Frankfurt: 27th Feb- Client meeting

Lunch with clients, then burger-american doughnut style. We rode to the place in BMW at an average speed of 100 kmph. Dinner at a turkish place. Turkish cuisine is similar to Indian, being spicy so it was a refreshing taste.

Rhinegau, Germany: 26th Feb- German rivers

Another holiday in Germany and we decide to take another train, but this time in another direction. We decide to go on a trail along the river Rhine. The Rhine river valley is famous for its vineyards, and the local farmers often offer wine tasting. After about an hour on the train, we reached a small town called Rudesheim. Anticipating a grape laden beautiful place, we stepped out of the train. Small town, not many people. We caught a path to get to the top of a hill and followed a trail. This place is supposed to have vineyards, which it did, but unfortunately, we didn't realise we were visiting it in the wrong season. All we found were empty vineyard fields with only stubs of what would be supports of grapevines. But nevertheless, being surrounded to the ends by such fields on the hills was a unique experience altogether.

It was cold already and it started drizzling soon after. All along the path, we were accompanied by the mighty river Rhine on our left. We could see a lot of carrier ferries on the river. There is no river bridge connecting the two cities located right across the river and cars are transported by these huge ferries. There was also a ruined small castle situated on a hill top besides the river.

A very pleasant experience during the trip were all the German people we met on our way. Germans are very friendly by nature and all the people we met (mostly couples on a similar hike as we were), greeted us. We also chatted with two aged couples who were on this hike for a health walk.

We reached a smaller town of Assmannshaussen. All these small towns have their names written in large letters on the top of the hill that they are situated on, just like you would expect in Hollywood. This was a very colourful small town of Germany. So colourful that it resembled a fairytale land. But it was all closed! We could see no person on the streets. After long, we saw a person and we asked him about the town being all closed. He told us that it was a Winter Sunday and everything is closed, not even a single restaurant would be open. Well this place probably had all people who owned vineyards and thus they need not work all time as we need to ;)

Germany is so loaded with awesome cars! In Frankfurt cars like Mercedes, Volkswagons, Audis, Porches, Ferraris, and BMWs are common, but even in this small town, all cars were worth admiring, cars that are a luxury in India! Admiring awesome cars was one of the best things of our stay in Germany.

Heidelberg: 25th February- The castle

Saturday. Ben (our AC) advised us a few places we could visit over the weekend and we followed his advice. This was going to be my fist time on a European train: they are cleaner and faster. So, we took a morning train to Heidelberg. All that we knew about the place was that there is a castle that we were going to visit. I guess that much was enough to get us going. It had just rained when we got there and the weather was cloudy, with everything around us washed and fresh. We walked into a tourist info centre where the lady was very jovial. She was very glad to explain everything about Heidelberg and handed us a map marking the places we would want to visit, and the buses we could take to get there and get back. Then she commented that on our way back we will cross a street which is dangerous because it has shoe shops. As expected, Ankit and I looked puzzled. She explained that ladies love shoe shopping so it is going to be dangerous for Ankit's credit card. :) She must have wanted to make a subtle joke. Probably everywhere in the world people just assume that a girl and a boy together must be a couple.

Well, anyways, we started our journey, hopped on a bus, got to the foot of the mountain on top of which stands the Heidelberg castle. The view was beautiful, the weather was awesome, it was cold, about 3-4 degrees C, mild breeze, cloudy and a little damp. The audio guide was a good addition for understanding the experience of being in an ancient European castle. It is autumn right now in Europe, so the trees were all spared of the leaves, but the terrain was beautiful. A river, Neccar, flows bisecting the town adding to the beauty. For lunch, I had Swiss cheese soup, which was kind of nice, German cheese noodles.

After the sumptuous lunch, we headed out for a trail for walking, proudly called 'philosophy walk'. I had eaten too much cheese, although I also walked a lot so it was sort of compensatory.

The highlight if the trip had been the lovely weather and the old city of Heidelberg. Getting to see an old European city for the first time can be pretty exciting, as it was for me. This was the only city that was not destroyed during World war 2.

Not being very hungry, we ate at Mc Donalds, where we had just one option for a veggie burger, but it was delicious.

Frankfurt: 24th Feb- Arrival in Germany :) 1st day...

My flight from Delhi to Frankfurt was via Bahrain. So when I landed on the Bahrain airport, the first thing I noticed was McDonalds Bahrain. We had 2.5 hours to be spent at the airport before we could get the connecting flight. We found a long bench each and slept off. It was a night flight, so slept most of the time. Ate 3 times: dinner, dinner and breakfast at 5AM EU time.

One thing that was new for me was the fact that India exports a lot of cheap labour to the Gulf region, and so these flights via the Gulf region are filled with people that give you a feeling that you are travelling in a local Haryana travels bus from Delhi to Rohtak.

We landed in Frankfurt soon after, and our phones were not working. The plan was that we would be contacted by the taxi driver. Now that this couldn't happen, we were sort of stuck at the airport for about 1.5 hours, after which we decided to take a train. Reached hotel, reached office, took lunch at a Thai joint, Germanised Thai-I didn't like it. Dinner at some restaurant on Zeil street. In the name of vegetarian, they only had fried potatoes and salad.

I noticed a few things: The Germans are very disciplined. They respect traffic lights, pedestrians cross only when it is green for pedestrians, cars stop well behind the stop line, and the best part: there is a separate track for the cyclists everywhere, lying somewhere between the road and the pavement.

And I have just one tap in my hotel room: for washing hands after answering nature's call, for washing my face and for drinking. My room is compact and nice, with all modern amenities like TV with only German channels and only EU style plug-points. Thankfully I have a converter.