Breaking the Silence

Everyone (hopefully at least someone) who follows my blog and missed it- I am very thankful. I am sorry for the silence. But it was for a good reason. No. I was not pregnant. I was away to Germany for a two weeks seminar. And took an extra ten days to have a look around Europe. It was all fabulous of course.

Germany was very green and windy, almost cold in the northern parts like Rostock. They probably never see the real summer that we in Pakistan live through. Germany is very rich (this is no secret I  know) and it has been recession-proof so far. As we traveled across North Rhine-Westphalia, 
Germany's richest and economically most powerful state, through Lower Saxony and Hamburg to Mecklenburg-Vorpommern where Rostock and Schwerin are located. The top picture is that of the cathedral in Cologne and the lower one is Rostock, the city at the tip of the Baltic Sea. 

The Germans apparently love beer, football and cars (autos as they call them). There is a Micheal Schumacher in every German, who drives at 120 MPH and desires to go at 180 MPH. If you are sitting in the front seat, like I did, you fear that the car in the next lane will cross-over. Your chances of survival are very meager in that case. However, the autobahn is safer than most road networks of Europe and US. But then a fatal accident happens once in a blue moon, shaking your confidence a bit.
One big problem with Germany is that it is full of German speaking Germans, who rarely speak anything else. Now Germany has introduced English in its school, life for tourists is just as miserable. The few German words I has collected in the last few years didn't help.
Germans look serious and stern most of the times, but usually open up slowly and become friendlier. If you are a confused foreigner on a German train with 14 stops and one random stop you have to get off at, most Germans are all smiles and helpful.
I was part of a seminar on liberalism. There were delegates from some 15 countries. There was a lot of discussion on free market economy and climate change was declared a hoax- more on all that later.


Disclaimer: These are my personal impressions about the Germans that were formed in a mere three weeks stay in which I was running around Europe haywire- please go to Deutschland and form your own original opinion.