Germany Trip - 14/August/2006

Day 3:-
The previous night was very cold as myself and ICC did a stupid thing with the heater. We both placed our wet clothes (on day 1 rain) on the heater thinking that the next day our clothes will be warm. But this idea back fired during night as the heat emitted by that thermostat was absorbed by wet clothes leaving the room chill. At midnight i was not able to sleep so I rolled the bed as a bedsheet and crept into it.

Morning:

"I dont want to do this any more - I can never take away his life" - The song by Rihanna - Unfaithful. This is how ICC woke me up on this day by playing MTV loud. Of course not to forget his famous morning wish - "Lieber Kollege - Gutten Morgen". ICC was getting ready to go to office and i was planning to go to a place called "Ulm".
ICC treated me with breakfast - Cornflakes with sugarless milk and a banana. After breakfast we rushed to catch metro. Once we reached metro we met ICC kollege - a tamilian staying with his family in stuttgart. He gave me some tips on what are the places that i can visit in Ulm.
ICC and his kollege got down at a station near to their workplace and me started moving to Hbf.

This day was a different day in my europe stay so far. Yes. This day was the first day where i am alone in a country without friends surrounding.

Since this journey to Ulm from stuttgart Hbf is going to take around 1.5 hrs of journey i decided to buy one orange juice at the station but unfortunately the attender there do not know english. But there i had a man (i suppose he should be from Deutche bank as he was in full formal dress - with dark colour blazer with contrast color in shirt and trouser and tie blending with the color of shirt) to help me out and he did the needful. I said only "Thank you" as "Danke" would not fit realistic for that situation.

I was in 9:20 AM train going towards Ulm. As the train moved on i started on with "Angels and Daemons". Suddenly some police man in the train bought another senior officer in the train for checking my "foreign validity credentials". This is the first time in my europe till now where i was asked to prove my credentials are right. I showed him my valid passport, VISA, work permit and White card. Then came a series of questions from him.

1) Where are you coming from sir?
2) How are you going to sir?
3) How long will be your stay in stuttgart sir?
4) What is the purpose of visit to stuggart sir?
5) Where you stay in stuttgart sir?
6) Do you have return ticket to Brussels sir?

These questions were somewhat heavy for me as normally i have heard from my friends that enquiry will be over with first 3 questions after all document verification. Then something striked in my mind. This day was exactly 4 days after the London aircraft hijacking - liquid bomb incident. "Every action which is extra normal has a in one way or other a minor intention" - i realised.

Did you notice something strange in his questions. He appended "Sir" at the end of every question. This habit of mentioning sir has absconded in software industry - as every one used to call their colleagues (kollege for ICC) with their first name only irrespective of wherever they are in organisation hierarchy.

After all these verification - the senior officer said OK and wished me a nice journey. And that is the indication of end of verification and i am authorised/authenticated to be in germany.
I reached Ulm at around 10:45 AM wondering how will be the places Mams and ICC suggested to visit. The activities they suggested to me were
1) Visit a church which is has a steeple - largest in the world.
2) Birth place of Albert einstein.
3) Boat ride.
4) Art Museum.

I headed towards the travel information center which will be present in all european cities at railways station and asked for a map. You will feel how important a map is if you visit any country outside india in particular Europe/USA.

As Mams/ICC suggested i moved towards the church with directions in the map. The travel guide maps will not have scale (i dont know if there is really one and i missed it out). I just travelled along the direction and found that huge church. The steeple was very high and i got the ticket to climb to the top of steeple.

Good exercise:
As i started walking to the top of the steeple I realised the drop in air pressure. I hope that you now require the height of steeple. It is 1270 metres = 1.27 KM. This distance i would say is the distance between our college library till our bus stop - vertical. Gasping for breath i stopped in middle and started thinking should i go up or not. There are none of my friends to help me if i fall down due to dizziness. I have no other option than continuing.

Amazing architecture:
The path towards steeple was two way. A way to get down and a way to go up. But there should a place where two paths meet. And i was thinking that the place will be top of steeple. But it did not. At one point nearly 250 metres from the top of steeple the two paths met. This is the place where the church care taker will come and ring the big bell (if there is any exact term for this bell in church literature please let me know). Beyond this place the path becomes one way clearly showing that it was designed that this path should be used by one person monitoring the city. What was more amazing is that the support pillars. I do not see any support pillars for these steps. I was expecting more support pillars for this very high steeple.

At this place there is a rest room where people can take rest before they want to make their step towards top of steeple. In that room they have placed pictures of all tall towers in the world. And i saw tanjore temple photo there feeling proud about our architects.

Now standing below just 250 metres from the top of steeple - i decided to reach the top and started climbing in that one way path. The path is very very narrow having a risk of path getting struck if two huge people meet face to face opposite. Two solutions exist.

1) The entire queque climbing up should go down (the place at 250 metres below the top of steeple and where the rest room is).
2) The entire queque coming down (to the place 250 metres below the steeple and where the rest room is) should go up.

Option #2 can be chosen if and only if the top of the steeple can accomodate number of people going down + 2 huge people stuck + number of people already present in the top of steeple. This is quite risky.

You see lot of mathematics is involved for the above case. All these flashed in my mind before i made my first step from the rest room space toward the top of steeple. I prayed that the above case should not occur especially after reaching mid way. I got the blessings from god and reached the "top" safely. The force of wind at the top was fierceful and this made me to think why aero dynamics is important. I still love mechanical engineering - mother of all engineering.

After breathing very fresh air at the top of steeple for more that 15 minutes i started coming down and reached the bottom - ground level very soon. Moving towards gravity is always quicker eh?

Afternoon:

Now having almost 2.5 hours spent visiting this steeple i was left only with 2 hrs to catch the 4'o clock train - so that i can go back to stuttgart at 5:30 PM. Mams and ICC has promised me that their work will be over for the day by then and hence can spent some time for shopping.
Now i started scanning the map for other places to visit. The map seems to have a very closer scale (meaning every 1 Centimeter in map is around 100 metres). I saw that all the places that i need to vist are in and around 500 m radius from the church.

Eager to visit einstein birth place i reversed back towards the railway station of Ulm (the map showed that the einstein birth place is close to ulm railway station). To my dismay i saw a only a monument - an inscription just stating "Birth place of albert einstein". It was a disappointment for me. It seems that einstein has not lived in that place for long time except that this place was fortunate for dedicating a renowed scientist to this world.

Then i started to look for boat ride and found the same after 250m walk. I spent a wonderful 45 minutes boat ride inhaling fresh air across river (Danbe i guess). The time was already close to 3'0 clock and Mams called me just to check my status. That lake is wonderful and suited very much to live a life for people post retirement.

After the boat ride i moved fast to catch my 4'o clock train as i had only 15 minutes to go back to railway station which is 300 metres from the boat ride place. Just before entering the railway station i grabbed french fries from mc donald (pomme frites in deutche and frites in french) as it is going to be my lunch. Vegetarians will have a tough time anywhere outside india - i realised.

Missed out to visit was art museum i felt. I had seen enough at brussels and amsterdam and going to see the big one at paris. So skipped.

Evening:

I did catch my train and reached stuggart station with dan brown and music player entertaining me during journey. ICC was already there. I came to know that he has also undergone the same enquiry from one of the police in the stuggart station. Normal i felt. Mams also joined with his friend Arun (the same mams friend i was mentioning in my germany trip day 1). We all roamed with the plan of me buying a swatch chronograph watch and a germany tshirt. Swatch watch i found bit costlier than in brussels and hence i dropped the plan. T-shirt with Germany title was not found in most of the shops and hence that plan was also dropped.


Dinner at Thai restaurant:
Finally i promised to give treat to mams, ICC and Arun for my trip to europe. I asked them to take me to a pizza hut. But mams with his expertise in research of restautrant, quality of food, price etc advised me that the thai restaurant will be best. Yes indeed mams was right. I found lot of vegetarian items and also the price was also reasonable. We had a nice dinner and finally we moved to their respective places. At this time i was under impression that August 15 is the holiday for mams and ICC. But they gave a punch on my head stating that it is only for the munich state and not for stuttgart. So one more day i have to spent without my friends around. Tough time buddy.