The Next Day...!!

After a wobbling start to the next stage, the next morning greeted me with some beautiful snow around my dorm. However, this took sometime to sink in, as I got up with the usual gloomy, swollen eyes, asking for some tea, except that I didnt hear any response. It struck me immediately, that am in a different country, and what was worse, I didn't have TEA (damn, this was a bad idea..!!). This was something, I was really addicted to, back in India. Whether I eat or not, tea is a must for me, and now as I write this blog, I am surprised, that I have lived for 4 months, without having a taste of Tea. Not that am very happy about it, but still its good to know, that I was not actually addicted to Tea. Ok, if am mentioning Tea in caps, it has a certain amount of importance in my life, guess my close buddies will be knowing it.

So I wake up, to find no Tea, no newspaper, no TV (didn't get my internet connection yet), no music (both mobile and ipod were dead), hmph..!!!, one cannot ask for a more boring morning. However, I forgot all these, when I saw the snow outside my window, and thought of taking sometime off and viewing its beauty. It was amazing. I had seen snow earlier, in Kullu-Manali, but this was different. There were people rushing to cover their cars, some of them trying to start them, and this particular scene got embedded so deep, that I still remember every detail of that day. But I had to move on, I had to goto the university, to meet our coordinator, for doing all formalities.

So Bhuvan and myself, start off to the uni, thanks to the detailed map, it was pretty easy to spot the bus, except that we had to argue about the direction of the bus to be taken. The best thing about the uni was, for starters, the engineering department was located separately and easy to find. On our way, we happen to meet our first batch-mate, a girl from China. Even though we are the closest among all the neighboring countries, and we compete in all the fields, the biggest competition between both the countries, will be "Who memorizes whose names first?". I guess it took us 10 mins, to explain her our names and get her name, and still I dont remember her name. However, she had a pet name, which was rather simple, Jojo. There is no link between her pet name and her original name. So this is how the conversation went:

Me/Bhuvan: Hello, so are you looking for the Commn Dept?
Jojo: !?!?!?!?
Me/Bhuvan: Are, you looking for the Commn Dept? (extremely slowly)
Jojo: Ya, ya (shaking her head up and down..!!! I feel this is very common in China..!!)
Me/Bhuvan: Hi , I am Harish (Me)and I am Bhuvan (Bhuvan)
Jojo: Haaiisssh??? Poooovan???
Me/Bhuvan: (Great never knew my name could sound so bad..!! Bhuvan please take the honours of explaining) I guess I can write the name (Bhuvan) (Brilliant - Me)
Jojo: Ya, ya (Again shaking her head). Oh oh Haariisshh (r extremely silent)(Chalo, a bit better than the last time..!!) and Boovan (ha ha..!! mine was better - Me)
Me/Bhuvan: Whats your name?(Bhuvan) (I am not going through that again..!! - Me)
Jojo: §$%§$"$%..!! (believe me, i still don't know..!!)
Bhuvan: May be you can write it..!!
Jojo: Ya ya

And so somehow Bhuvan got her name. And then, the impossible happened, 5 more Chinese appeared, and we ended up explaining our names for the next half an hour, and thanks to our coordinator, we had to stop. Then came the usual, formality section, filling up of n-number of forms, (isn't there an easy method to do this..!!), but I had to appreciate our coordinator's patience to put up with us for almost 2 hours. Vamsi, arrived late, as usual, and then we set out to have a tour of the uni. Our bank accounts were opened and then we went to mensa, (Lunch canteen in the uni), there again I gave a failed attempt to reclaim my lost heroics, in German. So this is how it was:

Me: Entschuldigung (Man this is the only word in German that I have mastered..!!) Was haben Sie .... für Mittagessen ?(Tanslation - What do you have for lunch?) (Ok, that was better than before)
German Guy: %§$%"§%&$%&$"$" in German
Me: (damn, I havn't learned food names in German..!! fine, lets go step-by-step) Sigh, Können Sie Englisch sprechen?
German Guy: Ja, so we have .....!!!
Me: (Someone, grab and pull me inside the earth..!! I can see Bhuvan and Vamsi, with all giggles behind me..!! Guess they could have done this better..!! well it can't be helped)

What came next was going to be really interesting, we were supposed to have a German classification test the next, to put us in different levels, based on our German knowledge. (Man with this kinda remembrance, I spent 14,ooo Rs. on German course in India, and I will be back where I started..!!), and to make it worse, I didnt bring any German course books with me (damn the baggage limits). Ok Harish, get ready for going back to Basic Course Level in German, not that anything is bad with that, but I spent 14000 bucks learning German. And so, I go back to my dorm, waiting for my German exam the next day.