Europe Series 1 - German Engineering

Roughly 1 year ago (10/23/2005) to be exact, I set my foot for the first time on German Soil. The next 10 months were almost magical where I travelled extensively to Europe and also within Europe. Those 10 months will always be considered as one of the most enjoyable moments in my life. All the Germans I worked with were fabulous people. During this time I developed a great sense of respect and admiration for German Engineering. Sure many would claim it is over engineering and I agree. I saw a lot of machines in Germany which werent really needed and didnt serve the people it was designed for in the most effective manner. But what impressed me the most was not just the quality of the work, but passion most men (Not being sexist here, I worked mostly with men...so I dont really know about the women) had for Engineering. Starting from the maintenance guy at the plant, I worked out of. Once we were talking about this idea for a project which had a little bit of engineering involved and I saw this guy who generally has great inertia get all excited about this. Couple of hours later he came to my office with a bunch of AutoCAD plots with potential engineering solutions. All this was on a Saturday and anybody who has been to Europen atleast once knows how hard it is to get Europeans to work in the weekends.

I am an engineer and I am passionate about my work, so nothing wins my admiration more than seeing people being really passionate and proud about their engineering. Thus I changed my mind from a Lexus 330RX, owning which, I had dreamt of for 5 years preceding my trips to Germany, and got a Germany manufactured BMW 330i.

There are many such small stories that happened during my trips to Europe that are deeply embedded in my thoughts and memories of the place. I am going to attempt to write and share some of those in the upcoming months.


I am attaching the very first picture I took in Europe and Germany. It isnt a great picture. My colleague took it and its a picture of the Autobahn A1, while we were driving from Wuppertal to Koln. The car in the picture is the rental car from National I had for almost 2 months, a diesel Opel Vectra.

(Picture taken on 10/29/2005, 11.14 am Local Time)

Photography..

I took this picture of the Grand Canal in Venice, Italy from the Rialto bridge with my canon SD450 in manual mode, with a large aperture opening and long time of exposure. The part I like the most is the reflections in the water and also the light color in the sky since this was taken right around sunset. I think this is one of the best pictures I have taken in my life..atleast certainly the one I am most proud.

From the United Kingdom Part II

Writing from the Manchester Airport, waiting at the gate for my flight to Dusseldorf which leaves at 6.55pm (current time 6.35pm). Manchester is soo much up north close to the artic sea that during summer, there is sunlight here from 3.00am in the morining to 11pm in the night. I was just thinking the other day, one can really golf at 4am in the morning if they want to.

This afternoon I walked around Manchester city center. It looked like a neat city, lotsa life, lotsa good loking women. Even UK seem to have some of the European Liberalism, which I love about Europe. I also saw the giant screen installed in the city center. The whole place is just filled with world cup fever and it feels great to be right here in the center of this world cup fever. Ok...my flights boarding now...gotta go. Also check out the pictures I am posting that I took in Manchester..cheers now (In true English style)!!

Btw, I just recently started using google desktop on my laptop and its worked great soo far. Especially the google calendar with the provision to take notes which help me write down notes during different times of the day. The notes get saved automatically so there is no pain of having to save the notes, name the file blah blah. I am writing this very post using that application.

The oldest Bar in Manchester (or so the sign claimed)


English Flags being sold in the city center, part of WC 2006 fever. A local newspaper said about 1 million flags have been sold, which is pretty high for a population of 60 million.


A fountain in the city center which the kids were using to cool off in the heat. I just stuck to the Lager.


A giant television screen installed in the city center for viewing the world cup matches. You can see some people lazing in the sun in front of the screen. This was the day the world cup started.

From the United Kingdom

One of the things beautiful things about being in England is the availability of decent if not good Indian food everywhere. Couple of days back we (me and 2 of my co-workers) ate in this Indian Restraunt and my 2 American Co-workers thought the food was great. Being an Indian myself I was proud to hear that. Besides the restraunt we went to, unlike other Indian restraunts outside of India had excellent service and a waiter who took the time to explain some of the intricacies of Indian food to my co-workers. On the whole it was great. Then yesterday we went to this little english bar which serves food and there I was readeing the menu...it had a bunch of steaks, potatoes etc and finally at the very bottom there was something I couldnt beleive - Home made curry served with Chapathis and Rice. It surprises me that the UK people have taken to Indian food in a really big way. Infact a English guy at the plant was telling me that currently, curry is more common in the UK than Fich and Chips. So Yahooo!! to Indian food. I have had great fun at UK soo far. The people seem really friendly, the food's great, I get treated like royalty in the company (thanks to the 2 VP's I am travelling with), the beer (both lager and Ale) tastes great. Well! what else can I ask for?

P.S> I am typing this in my Google Desktop, tiny Daily notes taker widget that comes with the calendar widget, so bear with the lack of formatting or the spelling mistakes!!