Tales from Germania - Episode Cote-d-azur

Well, to start with, anyone even remotely familiar with the german countryside can tell you that "cote-d-azur" is not a part of it. But since I am presently sitting in Munich, it shall be fair enough to continue where I left off in february, The tales from germania series.

So, it is october, and I find myself again in Europe. This time it is in the lovely french countryside in the most romantic province of cote-d-azur. Literaly translating to "The coast of the Blue seas", actually meaning, "I dont wanna go back to India". So there I was on a train, hugging the mediterranean coast, on my way to Monaco. The scenic hills on one side punctuated with small french riviera towns and villages, and the wide expanse of the mediterranean on the other. You could pass through some ten french towns in the 30 minute ride from Antibes to Nice.

Monaco is the world's second smallest country. It is about 2 square kilmeters and has a population of roughly 32,000 . It also haapens to be the world's most densely populated country and also the world's richest. If I were to rant off a few words about Monaco, I would say: gorgeous, Casino, F1, Marina, Aquarium, Ferrari. That is in short what I am going to write about.

So I set out from Sofia-Antipolis early in the morning and walked into the bus-station. A half-n-hour ride into Antibes and then by train to Monaco. Antibes is pretty little town, but thats a story for another time. The first thing that srikes you about the station at Monaco is the fact that it is in a tunnel. The station is sort of inside a hill. And in character, it is in stark contrast to the other open-air stations of the other riviera towns.

I got busy getting myself a country map of monaco, they had pretty good ones at the station itself and then stepped out into the sun. The weather immediately raised my spirits to a new high. Monaco that day was bathing in the "perfect weather for tourists".

Monaco is in fact a collection of two major natural marinas buffeted by rising cliffs. The lower city embraces the marinas - this is also where you will find the F1 track and the casino. The upper city is built up on the hills surrounding monaco- this is where you will find the palace and the older city.

Monaco is well suited for the pedestrian tourist, or alternatively you could hire one of the many scooters. All in all, with a day ticket for the local bus service and a good pair of shoes, you wont need much else.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Monaco

Tales from Germania - Episode "Weiss Men zay!"

Yesterday was booze day.
A german colleague of mine along with three other french colleagues went out for dinner. It was a typical bavarian place. The thing to note about the place's entrance was the fact that it would pass you by if you didnt know it was there already. Not like the neon lit entrances common in bangalore....

i may told you of my scandalous affair with weisewurst ( white sausages) , but what i haven't told you about is my even-more demanding relationship with weisebier...made from wheat and totally delicious... its sweet without any hint of alcohol....so I drank 1.5 litres of these awesome stuff....and dinner was equally great...pork chops in bavarian beer sauce and potato dumplings!!! Then we had a shot of schnapps each,..this is a loaded mixture of fruit alcohol, brewed in house....very very strong stuff...as much as 30-40 % alcohol...

Later, we headed to the center of town for a couple of rounds more...some strong cocktails followed, and my tiny body was saturated with alcohol...

On my way home I forgot to get off at my stop , much to the amusement of my french colleagues, and spent fifteen minutes and a completely deserted s-bahn stop. what was not funny was that the litres of alcohol were strongly impressing their will on my bladder....

well , I did manage to wake up today...

Tales from Germania - Episode "Walk the Walk"

Its 7:30 in the morning...The chill in the air soaks through my jacket and sweats. The 10 below wind freezes portions of my anatomy, the thawing is a rather delicate process which I shall presently not go into.

I am being swept on by the crowd that just came out of the S5 train at Fasanenpark. The Campeon campus, some half a mile away, stands out in a field of snow. I am told that there are lakes and green grass in the spring. But for now , there is just bleak white stretching in every direction that you look.

What strikes you at such a time is the effort youu have to put to keep up with these germans when they are walking. Is it there natural stride to move this fast, and where do they get this awesome sense of urgency? Is it simply the cold, or some form of implicit discipline which requires them to be at their desks at a certain time of the day ( give or take a few picoseconds - Yes! Yes! i am a VLSI engineer).

But I am not alright with being outdone by these obviously larger, stronger, and atheletic race of people. So I start keeping pace...huff puff... As I am put into 5th gear of walking ( we are talking some severe overdrive here), I am still outpaced by the more determined of these people. As i walk into the office, I realize the level of my general fitness pales in comparison to the average german's.

I was told by quite a few of my colleagues, in a "matter of fact" fashion, that they often run 10 kms a day ( or was it 10 miles). Well I'd like to see myself complete half that distance. By the way these are people in their 30's. Some cycle to work, and obesity is almost absent here. Most people have great posture while they walk , and somehow reflect great health just by the way they walk.

Tales from germania - Episode "i-Pot"

I am going to reveal a great mystery to you. Not the run-of-the-mill mystery that you would see agatha christie tinkering with. This is a mystery in the class of "why did the chicken cross the road" or "What do them scots wear under those kilts?".

The mystery that we are going to reveal is:
"How the hell do those europeans keep their shit-pot so clean?"

Working at ITPL, I have often wondered if it would do us a great benefit , if we were to potty-train all our engineers. Well, if you ever plan to take a dump in our established company, then bring along your own tissue paper, a brand of industrial strength disinfectanct, rubber gloves, etc etc.

So there I was , Looking at the next innovation at Infineon's new site CAMPEON. Everything here is supposedly state-of-the-art , we have iPrint, iE-mail, iScan , in addition to the mundane iPod. But what I beheld was far more sophisticated. Yes!! IT WAS THE i-POT. Some innovative engineer in our organization had christened, what is otherwise called a loo (where I come from), the iPOT.

It was 2 minutes to noon, there it stood, unperturbed by my presence, it almost twinkled in contempt. The scene for this western was set. I stood at the other end of the booth, with my hands on my waist.

When it comes to performing in such a situation, I suffer from severe stage fright. Playing metal on stage, thats easy. Taking a shit in the pin-drop quiet of a german bathroom , that takes courage.

There was not a single trace of water anywhere....And then it dawned on me like a understanding usually dawns on people of mediocre intellect. Somewhere in the deep recesses of my memory, a voice was remarking about european ways of cleaning, it was saying " European methods are dry methods, these are efficient methods where water is scarce"

Well the mystery was solved, no water, no splashing, clean loo .

In the begining there was darkness, then there was light, the heavens, the earth and the paraphenalia, and finally there was tissue paper

Tales from J.A.F.A - II

Why men turn into JAFA:
They say that the more you dance, your ability to squeeze out pheromones increases linearly, and that most women are driven crazy by throes of lust and you are clobbered to a lustful death, right on the dance floor.

They also say, that it is highly inadvisable to actually go to a dance floor without dousing yourself in deodorant, as the more your dance your ability to suffer from WSA increases exponentially. WSA (aka Wet Smelly Armpit) has been known to destroy libidos, lead to depression and severe bouts of loneliness.

And any Ph.D in Maths will tell you that linearly gets its ass whooped majorly by exponentially ( with the minor exceptions of the region between 0 and 1, where a linear function rises faster than an exponential one, except of course on the planet of "Ericteel Tis-Phunktionalla", where nothing rises!)

It should be needless to mention that deodorants destroy the action of pheromones. Thus leaving most men in bangalore dancing very clumsily, desperately hoping to strike a right balance of pheromones and WSA. However, Newton's Law of Universal JAFA states that "Clumsily Moving men on the dance floor leads to some very bad vibes and repels women into a state of fury, and thus a JAFA is born" . The only know exception to this rule is that "Clumsily Moving Women lead to immediate Erectile disfuction ( no relation to the phonetically similar planet ), and a JAFA is suddenly filled with hope of living out a grossly insipid life- thus renouncing their JAFA-hood"

Tales from J.A.F.A. - I

As a quick update to the previous post...the job that was gonna make me rich, well...I didn't take it. I was persuaded to stay by the management and my brother...

Leave out all the patriots...and leave out the people who dont read, and, perhaps, leave out all other J.A.F.A's , well for all the rest... I have a confession to make.
You see, I am a JAFA , always been one, its just that it takes certain things in your life for you to realize that you are one...

Just Another Frustrated Ass-hole (aka JAFA) . Somewhere between my aspirations for things great and small, and what I actually get , I have taken great strides forward to own this title. Not to say that what I have is insignificant, I have a job, friends, I have passion to learn...so on, and so forth...

I will not be going into a monologue on what I expect from life (the reader can thank god for small mercies!) But I will tell you in short why I am an JAFA, and maybe you will feel that it is not so bad to be a JAFA after all (besides that grouchy bitter frown on your brow all the time)

I am a JAFA because I was born in India to a middle class family but quickly, under the tutelage of my father, grew to despise anything remotely middle class and love everything american. Wierd dont you think, excercises in hating everything that surrounds you .. No wonder I am an hopeless elitist. I suffer from ARGS (Aspirational-to-Reality Gap Syndrome)..see what i mean....I am inflicted with the american obsession with syndromes . They have one for everything. like the DNRS ( Dad Not Rich Syndrome)... and anyone who's seen the latest hip-hop videos knows about the OBWBRHS . No? Its the Obese Below Waist But RED HOT Syndrome ...that describes whole new class of commodifying well-endowed african-american women...but ARGS is newly coined I hope ( oh! the joy!)

I am a JAFA because I was born in a country, which despite all its greatness and Infosys, forget to learn how to build roads...( i pay taxes by the way)

I am a JAFA because after torrid sessions of VH1, I keep hoping that the lifestyle of Justin Timberlake is actually accessible...and to aggravate matters I have not gone dancing in four months...

Welcome to the life of a JAFA... dont go away, I will be back after Bnaglaore has beaten the shit out of my aspiration for seeing something classy in the city...

THE JOB!!

So they say that by monday I will have the magma offer...
So thus begins the journey to be filthy rich..well not really...It will be 1 and a 1/2 years since i started working, and this offer should make me happy...money wise...

Kinda nervous about what it might entail.. i would like to have a calling towards work... they cant be paying me so much to just sit around....

Monday will come and the initial enthusiasm of they giant paycheck will wear off... and i will wait impatiently for the next big bump up.... till then... hmmm ... the clock will tick