1 This was the first time (also the last till date ;) ) I had the chance to travel in Germany’s fastest (and potentially the fastest in the world according to my German collegues atleast) train – the InterCity Express or simply the ‘ICE’. It was a good experience, that much speed on land was new (though not any more). The interior decos were interesting too, I especially loved the bord-bistro, though I chose not to dine since prices weren’t too catchy for my pocket :)

Once in Hildesheim, I was treated to some great Indian food prepared by the one and only Anu, and surprise surprise I got an early birthday party complete with a cake, candles reminding me I’m turning old (grunt!) and even a few Germans ;). It was a major surprise for me and I loved it! After the mini birthday party we went for a fair in closeby Hannover. We were a very unique gang that day, friends representing 4 countries – India, Germany, Turkey and Romania.. truly international. Everybody was discussing our (the Indians’) age and how we can be so young and working.. hehe.. and I thought I was growing old.. That was a relief! It was great fun and we spend a lot of time chit chatting in the banks of Mach see, having been denied access to the ‘Pepermint dome’ because our clothing was too informal. Boo!

2 I had told Anu that next time I will come driving and she was like no way that is possible. Well it was possible and it was done :) This time we had the full troupe for the trip and not just me. Ginu, Renu, Sandeep and I, geared up from in front of Bosch Plochingen on a Friday evening at around 1630hrs for the stated 5 hour drive to Hildesheim. 1.5 hrs of the stated 5 hrs was lost in the traffic of Stuttgart. It was a tense but good experience for me, since I had not driven much ‘on the wrong side’ in the cities of Germany. Anyway the stated 5hrs extended to nearly 8 and we finally managed to reach Hildesheim by midnight after also getting my first speeding ticket ;) It was a long drive, but with undampened spirits we held on till around 3 am in the morning watching some great Mallu comedy clips :)

The highlight of Saturday was a trip to an amusement park – Heide park – in a small town called Soltau some 100 km away from Hildesheim. The rides were brilliant and the best thing was since it was during off-season we did not have to endure the long queues we had to wait in while we had gone to Europa park. There were some great rides I would recommend any day, especially the biggest wooden frame roller coaster in the world. By night fall we were back, but this time there wasn’t enough energy left for the marathon all night film screenings and so we all had a nice good sleep. Sunday was spend experiencing Ms. Ann Mary Philip’s cooking. We were all good food testers I believe and the quality of food meant that we were all filled up by the time it was time to leave. We also made a short visit to the Hildesheim church and spend a few minutes in the serenity of the cathedral.

3 Two weeks later and we were back. Again in the car, with more drivers, with more experience and no speeding ticket this time, but anyhow managed to get a parking ticket – punishment for a slight lapse of memory :( Saturday we went again to Hannover. Mach see was so different this time, I couldn’t count more than 5 people in the whole area. Last time I was there, there was no place to even turn around without bumping on to some one. Anyway we spend some more time there and was back at home by evening. Mach see seems to have some uncanny relationship with birthday surprises. Since even this time there was not one, but two surprise parties – one for our hostess Anu and one for Renu, each being planned by one another and we three being the common factor. We pulled it off fine and I think they were not acting surprised ;) That was good too. Two more surprises well done in Hildesheim.

The highlight of the trip was yet to come. And that would be a surprise even for you, my good friend – Kappa (tappiocca) and beef fry – Kerala style in Germany! Wow.. that was the tastiest food I have had in ages. Serious and I am not writing this because I know Anu will read this sooner or later ;) but it indeed was… incredible!

Three incredible weekends in the quiet sleepy town of Hildesheim. All credits to Frau. Philip aka Anu for making it all so unforgettable. This post is dedicated to you, Anu.. :)

I have heard so may horror stories about German food. Even the German lady who took my ‘inter-cultural’ session told me so. But I would have to say it has not been too disappointing. No, not that you can have it every day, but it is not as bad as they make it sound to be. Anyway the whole point of this post is not about German food, but something the Germans seem to have adopted as their own.

Meet the Döner Kebab. It is so ubiquitous here in Germany, every railway station, every nook and corner of the street you will find this board. It is like an oasis for the many of my Indian friends here. They are forced to like it, it seems, due to lack of options. But you know what? I have just fallen in love with it. It is cheap (atleast to German standards), it is filling, it has some spice (again with reference to German standards) and it is damn tasty! It is so much part of the German way that you wouldn’t know that it is not really German, rather an export from Turkey. And what varieties they have – Lahmacun, Yufka Döner, Dürüm Döner, the list is endless! It is such a simple dish too – Meat (pork, beef or rarely chicken) and vegetables filled in a pocket (usually) shaped bread. The next best thing to Indian food, if I dare to say… oh and sorry veggies, Germany is still a difficult country for you :(

So you guys know what to do first if you ever land in Germany (or maybe it is still available in Turkey, but I suspect the Germans have imported them all here ;) )!! And when the nice shopkeeper asks “Mit alles?” just reply “Ja!” and you will get the tastiest treat in Germany.

Germany is a land known for castles. But I have not really been to any of them. As you can see I am not really into this castle and palace stuff. However many people have told me Neuschwanstein was different. So I decided what the heck, lets visit it!

The touring party this time comprised of only the people I knew well – Renu and Ginu both relatively new comers and Ann the veteran who had come all the way from Hildesheim to meet us. We decided to take the first connection from Stuttgart and that meant we had to cut our Sunday sleep again. Anyway Neuschwanstein was not too far away, changing 4 trains to reach Fuessen and taking a bus from there we reached the village of Hohenschwangau. From there it was either a walk, by bus or by horse carriage. We took the most modern transport of them all and not surprisingly the fastest and more importantly the less tiring ;)

The first view of the castle itself told me that this was different. They don’t really allow self explorations inside the castle so we had to take the guided tour for 7 euros. To be honest it was totally not worth it. You get to see some 4 or 5 rooms inside. Ok, they are exquisite and looks good, but you don’t get to spend too much time there to really appreciate it all. We came out and the skies which were a bit cloudy and foggy started clearing. We walked towards the Marienbrucke which was just 5 minutes away. The view of the castle from there was breathtaking and the Gods were kind to us to give us some very clear weather. This is something you should not miss. I kind of got the picture why this was nominated as a candidate for the new seven wonders of the world (it didn’t make it btw).

The king who built this (Ludwig II) was described as a mad eccentric king. Hmm.. I don’t know about that, but sure this guy had a great artistic mind and a vision. This was definitely *the* place to build a castle. Most of the beauty of the castle lies in its location. Really a fairy tale castle. Classic! It is a pity that he was killed before the castle was completed (which never happened). He had the power to turn his dreams into reality but never lived to see it done. Hope I had that much vision (yeah and off course the money) to build something like that… Yeah I know, dream on Anoop, all you are going to build is some computer program ;)

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Getting there:
From Stuttgart/Munich take the train to Fuessen. It takes around 4 hours from Stuttgart. From Fuessen take Bus #78 to Hohenschwangau. Buy the tickets from there for the guided tour which I don’t recommend. You can walk upto the castle in probably 30-40 minutes. A mini bus (2 euros) takes you up in 10 minutes and there is an interesting horse carriage ride too which we took while coming downhill. It was not too bad.

I had gone for a trip to Bonn last weekend with Ginu and Sandeep to meet the latter’s cousin. The main purpose was not to see the city, but anyway we roamed around the place – the old capital of West Germany. It was a bit surprising, the city was too small to be a capital of any country! But small does not ever mean bad. It is a pretty little city by the river Rhine and the ‘Friezeit Park’ was quite nice.

After the initial roaming Sandeep’s cousin, Soumya chechi agreed with us to make chicken, even though she didn’t know heads and tails of how to make it. So I decided to take the lead. Yeah, it was an risky experiment with just 3 months of cooking experience but I decided to give it a try. With all the resources obtained we started out joined by Saumya chechi’s brazilian roommate Maria. She said she will make us a nice Brazilian Omlette while I tried my luck with the chicken. It wasn’t the best of conditions, but anyways it did turn out good., atleast better than what I expected ;) and I even got a compliment in Brazilian Portuguese for my cooking.. who would have thought!!

The recipe is simple – (ok, most of this is copyrighted by Mathew who is the total inspiration behind my cooking): Take chicken, marinate it with curd and masala (any variety you could get) for a while. Grill the chicken for about 20 minutes. After that fry some onions till golden brown, add some tomatoes, salt, pepper, chilli powder, masal till cooked. Then add the grilled chicken and cook for about 15 minutes. There you have it, the delicious Chicken Bonn is ready! Serve Hot!! :D

Sunday we bid goodbye to our excellent hostesses and headed towards Koeln (Cologne). This was my second visit there and since it was mostly unplanned we had the option of just walking around. It was really good. This city is truly nice. I had always thought of coming to Cologne again and exploring it properly, but even this time we didnt have the time to do it. So by afternoon, we took the train back to Stuttgart. A nice short inexpensive trip and fun too, thanks to the Chicken Bonn!

Oberstdorf is a skiing and hiking resort right at the edge of the southern German border. It was all a quick plan to visit this place and do some trekking since we didn’t have much else to do last weekend. But it was well worth it.

We left early morning Saturday from Plochingen and reached there just before noon. The weather wasn’t looking great and the good looking girl at the information center was of the opinion that it wasn’t going to be the perfect weather for hiking that weekend. But we decided to take our chances and go for it.

We took a bus to Faistenoy some 10 kms away from the city centre. And just as we began our hike, the skies suddenly started clearing and we had an awesome view of all the mountains there. They were not in all their glory because there wasn’t enough snow obviously but it was still a grand vista. Our first stop was a ski-jumping platform (or whatever they call it) right in the middle of the forest. The whole construction was astonishing. Don’t know how to describe it, but you have to be there to appreciate it.

After having a light home made lunch, with energy restored, we went off to a lake called Freibergsee. It was nothing great as such, just a small lake, but we stayed there a while enjoying all the fresh air and clicking away a few snaps. The trek from then on was up a mountain and was really tiring. It took us more than 3 hours and finally we reached our destination Schoenblick. It was a a very scenic route however and we enjoyed it to the max. But tired legs forced us to have some refreshments at a nice little restaurant on top. I was pleading to the guys to take the cable car down, but having a professional mountaineer with us, I didn’t stand a chance!

On the way down, we had a chance to ride the Rodelbahn, a kind of a crude roller coaster kind of ride with just one person in a vehicle running on steel tracks, going down hill. It was so fun that we did it twice despite it not being very light on the pockets. By then it was getting late and we had to get to Oberstdorf city fast or risk not having a place to stay. We did manage to reach their by 8 but to our surprise there weren’t any buses left. So took a taxi to a youth hostel nearby and slept peacefully till Sunday morning…

We started early and went to a place called Nebelhorn taking the cable car. It was damn expensive but there was no other option. It wasn’t that brilliant and we got down at a station in between and decided to walk. I was very tired from the last days trek and was complaining initially but as we progressed found it more and more interesting and thrilling. The scenery was just breath taking. We took so many photos and made slow progress to one of the peaks there called Koblat-Gipfelmulde. The way up was awesome and on first glance I was wondering how the hell am I going to reach there. With some encouragement from Nitya (my team lead @ office and the professional mountaineer) I did make it and well.. it was worth the effort. The views from there were spectacular. We sat on top of the rock there and enjoyed our triumphant climb.

As we climbed down and reached the base of the cable car station, the weather suddenly started to change. Clouds and mist just covered the area in matter of seconds followed by heavy rain. It was a surreal experience.. 5 minutes ago it was all so sunny! Anyway we reached back in Oberstdorf without getting very wet and after a quick round of Pizzas we made our way back to the bahnhof to catch the train back to Plochingen.

Legs were tired, eyes were drooping, whole body was paining.. but it was all worth it. Another place to be visited atleast once and I hope I will go back in the winter and see Oberstdorf in all its full glory!

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