying when you write something correctly! Languages have always excited me and Im learning a lot through these lessons, not just about the language but so much more.

Last friday was our last session with Frau Heye, and our faces fell when she told us that. In a long long time, I think I have felt so bad about a teacher not teaching me. She made my mornings so much nicer, with her attempts to know us better and for her to teach us so well.  I think I have learnt from her more than just basic German.

She will be one the first persons who I will always always remember when I think of Germany!

I hope she also remembers us!
Nina always will!

One Week Gone

Its been a week, exactly since we arrived here. And this one week has opened my eyes so much. I'm going to try and share them as much as I can, and the more as I experience and learn.

1. One must always let everyone know how much they mean to you. Parents, friends, enemies, pets, family , country et all. It only makes you feel good and them better, if not more loved.

2. The secret to a happy journey is good company, and good food.

3 . The German way of living, is probably one of the best kinds. People here love what they do, do it with a smile, they believe in working hard and partying harder. Its a wonderful concept of self control and discipline that they work so hard through the week and celebrate the weekend like a festival. Sensitivity and concern reflects in their daily way of living. (More on that later, in detail)

4. Systems work with people and people alone. I think, ideas succeed and fail because of this.
Just an observation.

5. Its never too late to learn. Anything.

6. Boys can be very helpful and show emotions as much. :)

7. Enjoy the sun while it shines! Especially if you are in Europe! ;)