Christmas Vacation...

Like every year I spend Christmas with my parents and my sister. I had a lot of fun and enjoyed the good food and good company. I also had the chance to meet some of my study mates. We had quite a lot to talk. Elke organized the event and also made a very good Lasagne. (Thanks!) On the first day I took a walk through the Gebhardshagen woods(pictures)with my dad.

[20071224] Christmas

Merry Christmas

I wish you a merry Christmas.
Everything is great here and I'm looking forward to have the traditional Christmas celebrations with my family.

Back in Gemany...

I'm back in Germany to spent Christmas with my family. My parents picked me up at the Frankfurt airport. It was great weather. All the trees were covered in white. In the afternoon I went for a short hike through the woods with my dad. Before I left I took some photos of the E-Inn hotel.

[20071220] E-Inn_Mall

City Orientation

Yesterday I went to the city orientation. I met with with the agent at 10am at the Forum Mall. From there we started our 2 hour trip through Bangalore. We passed a hospital, the Vidhana Soudha and she showed me a good supemarket having international groceries. She was very communicative, however I expected a little bit more. In general it was being stuck in traffic for two hours while having a talk.

Well, at least I could shop in this supermarket and got american bread, italien smoked ham and French Camembert. And all this for only 15$ :( I had a big feast at the hotel lateron.

After the orientation I went back to the Forum Mall and got a small (cabin size) bag for my flight to germany on friday.

I also bought a book with 52 ideas what you can do to get a break from bangalore.

Today I spent a couple of hours working and two hours swimming and sun bathing.

Finding Housing

This afternoon I finally had time to look for housing and I found 2 houses that are really nice (a colleague checked them out earlier). Both of them in the Prestige Ozone Development. I'm planning to share this house with above mentioned colleague.

The biggest problem was to get there. I told my driver in the morning that we have to get there and described him where it is. However, I instantly noticed that he had no idea what I was talking about. Therefore I asked an Indian colleague to help me.

Well, what should I say, we got lost, but finally found our way to Palm Meadows and from there the realtor picked us up.

On saturday I had a similar problem to get to the mall. I told my driver one day in advance that we will go to the mall at 2pm. He picked me up on time and started driving.

Hmm, somehow the way looked like the way to work, so I told him that we will go to the mall, not to work. "OK". After another five minutes we were in front of the office building where I'm working. I told him again that we want to go to the mall and again I got the typical "OK".

Finally I managed to convince him (by calling another driver) that my work place and the mall are different places :-)

The pictures have been taken by my colleague

[20071212] Searching a house

Another week

The last week passed by very fast. There was a lot of work and if you are working with US customers your day stretches a lot. During the day you can do your regular work and in the evening deal with the customers.

Yesterday I went to a mall and bought some new sneakers, after my old ones broke in the gymn. Afterwards more work.

Today I slept long and afterwards spent an our at the pool swimming and laying in the sun. Afterwards work again.

The hotel starts to bore me a little. Its allways the same. Same food, same music, same people. I didn't expect this to happen so soon.

For lunch they had a magician there to entertain the people. Since I seem to be the only one in the hotel this weekend I became his target...

Mysore

This sunday Peter and me drove to Mysore, a very nice city with many historic places. However I couldn't enjoy it too much since I got an upset stomach and was feeling very bad.

[20071202] Mysore

E-Inn

On friday I finally arrived at my new office and could start to prepare. The first person I visited was from human resources and he told me that my paperwork hasn't arrived yet and therefore he couldn't help me further. Fortunately a colleague helped me to organize a driver and recommended me a nice hotel, the E-Inn, where I'm staying at the moment. Today my biggest challenge was to get some passport photos. As I arrived at the suggested shop I thought I'm screwed. It was only a very small room, filled with 6 people. However, everything turned out great. The guy did a really good job and it was really cheap (100Rs (2.50$) for 20 photos). Tomorrow Peter and me are planning to go to Mysore.

Arrival in Bangalore

After the long visa process I finally arrived in Bangalore. The first week we stayed at the Angsana Ressort for a workshop, which included an eye opening intercultural training. Meeting my future coworkers was very pleasant and we shared lots of information.

[20071127] First Week India