The Einleben phase..

Hello readers

I had been away from this blog for quite a considerable length of time as I was busy moving to Erlangen and settling in. So many things have happened in the past 2 weeks that its impossible to describe everything in detail without making this article an endless essay. But I shall still try my best to narrate all the exciting things that have happened till now.

So, finally me and my friends had to leave Marburg and we left with a heavy heart. The night before, I visited the Oberstadt for one last time and had a good dinner with some friends. The next day by noon the train to Frankfurt arrived and as always Deutsche Bahn never fails to thrill me. My friend had got in and I helped transfer 2 of our big luggages in. When I turned back and fetched the remaining of my luggages, the doors closed and wouldn’t open from either inside or outside. Well, yes Marburg isn’t such a big city for the train to stop for more than 1 minute. So, I watched in horror as the train left, my friend’s shocked expression partially visible through the glass doors. The fun part was that all my tickets were in the bag I had given in ! Then I went to the DB officer in the station and narrated her my plight and she was kind enough to give me an acknowledgement to travel by the next train to Frankfurt. Luckily, we had set our next train leaving from Frankfurt quite a while later, in foresight, and I would also advise others the same. When you have much time to spare in your travel, then always keep quite a comfortable time gap between changing trains.

We met at Frankfurt and took the next train. I hopped down at Nürnberg and took my local train to Erlangen – finally arrived. I checked into my hostel room that I had already reserved and set my things. The room was pretty good and as usual – a common washroom and kitchen for the floor. I am at the ninth floor and there is a spectacular view of the city from my window. I then took a short trip outside and checked out the bus stops, bus routes and timings for the next day. Later that night at around 1:00 a.m I woke up for no reason and looked out the window. There is a big junction of 2 important roads nearby. There was a single car at the signals and there was absolutely no other car in sight. It was middle in the night but he was still waiting for the green! I was hugely impressed by this display of traffic sense but when I narrated this to my colleagues in my lab, they just said, its because all signals are watched by cameras and he would rather lose a few minutes rather than a lot of Euros..

The first day getting to my lab was quite good but hectic as expected. The bus prices are slightly higher here I found. A week–ticket costed 10.80 Euros and I also needed something called a Zone ticket. I didn’t know about this and neither was I informed. This would lead to an interesting encounter but that comes later.

I had to change at the city centre and I got into the next bus through the middle since I already have a ticket. The driver really embarrassed me by stopping the bus a few metres ahead and turning around and pointing to me and calling me to him. I proudly displayed my ticket to him but he was as cold as before and spoke in a highly Bavarian accent – “Immer vorne einsteigen, und die Fahrkarte zeigen” . I could just manage to mumble an Alles klar.. “Hmm.. Bayern,” , I thought to myself, yet another difference from Marburg where you could always get into the bus from the middle.

I reached my lab and met all the people. I had a small chat with the secretaries and they were very kind in explaining the necessary formalities in the department. Also, all the people address each other by their first names and use ‘du’ instead of ‘Sie’! And that includes the Head of the Department too. I had been given my working table, computer, printer, phone and all required things like shelves, stationaries, etc.– Perfect. I loved my office and this is where I would be spending my time studying papers or mailing suppliers for materials required for my experiments.

Later that evening when I thoughtfully got into the bus from the front and showed the driver the ticket, he had yet another way of taunting me. He asked for the Zonekarte about which I had never heard of in my life, but yes I saw printed on the ticket that it was required. I simply asked him to give me one and he was annoyed for no reason. He said he doesn’t have any Zonekarte but did say where I could get one, but I couldn’t understand him thanks to his accent. I asked him again and he almost went mad! “Das ist kein Fahrausweiss”, he repeated and I said ok, relax , I will pay up if anyone comes checking for tickets and I went to a seat wondering whether I had given him his worst day at work so far.

That night I met a couple of Indian guys at my hostel and we cooked together. The next day I learnt about the ticket and got the required Zone card thing from the Deutsche Bahn office – its simply to show that I would be travelling only within Erlangen and not anywhere outside of it.

The next day in lab and we discussed our previous results with the cell cultures and documented them. We also made brief plans for the next set of experiments that would also mark my beginning as I would be trying to do them alongside my colleague Christine who is extremely helpful in teaching me the necessary things. There are 2 other groups – one working with Algae and another with Animal cell cultures – the latter in a separate facility called IZMP – Innovations Zentrum für Medizin und Pharma. There was a guy called Peter who worked with electrical stuffs in the work hall and he was celebrating his birthday, so we enjoyed it the traditional german way – coffee and cakes.

I completed my registration in the Erlangen city authority at the Rathaus (the office is called Einwohnermeldeamt or residents registration office). The process was fairly simple and fast and they didn’t need anything from me other than my passport. Probably because I have already been living in another german city for 4 months. I then visited the Ausländerbehörde (foreigners registration office) and finished registering there too. Everything was smooth except for the Bavarian speaking guy in this office who directed me to room no. 214 by saying “Zwoferzen” which was supposed to mean “Zweihundertvierzehn”!

The first weekend was special as I decided to go to Munich for the Oktoberfest. Initially I thought it wouldn’t be worth it since I had heard nothing about it other than people gathering in thousands to drink like crazy and then wait impatiently at the queues outside the urinals. I still decided to give it a try after one of my colleagues urged me to. I bought a Bayern ticket single which is a very useful option for travellers. It enables a person to travel all through Bayern and use all its transport services for one day, like regional trains, buses , s-bahn, u-bahn etc. everything except ICE, and all for just 20 euros . and it gets even better with a group of 5 persons – 28 euros. Such tickets are available with each and every state in Germany but the prices between them differ.

There were a group of 7-8 youngsters in the train who were all dressed up in traditional costumes and were singing and making merry all the while. Absolutely noisy but it was really fun in the festive time – everything was fine until one of them hit upon the idea of lighting up a cigarette. Within minutes everyone was smoking and the smoke was starting to fill up their area of the wagon– I wondered whether I was still in Germany! They then started opening up their bottles and drunk till one of them fell down and tore his lips while another had thrown up near the toilet. Another girl was starting to behave inappropriately and a few of the passengers near them moved hurriedly to other seats. I was finally relieved when I reached Munich station without getting noticed by them. The usual quiet and polite journey on a german train, to which I was used to , was radically changed that day. Well, exceptions are there everywhere..

I expected the Fest to be one grand pub filled with ‘high’ flying drinkers all over the Theresienwiese (that’s what the place is called) and very soon I realized I was mistaken – yes, it was a grand sized pub all right but there was so much more to it. I found people dressed in traditional Bavarian dress everywhere – Guys in Lederhosen and the ladies in Drindl. They looked splendid and I’m always impressed by anything that’s historic and traditional. There were countless number of shops to eat and shops to play some fun games – I tried my luck at shooting stars with a rifle and I managed around 6 out of 10. I got some plastic roses as my prize that got me so annoyed that I wanted to shoot those roses instead!

My colleague Sabine had brought her friends along and we had a tough time finding places to sit at the Augustiner bier tent – which was said to be the best there. We had our round of beers served in the usual 1 litre Masskruge mugs and the giant sized mugs in the hands of some high flyer who has gone through 4 rounds, could be a dangerous proposition, I thought. There were many such guys around there actually..

The urinals are marked by funny statues pointing towards them and the urinals themselves looked so funny with people on the verge of falling down as they were relieving themselves..

I then enjoyed a few thrill rides and bought a T-shirt as a memento before finally rushing to the train station since the Bayern ticket is valid for one day only. There were special trains from Munich to accommodate the crowd and I had a good trip back home to Erlangen. During the return I had a good chat in German with some girls who had also been to the festival and learnt some German slang from them.

The next week went particularly well and I got into the lab atmosphere. I have begun my experiments and hope it turns out well. In any case, I need to learn a lot and train myself more during my stay here. The path is quite long and I have just begun.

I just told Christine that I needed to buy a bike so that I wouldn’t have to depend upon the buses. She immediately took the help of Dr. Andreas Perlick her boss, and also an avid bicycle enthusiast and he gave me an address of a cycle shop in a village called Möhrendorf, about 8 km away and made an appointment for us. We then drove to the village along with Peter and Susanne our other colleagues. I must say I was deeply thankful to them for taking so much interest into my needs and helping me out. This is particularly important since German bicycles are technically quite complicated and it takes a cycle enthusiast like Peter to critically analyze each and every component before selecting a cycle. They were also helpful to me in another important way – the lady at the bicycle shop would understand nothing other than German and spoke with such a rustic accent that I was so thankful that my colleagues came with me to do the talking. I was mostly looking around and test driving a few cycles. I was easily impressed by each and every cycle I tested, while Peter was far more informed and it takes a lot to impress him.

my colleagues helping me select bike

He said he took almost 2 years to find the right cycle when he wanted to change from his old one, so I knew I had the right guy to select for me as he explained me about the different makes of gears, brakes, body frames etc. and how one manufacturer differed in quality from another. It is required to strike a balance between the essential requirements of the buyer, the minimum required features in the bike, its components and value for money and of course the maximum amount the buyer is willing to spend. We zeroed in on one particular model, but only reserved it, so that we could see other types too. Later the next day, we visited a very large cycle shop (actually they sell motor cycles and accessories too) called Stadler which was selling at 20% discounts since they were going to close down and renovate. There were more choices here and the prices were far better. Again, Peter warned me not to get carried away and showed me clearly how one component may be of best quality (gears for example) while others may be of lesser quality (brakes, body, chains etc.) and a person who looks only at the gears and decides, may be mistaken. Obviously, there were also bikes that were made fully of the best components that would cost nearly a 1000 Euros. I checked out some really amazing cycles like a racing model costing 9990 Euros and many mountain trekker bikes costing higher than 800 Euros. There were also some funny bikes like one that was modeled on the Harley Davidson style and another that was so high that only someone atleast 2 meters tall could ride it.

stadler shop

I needed a bike for daily use, within the city and for a long time and that was the primary reason why I did not opt for a used one. We finally selected a model after 4 hours of test driving nearly 12 different models. Its called a Pegasus and has 8 gears in the front and 3 in the back and I found it awesome to ride. It costed quite a large amount (300) but I decided on it. I also bought a good lock, though Peter joked that the lock was only for our satisfaction as no bike is safe when parked outside here. We then brought the cycle back in our van and I felt very excited and wanted to drive it all around the city right from that moment but it was quite cold and I put my excitement under check. My colleagues congratulated me for the purchase and I thanked them profusely.

Riding a cycle on German streets is a pleasure since all the roads have special pathways marked for cyclists and so there are no problems to drive. The really amazing thing is that your cycle is just like any other possession like suitcase or bag when you board a bus or local train – you can take your cycle along for no extra cost.

And so, I’m driving my cycle now and it feels great. In my next article I shall describe what an exciting time I had during the International Week organized by the FH Dortmund.