The Home Run

My standard of living during the first 2 years of my stay in Germany can best be described as ‘student life’. Within the limited means of an educational loan and a part-time job, one private room along with shared kitchen and bathroom is all I could afford. And frankly, all I really needed. Thus my first 3 homes here – the university hostel during my masters course, another hostel during my thesis and a shared apartment when I just started working, served their purpose excellently. Also, not being very choosy, finding these places had not been particularly difficult. But things changed when my wedding got fixed, my fiancé and I had to look for a more ‘respectable’ place for later. 

Having just transitioned from students to professionals, our spending habits were still a lot student-like. This also reflected in our apartment search criteria. In addition to the rent having to be ‘very reasonable’, the place had to be brokerage-free, which is otherwise a rip-off here. But since most house owners preferred to rent out through brokers, we had very few options to choose from. And with my fiancé’s paying guest contract expiring at the end of the month, we were quite desperate for something to work out for her till then. 

Our prayers were soon answered, however in quite an ugly form. A rundown building under renovation, looking horrible from the outside and hollowed out from the inside. As we walked through the construction site, the over-enthusiastic owner painted verbal pictures of the apartment, once the renovation work ended in a couple of months. If things worked out as per his plans, it would indeed be the perfect house the two of us could make our first home together in. The apartment was sufficiently big, the available area was well laid out in the rooms, the view from the balcony of the vineyards was lovely and the place was located right on the bus route to our office. We were made for each other! So with assurances of a ‘livable’ apartment until the moving-in date and the subsequent completion of the rest at the earliest, we decided to take it. 

In the couple of weeks till the due date, the apartment actually saw an impressive transformation, even exceeding our expectations. But for the still to-be painted doors, to-be fixed window shutters and to-be serviced heaters, the change from our first visit was as drastic as the transition between seasons in Germany. We were optimistic that if the work progressed at this pace, our dream home might be ready earlier than planned. With these high hopes, my dear fiancé made no fuss about moving into an unfinished apartment, making do with the frugal furnishing of only a standing lamp for lighting, only a mattress for a bed and only a hot-plate for a kitchen with a fully functional bathroom. After the wedding, we took our own sweet time converting the interconnected rooms into our home, supervising the kitchen being assembled, planning the furnishing for the rooms, shopping for the suitable pieces of furniture and putting their building blocks together. 

All this excitement distracted us from noticing that the construction work was gradually slowing down, until it eventually came to a halt. After finishing our apartment, the owner went on to complete the bare essentials in the other apartments in the building, just enough to be able to rent them out. But several tasks in the common areas remained unfinished. Work begun on a promised storage room in the basement was abandoned, leaving the laundry room and staircase always covered with dust, the corridor walls were an optic disaster with protruding piping and wiring, the backyard was strewn with construction rubble. We laughed away other dreams that the owner had sold to us, like painting the building exteriors and laying out parking spaces in the backyard, rather would be grateful if he fixed the ‘unbearables’! After about a year of innumerable phone calls, empty promises, unmet deadlines, meetings with other tenants, rent reduction measures and exchange of written threats about legal implications, we had exhausted our last ounce of patience. It was clear that the owner had long since left us to our fate and we could only lose our peace of mind further over the matter while gaining nothing. We were in the mood to show him two of our fingers and move out! 

But the decision to shift could not be a knee-jerk reaction, rather required careful consideration. Shifting would mean a whole lot of effort all over again and we had just about finished setting up this place. There was a compulsory 3-month notice period before we could move out and other rental apartments were available only about a month in advance. This meant that we could either play safe, find a new apartment and then let go of this one, in which case we would have to pay double rent during the overlapping months. Or we had to quit here and hope that we would find something suitable in those 3 months, which ran the risk of having to settle for something worse than this place! Also, we were to shortly visit India for a month, which would take away valuable searching time. But if we waited until after our return to quit, we would have to shift during the painful winter months. So the choice was pretty straight forward - either quit right now or suffer this apartment and its owner till spring next year. After several discussions between the two of us, against sane advice from our colleagues against such a misadventure, with mixed feelings of relief and anxiety, we posted our decision to the owner! 

As expected, nothing worked out during the 2 weeks before our India visit, leaving us with only a month and a half on our return to find our new home. Once back, the search party got to work with full force, this time with a more open mind (or rather pocket!) towards apartments with less reasonable rent and with brokerage. Out of the 40 odd prospective apartments, we short-listed 25, got appointments to check out 15, among which only about 5 came close to taking away the honours. But every one of them had at least 1 show-stopper. Either the place was located next to a graveyard or the kitchen was too small or the apartment was left in a bad shape by the previous tenants. With little over a month left, our restlessness grew amidst witty offers from our colleagues of their basements and carton boxes, “if it comes to it”! But just when the countdown clock showed exactly 1 month to go, we found a place where we could imagine ourselves living in. 

The apartment along with 2 others, is part of a newly renovated building, which means newly insulated walls, new heating system, new bath fittings, new modular kitchen, newly painted interiors and exteriors – all new, for an acceptable rent and brokerage. A quiet residential locality and a lovely park just in front of the house are the icing on the cake. As the owners and we found each other suitable, it was a done deal and the broker did the needful in putting a contract in place. 

As we spend our last days in the present apartment, planning the shifting and the arranging of our new home, I wonder if it was the right decision to take the leap of faith. It could have ended differently, one is wiser only in the end. But who cares when it ends well?! Cheers to happy endings, hip-hip…

Like to Bike

With over 40 million registered cars for its 80 million odd population, the traffic system in Germany is dominated by 4-wheelers. The motorbikes are more sport-gadgets than a regular means of transport and the bikers are considered the adventurous and daring or even fool-hardy types. To quote a colleague, they are “the guys who always carry their organ donation card with them”! But a bike, in addition to being a necessity in India, has been a statement of being free, of being alive, of being in control for me. And so, feeling the wind in my face and chest, as I ride on some of the most scenic stretches in Europe has been one of my dreams. 

So I set out to get both my 4- and 2-wheeler licenses done together mid last year, the former – a must-have, the latter – a nice-to-have. But when I was done with the two theory tests, my driving trainer recommended that I first focus only on clearing the 4-wheeler practical exam. With this license I could get used to driving a car in the German traffic system and then the 2-wheeler exam would just be a matter of additionally keeping my balance! All in all, it sounded like a plan. 

And the plan seemed to be working quite well. I cleared the 4-wheeler exam at the first attempt in autumn last year and decided to give myself the months till summer this year before taking up the 2-wheeler part. Once we bought a car, I even got a hang of driving on the “wrong” side in no time. However, an extended winter, work pressure and just laziness made me put off starting the riding classes until it was almost too late. The theory test result is valid only up to a year and my planned India visit advanced the deadline by a month. Some confusion with the driving license authority due to incorrect entry of the allowed 2-wheeler class resulted in further delay, leaving me with less than 5 weeks to successfully take the exam before catching my flight home. 

After considering some alternative driving schools, I decided to stick with my previous trainer, in spite of my forgettable car driving classes with him. Mainly because he instilled the confidence in me that he would take me past the finish line in time, a decisive factor given my optimistic time plan. Another plus in his favour was his flexible timings, which allowed me to get more hours on a bike in fewer days. When we hit the road, me looking like an astronaut in the protective gear on a powerful Suzuki Gladius, followed by my trainer in his Audi, I made very few mistakes compared to my first car hours. But the few that I made, mostly silly ones were awarded with mix of static and admonition over my walkie-talkie ear piece. Some things never changed! By now however, I had grown a thick skin to his exaggerated and at times undeserving criticism and focused on where I had to get my act together. After 6 riding hours, he announced me good-to-go and booked an exam in the following week. 

The 2-wheeler exam is more than just the 4-wheeler exam on 2 wheels. The “more” are the 6 handling exercises to be performed on some deserted road ranging from zig-zaging around cones, to avoiding obstacle, to emergency braking. Although I initially had trouble with 2 of them, I eventually practised enough to manage all 6 comfortably. And the riding in different speed zones part was not an issue, owing to my sufficient car driving experience. So on the exam day, I felt more relaxed and better prepared than on the 4-wheeler exam day previously. Although the test started quite well, it was one of the unusual suspects among the exercises that would literally bring my downfall. 

The ‘zig-zaging around cones at less than 7 kmph’ exercise is essentially a play between the idling engine, the delicately applied clutch, the sparingly used foot-brake and the steadily maneuvered steering handle. The accelerator and the hand-brake are meant to be silent spectators, who could be show-stoppers if they play any role. Challenging as it was, this exercise was never under my trainer’s scanner as I had managed it flawlessly during each practice run. In the exam however, it was a combination of things that went wrong. I approached the cones too fast and at too oblique an angle, making the skewed trajectory very difficult to correct. The knock-out punch was delivered by applying the hand-brake together with sharp counter-steering at the 2nd cone. I lost my balance as the tyres skid sideways and the bike tilted over. As my trainer helped me get the bike back up, the examiner gave me the thumbs-down. He would have given me another shot at it, had I just given up after the wrong start and begun all over again, without ending up with my hands to the ground. Shit happens, the time tested “fight till the end” approach did not end well! 

So now the time was right for some panic! With a 2-week gap before I could attempt again and 3 weeks left to the deadline, it would go down to the wire. Also, this was the first exam I had ever failed, so there were some self-confidence issues to deal with. It would be so to say, my ‘first second’ time. 

In spite of a thorough training session a couple of days back, I could not get sound sleep the night before the take-2 and woke up with headache and a bad tummy. As I waited for my turn at the exam center, I was not as up to it as during the first attempt. But I had my work cut out – do or never do. Going through the whole process again from scratch after my vacation, with the theory test and everything was not happening. But as the exam got on the road, I surprisingly got my concentration in place. I faired perfectly in all the exercises in the first attempt and gave no chance to the examiner to point a finger at anything during that hour. As I received the ‘green’ report card from him, I mentally wiped the sweat off my forehead. Phew! 

With the ‘license to chill’, the route for our first bike trip is a done deal. Although my reluctant darling is yet to be convinced to ride along, the scenic ‘Schwarzwalder Hochstraße’ (the Blackforest Highroad) awaits us.

Owning An Auto

Being a country of cars and drivers, it is almost “wrong” to be always traveling by public transport in Germany. The thrill of joining the speeding brigade of the biggest brands of cars, equipped with the latest technology available, whizzing on the best laid-out roads - the german Autobahn, is an experience that can hardly be aptly expressed. More so, when behind the wheel. Being a german driving license holder since half a year, it was time to get me an Auto (car in German) and hit the road! 

The task of deciding on the right car was hardly trivial, considering the wide range of brands, classes, models and technical configurations on offer. However, the “width” of this range narrowed down considerably, once my beloved and I fixed our budget! Our search began with the initial idea of a 3 year old second-hand BMW 1-series. But after several weeks of comparing technical data and reviews of probable brands and models in that segment, discussing with colleagues, searching online for offers and renegotiating our budget, we finalized on a new snow-white Opel Astra hatchback with a respectable 64 kilowatt 1.4 liter engine. 

On our way to the Opel dealership on the big day, we were both bubbling with excitement, like kids being bought their first bicycle. The car dealer named Blessing turned out to be indeed a blessing for us, first-time car owners. In addition to patiently answering our never ending questions regarding financing, insurance and servicing, he even advised us about the car deal like a well-wisher, rather than a salesman. Once we were done signing the papers, there was a little handing-over-the-keys ceremony, where we proud owners took a picture with our handsome new car, we decided to name Ashwa – the white horse. Ashwa posed elegantly with us, showing off his special license plate RA-1130, with our initials and wedding date. During our debut home-run over the Autobahn A-81, I confined myself to “loser” speeds, well below those usual on the Autobahn, letting trucks and “humbler” cars overtake me, seemingly saying “Puppy shame to you!” as they passed by. 

Ashwa brought several positive changes in our daily routine. I climbed up the professional ladder with my promotion from Her Majesty’s porter to Her Majesty’s chauffeur! We were no longer bound to the fixed bus or train timings to travel to or from work or elsewhere. We could jump in and drive off at will. Traveling to any destination henceforth meant just entering the address into the navigation system and driving as routed, rather than checking the best connection, buying the cheapest ticket and changing buses or trains along the way. Loading our weekly supplies from the supermarket into the boot and driving home was way more convenient than packing the supplies into a trolley bag and wheeling it home on foot. Ashwa thus thoroughly pampered us with comfort and flexibility.

But having neither driven nor owned a car in Germany before, we had our share of first-times, some memorable, some forgettable. Our clumsy first attempt to fill up at a petrol bunk, being stuck at the exit of a paid parking lot not knowing how to pay, wondering if some behavior of an in-vehicle system is a feature or a defect, the worm in the head teasingly asking “Have you locked the car?!”, the guilt and fear after absentmindedly driving through a red signal, the heart-in-the-mouth feeling after a close call due to a wrong turn. Aaaaaand the winner is – the sickening pain in the stomach after the first dent on the car while parking! All said and done, they were all part of the experience and I am glad they happened. 

Anyways, it’s now high time I cut the words and let the actions do the talking. As my better half and her “lesser full” mount Ashwa and saddle in, allow me to offer you half a wave of my hand and a promise to be back soon, before we ride away into oblivion.