Oktoberfest

The word says it all.. the biggest beer guzzling festival in the world, and it is happening now. So it would be a crime of sorts if I don’t try and make it. So… tomorrow I am heading for Munich …drink a bit .. and head right back to Frankfurt.

Would have loved to stay for a bit but the problem is that all the hotels in Munich are kinda booked out.

The rest of the week was pretty ok.. was sick on monday so took a day off. Had visitors from my old family friends. And also re-established contact with one of my looong-time-no-contact classmates. So looks I will be knowing someone if I go to Ruedesheim after all, question is .. when do I get the time?

Cooking

Most of the people i know learn their cookin when they come onsite.. so that they can eat home(indian) food n so tat they can save money. Me though I like the food u get in the restaurants here but I do realise I need to learn hw to cook, anybody who knows me also knows tat I know jack about cooking, but on the other hand neither did i know much bout using a washing machine or dishwasher. Best way to do learn wud be to start REAL SLOW with frozen or otherwise readymade food n then upgrade slowly. Lets see how tis goes in regard to my cooking, maybe I will actually cook something after some time give or take a few months.

So the first order of the day wud be spagetti bolognese.. lets see hw tat goes.   

IAA

Tis sunday was D DAY.. finally I went to the IAA. It was rockin… out of all the cars.. mercedes stole the show in my opinion, maybe becoz theirs was the first hall I entered, but after leavin their hall i barely acknowledged Chrysler.. Dodge n Jeep. They were also the only ones to organise a ramp show with cars.. hw cool is tat? It also took the longest to cover their hall.. solid 3.5 hours!!

Next off was BMW.. fr some reason they were also kind of a letdown.. All the cars looked the same… whether u r lookin at an M3, M6, 3-series or 5-series, especially if u r looking at the bonnet. But I prefered their seats to that of the Merc..more sporty.. literally wraps around ur body. They did have some cool bikes though .

Next in line was the Audi Hall…. The Audi’ looked great n so did the models . The new R8 was there as well as a RS4. They were sharin the same hall with Lamborgini… Seat.. Skoda.. Bentley n Volkswagen. The SEAT cars looked awesome.. they even had a cool lookin stall. Lamborgini.. as well all other majorly expensive cars (which wud include Ferrari) were in the U-can-look-but-not-Touch category, but they did look cool.. too bad tat the crowd was major at their stall… so cudnt take any great pics.

By the time we covered the Audi hall panic started to strike since we realised tat the battery on my cam was halfway down, so before we lose out on many great pics we decided to head to Ferrari.

That hall was shared by the Italians… Ferrari…Maserati..Lancia..Alfa Romeo..Fiat..n one more.. whose name I dont remember. Hyundai was also there in tat stall. The cars were as to be expected AWESOME!!!! Sexy sleek n hot… u can decide whether it was meant for the Models or the cars… The Hyundai’s took as back to India.. most of the cars u get here as well… wit even the same name.

Next in line…due to an impending battery breakdown.. we headed fr Porsche.. the final major German player. Tis hall consisted of Porsche.. Mini…Honda..BMW Alpina…Rolls Royce..Mitsubishi. Porsche, nothin needs to be said.. their cars were in the ‘touch’ category.. so always worth brownie points in my book. Honda had their bikes as well as cars.. the Civic Hybrid looks ditto like in India.. HOT  but hybrid. The new Mitsubishi Lancer looks simply great.. wonder if its comin to India?!? The coolest section in tis hall was for MINI, they had their own restin lounge as well as a DJ n dance hall.. nw tats entertainment. The cars looked like the regular mini… so nothin new there..dont change wat isnt broken.. especially if its a cult icon. The last official pic on my Cam was taken in the MINI hall.. after which my CAM complained tat it cant do anymore .  

So off it was to for a Beer, n then to Chevrolet n the other GM crowd the stay there wasnt too long since we were chased off as they were closing down

Lesson’s learned from the Motorshow:

1. Buy an additional battery for your camera (the previous lesson I learned in Heidelberg was that I should always charge my battery no matter how full it looks).

2. Buy a 2 megapixel cam phone for situations where the camera battery conks out.

Boy.. do I have a lot of shoppin to do

Photos will be uploaded soon n I hope tat I dont get to hear tat I ve uploaded too many pics of cars!!

N here is the link : http://picasaweb.google.com/robinson.george/IAAFrankfurtMotorShow

Heidelberg

Today I ventured beyond Frankfurt to Heidelberg, its a tourism center here in Germany on the Neckar river mostly occupied by Americans from the WW era. Was an amazing place with a beautiful partially bombed out palace. Will be posting the pics later as usual.

Later on went to a Beer garden in Frankfurt and learned about new method to get a Beer mug without buyin it.

And FINALLY tomorrow MOTORSHOW!!!!!

3..2..1… motorshow

The signs are in the air.. wherever you look there are indications of the IAA (Frankfurt motor show). I have seen more Ferrari’s (and one Lamborgini) in the last couple of days than before. There are posters everywhere bout the motorshow n nw I am the resident tour guide fr a friend of a friend who is in Frankfurt becoz of the motorshow. Ok.. strike the friend of a friend.. its friend.

Had a small preview yesterday… Saw a souped up for mustang parked outside the Marriot.. followed up by a Maserati comin out of the driveway.

So wats on the agenda fr the weekend.. well.. its Heidelberg n Motorshow.

Before I forget .. the rest of the week was also nice.. had a Project outing on Wednesday (which is incidentally my Bro’s Bday). It was bicylcle trip (around 35km) thru the scenic areas of Hattersheim. Which was followed by our celebrated standard free booze parties… too bad tat I m not much of a Drinker.. else I wud have done much better than 2 mugs of beer n 2 glasses of Sekt .  

Autumn cometh

It is adios amigo to the summer here.. the temperatures have dropped, the skies are cloudy n the leaves are fallin. Overall the weather is still nice .. the only problem is tat I dont have any winter clothes… time to bring out the thermal underwear Batman!!

On the discovery front.. I ve tried out the sauna.. I always wanted to knw y people get kicks out of sittin in a room n sweatin. I mean in gud ol hyderabad (or anywhere else in india… especially chennai) we curse the heat/humidity. So there I go sittin in a sauna… with the explicit instruction of not wearing anything other than a towel (not even bathin trunks).

Imagine my surprise when inside I was the only one wearing a towel n the bathin trunk (I cudnt get myself to remove it….yet) everybody else prefered to use their towel to lie on… with no second towel to spare..

If you are thinkin that there is a separate section for ladies/ girls… well there is.. but for some reason tat doesnt stop em from enterin into the men’s sauna n stick to the general dress code.. or lack of  . As I overheard another guy complaining after the lady left: “It is not fair that the ladies have their own sauna room and yet use the men’s sauna. If we can’t enter theirs, they shudn’t enter ours”. To which his friend replied : ”What is the problem? Isn’t it nice that they decide to use the same Sauna as us, I like it.” (The entire conversation has been translated from german). Well that’s enough on the road to discovery for this week .

  

GC07

Well there was tis beautiful thing called Games Convention ‘07, which wud have been something I definitely should have attended but which I didnt, coz i gt no company n Leipzig is too far.. But I realised tat I shud have gone after I saw the coverage on MTV..n before u ask…yeah I started watchin german tv .

So this only strenthens my resolve to go to IAA… to those illiterates… it is also known as Frankmotor show..next week. So its time to get myself a new memory card for my camera… coz..if I managed to fill up the memory card durin the Main Ufer festival… then its definitely gonna fill up durin the IAA. So.. i will go to the TATA stand and review their latest car…

Kickboxin meets aerobics

Well I tried tat today… though I considered myself to be reasonable fit I found myself grasping for air every ten minutes.. hmm… gotta try it again n see hw it goes next time.

As the trainer/sensai was saying.. “Nicht aufgeben..alles geben”… for the non-german speakers out there (which wud be most to my knowledge) it means “Do not give up… give everything”.. hmm..I must say.. the german version sounded cooler.

Onam one week late n new friends

Tis seems to have been one of my better ideas.. Onam was bein celebrated one week late in Germany,,, who knws ..maybe coz of the time diff . Anyway.. as i was sayin goin there was a gud decision.. since I managed to meet quite few people.. which was alsos the reason a went there for. The function as such was ok. First time tat i m eatin an onam sadya wit a for n plate.

After the celebration was over we headed over to a Bday party.. the guy’s name was also Robin . Anyway tats the part where I met lots of new people.

So… life is gud in Frankfurt. :) 

Office parties.. IDC and onshore

The parties which are held by my org. are generally held in high regard.. at least those in IDC… Well on thursday I came to know the onshore version of the same. Taking up a (small) bar n servin drinks.. its cool as hell if u r n outrite drunkard. but otherwise i still prefer somethin where cool music is involved. Well another office party is scheduled a couple of weeks down the line..  I am keepin my fingers crossed.