Luneberg, St.Nikolaus, Movies and More....

I must say at the outfront, that most of this has been copied-and-pasted from my email but the bit about the movies is new info so I guess you can just cruise down to that section and simply read....

As I'd mentioned on my blog, this was a trip organised by IKUS that organises such trips and other events for students Anyway we were to meet at the station at 5.45 am for this trip...god that was the only minus point in the whole trip...getting up at 4 am to get ready...and then walking to the stn...it was raining and well it felt like we are taking a midnight walk!!! Anyways once we got to the stn it felt nice n warm. The train journey was of 3 hours...so we reached luneberg by 9.30. They had organised bfast for the group at Cafe Melzer in the town
center. We had the top floor of the cafe reserved for us and the whole group at down to a sumptuous bfast for buns, ham, salami, eggs, freshly sliced tomatoes and cucumbers, a variety of sliced cheese, home-made strawberry and peach jams, and hot coffee....mouth watering yet? :)Tho I myself ate well, I was amazed at how much some of the others packed in...it was truly like making the most of a buffet...and this wasn't even the main buffet in the cafe, for we got a speical one at a discounted rate. The actual brunch buffet on the ground floor looked like way tooooooooo much to think of eating.

Anyways, after an extremely leisurely bfast, we walked on to the town hall where we had a guided tour organised for us. B4 we set of, however our lil group of Jigeesha, Saima, Raghu and myself managed to get a photograph with ALL the Santa Clauses in the town centre...ended up setting a mini-trend...LOL!!! Anyways the guided tour was cool. It was in English for one thing - LOL!!!

We saw St Nikolai church, which is where St Nikolaus is said to have come when he first landed on the shores of Luneberg. The panels in this church are very interesting...one panel shows blood flowing down which represents the crucifxion of Christ. And ofcurs the usual stain glass panel,s the altar, the bowl for baptising babies etc. Then after walking thru the old part of town and seeing the diff in the various facades which all seemed the same to me after a point, we saw the Old Crane. This crane was used to lift cargo when the river flowing thru the city was still used for water transport. It's operated manually by a treadmill...and our guide told us that the saying of walking the treadmill originates from this activity.

After we finished the guided tour, we met up again (Jigisha had gone on the gerna guided tour unlike Raghu, Saima and myself), and headed to the Christmas Market..this was down a slope. Luneberg was a salt producing city and in the 16th cen, salt production made so much profit that the city dwellers referred to it as 'white gold'...anyways since the city has a soft soil, the houses kept sinking till the idea of stabilising them with concrete came about. On ths one slope houses sank alot and there are even some houses that tilted backwards...they have been stabilised that way and preserved like that itself!!!

In the mkt we discovered that one of the organisers, Karin, was working in a stall serving gluhwine...obviously we all stopped there and had some!!! She was dressed in medieval costume...looked quite cute!!! After that we visited the St Michaelis church and St Johaniss church. In the latter, they have this MASSIVE organ that was lit up specially
for St.Nikolaus day....beautiful doesnt even describe half of how impressive it looked. Next we went up the water tower. The water tower is no longer used to churn water from the river (obviously), but they re-newed the struc in the 80s and opened it to public in 2000. Now one can go up to the top for a smal price and soak n the most breath-taking panoramic view of the town. It came quite close to the view of Heidelberg from the castle....I went up by lift while the others climbed up...and those 5 mins alone at the top were marvellous. The wind that day was insane, andI actually had to hold on to the railings so I dint get pushed back.

We spent a long while there, b4 walking back thru the town to the Salt Museum and then meeting the group again at the stn. Sadly the pub hopping plan got cancelled coz trains were re-scheduled due to some work on the tracks. Our trip back included a small bus trip as well from Bad Beevensen to Uelzen where we caught the train to Magebdurg. Reached home at 10 pm.

Poonam came up with us and we saw 'Great Expectations' and had dinner. I had waited to see this movie and now I'm dying to read the book and see what Charles Dickens wrote. And Oh, I finally understand why after seeing this movie so many (atleast of the male species) end up falling in love with Gwyneth Paltrow!!! LOL!!!

Through out the day I kept seeing the time and saying, at this time in another mthI shall be on the flight home, landing or at home. When we reached Mburg at night I said 'HomeSweet Home'..then I looked at the watch and said....hot damn in a mth it shall truly be 'HOME SWEET HOME!!'. The countdown begins...and wat a way to wind up my stay...coolies!!! :)

Sunday was spent lazing, watching movies and studying. In the eveg we went to Raghu's room for dinner. He stays in the univ-hotel. Cute lil cozy room with a tiny kitchenette. We made rotis/parathas for him in his room...and there was egg bhurrji and mixed sabzi and this south-indian style rice made by him. Good fun... on our way back we crossed the temp board... it was -1 deg!!!! We were so excited....Saima suddenly started feeling cold reading that and ran home.B ut Jigi and I stood there marvelling that we are not feeling cold, even tho temp was in the minus!!! Infact since it wasn't windy, I commented that I had felt cold the prev day but not at the moment!! LOL!!! This morng there was frost on the grass and our windows were all fogged....hope it snows soon.

I woke up this morng when I thought someone knocked on our door. But then thought it must be imagination, coz no one can get up without getting past the buzzer on the ground floor first. 2 mins later the buzzer rang... I ran to the door and Hardo was on the intercom saying'open the door'..so I pressed the buzzer, he repeated 'open the door..ur flat door'..I was flummoxed and asked him to come in first...then I went and got the keys..opened the door. And was stunned...there were 3 stockings filled with gifts hanging on the door handle, and a packet full of more gifts on the doorstep. Hardo had left them there...there was a note in the packet saying St Nikolaus visited us, tho it 2 days late. HEHE!!!

Hardo and his parents have truly made this very special for us. The girls last yr defi didnt have this.....:) Goody goody...our trip shall be double special!!! :)

And wat a way to wake up!!! Anyways after that we hung up the stockings on the windows as well as the window decoration biscuits ....as I told saima, we may not have celebrated Diwali/Id this yr, but we sure are celebrating christmas...the trad way. Advents calendars, baking, stockings et al!!! Feels damn good!!!!

The movies we saw ton Sunday...I've never seen so many ever before in such a short span of time!!

Thie first movie is based on Arthur Miller's 1953 play. It presents a convincing portrait of the way Americans consistently have denied personal responsibility for evil and projected it onto others. Here a sex-driven young woman (Winona Ryder) seeking to avenge herself on her estranged lover's wife, a zealous judge (Paul Scofield) who puts order above truth, and a self-serving minister (Bruce Davison) who wants to hold on to his power conspire with other members of the town to bring down a nonconformist (Daniel Day-Lewis), his godly wife (Joan Allen), a spiritual elder (Elizabeth Lawrence), and a handful of pariahs.

Although the original drama was meant to reflect upon the McCarthy witch hunts of the 1950s, this film directed by Nicholas Hytner, has more universal implications. It cuts to the heart with its revelations about the potentially destructive power of the urge for self-preservation, the chaos created by a society's fear of the unknown, and the great courage it takes to stand up to authoritarian zealots.

As one of the most sobering and prophetic films of the 1996, The Crucible compels us to recognize the shadow side of our lives, including the evil inside us. The ending also compels us to think about whether there is anything that we would be willing to die for.

The second movie I had seen earlier, but didn't know the name...I found out when I saw it...LOL!! Buffalo 66, where Vincent G (the director of the movie) stars as Billie Brown. Upon his release from prison and while desperately looking for a restroom and a pay phone from which to call his parents, Billie Brown meets Layla (Christina Ricci), a voluptuous teenager, whom he decides to kidnap on the spur of the moment (as if his new freedom has instantly ignited the old criminal drive). After a ridiculously funny monologue by which he delivers his naive motives, Billy convinces the young girl to succumb to his plan of visiting his alienated parents, Janet and Jimmy (Angelica Houston and Ben Gazzara) and fooling them into believing that he is something he is not: happily married and very successful.

The movie reminded me of the theatre of the abusrd - the repetitive dialogues, the make-up, the characterisation,the feeling of aimlessness,....quite an interesting movie to watch!!!

We started seeing 'The Death of a Saleman' after we got home from Raghu's room, but fell asleep after and hour, so shut it. Shall probably finish seeing it tomorrow or day-after! Lets see....today Saima and Jigi are seeing P&P once again...they are addicts...LOL!!!

Hmmm..I think this is it for today...been here for over 2 hours now. Kinda tired of the sound of the printer which is right in front of me...and of typing too!! LOL!! Ciao!!

Update

As I said we saw a movie that dealt with the holocaust..atleast partially. Alan J. Pakula's adaptation of the William Styron bestseller, `Sophie's Choice' (1982) shows considerable hubris in reducing an epic tragedy to a paragon moment of melodrama. That gesture already risks an extreme understatement of the horrors that comprised the Holocaust of World War II, an event that the movie takes care to demonstrate was a nightmare afflicting several people besides the Jews. It incorporates one woman's narrative as a survivor of the Holocaust into a larger, crushingly banal story of a young, Southern writer's coming of age in the big city of New York.

The movie by itself was not that great...but the character of Sophie, played by Meryl Streep was very touhcing and ofcourse Streep herself is marvellous. Oh...the movie also has Peter Nichol - a very younf Peter Nichol, with a Southern accent - it was great seeing him in a role besides John Cage in Ally McBeal.

Today in Ebeling's class we were discussing New English literatures...my area of interest....I was the expert amongst the students and I have to say it felt bloody good to be quoting critics and talking about who said what, and what are the features of which author!! Ah....great thanks to Bharucha for teaching the subject so well as to inspire my interest in it and urge me to read more about it and understand it better. I'm still highly ignorant, but I'll get there someday and after today I'm even more encouraged!! :)

Not planned much for today, just studied for a while here at the library. Initally had planned to go to Annika's for baking but I got late, so I came back to the library to study since Saima and Jigi were watching P&P again and I can't see it again so soon!!! Gonna sleep early tonight coz for the Luneberg trip we have to meet at the HBF at 5.45 am!!!YAWN!!!

PS Did some more shopping today...Muhahaha!!!

Toodle Ti Tum!!!

Yesterday I finally got my tickets reserved for the return....and it feels soooooooooooo good! I'M flying back on the 6th Jan, 2004....shall be back home by 6th night...OMG just a lil over a month and I shall be smelling Mumbai's foul, polluted air again...hot damn but I can't wait to get back!!! Muhahaha!!! In high spirits since yesterday...LOL!!!

Hardo had dropped by yesterday and we had a nice little chat....the excursion to Mumbai seems terribly organised...I had no clue what the criteria was when they selected students, now I also find out that they are flying from Frankfurt...and not only are they taking the flight from an airport further away (Berlin is ideal for Magdeburg), but they are also paying more and are gonna have 2 stops in between. Logic? I see none...and I'm damn kicked to be saying that....you know how proud the Germans are about their efficiency and oragnisational skills right? Well...lets not bitch too much about them since I am still here!!

Saw Emma yesterday as a part of the screening of the Austen movies...when I'd tried to read it in FYBA I'd fallen asleep thrice before I gave it up...and I think that is one of the reasons why I never liked JA before this -I associated her with a sleeping pill!!! Anyways the movie wasn't bad. It pales in comparison to S&S and P&P, but well better that what I expected...Gwyneth Paltrow and the others were good...but I do have one question...why exactly do people swoon over her...she's good...but is she THAT good? Hmmm......

Also saw 'Colour Purple' yesterday night, at home. I had done the book (by Alice Walker)for my paper on feminism in TYBA. Infact that's the reason why Saima and I wanted to see the movie...and we are both so glad we did. Its got amazing performances by each one the cast and well....brilliant movie to put it in nutshell. DIrected bs Steven Speilberg, it stars Whoopi Goldberg in her debut, and Oprah Winnfrey amongst others.....oh god!!! I gotta post a review of this book on my Literary Mosaic..its a MUST READ!!!

Colour Purple - Synopsis

Went for a shopping spree today after class. First we dropped by the video library to see if Annika wanted to see a movie with us tonight, then we headed out...I picked up some cool maal. And as usual, shopping has worked wonders for my spirits and moods!!! Looking forward to dinner tonight with Annika and then the movie...I think we are watching something that delas with the holocaust...shall obviously blog about that tomm!!!

Movie Time!!

We saw the first three of the 16 movies we got from the video-library yesterday. Annika came over again as I said so we saw movies that were her recommendations..actually this morning when I saw our pile I realised that ten of the movies she insisted we take...LOL!! Anyways she's this BIG Renee Zellwegger fan (she even made us see 'Bridget Jones' Dairy') so yesterday we saw two of RW movies...the first was 'A Price Above Rubies' (1998). In it Sonia (RW) is a member of a closed Hasidic community, who doesn't feel comfortable about religious rules and restrictions, and constantly breaks them, upsetting her relatives. Pretty interesting movie...the second one was a silly light movie for TP - 'Nurse Betty'(2000) with RW, Morgan Freeman, Chris Rock and Greg Kinnear...no comments coz well, it was a TP movie.
After Annika left, I made Saima and Jigi watch 'Little Women' (1994) with Winona Ryder and Susan Sarandon. This was one of my favourite books as a child and I've read it umpteen times...Jo was one of my favourite characters and pretty much a childhood idol I guess. I had seen the movie the first time when our school took us for it and then again on TV, yet I was amazed when I could quote lines from the book/movie and remembered scenes so well....truly love the book...and so glad that both Saima and Jigi liked the movie!! :)

Today we went and paid up for another trip - to Luneberg...like for Wittenberg this is also organised by the IKUS. The trip includes a visit to the famous Christmas market in Luneberg and well sight-seeing and pub-hopping...cool eh? Its on 6th -Nicholaus Day...there's a legend behind that too. Nicholaus was like a herb-man(shaman type of guy) of ancient Germany. He is said to have roamed around with a huge sack giving people herbs and medicines and curing them. After his death children were told that if they were good Nicholaus would come and give them sweets...so on 6th Dec all children leave their shoes outside the doors for gifts and sweets. Very similar to Santa Claus and the stocking hanging..only that comes from Sweden.

Guess this is it for now....until tomm...:)

Ice.skating,Baking and More....

On saturday after I left the library and gt home, Saima informed me that Annika had come by with a suggestion that we go ice-skating in this rink near the Elbe River... and I was like YES YES YES!! Raghu also came...he's the same guy who was explaining the silent movie to Annika...hes doing his PhD here,; his thesis is on cure of epilepsy and he conducts experiments on rats' brains!!! Nice guy...a bit boring initially but later u realise its coz he's so simple and well, quiet, unlike me!!!


It was really great...apart from Annika, who obviously knows how to ice skate, I was the only one who'd done any skating at all....anyways initially at the rink we were like kids grasping the wall and trying to get our balance right...luckily the lil skating I did as a kid helped and by the 3rd round I was skating without support...and without falling even once. Till I got all confident, saying I'm the only one who hasn't fallen so far and I wont now, coz I'm skating fine (conceited lil me thought I was an expert within 2 hours!!), and skated straight into the middle....with that many ppl ard I lost my sense of oreintation and splat went down on all fours...ouch, but my knees still hurt and I'm sporting a gigantic purple bruise on my right knee. Ah well, it was still great fun....later that night we invited Annika and Raghu over for dinner. Annika got along 'bhaji-ish pulav' and I made alu ki sabzi (again) and egg curry(again)...I am cooking alot but I cook the same stuff over and over again...LOL!!! Since Raghu wasn't getting any food he got his VCR which he left with us for as long as we want....yeah we raided the video library with Annika today and have gotten like nearly 15 movies to watch....shall post the complete list soon, but some of them are Great Expectations, Colour Purple, The Crucible, Death of a Salesman and others too.....

Sunday we spent at Hardo's place for the first advent sunday...oh god that was brilliant. OK..before I plunge into the details, before xmas they have, like, wat's called advent sundays...so they get this advents calendar in which there is a window for each of the 24 days preceding xmas and behind each window is a chocolate. Annika had given us one, but Hardo's folks gave us one each..so we have 4 of them now...LOL!! Hardo's parents ar really nice...I mean...they were treating us like we are their daughters or some thing!!! Anyways we had gone there to bake cookies and window decorations....that was cool. We first made cookies with wheat flakes and coconuts in the dough, then simple biscuits with normal dough but we decorated those biscuits with all sorts of sugary stuff and last, but not the least, we made window decorations which we can string up till Xmas and later eat up!!! I made a ginger-bread man, or rather a biscuit man...which turned out quite funny actually!! LOL!!! What was a bit awkward was that we ended up being gifted all the cookies we baked, plus lotsa more stuff along with the advents calendars... OH!!!! How could I forget!!! The feast his mom had prepared...Jesus!!! My mouth still waters. I'm SO glad I eat all meat...there was this thing with pork slices in a yummy sauce made with apricot and spices, chicken on a layer of sauerkraut, green cabbage with ham....and the Xmas cakes and the pies...ok I am drooling just remembering the peach tarts!!!! We were there at his place the whole damn day, saw his computer, played with Loki(his dog), browsed their library (all in German sadly) and well had a great time ...got home at night...

Today we spent the day with Annika...I got up late coz I was studying till 2 am last night...anyways after getting ready Saima and I went around to Annika's to say hullo, but ended up staying there the whole day...we got the cassettes from the video library and now we've invited her over for macaroni and soup and movie-watching session tonight...yipppeeeee!!!!!

Ola Ola Ole!!!

Back with an improved mood....got OK yesterday itself....Shopping did the trick!!!LOL!! I'm incorrigibe eh? Initially just buying rice for dinner improved my mood...but then buying a perfume totally made the sun shine through the clouds and rain...muhahahaha!!!!Shopping so improves my mood every time....stereotypically feminine in this aspect eh? *Sheepish look*

Anyways last eveg for Annika, we cooked dinner...I made alu ki sabzi in dahi gravy and another mixed veggies thingie in cheesy gravy...Saima and Jigi made the dal and rice. We had bought a bottle of white wine for dinner and Annika brought along red wine for dessert...so we finished off both last night itself...with Annika and me drinking most of it, since Jigi took only a glass of each and Saima doesn't drink at all!!! LOL!!! You guys must be thinking I'm gonna end up an alcoholic by the end of the trip!! Well, yest, the red wine was like...well almost like grape juice...so obviously it was not even like having alcoohol...do I sound like I'm justifying myself here? Coz I''m sooooo not doing that....anyways dinner was cool. Annika is great company, the food was delicious (*Wink*) and so was the wine!! Muhahahaha.....

This morng I slept in late, then came straight to the library for a rendezvous with my emails and some books....not sure of how the weekedn shall progress from this point...so shall stop for now....until Monday...cheerios!!!

PS Thank you to those of you who read my blog yesterday and/or my emails and sent me 'cheering-up' emails....very heart-warming gestures!!!

Homesick

Feeling grumpy and lo today...its raining too...not in the best frame of mind to blog...defi don't wanna blog about the misereable state of my mind...whole situation makes me homeisck and very un-communicative, as my flatmates are discovering!!! Ah....they are discovering the thorns on the rose...muhahaha...shall blog later when I'm not feeling like a grumpy bear...adios amigos until then!!!

La Di Da....

La di da...lets see now...where should I begin? Ok...I stopped with Hardo...we called him up on Tuesday evening and got him to come around on Wednesday anoon. So he came...looking all embarassed and very awkward..and it WAS awkward coz Saima and Jigi were giving him a cold shoulder and acting like he's a paraiah!! Anyways I told him I found his vanishing acts very annoying and that this is no way to get rid of a problem, if there is one in the first place..I mean not talking inly creates problems!!! Anyways one I had that out I was back to normal with him..he stayed for a very short while...but well...I talked to him about his stay in Mumbai...he might stay in our bldg in Suku'sf flat if all works out....*Cross your fingers*

Then we went and booked out tickets for the trips..rather Saima and Jigi booked for Paris and I booked for Amsterdam as well....yippeeeee!!!! Joyous me!!! Europe here comes me....brace theeself for I'm crazy..LOL...OK Kidding!!!!

Class was fun..this was one of the better presentations...actually last week's was damn good as well. This week was a comparison between the BBC and the Ang Lee adaption of 'Sense and Sensibility' and the book....the girls structured their presentation like a talk show with the guests being Jane Austen and Emma Thompson...pretty interestingly done and covered the points as well!!! After that, the second half of P&P...I think I'm in love with Colin Firth, a.ka. Mr.Darcy...today we saw 'Bridget Jones' Diary' with Annika and well he plays a Mr.Darcy in this film as well..for those of you who don't know the film is full of quotes from P&P and Darcy is modelled on the char of the original JA Darcy...it was fun!!!!!

Today after class , with yet another good presentation about ethnic groups in London and gender troubles in the city, I went to talk to Ebeling about this article I found on the internet about english in India and ended up saddling myself with a semi-presentation..bravo Geets!! LOL!!! After class we saw the movie then came back home for lunch...which like the past 4 meals was eggs again....we've been lazy in the kitchen this week!!!! Studied at home (I'm feeling proud of my studying these days..hope this phase lasts till my travelling begins!!), while Saima went to the library...I waited for Hado actually....after he came and left, I left for the library..so I'm in this haven of books right now, sitting in front of the computer....what a pity, eh? Yeah I'm hinting that I'm gonna stop now....just a last point...my old ticker has been acting funny for the last 2 days...had to prop myself up and sleep last night coz I was feeling suffocated lying down....had to finally break into the 'dawai peti' I carried along...sigh!!!!

Country Hopping!!!

Hmmm....I've started remembering home more and more these days....sleep every night thinking of the luxuries of being home. So I decided I must keep myself really busy in Dec or else I'll never last the one month more I have to be here...LOL!! Anyways today morng literally crawled by...then we had fun for a while b4 it lapsed into vague boredom again in Breunig's class!!! He is simply too vague and allows way too many interpretations for the class to be of any worth...anyways in Wiemann's class today was a presentation by 2 girls on housing and fashion in Mumbai. It was funny...also coz one of the girls wore a salwar kurta and the other a sari (borrowed from Susanna who was in Mumbai last year)...the second girl wore the sari all wrong so I wrapped it for her...only she was wearing her petticoat and blouse over her jeans and teeshirt so it looked quite clumsy!!! Well the presentation was fun...very funny at times...like when they spoke of 'chauvinist parties' right after leisure in Mumbai and Wiemann thought the 2 points are linked and asked us if chauvinist parties are a new trend in Mumbai, something like the opposite of feminist parties...we totally cracked up...he too, when he realised his faux-pas!!!

Later when I got home, Jigisha had news. Yesterday we had gone to Poonam's place..she's a girl from Kanpur who has been here for 3 years and knows about all these short bus trips...anyways today Jigi went and got info from there. Saima and she will go to Paris the weekend I am in Sweden. They were also looking at a trip to Amsterdam the weekend before I go to France...I've decided to join them for that...quite excited about that...December shall be fun...just gotta get past Sweden travelling, then I'll be an ace at this....Muhahahaha!!!

Tomm is another busy day (THANK GOD!!!!!!!), and the second part of 'Pride and Prejudice'...looking forward to that as well....also today we went to speak to Lange about confirming our return tickets, since Hardo is missing to help us out. We ended up calling him just now coz he's absconding with our elec bill and we gotta pay it before Dec 1st...he's coming around tomm...getting very annoyed with his constant disappearing....grumpf!!!!

Bas I guess....babbled enufff na? Until later....

Nerdy Geets!!!

I'm tired again today of typing....so I think this will be a short and to-the-point blog!!! I mentioned the confusion with my reservation for the trip to Sweden on Sat...well after that I went to the Hauptbanhof and changed my reservation to a day route...this one has me travelling back to Magdeburg during the day and back by evening..which is so much more feasible....still a bit nervous, but I am sure I can manage now...shall defi learn and grow-up more with the experience!!! Ironically I'm not the least bit nervous about travelling to France even tho I'm travelling alone even there....guess its coz I do know French and am staying with Pat.....really looking fwd to the visit to Bordeaux (wine producing country..hehehe!) and then Paris!!!

After that my whole weekend was spent studying...I managed to complete quite a bit...basically I realised that I'm here for only 6 more weeks out of which the last 2 weeks I shall be in France and then wrapping up...so that means only 4 weeks...since I do not want to go back and find myself burdened with alot of MA studies I maximise the use of this free time I have...got out the books I got from the library and the stuff I've carried with me and really accomplished alot this weekend...have planned to cover even moret in the coming 2 weeks...so that I can leave for Sweden & then later for France feeling quite carefree!!! :)

OHHHHH!!! I got one of my flatmates high this weekend..she wanted to try wine..so we went to this pub in our area...only I convinced her to have Baiileys afterwards coz I wanted company...now I dont find that strong at all ...but she got high with just 1 glass of wine and a small shot of baileys...felt terrible about that...but well we had fun so wat the hell!!! :) It's totally amazing how alcohol costs the same in a pub here, as coffee...infact beer is cheaper...I still can't get over it!!!

Hmm..Ok enough hitting at the keyboard...plus I have the nerdy urge to return to my studies..LOL!!! So until tomm, adios amigos...be good and don't do what I wouldn't!!! Muhahahaha!!!

Experiences A Plenty...

Was here this morning early...infact I got up, went straight in for a shower and left immediately for the comp room. I wanted to check my mail from home and do something about the Sweden trip..I didnt realise this when I made the reservations, but my return journey route is rather wierd and requires me to stay at Hannover station for 4 hours in the middle of the night...since I'm travelling alone to Sweden, I pretty much went to pieces when I realised what a blunder I'd made...anyways after a call home last night and some serious thinking, I realised I can change the route to a day time route..that way only some money for the reservation will go down the drain if at all...got that sorted out now, so feeling confident again.

Hmm...two things I forgot to mention earlier. The first was the gift Sudha didi gave me..its a miniature house..and is gracing my study table right now, till it gets to its 'real' home where it shall grace our living room. :)
Second...this was very wierd and perhaps our first 'racist' encounter if I may call it that. On tuesday we got an anonymous letter stating that its the first and last warning we are getting. In it was stated that we talk too loud, party all trhough the week and our food smells!!! That was sooooooooo bizarre coz we do not talk too loud, do not party thru the week and how does one control the way our food smells?? The warning was that if we don't whisper and control the smells the police shall arrive at our doorsteps...anyways we consulted Annika who's sister-in-law is working with an attorney and our suspicions were confirmed...its probably from a cranky old racist and he can't harm a hair on our bodies coz none of the things he mentioned are crimes!!!

Seems like this week I'm gather plenty of experiences, am I not? :) All for the better I hope...

Exhausted....

Not gonna say much today coz I'm really exhausted today...had a very tiring day. Was feeling totally lethargic in the morning and dragged myself to class. After class we had gone to reserve our seats for Sweden...Saima and Jigisha aren't coming coz its expensive, but I reserved my seats...only now I'm confused..it's a long trip and well...at night and I gotta travel alone...waiting for advice from home!!!
After that we went shopping...skipped lunch...now soooo exhausted....gonna sleep early tonight and relax tomm....need the rest this weekend. Until Monday then...bonne weekend mes amis!!

Happy Happy Happy

Hmm....I'm happy today...Sudha didi sent the photos of the Heidelberg trip, so I got to see them and posted them on my Yahoo briefcase...so damn cool. Also yesterday was a cool day. It was darn wierd actually...I had gone to the library to read and to check my mail..I returned early thinking I'd get enough time to eat my lunch...on the way I got a call...it was Kunaal...obviously I was thrilled to bits...it was so cool to be talking to him again...god I miss him!!!

Anyways when I reached my bldg the wind was blwong such that my hair was all over like Medusa's snakes...and I realised that I'd forgotten my keys at home!! Saima and Jigisha weren't there...so I was sooooooo upset...luckily a Chinese family left the door open for me to atleast enter the bldg. Then I camped on the steps till Saima returned half and hour later...gobbled down my meal and ran to class.

After class I was talking to Wiemann about the presentation...he said it was good and was very happy that we laid such a good groundwork for the films that will be screened later in Jan...when my phone rang again...this time it was home...since I had to duck out suddenly I later ran down to apologise to Wiemann...after that was 'Pride and Prejudice' - a part of the Austen movie screenings....I never liked the book when I had it in FYBA but I totally freaked out on the movie. We just saw Part I yesterday and now I can't wait for next Wednesday to see Part II. Really like this concept of screening the movies....

After the movie we went to Annika's house (again) for dinner :)...Raghu, her other Indian friend also came along. She had made 'soul food', i.e, Veg-au-gratin in Sweet cream and there was beer. I must confess I still don't think much of beer though it was definitely better than the ones I've tasted back in India. The Schnapps she offered after dinner was infintely better...I tried the one she has made with Schlea berries...excellent. She has also made some with garlic and chillies but I refused to touch that...we had a great time last night...Annika is really fun...she is also so dead serious about learning Hindi that we played Memory with hindi alphabets..LOL!!! She's cool!!

Anyways, we got home at 1 am and then Saima and I were talking till 3 am (Jigisha dint come for dinner)... Luckily we dint have lectures today coz of a student demonstration so we could sleep in late. The demonstration was to protest the decison to shift the humanities faculty from Magdeburg university to Hall university. This is being done despite the fact that the faculty, tho only 10 years old, has 2000 of the university's 10,000 students...yet another demonstration of the world's preferences of the sciences over the arts...ICK!!!

Anyways yesterday I also got to know that the photos I'd posted home have finally reached..so kicked about that...now my parents know exactly where I live and how my flat looks...:)

Castle Link...

Tourist responses to the Castle

The Heidelberg Castle... A Walk Through It's History

I took this from a site..so it's in the voice of a tour guide...thought some of you might wanna read about the history of the castle...Here goes:

"We begin our exploration of the castle at the main entrance, with its little guard house and walk into the former gunpark, used for weapons practice in former times. Prince Elector Frederic V changed the gunpark of the castle into a pleasure garden for his wife Princess Elizabeth Stuart. We walk past an engraved stone reminding of the time the poet and mayor German writer Goethe spent in Heidelberg, meeting here with his lady-friend Marianne von Willemer. Nearby we also find one of our many exotic trees which decorate this garden nowadays, a Ginko Tree (Ginko biloba) which Goethe also imortalized in a poem.

A few steps onwards we reach the first sightseeing terrace with a lovely view on the city and into the rhine valley. Here I will give you some details on the city and its past and present history and the buildings we are able to see from this viewing platform. Turning around we aproach the Fat or Thick Tower with statues of our two most important Princes of the castle, Prince elector Ludwig V and Frederic V. Ludwig V built most of the fortifications of the castle making it into a fortress, Frederic V transformed it into a Palace for representation. especially the Gardens were his most famous work, the "Hortus Palatinus" considered to be one of the most beautiful gardens of his time.

Walking along the Moat, in which deer and bears were kept, we reach the Elizabeth Gate, the birthday gift of Frederic V for his wife Elizabeth Stuart. (Ironically the gate faces outwards, so though it was intended that she draw open the curtains and see the gate, she had to walk outside to see the carving on it!!)

Walking past the main entrance we go a bit into the large garden area behind the Castle, a beautiful park for strolling around and a favorite place of the Heidelberg population to spend weekend afternoons with the children when the weather is good.

The Courtyard is impressive, 600 years of history surround us. Melac , the general in charge of the french troops, just needed a few days to burn it all down in 1693. The first building right next to us, the Ruprecht building, is the entrance if you choose to take an inside tour of the buildings. During the inside tour you will see the interior decoration of the Frederic building , the Knightshall with the miniature replicas of the castle before and after the destruction, many objects that were found during escavations and the Chapel of the castle among other sights. If you have time we can even climb one of the towers.

The Frederics building is a german reaissance building with lots of statues of the princes electors on the facade, among them the builder Frederic IV.

Our next building is the Ottheinrich building, called the most beautiful italian renaissance building north of the Alps. Next to it we walk up a spiral saircase which leads us into the Graimberg room. Count Charles de Graimberg is the Frenchman responsible for the fact that the castle is still around. He did the first arqueological excavations here and iniciated the local history museum. Leaving this room we walk up 2 floors into the Frederic building to admire the interior of this building rebuilt 1900 in the Neo Renaissance style under the initiative of the Margrave of Baden Baden. Most of the furniture and objects we find in this floor are from his private collection. Lovely stucco ceilings and marble imitation floors and wooden Doors and Doorframes await us in the corridor. Going down into the first floor where we find furniture of the period the building was built, the 17 century, mainly from Italy, and pictures of the princes Electors of that period and their family. Climbing down further we reach the chapel which can be rented for marriage ceremonies. In the chapel as well as the preceding floors we find the original statues from the fasade. Leaving the chapel we go into the Cellar to admire the huge wine vat with some 220.000 Litres capacity (55.000 gallons) just as impressive is the small one with only 45.000 Liters.

Tax wine was stored in these barrels, taken care of by the cellarmaster and court jester Perkeo, tiny in size but always very thirsty, drinking daily some 18 bottles of wine as the legend tells us. (He apparently died when he drank water!! LOL!!)"

That's all I got from there...I shall post any links to better sites on the history if I find those..btw what's in brackets is my own addition... :)

Just A Lil Something...

Not gonna say much today, despite wanting to...its coz I'm really tired today...yesterday we were in the computer room till 9.40 and then we went home and cooked dinner. After dinner Saima and I had to sit and prepare ourselves for the presentation...we still had to deal with our core matter...so it was 2 am by the time I slept...this morning I got up at my usual hour and got ready...we had to meet Wiemann to organise for the scenes we wanted to screen and to pick up the hand-outs whihc he copied for us..we met him at REAL yesterday eveg and I must say this again..he's a really cool professor...defi the friendliest, most approachable and most interesting one as well...if only he was younger and had a lil more hair on his head...hahaha!!! *Wikked, eh?*

Anyways we got that organised and went back home for lunch before leaving again for the class...I think our presentation went well even though it went on for longer than expected...shall talk to Wiemann tomm to find out what he thought of it coz we didn't get to after class....

Hmmm...gosh I finally can breathe in peace now after two weeks...last two weeks have felt hectic...but it also feels good to be busy and not just being in a foreign country and sitting at home instead of gathering experiences...but now I'm gonna focus on absrobing in evrything slowly, unwinding so I'm all geared up for Sweden and France in Dec, and ofcourse even studying for MA II which has been ignored for the past one week or so....

Was thinking last night before I slept of all that we spoke about with Didi and it struck me once again that there are these very strong similarities amongst all of my cousins that I too share...guess the family links and common ideologies and values do show somewhere don't they? And its precisely that, which makes it so easy to relax with a family member even after years of seperation as opposed to the distance one feels when seperated from a friend for just a few months...not that I'm hinting at any distance I'm feeling from my own dear friends...I've realised ofcourse who really care about me, and who are not gonna be aorund for long in my life..but I'm glad and I'm grateful that the ones I truly cherish have been my true friends as I hoped for!!! * Merci Bon Dieu!!*

Shall stop now...think I'll go home and have an early dinner and get into bed...YAWN!!!

Heidelberg

Even before I start I have to say this : the trip beat all my expectations and I am extremely glad I got the opportunity to go there and see the city...to say that I was thrilled with the visit is an understatement...now to get on :)

Well, we caught the train from Magdeburg HBF at 8.01 and we had to change twice on the way to Heidelberg. The second train (an ICE) we were in crossed from East to West Germany and that was the most scenic part of the trip since we crossed alot of countryside..on boht sides of the train were hills rolling out...vast expanses of green countryside, dotted with the trees in shades and hues of green, red and yellow...I shall never tire of seeing them. Occassionally we spotted a village nestled in the hills, with their white-washed cottages and red roofs!!! The most charming sight ever...not to mention the sight of sheep and cows grazing on the hills, or those of horses running across fields, or even those of the little woods we spotted on the way...
Ofcourse when we entered Frankfurt, it was slightly different. It being a big city, we spotted many factories spewing smoke into the atmosphere, way too many buildings that hurt my romantic senses at that time (hahaha!!) and well, I was vaguely reminded of Blake's 'London' and his 'black-appalled churches'!!!!
We caught the last train from Manheim to Heidlberg, a Regional Bahn as compared to the earlier Inter City Expresses we had travelled in during the day, so it was slower and very quaint too!!!
At Heidelberg station I FINALLY got my Eurail pass validated and then we waited for didi to pick us up!!! Didi arrived and took us immediately down to the Old city area where we were left at our means to roam, around and absorb in all the sights and do as we please...and we did. The entire area is a treat to the senses...the charming cobbled streets are lined with old cottages, an amazing range of shops that were extremely irresistible (all three of us shopped!!!), and innumerable cafes, bakeries, restaurants, pubs and inns!! The walk was definitely a delight...the University building, the church, the student jail are all in these magnificient buildings, but nothing can compare to our first sight of the Heidelberg castle. Mindblowing, Awesome, Breath-taking...take your pick...the sight of the castle looming over us, nestled in the hill...I can't find the words to describe how it felt...we stood there for several mintues just taking in the sight before we got busy clicking photgraphs...and did we take some!! :)

We walked down to the Neckar river valley after that, and well, I didn't think it possible but it just kept getting better. The river runs through Heidelberg and on one side is the market are of the old city and on the other bank are rows of these old cottages and beyond that the hills...it was the most charming sight ever!!! We walked down the length and then over the Bridge...when we turned around, we just stood there gaping...why? We saw the castle...the sun had set by then and the castle was alit with soft glowing lights, looking down on the city in all its splendour...I think I won't be exaggerating if I say that the experience was very close to the sublime.....nothing more I can say will describe the moment....

Heidelberg Castle on the Web

It doesn't quite catch the essence, but well take a peek!!!

We walked back leisurely after that to meet didi at the Bismarck Platz, and after that we headed to Didi's house. She lives in a small town near Heidelberg and has a very nice three storeyed house. It felt sooooo good to be staying in a proper house, even if it was for only two days and the house not exactly fully furnished since Didi has shifted so much in the past that she's not collected much furniture!!! Anyways, we had a nice light dinner of soup and salad and talked till we decided its bedtime!!!

The next day, we had big plans but did just one thing...we walked up to the castle...the view of the city and the entire river valley, from that height was simply breathtaking...I went quite crazy clicking photgraphs. Inside the castle is an Apotheke (Pharmacy) Museum that traces the development of pharmacy over the centuries...most fascinating. I thought several times of Appu, coz she would find it most engrossing!!! After that we took the castle tour - our guide a German descendant who was brought up in Canada was a really charming guy with a great sense of humour making the historical details very interesting, and well, the tour more memorable!!! I will go into raptures again if I begin to describe each sight from the different levels...so I won't go into that again. The castle itself has an amazing history that I shall try to get in here a little later...we spent almost the whole day in the castle, and then went for a long lunch. Ironically we ate Thai food in Germany, since there were some problems with who eats what...Didi settled on a Thai restaurant, saying everyone will get something of thier taste there!! The meal itself was sumptuous...and very filling (I had duck in sweet and sour sauce with rice and white wine!!)..so much so that we slept without dinner!! Before we went home, however, we stopped at IKEA, a Swedish furniture store...Saima and I were drooling over their modular furniture and the various set-ups they had...

Once again once we got home, we started talking and I must say I really enjoyed talking with Didi. We were talking about scary experiences and how I find bungalows scary...we got onto the topic of our first week in Magdeburg when the radio had started playing in the middle of the night and I was so freaked out, thinking someone is in the house...and ofcourse the sounds the radiator makes when the pipes expand and contract due to the cold and heat...pretty darn wierd!!! We traded stories about such experiences and didi's own experiences when she first went to Maine to study...felt really good!!!

The last day there, we went to Bruchstal and Swetzingen. At Bruchstal, there is a palace which has all these figures painted on the outside but till you aren't really close you think they are sculpted onto the outside wall!!! It was really very interesting...Swetzingen Palace has the most amazing gardens I've seen. Even though it is autumn and things weren't as gorgeous as they are in summer, I could imagine how wonderful the place would look...the garden has sections with a Moorish style, Italian style, Greek temple, a grotto, some Scotland-type ruins, ducks and swans in a lake, formal British gardens, an Orangerie....I wish I had more time to stroll through at leisure...actually I wish I'd been there in Summer...

We caught out train back home after that...rather, trains, since we had three changes this time..we were exhausted by the time we got to Magdeburg and were actually relieved to be 'home'!!! Nothing like 'home' even if its a temporary one, is there? One interesting experience was on the Regional Bahn from Seesen to Braunschweig - we had to sit in the smoking compartment coz the non-smoking was full. In there was this very scary looking girl..but her looks weren't what we found fascinating...what was fascinating was the fact that she was making her own cigarettes!! She had a box full of tobacco and a machine that she used to actually make a cigarette!!! I think I gaped too much, coz she was shooting daggers at me later!!!

Ok I'm tired typing and its past 9 pm...must go home now...tomorrow is our presentation on Bollywood/Mumbai...shall be abck however in the morning to add more...I'm not done yet....

Ode To Autumn

Read it on my Literary Mosaic!!!

Happy Happy Happy

Well as the title says I'm happy today. Why? Because today Hardo finally came around to meet us and he was his usual self again. Saima and Jigisha(who btw refers to him as our `caretaker') didn't miss him much and even confessed to having gotten used to his absence, but it was rankling me...so I was very happy to see him and even told him so. I was glad that some stupidity with his profs wasn't gonna have a backlash effect on us. Infact today we talked about the excursion and its so sad that other people less qualified than him have been selected but not him. I have nothing against the others, but it makes no sense to leave out the one person who knows maximum about India from amongst those who applied...even more than the profs...ofcourse then we realised that, that is the reason he's been left out. Very disgusting in my opinion...and very unfair too. And he can't do a thing coz if he objects he could lose his jobs with the depts of Socio and English....gick!!! Anyways he is such a sweet fella, he got each of us a loong stemmed rose to apologise for his absence last week....very charming despite his rough and ragged appearance....LOL...wish he could read this...he'd blush I'm sure!!!

Anyways today Saima and I gave Annika some more hindi lessons...Saima is quite surprised that despite my lack oof vocabulary and dluency in Hindi, when it comes to grammar and spellings they are as faultless as in English....infact this sunday both oof them had requested me to start correcting their grammar and pronounciation like I do with Hardo...dunno whether to be flattered or embarassed!!!

Leaving for Heidelberg tomm...looking forward to spend the weekend away froom Magdeburg, seeing the area, meeting didi and staying in her house which will be much better equiped than ours..will feel more like a home...ah but I've started missing my bathroom at home, my blue coffee mug, the kitchen so clean and equiped, the dining table, the music system, the awesome speakers on bhaiyya's computer, the TV with english channels (not German).....

Was talking to Saima today before we met Hana (she's from the Czech Republic..dunno if I mentioned it before) and she said that Jigi and she envy me for my daily emails froom home and friends...in addition to my weekly calls from home and the call from Kunaal, I have recd a package from home, a card from Nitin and a looooog letter from Kunu...they think I'm very lucky!! I agree....I am indeed very lucky to have such wonderful family and friends....*toouchwood*!!!!

We were talking with Hana and she said that she doesn't like the weather here...its cold..that surprised us coz we assumed so was the Czech Republic...then she explained that to her, cold comes along with snow...she doesn't like the greyness of the sky, the bare trees and the cold wind here...ofcourse for us either of the two are a first experience...I do hope it snows here before we leave, but I have also enjoyed the experience of the cold autumn as well...seeing the leaves change colour and fall...knowing what it feels like to be pushed forward by the wind against your back, feeling your cheeks flush with the cold wind blowing into your face, your eyes smart with the winds speed...its been a wonderful experience and I'm savouring each moment as much as I can....

I also love the atmosphere here in class...profs like Wiemann, Breunig and Ebeling encourage us to voice our thoughts openly and accept most of our views and interpretations, so it feels very different from the sessions back home where we simply absorb what the prof says...interacting with the profs here, specially Wiemann has made me feel more confident about my 'intelligence' (if I may say so!!!) and I think that's one reason why I was so chilled out foor my presentation on Tues and also why it was so well recd!!! :)

Changes changes...so many changes I observe outside me and in me...food for thought...for you and for me...shall leave you to them and take mine with me...must walk back to the apt and pack for the weekend...Bonne Weekend to my blog loyals!! :)

Peace to Blog...:)

Whoa...today I'm gonna blog in peace...just finished emailing everybody, now I shall blab all that I wish to!! Hehehe!!!

Its gotten quite cold here in the past few days...tho the temp had dipped to 3 degrees once earlier, it wasn't so bad coz the humidity was at a decent level. Now its drier and windier and it gets like REALLY cold. I'm not yet shivering luckily, unlike Jigi and Saima who get headaches coz of the cold...that really pleases me coz I didn't realise how much my resistance has improved over the years. Infact I've not touched my medicines also, except for me toe medicine (that won't leave me in peace...) and the medicine for my wisdom tooth ache last week. I am so glad...touchwood!!!

Going to Heidelberg this weekend. Luckily I have the weekend there, since we are staying with Sudha didi, so I do not have to rush through the city. I wish I'd had more time to soak in the atmosphere in Berlin and see the sights in peace....ah well...next time!!! :) As of now excited about the trip to Heidelberg, seeing the castle there and ofcurs spending time with Sudha didi, whom I've not met since 1990 I think!!! Got alot of time to make up in just 2 days...

Yesterday we had our presentation in the seminar on Blake. We were covering the difference in tone and themes of the Songs of Innocence and Songs of Experience. It went damn well..Breunig was satisfied with the presentation, said it was well formulated, concise and clear. I got a pretty good response from the students as well....so you can imagine how content I am!!! After the lecture we had gone to REAL..Saima bought herself a small stereo system..since then we've been hearing the CDs I got and the cassettes Jigi got aloud, not on earphones...feels so good!!!! We also booked our tickets for the trip to Heidelberg yesterday and I got possible routes for my trips to Stockholm and Pars/Bordeaux.. :)

We met Annika on the way to REAL...we've gotten really pally with her...feels good. But I'm a bit upset with Hardo's behavious...it feels so odd to be making new friends on one hand (Annika, Björn, Linda etc) and on the other,having your first friend here, like, avoid you...and for no fault of yours...damn damn damn!!!

Hmmm...what else? We made khichdi today...I think I'm really improving on my cooking skills...LOL!! the chicken that day was delicious and today my first attempt at khichdi has also come out decent enough!! Hahaha!!!

Think I'll stop now coz I must get up and go to class...

Reminder For Me!!!

Reminder for me....gotta blog about presentations here, Wiemann, things at 'home'...gonna blog tomm coz today I have no time...damn but I so wanna blog..ah well...until tomm...

Berlin and more...

Hmmm...Sat morng we met up at Annika's place for breakfast. After a nice yummy bfast of home baked buns and home made jams and chicken salad(the aim is to make your mouths water...hope I am achieving!!), we left for the stn.

Caught the 10 am train to Berlin and were there within an hour and a half. We got down at Alexander Platz in Berlin and after that we walked ard the whole day...it was a bit bizarre considering that Berlin isn't a small city like Magedburg or Wittenberg so the distances between places were huge...yet we somehow ended up walking even when we decided to take the tram!!! I'm gonna have strong legs by the end of my stay here...haha!!!

Anyways Annika stayed with us till anoon...with her roamed around the Museum Island which has some 5-6 museums of the 13 odd museums in Berlin. Saw the Berliner Dome, the Parliament building with its glass dome, the new Jewish synagogue, the Brandenburg Gate, the new site for a memorial for Holocaust victims (work is stalled coz of some controversy regarding the company supplying the chemicals), the Buddy Bear exhibition(the bear is the mascot of the city and this exhibition sponsered by the UNICEF had bears from all the nations...so each nation's artist had painted the bear differently..quite interesting...its in Berlin till Nov after which it goes on a world tour, so we are lucky we caught it) and the Potsdamer Platz, where the cinimax is located, and the film museum as well.

We seperated at that time...she went off to the India exhibition at the Cultural Centre. We grabbed a quick bite, then set off towards Checkpoint Charlie, the remains of the Berlin wall, and finally the Jewish museum (yes Kunaal, I dragged Saima and Jigisha all over to the other end coz of your recommendation.)...at first I was perplexed coz the entrance showed a very normal bldg...nothing the types Kunu would rave about...then I realised that what he wanted me to see was the Holocaust tower...its an incredible monument that captures the horror of the holocaust brilliantly in its stark spaces, darkness and light and silences...the architect is the same guy who is doing the new WTC in NY....I think its Daniel something...I can't remember how his surname is spelt!!!

We had to meet Annika at 6.15 pm so after I did a bit of shopping at the museum shop...bought an Anne Frank book, and 2 books on the museum, some postcards and a plate of Berlin...we walked back to Potsdamer Platz. We decided we'd stay for the movies at the India exhibition and catch the last train back home...so Annika and I grabbed some gluh-wine(its hot wine served during Christmas time...wonderfully tasty and warms you up...which I needed) and some pizza...and then we walked down to the Cultural Center, past the Vistory Tower and the Bell tower...they were screening two films about friendships - one a documentary about four youths from a lower class Delhi area and the other Dil Chahta Hai...which Annika happens to have seen 4 times already!!! She was singing the songs aloud later at the stn and dancing...quite amusing!!!

Anyways we caught the last train back and reached Magdeburg at 1 am...I fell asleep on the way...Sat was the first day since I've come here that I felt really cold...the wind in Berlin was crazy..at times we were just being propelled forward by the wind, but the worst was when we had to walk against it!!! Brrrrrrrrrrrr...today in Magedburg its 3 degrees...so I guess Winter is setting in finally...

Though I tried I ended up waking up at 8 am even though we slept at 2 am...Saima and Jigisha didn't surface till 11.30 by which time I'd done the weekly cleaning, disposed of the garbage and cooked lunch!!! LOL!! We spent Sunday lazing ard and studying...we had to prepare for our Blake presentation and I also got cracking on Barthes' essay (for MA)...in the eveg we went over to Annika's house for pot luck dinner...her folks dropped in with Falafels for all of us, there was macaroni by us, and chana by one of Annika's Indian friends!!! We saw this movie called 'Pushpak' - a silent film with Kamal Hassan in it...quite ok...I wondered why the guy kept translating actions for Annika - it was a silent movie didnt require any explns!!! Anyways we finished the Blake presentation work this morng. We just printed out the hand-outs we have to provide the class with...wish me luck...should flatten the Germans with the presentation!!! Hehehehe....

Let's Raise A Toast To The Future Chef - LOL!!!

Yesterday after I blogged I was studying in the library..this place is really very conducive for that. It'S designed to create a perfect atmosphere for students to spend time reading books, making notes, doing research online and even using the computers for work...including thier own laptops. I fond it tough to stop myself yesterday and go home...specially since I'd got such an interesting book!!!

I'm back today....actually we had to finish working on our presentation on Blake which is due on Tuesday, so we figured we'd save ourselves the climb to the computer room which is situated on the 4th floor!!! Before we came here, in the morning we had Ebeling's lecture. She also tried to corner us into a presentation but we decided we'd rather just assist 2 guys who are presenting on `Indigenisation of Languages' and `New English Literatures' respectively....looking forward to contributing on both those topics. After that, we had gone to the cashier to find out when we shall get the money for the month of January, so that we can accordingly confirm our tickets. She assured us we'd get it by the first week....Yippee - Hahahaha!!!
After that we went to pay our monthly rent at the bank and then went of to discover ALDI for ourselves. Most students were hesistating to tell us where it is coz of soem status issue here regarding the store but, finally some of them told us where it is...since we 'd heard its cheaper we thought it would help us if we could save money and use for travelling and shopping...anyways we found its pretty much the same prices there as in our regular supermarket REAL and couldn't figure out the whole big deal they make of its status and shit...so well, we just discovered it for ourselves and decided to use it only for a few things....

Made some delicious veggies in white sauce from a packet for lunch and just marinated chicken legs in preparation for dinner. I have a feeling my father's desire that I learn to cook is gonna come true by the end of 3 months..hehehe!!!

We are going to Berlin tomorrow with Annika. We are going on the weekend group ticket...that enables upto 5 people to travel on a reduced price and is very feasible for students. Once in Berlin I think we shall have to roam ard ourselves so I guess that's gonna be another accomplishment for us. Annika has invited us for bfast to her place tomm and we shall head for the stn from her place...which is actually closer to the tram stop anyways...LOL!!!

Well that's it I guess....must go now and join Saima in studying....Until Monday...Bonne Weekend!!!

Uncomfotable situations

Hmmmmm......today was a confusing day..there were good experiences and uncomfortable experiences, but on the whole it was a pretty good day. To start with Dr.Lange's lecture as usual seemed boring and he cornered us into a presentation that had me irked....I didn't like the topic one bit. But then his lecture got interesting for the first time since we'Ve been here....after the lecture we spoke to him about our return etc etc. We met Annika after that....we were going down when we bumped into Hardo..who we hadn't seen since last thursday - the whole thing after was very uncomfotable. He wasn't his usual self, and while we were at the Mensa literally digging into this umptous meal of fries, baked veggies and turkey in white sauce I asked what hapnd about the decisions regarding who gets to go on the excursion to India. It turned out that Annika got in, but Hardo didn't...which seemed really unjust since he is the most ideal candidate...in terms of knowledge of the country and its culture, interest and research thesis, knowledge of language, basic personality etc etc...he was very upset about it and was discussing with Annika about what he can do now....felt really bad coz it seems the profs of the depts are using him, and we hoped he doesn't think so are we....won't know till we meet him again...I certainly pray not. And I certainly hope they haven't chosen Susanna for the trip coz from her attitude and from what she's said I do not think she should be given a chance to go back to India on a scholarship---her attitude is that of a typical Westerner...most annoying and irksome!!! And highly limited in her knowledge and experience and acceptance of differences...judgemental too..ah well..not deserving. Fullstop.

After he left we taught Annika the vowels and consonants of the Hindi script and then we saw the movie 'Salaam Bombay'...its a brilliant movie and the portrayal of the characters by all the artistes is excellent. The subject of street children, prostitution and life in the 'seedy' areas of Bombay has been dealt with very sensitively by Mira Nair. I think the movie is excellent and am glad I saw it....Ironically I wouldn't have been as keen on the movie back in India, just as I would have never gotten ard to seeing a documentary on Bombay back home!!! Odd how being away makes you appreciate things more and want to be more of an 'expert' on your own country...know more about things you previously just took for granted....

We also made plans to go to Berlin with Annika...we are planning to take the weekend trip to Berlin, on the group ticket. Five ppl can trvale on that, so Annika shall get one more of her friends and we shall all go together and come back together...glad this materialised coz earlier we were depending on Hardo which now I realise wasn't fair (infact I hope he doesn't think that's the only reason we are interested in him!!!)....

Was at the computer room earlier but were booted out in 15 mins coz of some problem....so when I came to the library in connection with my Blake presentation due next week I couldn't resisit the computer....but now I must go do what I came here for....

Grasping for Content...

Why is it that every time I get down to blogging I'm already like all so full of stuff in my head, after like atleast 4-5 emails, that I end up staring at the screen for 2 minutes before beginning to type? Today I'm drawing an absolute blank, so pardon me if I ramble on like I've just downed a couple of bottles of wine...Ironically I've not had any since well last sunday!!! LOL!!!

OHHHH....I dunno if I mentioned this before but I'm doing this presentation on representations of Mumbai in Bollywood for the Dharawi class with Dr.Wiemann....today we went to the video library for that. They have like the most wonderful collection...actually its not that great, but considering we don't have ANY collection back home...I was really wishing we had something similar...they have like loads of classics, adaptations of Shakespeare, adaptations of novels...I wanna see atleast some of them before I leave. We are anyways gonna be seeing 4 of Jane Austen movies (adaptations of 4 of her novels) starting next week for our class on Janespotting, again with Wiemann. Plus today for the Dharawi class I saw a documentary film on Bombay, along with the girl who is doing a presentation on that...saw it for curiosity and coz I wanted to be able to make pertinent comments in class...I've been really vocal in this class....and the one on English in Non-Native Contexts...pleased as punch with that!!!

Tomm Saima and I are meeting Annika for lunch at the Mensa and then we shall give her 'Hindi' lessons...haha!! After that we are gonna watch 'Salaam Bombay' for our presentation...not typical Bollywood but we are using it as an example..plus I haven't seen the movie...so why miss the chance to see it? LOL!!!

I think I mentioned that I've been cooking alot these days...latest accomplishment - alu palak...came out really delicious if I say so myself!!!!! Geets the Chef....hehehehe!!!

Today I feel like I've been on my feet since morning...but it feels good to be busy doing stuff and meeting people, reading in the library for class and learning stuff, whatever it maybe...yesterday was really amazing in class coz we had this major discussion on how 'male best friends' in India can hold hands and not be seen as homosexuals...ofcourse that is changing now...but I was thinking (and voicing my thoughts)...what is the big deal...I mean if 2 girls hug or walk arm in arm, that's ok..but if guys hold hands for even 2 minutes..that's so not acceptable...and I personally think that the very fact that this is seen as 'homosexual' behaviour in Germany and puts a restraint on male friendships, signifies that they are not as open-minded about homosexuality as they claim to be...so how, then, despite this contradiction in what they say and think and apply to social situations, can they point fingers at the conservatism of India??? Besides I really have to ask...what is the BIG deal about homosexuality...I mean, so some people prefer people of their own sex...as long as they do not expect you to respond, why ostracise them and harass them about their personal choice...to me, this choice is on the same level as choosing someone from a different community...I really abhorr people who label and categorise what they see as 'gay' traits and then treat the person in a shabby manner...and that whole issue of labelling people as 'arty' or 'hip' or 'geeky' or whatever....oh that so gets on my nerves...I think such behaviour stinks.

Guess that's it for now...coz I'm really grasping for content now...even my imagination runs dry now so can't even just blab....

Rambling...

I just copied and pasted the deatils of my Wittenberg trip, with a few additions...just to kinda feel like I did the whole thing specially for the blog...cheater me!! LOL!!!

Hmmmm....I last spoke about us going to Annika's place for dinner....that was wonderful. She stays quite close to our place and shares the apt with 2 other students. Her room is really cozy..she has a bunk bed and has spread colourful caprets all over..has an impressive collection of books and CDs and well...really nice, warm and inviting room. Ironically she had amde Indian food for us...and even more ironically it tasted better than the stuff we cook!!! LOL!!! I really overate that night and this by just sampling each thing she cooked...there were atleast 7 types of dishes...and then milk and cookies..which was the only 'Western' element in the meal...even the crockery she had bought from the 'Asia market'!!!!! All in all that was a fun night..we spoke about the girls who were here last year, Annika's own eyperience in India, our experiences, our plans, our classes etc etc etc...

On thursday I was here at the computer room when Hardo arrived with the photopgraphs he had taken of our flat the first week we were here!! Finally!! He was very aplogetic about the delay and said he must make up, so even tho it was just Saima and me, he took us bowling to the place he used to work at 5 years back. It's a place called Twenty...and we had a ball there. I always shirked away from bowling coz I thought I'd go along with the ball down the gulley(or whatevere it's called)!!!! Plus I knew with my arm-muscle-power I'd get a pathetic score...but Hardo was amazingly patient and taught me how to stand right, how to swing my arm etc etc...and well I had fun!!! Our scores were like this:
Hardo -121
Saima - 91
Me - 87
Acc to Hardo it's great coz most first-timers get a score of ard 45!! So I pretty kicked...we discovered about his tabla, so both of us nagged him about it and wranlged a promise from him that he'd play it for us once...I wanted so desperately to make him hear Rhydhun or one of my James Asher Cds...but I guess that will have to wait till he is in India...which will hopefully be in Feb...insha allah!!!
After he left us Saima and I went shopping and ended up discovering this amzing store with fabulous stuff and at reasonable prices....both of us fell hook,line and sinker for alot fo stuff and decided we'd return there the day we got our next monthly stipend and blow up some money!!! LOL!! I was there yesterday coz we got our money i the morning...we did our weekly shopping of bread, rice, veggies, chicken etc etc...and then went to H&M...Saima and I both bought this sweater which is fashioned like a close form fitting jacket and has a belt along with it...It's so chic I totally adore it!!! I also bought a teeshirt, this time I fell for the colour and the price...it's an off-shoulder thingie but again abso chic and stylish!!!

That night (thursday) even though I had to get up early the next day for the trip, I stayed up late writing comments on the back of each photograph and drawing a map of our flat as well as our area to send home...I posted the photos yesterday along with 2 other mails that have been waiting for 2 weeks..*embarassed about that delay!!*

This weekend I studied and read alot...we had gone to the library on Saturday afternoon so I got soem more books and managed to finish off one section of Paper 8..thouroughly kicked with that!! I also started reading 'The Paino Tuner'...its a very engrossing book and I'm enjoying it...

I've been cooking quite a bit and even got a compliment from Jigisha yesterday..she said that even though I say I don't know how to cook much, whenever I make something, even if its for the first time I end up doing a good job of it...was extremely pleased!!!

Hmmm....gosh there's always so much running in my mind that I wanna blog about but seem to run outta time...eurail, trip to France, class experiences, stuff I ate (Oh I ate on the street yesterday..this thing called Currywurst..its sausages in Sauce....awesome..delicous..mouth-wateringly so!!!)...

Must stop now and turn my attention to some emails and some sites I MUST see today!!! Ciao!!!

Wittenberg and more...

A detailed account of my Wittenberg trip.

On Friday 31st, we got up at 5.45 to get ready and make some sandwiches for the train journey, and left nice and early to catch the tram to Hauptbanhof....but the tram never showed up, so we had to walk down briskly to reach the stn on time!!! We were a group of ard 55+ students. We met up at Hauptbanhof, Magdeburg at 8.45 am and caught the 9.14 train to Rosslau(Elbe)...the regional express, so it stops at every station. From Rosslau we took another tran to Wittenberg, Lutherstadt, which to me looked like they've stopped in the middle of nowhere....the platform was only on 1 side and where we got down was sand and then fields!!!

Anyways we crossed the tracks, India style without waiting for the signal LOL!!! After that we walked down to the market place and then seperated and did our roaming ard in smaller groups. Oh yeah, basically 31st Oct is Reformation Day, so there was a fair and big celebration thingie happening in Wittenberg...The 3 of us occassionally joint the others but mostly roamed ard by ourselves.....Here's what all we saw/did:

1. Schloss kirche(kirche in German means church) where Luther had pinned his 95 theses against the sale of indulgences on 31st oct,1517. We heard the choir sing there, which was quite beautiful....

2. Cranachhaus: Cranach was a painter, pharmicist and publisher and this house was given to him by the Elder of the monastery...in it was a mini fair...OK.

3.City Chruch(St.Mary) : this was where Luther preached regularly. Its quite a huge church and we had to go back twice to try and get in..there was always a stream of ppl coming out of the church!!!

4. Melanchton house: He was a humanist and a friend of Luther. The house has been converted into a museum, so we roamed ard and read the plaques and everything....

5. Luther House: This was where Luther lived from 1508 onwards. It's a huge house that has also been converted into a museum, and was filled with info, relics et al. It was nteresting, specially coz I've read the play Luther by Osborne and knew some of the stuff, but I has an overdose of Luther by the end of the whole affair. there too we heard a choir sing, which in my opinion was smoother and much better than the one in the church....Unluckily we weren't allowed to take any photos in there so I ended up buying postcards of the place...really absurd!

6. Market place: This was the most interesting part of the trip. It was Reformation Day so there was a fair in the market place...all the vendors were dressed in costumes of the 16th century, there were foodstalls selling these mouth watering things,bread and muffins being baked in wooden ovens, stalls selling jewellery, agarbattis(nagchampa for 6 eu..that was a scream!!), hocus-pocus and even fur!!! They even had this mini tavern....it was a sight to behold and everything deserved a look..I wanted to absorb every detail....the best part, for me, was the street performance by this Native American Band...the music was simply mindblowing. The rhythm and the way the unadultered sound of their instruments resonated in the streets was awesome!! It's also the first time that I threw caution to the winds and joined the group of people dancing...the music was simply irresistible!!! I obviously ended up buying their CD!!!

We finished all this by 4, so we just sat in the market place and ate some stuff while watching everything ard us, till 5 when we walked back to the station thinking we would be the first. Surprisingly others were already there..so we spent one hour talking to various people till the train arrived...I ended up talking to a large number of people that day..Itlainas, Polish, Ukranian, English, Russian and ofcourse German too!!! Quite nice....

Reached Magdeburg, caught the first tram to Universitat Platz and had a rushed dinner, before we left again for Halloween movie night at the IKT centre....that was fun, except for the Indian guys. I ended up giving one of them a piece of my mind...he said something really disgusting about a girl in Hindi forgetting that I could understand what he said...I was extremely revolted and couldn't stop myself from telling him what I thought of specimens like him...he hapnd to be the same guy I'd told off earlier, so later he tells Jigisha that 'your friend has very high standards no?'.....tickled me silly....we slept like dogs that night coz we'd been up sicne 5.30 and it was 1 am by the time we went to bed!!!!

Nostalgia

Today morning I got a package from home..actually not directly from home. Papa's boss Dr.Metzger was in Bombay last week, so I'd asked for some things to be sent through him. He was to post it to me from Frankfurt, so I'd get the stuff sooner than if my parents sent it from Bombay...they sent more than I asked for...apart from the notes, medicines and sweater I'd asked for, I also got a photograph of Schnapps and a box full of home-made Diwali sweets, i.e. gujiyas and shakar-pare!!! The extent of my happiness can not be described...infact I was so overwhelmed that I decided to go off somewhere by myself and generally get a grip before I cried or something!!

Since I was studying at the time the package arrived, I grabbed a quick bite and then left for the library. There I read up for class...last week we were lost in the Jane Austen class...for reasons too long to get into here, I don't wanna purchase the book here. Since the book isn't there in the library for loan..its only on the reserve shelf, I have to sit in the library and read it. I read up enough for today's class and was so glad I did coz I could participate in class...and it made sense to me. Ironically I took this class coz Saima wanted to, but now I'm enjoying it more than her...haha!! I think its coz we are free to give our own opinions and interpretations and I like this system of free discussion in class....plus they are approaching JA alot differently than we did in FYBA so she seems more readable now..from a different angle ofcourse...but well the aim is achieved...

Here alone again today coz they checked their mail while I was at the library...after this I'm going to Annika's for dinner as I mentioned yesterday. OHHHHH...I forgot to mention today I was in traditional garb, i.e. Salwar Kurta!!! I was wearing a salwar kurta even on sunday but that was only at home...today I wore my salwar kurta and roamed all over and am going in the same to Annika's also...didn't realise how much I missed wearing it. I mean I'm extremely comfy in jeans and prefer them most of the times, but I wear salwar kurtas just as much back home and wearing it today kinda felt nice....really nice!!! Another reason for nostalgia..LOL!!!

Guess that's it for now....Chao!!!

Resolutions and more...

I was thinking last night about how much my blog has started resembling a newspaper...all it consists of these days is reports and updates...there's hardly any introspection, observations, or even rambling...just ABC...period. How boring and mundane could I get? So henceforth I shall try to go back to my rambling style and include personal perceptions, opinions, thoughts et al....

Was walking down alone to the computer room today..felt really good. I mean I enjoy the company of the other two...but since we've come here I do everything along with them...atleast Saima comes along everywhere...so today the solitary walk cleared my senses and made me feel fresh and alive...tho I did feel a bit creeped out when I crossed this part with these huge trees..that part of the campus is dark and silent...tad scary if you have an active imagination like mine!! LOL!!

I plan to get out more like this...not out into the city, but maybe for a walk, or even to the computer room...coffee perhaps? Lets see how far I go with my resolutions...

Today in class we got really bored...Prof Kamble from the Socio dept of our univ is here in Magdeburg for a mth and he took the Dharawi lec today. All that he lectured about was basically repetition for us so we had a tough time restraining ourselves from getting distracted...one thing I can't understand about Indian professors is why they get all defensive and so conscious when they are abroad or in front of a Western academician...I mean he was the authority on Indian sociology in the circumstance, yet he kept referring to the German profs!!! He undermined his own status...completely incomprehensible to me....
The next class was Breunig's class...the same prof who invited us over for dinner last week. Obviously we knew lotsa people there and it felt nice to enter a class and say hullo to everyone and then walk out of the building discussing the lecture and the idiosyncracies of the prof...feels like we are included in the class properly now..not just guests, temporary members....know what I mean?

Tomorrow evening we have been invited to another dinner...this time a classmate...Annika. She was in Mumbai two years ago, so she is also interested n going back for another trip...infact she has applied for the excursion in Feb to Mumbai/Dharawi...anyways shes really quite nice and friendly. This morng she came around and took us to the IKUS office..thats the orgn for intercultural activities...they are organising the trip to Wittenberg. We registered for the trip..after that we visited the univ bookshop and I saw these cool tees with the Univ logo emblazoned on the front...shall pick one up as a momento of sorts...

Hmmm thats's it for now...feeling hungry...just had soup for bfast and grabbed a sandwich in between...shall email home and run back 'home'...talk about wierd...she talks of 2 homes in the same breath!!! Not yet diasporic tho...yes I know my attmept at humour escapes you all...accept it as Geetanjali's idiosyncracies!!! Hahaha!!

Weekend update

People have been saying I let our problem child affect me too easily...they are right..its just that she irritates me ALOT! Last night she got all worked up over a small issue and started saying that Saima and I are extremely sensitive and make too much of small issues and shudnt judge ppl. The two of us got very angry over that specially since she herself gossips so much, has made all sorts of gossipy comments about Hardo and his girlfriend Nadine and well we've heard from the horse's mouth itself of how judgemental she is.

Infact this weekend we got very angry with her. She had all but insisted on inviting Hardo's parents over for Diwali and made this big deal of the festival...which really was nothing here and didn't even feel like Diwali in the first place...but anyways we said fine. Then on fri she has to go to her professor'S place and said she'd return on sat morng. We said fine again!!! But fri night she calls and says that she can't come back coz theres a party she doesn't wanna miss. So she called up Hardo's parents and told them to come on sun. They said next sun...she said this sun. I was soooooooo embarassed when I heard that. I mean to cancel is bad enuff but to reschedule to her convenience was appallling....

Anyways on sat morng Saima and I decided to have fun ourselves and stop catering to her whims and facies...so we made french toast fro breakfast...and got ready leisurely...then we set off to the zoo. We caught the tram to Neustadter Platz, then asked for directions in broken german from dictionary and found our way. The zoo (called Zoologishcer Gardens since it also includes a park of sorts) is wonderful...its huge and has alot of animals some of which I've not ever heard of. We spent ard 3 hrs there...and had a small picnic as well since we'd carried sandwiches...we just had some coffee there to warm ourselves up and then walked back to the tram stop, using a diff route, seeing some beautiful cottages on a private road...had a nice time. In the eveg we studied a bit and slept late after talking and browsing magazines...

On sun morng we got up early had tea/coffee and bfast and then set ourselves to cleaning up the apt. We swept and mopped...sprayed perfume in the air, got flowers from the park and put them in a bottle to make the house look nice. Opened the windows and aired the rooms.....Jigisha arrived by anoon, so after that we had a bath, then each cooked her contribution. Mine was alu ki sabzi, in which I used toamto kethcup, amchur, garam masala and salt...and they really liked the subzi alot. Nothing was left, only 1 spoon which Hardo tasted this morng. Jigi made dal and saima made pulav. Jigi also made nariyal ki mithai which refused to set so we served it as nariyal ka halwa.

They got us fruits, choc and wine as gifts..on the whole dinner went ok...I'm carrying back the cork of the wine as a momento..doubt if I'll have place to carry the bottle...

Today we decided to drop the mon lec coz we dint go last week and we still haven't read the book....we were anyways to do only 3-5 lecs and were doing 6. Now we are doing 5 after dropping this one....we are planning going to see the Elbe river. Its the second largest river in germany after the Rhine...there is a cruise so we 'll find out how much that costs....

This friday we r going to Wittenberg on a Univ orngd trip...waiting for that...we also planned out some trips to see Berlin, the local castles and the beer brewery Hardo....and planned out what museums and churches we can visit by ourselves and made this list of Things to Do!!!! Hehehe.....

Nights Out, Nights In And More...

Wohkee I am back..tan tada!!! LOL!!

Lets see now I hope I haven't forgotten all what I wanted to blog about. So we went to Prof Breunig's place for dinner on Wednesday. We had to walk down...that was interesting, coz we had to follow his directions and I was reading the city map and guiding us. His house is actually in the centre of the city, but yet set in this very green and almost rural area by appearance at night time!! We reached there a bit early. But Stefan (the guy who amde the presentation a day earlier) was already there, so it wasnt awkward reaching early. Breunig immediately offered us wine or juices...no points for guessing that I chose the former. There was German wine and also Spanish wine...I ended up having 4 glasses in all, 2 of each.

Anyways the other guests gradually trickled in...and tho it was awkward initially I think we made some new friends that evening. I think this was a wonderful idea..this way we've made friends faster and it felt really nice to be invited to Prof Breunig's place, meet his wife, eat properly cooked food, talk to others besides us and Hardo....
Conversation flowed much more freely during and after dinner...which by the way was scrumptious. He had made 4 types of pizza. Saima and I really enjoyed the entire evening coz we liked the food and have no probs talking. Jigisha is our problem child..but I shall not dwell on that topic. I got talking to a guy named Bjorn who wants to come to India next year on the scholarship...interesting fella. Infact what amazes me is the amount these people know..I noticed this even in Hardo...they have quite a bit of knowledge about many topics...something lacking in most young people back home. Ofcourse the ignorant ones here are like REALLY dumb!! So maybe there are just extremes here...too soon for me to jugde anyways...plus not really in a position to judge.

Then thursday and today we didn't do much. Just basically lectures...and a little shopping...bought some gifts and did more exploring of the main city area. We've decided to start our sight-seeing next week and then start venturing out of the town..there is a Univ trip to Wittenberg next Friday...looks promising. Oh!!! Today's lecture was interesting...its on English in non-native contexts...I was in full 'josh' debating heatedly on who decides what is standard English etc etc...ofcourse all my post-colonial studies was guiding my debates...the prof was delighted to hear I'm a student of Dr.Bharucha...which reminds me..there are atleast three of Dr.Veveina's books in the library here. I was very very proud when I saw them...Three cheers for our profs!!! :)

Nothing much else. Its Diwali tomm, but obviously no big deal here. We have invited Hardo's parents over for dinner...not my idea...its gonna be stressful coz Hardo wont be there, and they speak no English as I've mentioned before...but we shall see....Gonna make pulav and dal, with yoghurt and suji ka halwa...pray it tastes fine!!!! LOL!!!

HAPPY DIWALI TO EVERYONE!!!!!

Celebrations et al....

Yesterday was Jiigisha's birthday....I was not the least bit excited becoz well it seemed a bit immature and I don't make that big a deal of my birthday...would not do anything if not for friends....anyways Hardo got her a gift hamper so she was thrilled. Then we had lectures all day and were basically busy. Yesterday it rained all day and was cold and chilly...temperatures are about 8 degress or so now....and its bloody windy. Our lectures yesterday were interesting...in the lecture on Dharawi I did a lot of talking about the history of Bombay and the re-naming of the city to Mumbai. In the next lecture on Blake , we had this abso immature and bizarre presentation by a supposedly erudite student...Saima and I had a tough time keeping a straight face...we came up with very valid points of discussion later. A whole load of students came up to us yesterday to talk to us...so it seems we shall make some more friends besides Hardo..thank god!!!

We came home and racked our brains about dinner coz it was raining and the restaurants near by were shut...there was next to no grocery left..no sugar also!! Finally made a mixed bhaji..later Jigisha produced Apple pie and Choc pastry...the pie was delicious..since only Hardo and I liked it...I got to eat Jigisha's and Saima'S share as well...crazy two to prefer the choc pastry which is really so common..OK Geets's Bitchy side surfaces again!!! LOL!!!

Hardo had to leave then coz his l'amour beckoned...so after that we three went out for a stroll and coffee. I discovered that a glass of wine costs the same as a cappucino and less than a mochiatto...so next time I'm drinking wine....speaking of wine, tonight we are going to Prof Breunig's home for literary discussions over pizza and wine..looking forward to it...defi the pizza and wine if not the discussions...hahaha!!!

Today was an OK day...we had a meeting with Prof Wiemann finally and decided on our presentation on Bollywood representations of Mumbai. The lecture was a tad boring coz I'm anyways not a big fan of Jane Austen and I've not even read the novel concerned....but we did our weekly shopping today. Saima and I went before lectures and got enough so we don't need to go for atleast 10 days...we had a tough time carrying it back but now that we use the trams its easier than carrying it all the way home on foot...that used to be tough on the muscles!!! We had a nice Garman lady who was conerned about us when we asked if Tram # 3 goes to Universitaat platz...she was this grandmotherly lady and she thought we were absolutely new and helped us with the bags into the tram and even pointed out the direction to us when we were getting down from the tram...felt nice...!!!

That's it for now....

Long boring weekend

Gosh this weekend was so boring....mainly coz we didn't do anything aside from window shopping..that was OK...I mean all I did was browse this supermarket and mentally noted down the stuff I can buy as gifts later..but thats it...I mean ''dead'' is how I'd describe the weekend. To make things worse atmosphere at 'home' was tense all of sunday so we weren't talking to each other and were studying, of all the things...by night we had all studied ourselves out of our skulls and sat down for a mature talk. We planned out the things we can do on the forthcoming weekends so we don't get stale sitting at home....

Today morng we woke up to find that the radiator had sprung a leak in the living room and there was water all over. After mopping it up, we had to deal with the maintainance guy, plumber and the lady below whose house already had leakage....they shall replace our radiator tomm, but we luckily dont have to pay for it...which is a relief!!! The lady downstairs too agreed we don't have to pay for her wallpaper, since its not out fault...that was nice of her!! Ofcourse we needed to wait for Hardo to come before we could solve that problem, becoz of the lang barrier!!! I hated that bit..felt so handicapped coz I knew the problem but had to hold back only coz I couldn't express myself..urghhh!!! Hate having my hands tied back...specially when I can pinpoint the problem and know the solution as well....gah!!!

Aside from that, what else have I still got to update on? Basically about the class structure....its really informal and I liked that. But what I didn't like was the complete lack of respect for professors...the students here just don't respect the prof, they talk loudly in class and are very stand-offish in their attitude towards the prof. Infact I guess that's one reason why the profs like us so much...coz we habitually give them the respect due to a teacher. Ofcourse they are also happy coz we are so interested in what is ebing taught despite it being not related to our MA degree at all. If you noticed we are attending 3 lectures of D.Wiemann....and he's really happy with us coz we are very verbal in his classes. Tomm we have to meet him regarding a presentation....

On sat we also finally got our library cards..we borrowed 4 books immediately..I loved the atm in the library and I think I'll spend alot of time there during the week....studying, reading etc...I can also access the net from there..so voila..my new adda!! Hahaha!!!

Hmmmm...I think this is it for today..until next time....tschuss!!!

Update 2

I'm back with more blah blah....

Last sunday was perhaps the most memorable and idyllic days of my life. Hardo had invited us to his place...he picked us after lunch and we drove down to his village : Burgstall. On the way we passed a local brewery that I made him promise we'd visit later. They make beer from this local water that passes through this sponge-like stone and is very clean and cold (approx 5 deg centigrade)..then wes topped at his mother's dispernsary behing which is a small animal farm, where we played with a deer. After that we headed to his home..e..he stays with his parents surprisngly! His house is very charming...near the woods, it was built in 1969 and modernised later. They have a huge backyard with a pool filled with fishes and lots of lowers all around. After meeting his parents, who unfortunately speak only German and his girlfriend Nadine, we set off for a long walk in the woods. We picked up mushrooms, unluckily the berries weren't ripe yet. The walk was something completely awesome..the sensation of walking in the woods surrounded by tall cedar and oak trees, the quite all around, punctuated only by the sound of our footsteps , our breating and our own voices with the occassional call of a bird. The feeling of ebing wrapped in the greenery all around...the peace from within..it was serenely beautiful!!! In the end we visited the local moors in which 2 tanks sank during the World War II and several people have disappeared. That was very exciting...Hardo taught us how to jump on cumps of grass so we don't sink in...kinda scary but fun as well.
Back at his place we had dinner and left after that....a most enjoyable and almost perfect day..had I known German it would have been perfect...regrets regrets!!!

We've been having major discussion every evening that ranges topics from love life (haha), school days, religious beliefs, cultural attitudes and values, feminism et al!! MAkes for active exercise of the grey cells and fills the long dark and very quiet evenings....

On a funny note before I stop for the day..I've been getting funny results with my lanudry. Each time I've done my lanudry I end up putting some coloured garment in it..so I now have undergamrnets n sahdes of blue and pink..highly funny to see them..even wierder wearing them!! Hahaha!! Ah well I'll learn as I experience newer wierder stuff...:)

Unitl next time...I hope to see more comments on this blog...Ciao!!

Update 1

As I promised yesterday I'm back today with updates...it will be gradual, so please don't expect all the news at one shot...

The last few hours before I left for the airport, I was really tense..had like butterflies clamouring for attention in my stomach. But it settled down and by the time I reached the airport I was my usual calm and composed self. Though it was my first time in the airport (I refuse to count the few times I've flown as a kid), and international airports are so confusing, we managed just fine. Got through check-in, security check etc smoothly and then called up the people I wanted to talk to before boarding the flight. That was sentimental few hours!!
The flight by itself was OK. I had like absolutely no reaction to taking-off, landing...you know the usual nausea and giddyness people experience. Infact I slept quite comfortably once I managed to settle into the tiny seat. An interesting thing was that my experience echoed that of others in my acquaintance who'v travelled by Alitalia - the crew is extremely inept and inhospitable. Bordering on rude..if you don't act like this bossy authority, they just rail-road over your requests and almost see through you!! Siama and Jigisha had a slight problem with the food, but I quite liked what they served except for the chole for breakfast...I was quite revolted seeing chole in my tray almost as soon as I opened my eyes...but then we all know my so-called 'firang' tastes!! Hahah!
Anyways we landed at Milan airport at 6.58 am local time, and spent 2 hours at the airport...pretty boring coz none of the custom duty shops were open that early!!
The flight from Milan to Berlin was in one of those tiny cute 56 seater planes...that was awesome...we could see out of the windows and I just totally enjoyed seeing the perfect landscapes, the red roofs of the tiny cottages, the snow-capped mountains and then the clouds....it was an amazing experience.

We landed at Berlin at local time 11.20 am, and Hardo was waiting for us. He was exactly as I remembered him (appearances) - tall, shaggy, with long hair and a beard that reminds me of blue-beard for some strange reason! Ofcourse I had completely read the cover wrong, for the book (him as a person) inside is a warm, friendly and very helpful person. Throughout the hour long drive down to Magdeburg he talked about a wide range of topics from his experience when he landed in Mumbai last year, where he stayed, what we have to do once we reach Magdeburg, the local area history, about the town, a little information about places we passed etc etc. We passed this man-made structure called the Kali mountains...they were created due to the artificial production of salt in the region. The alkaline nature of the soil in the region has destroyed the vegetation around the mountains ...I found this very interesting - yet another example of how materialisation adn industrialisation has affected natural elements...

We reached Magdeburg and headed straight for the University where we met Prof Lange. After that we headed to the estate agent's office and signed the contract for the flat....we are now paying 444.60 Eu for it....
The flat itself was a surprise..quite dirty by German standards. But much bigger than what we expected. We have 2 bedrooms, a huge living room, a bathroom, a kitchen and a balcony as well. All the rooms are heated except the balcony. Tha bathroom was the dirtiest of all...and most annoyingly has no drain except the one in the bathtub...which means when water spills out of the tub, you either let it stay there and tolerate the damp smell (there are no windows) or get down and mop it up daily...well cleaning up that place was a mammoth task which we took on later in the week. Had to numb our senses before we plunged into the task..but now that it's clean, we are quite pleased with ourselves.
We also had to sweep, mop and clean up the other rooms. It was extremely dirty as we got it. We ended up re-arranging the furniture and shifting cupboards around so that the place looks nice, warm and inviting..more of a home than a house. We did this on saturday nearly a week after we arrived coz till then we were busy getting ourselves enrolled, getting registered with the local council, settling in basically. We couldn't have managed this without Hardo, coz he pretty much smoothed the way for us and we didn't have to do much else ebyond signing!!! He's been an angel through-out...wrangling his way trhough for our work, when he didn't need to do anything of the sort...thank god for him!!!!

Classes started this week...so far we've had only introductory lectures but the professors are impressed by us and we'Ve already gained a reputation in the languages deparments...becuase we not onlly interact in class, our POVs seem to be of a level higher than that of the students here...plus we've offered to do presentations out of interest not necessity so that acts in our favour. These are the classes I've signed up for:
1. Alternative and Parallel Englands - Swift's Gulliver's Travels and Defoe's Robinson Crusoe (D.Wiemann)
2. Political, socio-economic and cultural asepcts of Indian society today: the case of Bombay/Dharawi (D.Wiemann)
3. William Blake (H.W.Breunig)
4. Janespotting :Austen in print and on screen (D.Wiemann)
5. City cultures in Britain (B.P.Lange)
6. English in non-native contexts (K.Ebeling)

I had wanted to do the courses on post-colonialism but they got cancelled so I had to come here and change my decision and settle for these...so far they seem very interesting...

Hmm..pretty tired for now..shall pick this up tomm...until then..ciao!!