Snow!!

I experienced proper snowfall (I had seen some itsy-bitsy flakes a while back in Boston) in Munich and it was pretty much fun. The Muncheners however used to shake their heads whenever it snowed, since this was one of their coldest winters and they were expecting a lot more sunshine at this period of time. I was happy though! Here is a video I took on the penultimate day of the trip. Luckily I could convert it into flv format using mencoder on Linux and the video size is now down from 71MB to 1.6MB! Hope you like it :)

Fools!!

The PuneTech folks seemed to have had a hearty laugh playing a good and a professional one on April Fool's Day. Basically they had a news item complete with news footage about how Pune is beating recession much better as compared to Bangalore. As Navin mentions in today's followup, its sad that a lot of people fail for it and actually tweeted, debated, argued about it too :P

Check out the fun here :)

Punetech Prank!

Eternal Sunshine....

So, we saw "Benjamin Button" the other night and Pi wanted to watch a similar Oscarish, Award-winning movie as a follow on. We settled on the Jim Carrey - Kate Winslet starrer "Eternal Sunshine Of The Spotless Mind" and yeah it is an interesting kind of a movie. Both the parties trying to erase-out each other from their respective memories and yet being drawn back together again and again because of the subconscious attraction makes for an interesting theme.

Jim Carrey was good in his non-comic, no-facial-contortions role and what can I say about Kate Winslet. I liked her the first time I saw her in Titanic and she is such a sweetly, dainty, cute actress :). The name is pretty interesting. It comes from the poem "Eloisa to Abelard" by Alexander Pope.

....
How happy is the blameless vestal's lot!
The world forgetting, by the world forgot.
Eternal sunshine of the spotless mind!
Each pray'r accepted, and each wish resign'd;
....

Watch it for an interesting perspective..

Back...

So after about 3 weeks in Munich, I am back to home-sweet-home. As I look back, it was an interesting trip. It was good to spend time in a Non-US place after a while. I think European folks do a good job of keeping their History alive. Munich had city tours, the Third Reich tours, hop-on_hop-off buses which did the rounds of the city, ofcourse the Beer tours, Museums and everything else that had to do with its history over the past centuries.

I sometimes wish that India too would develop such an organized system to showcase our history which I think is so colorful and varied in its own right! Anyways, back to home-sweet-home, back to terra-firma and back to the grind :)

Here are some pics of my trip. Check them out!

Munich Trip

Japan in Recession?

So some days back, I was watching BBC and they were talking about how Japan is officially in recession. Toyota, Sony had their worst quarters, because USA is not buying anything at all.
But am wondering, if Japan is in recession, how come they can afford to send their kids to Munich for tourism. Gawd, my hotel is full of Japanese teenagers. Its kinda cute in some ways to see them go about their business during breakfast. I guess I haven't told you that "The Grave Of The Fireflies" is one of my favorite movies :).
As I was discussing with one German who said "As long as the Japanese send their kids to Germany for vacation, I wouldn't believe that they are in recession!". Nein!

Dachau!

The trip to Dachau last Sunday was enlightening... The reason Dachau is so famous is because it was the first official concentration camp and hence ended up acting as a blueprint for all the further ones.



Arbeit Macht Frei (Work shall set you free)

I learnt that the initial reason for their creation was to arrest all anti-Nazi people (of which there were a lot!), but later on as the war progressed they turned into the most inhuman places on earth, where people died of overwork, cold, disease, murder, torture, gas chambers and what not. It was indeed a dark chapter in the German History and it is indeed great to see the remarkable turn-around in such a short span. I took a picture towards the end of the tour but somehow could not smile...

Ah Munchen!

So I am here in Munich for about 2.5-3 weeks since the 9th. One week has past and it has been a good one. Work wise, I have done ok and well as per checking out the place goes - not too bad I think :)

Firstly, am handling the cold pretty well - one thing is that they are nearing the end of Winter and its becoming warmer. Yesterday, it was just pleasant - perfect for a weekend.

As a Roman I am doing what the Romans (err Muncheners) do. Guzzling down loads of beer (and getting puffed as a side-effect :() and trying to check out the local food and places. I was lucky enough to find some Indians and entertainingly HUNG out with them on Friday night. Infact I had grand touristy plans for Saturday, but I slept at around 5 in the morning on Friday night - so ahem saturday was just walking around checking out the history of Munich, the origins of Oktoberfest and obviously stuff about Hitler. This guy has left such a mark on this country and the world too for that matter. Its amazing how many times he survived dying before he went on to become the greatest wannabe dictator on this earth.

Its Sunday morning and true to the appeal of my tourist guide yesterday I am going to search my soul and go visit the concentration camps in Dachau. I learnt that some German families have adopted the controversial practice of introducing their kids to some places in these camps at the tender age of 7! But they claim, the kids end up becoming humane and with a lot of respect for humanity and basic equality. Nice... More updates later