Office Alone

The 2nd week at the office started with an exciting news for me. My manager from India called me and told that I had to stay for some more time in Germany as the work which was scheduled for a later time had to be completed when I was there. As soon as my manager told me this, I was wondering what he would tell my colleague.

Exciting for me, but saddening for her. She was asked to follow the initial plan and had to return back to India 3 days later. I quite didn't know how to react. I was very excited and happy that I had got 3 more weekends to explore this country. On the other hand, I would have to work all alone in the lab and finish all the work by myself which was being shared between the two. She was depressed a little but she said it was okay. Kusum and Pali felt very sad after learning that my colleague would leave Germany in 3 days. I tried convincing her that the schedule when we left India was that we were going back in 12 days. It was just that she had to execute that plan and my manager had a new plan for me.

We then completed the remaining work in the next 3 days in the hectic schedule as usual. Then was the time for her to bid good bye to Stinky and leave the customer's office. Stinky showed his cow teeth once more and shook hands with her. She was done with the smell here!

She had the flight from Hamburg to Frankfurt at 8:15 AM the next morning. Pali said it would be good to leave Buxtehude at 3:30 AM to avoid the last minute rush and missing of the flights. He asked me to accompany him to drop Pooja. Her luggage weighed around 26 kilos with the German goodies that she had shopped.

Early in the morning, I woke up at 3 AM and the temperature was around 2 degrees. We lifted her huge heavy suitcase and put it in the E class Mercedes. We then set off to Hamburg airport in the freezy-windy breeze. The car has superb features in it. Pali just pressed a button and within minutes, the seat on which I was sitting got fully hot and it was very very warm. What technologies these man made machines have! He told me that people will have 2 sets of tires for the cars. One set for the winter which has an anti-skid feature and another for the summer. Maintaining that car is really a very big economic concern.

We had only 3 minutes for my colleague to alight and get moving into the terminal as the car could not be parked infront of the terminal. My colleague pulled a trolley, put her baggage and she was off to namma Bengalooru!

On the way back, Pali and I talked about the cost of living in Germany and I learnt that it is indeed a very costly place [Especially me converting euros into rupees]. Theirs is a family settled down in Germany for about 25 years now. Even at 4 AM in the morning, the traffic signals were followed by every vehicle on the road. Wonder what makes them follow so rigorously.

Work in the office was a little boring having to sit all alone the whole day. The next day onwards, I had lot of work and Stinky was always there to sit with me and make me also stink! The weekend arrived and there were no specific plans made in the group. Some wanted to shop, some wanted to roam around. Finally we decided that we would be going to Hamburg to shop or roam. I wanted the latter.

Saturday morning, we got up late and reached the Buxtehude railway station at 10:30 to be greeted by other colleagues who had reached 15 minutes before us. We purchased the group ticket to Hamburg and I was told that we would be going to Harburg first and then to Hamburg. One of our colleagues had come from Bangalore with his wife and they were staying in a rented room in Harburg. Harburg is very close to Hamburg. That is all I know about this place because we got down from the train, went to his place, and got into the train again!

We went to his place and I suddenly felt as though I was in Bangalore. I could hear Kannada everywhere. It is a building that has about 5 houses all filled with Kannadigas! My colleague and his wife basically hail from Shimoga district. Felt really nice to talk to somebody who knew my language. The couple offered a light breakfast to all of us and I most eagerly said yes!

Well well well, the most unexpected tindi, the infamous uppittu was given in a plate along with sev. Baaiy chapprskond tinde naan antu. When amma prepares uppittu for breakfast, I will be the first to start cribbing to eat it. But when the same thing was given in Germany, aaha nan magandu yen tindi guru anta annusthu. The plain uppittu was mixed with Bisi BeLe bath pudi and the aroma of BBB was too good. Even though I had bread and jam at Pali's place, I took another serving of this special delicacy (only in Germany, alli matte goL shuru maadode) and savored it till the last spoon.

Along with the couple, we all left to Hamburg, the second largest city of Germany. We got down at the Hamburg Hauptbahnof, the central station of Hamburg. The group decided to meet in front of a huge electronic store, opposite to the station and dispersed. Me and my colleague were not interested to shop but we wanted to see a few places. We were simply looking around and we spotted a museum infront of the station. We went into the museum by paying 8 euros. The museum was marvelous. The give a mobile phone like instrument which we need to carry when seeing the artifacts displayed. Few of the artifacts will have an audio symbol and a number on them. If we press the number on this instrument, we get commentary about that artifact. An innovative and an effective method!

We spent more than 2 hours in the museum looking at ancient civilizations of Asia and Greece. We then went into a jewelery exhibition within the same premises and then a photography exhibition. The photography exhibition did not have any superb or breathtaking photos. It was mainly posters of advertisements that was displayed. Very nice collection they had. We had about 2 more hours to meet our colleagues infront of that store and we were hungry. We strolled in the streets of Hamburg for a while and found a McDonald's. After having a burger, our legs wanted some rest and we sat down on a bench. Even though the sun was shining, it was very cold. We could not sit more than 15 minutes on the bench. We then went into a garment store and did window shopping for a while and then met our colleagues. All of us went inside the 5 level store and saw an amazing display of all kinds of electronic products available. It took almost an hour for us just to see the products that were on sale. The time was around 6 and we had to leave for Buxtehude in the train.

Hamburg outing was not so interesting as it was supposed to be. We again fell short of time to explore the place. A plan was made to visit Hamburg on Sunday too, but the weather did not allow us to step out of house. It rained all day long.

All that we did on Sunday was to watch a couple of movies, eat and sleep till evening. In the evening, Kusum and Pali planned to entertain us by singing Sri Lankan songs for us. Pali was all excited to sing his favorite songs. He immediately put on his Karaoke CD and sung a few love songs for his wife. It was a nice evening.