Wishing you all  Merry Christmas and a very Happy New Year too!!

       Christmas being the biggest festival for the Europeans, the whole europe has decorated itself for the visit of Santa! Lighting their home with candles & serial lights, the whole stuttgart looks gorgeous. Everyone goes home to be with their family. Nobody goes to office, holiday means holiday. All germans coordinators are asking our Indian colleagues to go on leave if possible. 

       "Server crashed ?! , Oh! No! thats really bad!! You bet I would be on office the first day after the holidays." - would be the response if something goes wrong during these holidays. No compromise in personal life. Christmas markets are very famous and every town has its special reasons to visit it.

             Gifts, chocolates are distributed among the colleagues at office.  Santa is ubiquitous, his red outfit is in everything from chocolate to posters. Kids are waiting wide-eyed for Santa's gifts on Christmas eve. Christmas trees, the bells, the chocalates, the gifts the whole atmosphere looks romantic.(thats rare in germany!)

    Cars & Germany are synonymous! One thing you can say with conviction is that Germany is home of the best cars in the world. 

 Cars, Beers, Girls goes the order of life for Germans, unlike French who have Girls at the front. Mercedes & Porsche were born in Stuttgart, so I visited the Benz museum with a array of cars ranging from world first automotive to latest Mercedes on display. I could get the privilege of touching the Formula One Mercedes Race car driven by Mika Hakkinen. Its looks bigger than the small toy like cars we see in TV.

     Haven't visited the Porsche Museum, where the fastest & costliest cars in the world are flaunted.

     If Stuttgart is home to BENZ, then Munich, the neighboring city is home to BMW (Bayerische Motorische Werk.) So, u know where all the prestigious cars came from. :-)

    Traffic sense here is amazing here. Traffic rules and signals are followed religiously, mostly because you don't have any other option.

      For us, especially from India, where we drive based on our instinct and not by strict rules, it's difficult to follow the rules mechanically and drive. But, Indians can learn faster to follow the rules and drive here, but a German (for that matter, westerners ) cannot drive in India because they will always look for signals for everything which will never be there.

       I remember, few years back, when Boris Becker (German) came to Chennai for Goldflake open, he wanted to drive the car from hotel to Kodambakkam Tennis court. He almost had a nervous breakdown, decided to stay in the rear sear with his eyes closed. ("Christ! People & cows in the road! That’s crazy man!") 

    This happens invariably, to all western country men who visit India. 

         AUTOBAHN : 
             
Only highway with no speed limit in the whole world. Though 130 KM/h is the recommended limit, it is often ignored with people driving like hell with a speed of 250 Km/h shaking everything around them. You wonder, whether they are on their way to a date with death.

See the collection of cars displayed in Koenigstrasse for some sale offer.

    Porsche is the king of AUTOBAHN with all other cars respectfully giving way to it. Mercedes, BMW, VW etc follows in that order.

 But the rather ugly side of autobahn is that you often caught in traffic waiting for hours, especially on Friday and Sunday evenings.
 
 One of our Indian colleague on his first day in Germany exclaimed, "I am seeing cars that I have seen only in magazines". True! To see BMW, Mercedes on roads in Stuttgart is as common as Santro or Zen in India.

  Infact, my driving classes were in Mercedes. Uff Man! Felt good to be driving Mercedes. Some nice quotes of my driving instructor during my driving classes:
 

"Are you married? I think, Not! But I am, even two daughters waiting for me at home!"

"Hey man! You do have money, I believe, but still its advisable to go at the indicated speed"

"I know u love India, but still its better to drive as in Germany, right side please!!"

"We Germans are perfectionists.. 50 Km means 50 Km. If u go below 50, the guy behind u will shout, if u go beyond 50, I will shout, I really pity you."

 Due to heavy shortage of parking place, Government here encourages people to use Public Transport. Cars like "SMART" were introduced for this reason, since they take less than half of the normal car size.( a four wheerler auto!)

 
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Quote for the week 

Artificial Intelligence is no match for natural stupidity.

-Unknown
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That's all folks!! ciao!

Your Friend,
Chandru
Editor, 
Euro Times
http://eurotimes.50megs.com