Wednesday, December 7, 2011

i miss u my love

It’s been just 4 months we have been married and here I am in this unknown country away from you. I have known you for the past five years yet it feels like I have just met you yesterday. There is still so much I don’t know about you which makes our relation even more special because it is ‘discovery time.’

Many people I know have asked me if I had enough of my relation. My response was simple and quick ‘No, I still have so much to learn about my love.’

I still don’t really how we actually got tangled in the marriage thingy but come to look at it; I think it was for the BEST. We had decided not to get married for another 5 years or so, but look at us now; we are married and tied to each other for ever.

‘If you are given a time machine, would you go over your wedding all over again?’ I was asked a couple of times. Well, NO! I think once was enough. But I would definitely like to go back to the time when we were kids. My husband and I had been in the same school for two years but I do not remember a single time we spoke to each other. I would definitely want to change that.

When I saw you after 9 years in Bangalore, I was surprised for you looked different. Well we didn’t speak then too but as we met often at our friend’s place, we began to know each other better and by the time we realized, we had become best buddies.

From best buddies, we took our relation to another level. On August 8 however, you decided to propose me and there I was, happily accepting it. I knew then that you are the one i want to spend the rest of my life with.

However, I hadn’t expected us to be married after five years, so soon eh, but here we are, on the eve of our fifth anniversary, we were pronounced man and wife.

Today is our fourth month anniversary and I miss you a lot. I know we had made plans to go out for a holiday but that will have to wait for some weeks. I will be home in 3 weeks love. I miss you. Happy Anniversary. LOVE u

Monday, December 5, 2011

'SERVUS' Germany!

Not even in the wildest of my imaginations had I ever dreamt that one day I would be in Germany. And when I finally did, after seven excruciating hours of flight, I knew this was too real to be true. After several days now, the feeling is finally settling down.
Winter is here in Europe, and is far too cold than I was prepared for. Despite the biting cold and thick fog that covers the landscape most of the time, Germany is a beautiful place. I am in Vilshofen in Passau, the city of three rivers where Donau river is joined at Passau by the Inn river from the south and the Ilz river from the north to go to the Black Sea.
This was my median excursion into Europe and besides the little Google research I had done, I barely knew of this vast country.
Not until I reached Munich when a young gentleman helped me with my bag at the train station. I was told that Germans could be an unfriendly lot but to my utter surprise, they were in fact the very opposite. They were nice, helpful and kind.
 ‘Servus,’ and ‘gruss gott’ are greetings that I have been hearing since I landed here. It is either a welcoming or departing greeting in German. Another word is ‘Danke’ which means thank you.
Believe it or not, I have never been to a church. And here I visited the St. Stephan’s Cathedral or Dom St. Stephan, the largest church organ in the world. The Cathedral organ represents one of the main tourists’ attractions.
With a population of about 50,000 living in Passau and about 17,000 in Vilshofen, markets get a little crowded during the weekends. My arrival here coincided with the preparations for Christmas. It was a flurry of activities.
Trees were being trimmed and lit with colourful lights, houses being decorated, children going through the advertisement books to check out gifts they want their parents to buy for them and parents checking their check list of what needs to be done or ticking those that have already been completed.
Children wait for the first Sunday of the last week of November to light the first candle to signify the countdown of the Christmas. I was given an unexpected honor to light the first candle at my host’s home too.
As you walk along the Passau city, you reach the city hall where the markings of the water level and in which year have been marked. It is incredible to see how high the markings go. It was just so great.
Having been in Germany for only one week, I am certain that I do not like Pretzel, known as ‘Brezel’ in German. When I told Carmen Keller of not liking pretzel, she gave me a shocked look.
She said, “Everybody loves Pretzel,” and further added that there is no childhood if there was no pretzel.
But the Bavarian beer, I must admit, is a fine beer. If you ever come to Germany, you should definitely try the beer.
One tradition that caught my attention was the symbol that indicated that someone had a baby. A wooden stork is pitched at the junction towards the house. A line of cans/tins hung above the stork symbolises the birth of a girl and vice versa.
That’s it for now. But I still have 20 more days to explore.

From Himalaya I am…

I have been in Germany for the past 2 weeks and it is weird how people think about Bhutan. Oh! You are the girl from the Himalayas… and the funny thing is people think that people from the Himalayas are suppose to be in some kind of stone age… not that I am angry. Well they feel angry for having thought otherwise.

I have done the same too. Before I came to Germany, I thought people here were rude and mean. I thought I would not feel at home at their place, but I was wrong too. I cannot say the same of the other people in Berlin or Munich or other big cities in Germany, but I sure can say for the people here in Vilshofen. They are very different from what I thought they would be.

Well not many people here have heard about Bhutan and the few lot who have heard about Bhutan are so happy to meet an alien from an alien country… they have so many questions and I am glad I could answer their questions. But many also feel that Bhutan is too backward to be too civilised or be informed of the happenings around the world.  

I once sat down to watch a movie and I was asked if I have watched this movie or that movie. And my answer was ‘YES.’ And the response I got was, ‘you are supposed to be from Bhutan, from Himalayas.’ What is that suppose to mean now? I asked myself!

The other time, when I told them that there is no McDonalds and KFC in Bhutan, I was asked if we have Pizzas and if I have ever tried burger…

They are even surprised at how comfortable I am with my laptop or doing something with the computer…  I guess they were expecting some kind of an alien who knew nothing… I am glad I was able to change their perception about Bhutan and the Bhutanese people.