Smo(S)kiingggg, somebody stop me!

Last Sunday, someone tried his hand (shouldn’t it be legs?) at skiing. Someone went to Feldberg in the black forest, a good beginners slope. Someone went to On-snow skischool. Someone couldn’t stop. Someone. Someone…

Earlier in the day, I changed 4 trains and one bus to get me fat lazy self to Feldberg. As always it was a fairly uneventful journey. Almost. Remember it is me. So, there has to be this one freaking stupid incident, where the 0-watt candle hiding in the remote recess of my cranium shines so bright, that it could illuminate 300,000 homes for a whole nano-second. Right? Yeah. I had my moment(s). But, on the way back. What happened on the way to Feldberg is something else more mundane, but nevertheless something which I would like to chronicle for the sake of chronicling.

At Singen (about 30 minutes into my journey) these two guys get into the train, and take a seat. One of the guys – about 30 ish - close crop of blond hair, ram-rod straight seating position, polished leather shoes clashing with blue jeans and a green bomber jacket. I could swear he was ex-mil. Ex-mil because, to me, the two silver loop earrings prominently hanging from his ear lobes seemed out character for a current military bloke. The other guy seemed more relaxed – a slight hint of a paunch, sneakers, hoodie sweatshirt, a backpack and a thick beard which would have made Bud Spenser proud. The two sat across each other and started talking in a tone and manner which one would associate with a couple normal blokes nursing a manageable hangover from a jovial und gemütlich night out the previous evening.

As the train started moving, these two guys got up and headed to the other end of the bogie to a co-passenger. The relaxed cop sat beside the passenger, while the ex-mil guy sat on the hand rest. Text book good cop, bad cop routine huh? Dang, I must be reading too much pulp fiction. Anyhoo, they started asking the passenger some questions. In German of course, and out of ear-shot, so I didn’t quite get what was happening. But I could see that they were frisking this guy and rummaging through his backpack. And I was thinking – are these two thugs? Are they stealing from this passenger? Freaky. Overdrive, my 0-watt brain went into.

They made their way through the train doing the same with every passenger, and especially hard on teenagers. They flipped out some sort of official ID when they approached my seat. They claimed to be cops.

“Ah cool, Polizei!”, I exclaimed and gave them a nod of approval, and then like a smart ass**, “Fahrkarte, oder?”

The relaxed cop nodded a no, and said - “No, Passport please” (In English!)

“Ach so, naturalisch, ein moment bitte. Miene Deutsch ist nicht so gut, aber ich probiere”, I said while extracting my passport from my backpack and handing it over to him.

“Oh! Indisch!”, said the cop with unconcealed glee as he saw the shiny gold Republic of India lettering on the weathered blue passport. “Aber besser dann meine Indisch”, he added. I was flummoxed. What did he mean? It took a while for the wick to heat and illuminate. The man thought we all spoke Indian in India, hehe, just as Indians think Gobi Manchurian is a Chinese dish :) So, I let out a delayed forced laugh “Har har har”.

Then he said very slowly, “Wohin Fahrest du jetzt?”.

“Ich Fahre nach Feldberg. Ich werde gerne Skifahren lernen”

“Feldberg, gut gut. Huete es ist schones wetter, a… bis 2011, gut gut”, he said while looking at my visa.

And then he asked to see my backpack. The cover of Malclom Gladwell’s – “What the dog saw”, which I was reading to kill time, had him in splits. “Ha ha, Der Hund, ha ha”, he kept doing the Muttle laugh while pointing at the cover.

“Super, viel spass!”, he said, and it was over just like that. No frisking, nothing, none of the drama my other co-passengers were subjected to. It pays to act retarded, OR? But, the German classes seems to be working in my favor. However, this was not my “smartest” moment of the trip.

Anyways, I reached Feldberg – Barenthal, without further entertaining intermissions. There was only one bus to ferry almost a whole train load of passengers to Feldberg-Hof. Needless to say, if you are slow enough, you will get left behind. Darwin at work. So I got ready to rush, and reminded myself that queues are not naturally formed in these parts.

There were like a billion people already at Feldberg Hof. The place has innumerable number of ski schools, and ski equipment stores, so you can rent/buy almost everything you need at any of the places. Perhaps at a “discount” too, because it was towards the end of the season?

Since, I had already registered with On-Snow skischool for a one day course, I started hunting around for this place. It is not at Feldberg – Hof, but is a bit out of the way but easily approachable by foot in a little under 5 minutes. On-Snow charges 30 euros for a one day course. And 20 euros for the next day, and 15 for the next and so on so forth. You can also rent the skis and boots or snowboards and helmets here for 15 euros a day. If you do not know how to ski, take the course, it is the best way to learn. They have two two hour sessions. One in the morning from 1000 to 1200 and another from 1315 to 1515. The learning groups can be as small as three, which works to your advantage.

Errrr, hmm, embarrassing as it is, it wasn’t only Toyota Motors who had problems stopping runaway and out of control locomotive equipment. Yours truly could not stop while hurtling* down the slopes. It took some luck and some unfathomable instinct to avoid crashing right into my fellow skiers – big or small, red or blue, men or women, experts or beginners.

I really was petrified of crashing into a bunch of kids practicing downhill, but these cheeky little kids have no fear. They don’t have to worry about tomorrow, something which sadly burdens an adult’s mind. These kids will go ultra fast and are not afraid of falling down. Anyways, these kids made sure I am now an expert at “preemptive roll overs”, err… well… actually some people call it falling down, but I, I beg to differ.

Late in the evening the instructor took us, the “langsam Anfänger” group for a “langsam pflug” down the slope. When he said pflug, my nascent Deutsch neural net recognized it as flug – i.e. to fly. So we were suppose to fly slowly? I was perplexed. Apparently it means to slowly plough down the slope i.e. by making a V with your skis – the way one is supposed to stop. Anyways, I messed up this part – fell twice doing this, and the instructor had to babysit me through this. Yeah. Sucks. In either case the instructor was a dedicated chap, with infinite patience. And we both agreed that I was by far the worst student he ever had!

I wish I could find an easy and not crowded slope to practice the slow decent. I wish. I wish. Unless I can buy my own private slope***. Sigh. Who ever said skiing is easy. I want my money back! Hmmm… nah… I think will go again and get it right this time. I must learn to stop. Aarrggghhhh.

Anyways, coming to the bright 0-watt incident. On my way back to Titisee from Feldberg-Barenthal, the train was running late, and I had to change trains at Titisee towards Nuestadt. At Titisee, as I got off the train, I heard some announcement – pretty garbled in my defense. I understood that the train headed towards Nuestadt was about to leave from platform 3, so I ran towards platform number 3 and jumped into the train hardly 10 seconds before it started moving (without reading the signage displayed prominently besides the dorr). Five minutes later I realized we were headed back towards Barenthal! What a freaking dufus man! I could do nothing but laugh at myself.

So I had to wait for an extra hour at Barenthal for the next train to Titisee. And on a cold evening, like the one last sunday, waiting at an open railway station can be a lot of fun****. It takes a smart guy to do that. I give myself that much :)

* or it felt like that, I am sure I was slower than I imagine

** tendency to piss cops off, where did this come from?

*** Little evil red Satan sitting on my shoulder whispers into my ears in a slow hellish drawl, “Dream on brother. Dream on. Muhuhahahahahahahahaha”

**** Prescribed dose of sarcasm!! Yippee!!

-- The end --

Smo(S)kiingggg, somebody stop me!

Dusseldorf

When work takes you to a new place for only a day and a half, there is nothing much that you can do. Nothing more than strolling in the city by night, and clicking some random photographs. Which is what I did at Dusseldorf.

The film museum

The long bar (?)

There are a few point to note, The Lonely Planet Guide – Europe edition suggests that one must try the Altbier (or old beer) at a very notable place, so crowded, that it is easier for the waiter(es) to carry around  a tray full of beer glasses (please note, i use the word glasses) and simply replace the ones which they find empty. Sadly, for me, this fabled den of alcohol remained elusive. But, what I did find, was a very helpful bartenderess (does that word even exist?) in a near desolate old fashioned pub. The lighting was dark, the furniture so worn out that it looked like a relic from the American Wild West, and funky posters all around with a total of 6 people drinking Altbier. It was indeed a very early exit for me. Not before I asked the (now pretty) bartenderess, directions to the fabled Hafen (i.e. Port area.) The “Long Bar” stretch lives up to its name, with a million bars dotting the whole street.

The Dusseldorf tower

The Hafen was another place recommended by the Lonely Planet, so I had to do it. Talk about boring people. More specifically, the Lonely Planet recommends visiting the Dusseldorf Tower. As I was meandering along the general direction suggested by the (now distant but still pretty) bartenderess, I spotted a man with a walky-talky. Curiosity got the better of me, and I got into my routine. So I approached the bespectacled man.

“Entschudligung,  Wei komme ich bei der/das/die ganz grosses tower in Dusseldorf?”, I asked, even I could clearly spot it. Followed by a quick, “Sprechen Sie English?” At which he quickly took offence, “Of course! You can talk to me in English” he replied. The water vapor escaping his mouth through the cold 10’o clock night condensed on the outside of his glass, while he pointed out the clearly visible and only candidate for the Dusseldorf tower. He then asked me, “So, where do you come from?”

I was now bordering on German, it is a switch that I cannot turn off and on as will. Mostly because it takes so much effort to turn it on ;) But, “India” managed to tumble out before the man could make up his mind on how retarded I must be. “I thought so”, he said, and his eyes lit up. I thought, “Oh no! Not another Osho moron!”, but before I could completely connect the dots, he said, “I used to work for an Indian company - Engineering Export Council of India”

The thought train quickly switched to a “Holy-cock-a-moly” mode, and I was like “Respect man! respect!”. Then he went into a bit of the details, apparently he was part of three man show in Germany, which canvassed for Indian companies in Europe. Helping them with marketing, sourcing, and setting up booths at trade shows. Kinda reminded of what Grate-Dane was doing for his country in India. Then he asked, “Have you heard of HAM?”

Now HAM was a minor glitch in my otherwise smooth career as a student. I was interested. Deeply. However I am severely tone deaf, i.e., I couldn’t (even with a gun put to my head) differentiate between a dot and a dash in Morse. I had failed my HAM exam. Twice. I received “The Zebra and the monkey went up the tree, to fetch a pile of ice cold cotton candy…”, while the examiner had transmitted, “Long years ago we made a tryst with destiny, and now the time comes when we shall redeem our pledge…” So, well, me and HAM were good old buddies.

Anyway, he updated me on the latest in HAM technology – internet repeaters, and commented on the oldest problem ever – flaky radio reception. So apparently he receives the signal at near one specific lamp post (along the river Rhine), and doesn’t at the adjacent ones. Talk about multi path fading huh?

View from the observation deck

Anyways, the gentleman recommended the trip up the Dusseldorf tower, and that coupled with the excellent weather we were having in Dusseldorf, it was a no brainer that the tower top would be a good place to shoot the city. However, one must factor in the reflective glass, which some one else did not do, or did not think of :S

The observation balcony is 168 meters from the base, and it elevator travels at a top speed of 4 m/s. Impressively fast. And the ear actually pops as one rides up or rides down. The view from the top, on a cloudless, fogless night, like the night I visited is incredible. For as far as you can see, you can see a sea of light, giving you a hint as to how big the city really is. The ride up costs 3.60 euros. And if you can visit during the day, fogless, cloudless, etc etc, the elevator guy informed me that you can actually see the Dom at Colone. Impressive. Apparently it gets even better during the firework show, which takes place some time in May.

The city’s public transport system has enough and more connections and at suitable times too. It costs about 5.60 euros for the whole day.

The Carnival starts tomorrow in Dusseldorf, but I will not be there, since I am already back home in Konstanz! Crap! But, hey, we have a Carnival here too… muhuhahahaha…

Dusseldorf

Book Review: The diary of an unreasonable man - “Madhav Mathur”

Ever wondered, “Now what the fuck am I going to do?” while staring blankly at your work station?

Did your boss ever tell you, “… I somehow get the impression that you’re not… happy”, and you wanted to flip him the middle finger? (Hey, that happened to me a few years back!)

Have you written shit loads of “intelligent stories” which never made it to the printing press*?

How many times has someone told you, “.. maybe you’ve done something that would lend a greater degree of credibility to your theories and ideas.” and you’ve wondered, “What the fuck?”

And this one was the freaky statement - “You hit the ultimate stage of this cycle after a few years of work, when you’re a few years away from thirty. That’s when you become a cynic, a pseudo-pacifist, not easily moved, not affected by anyone but yourself, looking out for no one else but yourself”. Freaky!

Doesn’t that sound a lot like you? Hehe! It is as if Madhav Mathur has drilled a hole to the very bottom of our soul, painstakingly searched for that mostly elusive inner core, extracted it with the clarity of a gypsy reading from a crystal ball, and then with carefully used words painted a picture more vivid than reality itself.

The book has too many deja-vu moments, to be not true. It takes effort to convince yourself that this is a work of fiction. Pure fiction. Nothing more. A lot of effort. And no, how much ever you think he is talking about you, he is still not talking about you, because hey, you are not an unreasonable man. You only wished you could do what Mr. Anarchist does ;) Only wish.

And the Ayn Rand references, yappa, can't believe that so many people actually swallow that bull crap written by this demented woman so deep that it actually effects their inner soul**. This book makes references to Ms Rand, and after that one does get a feeling that it is quite Foutainheadish, but I am willing to overlook that discrepancy. I loved his Idea of the Anarchists of Mumbai! I hope the man does not stop writing. Ever. The ending is a bit filmy, but hey, it IS fiction.

* Most of what I write borders on unconnected, and occasionally, caustic drivel and I wouldn't expect anyone to read what I write anyway. So, this doesn't apply to me.

**Unconnected caustic drivel warning. Was making a generic observation, not finger pointing or anything.

Book Review: The diary of an unreasonable man - “Madhav Mathur”