I love Munich

I've been wanting to post this for quite a long time. I don't think, even this post would do enough justice to my love for Munich.

My life was/is like this - I've lived 21 years straight in Kerala. Then 13 months in Chennai, 9 months in Munich, 9 months in Hyderabad and now again 10 months in Munich.

There was not even a single place where I wasn't happy. I was satisfied with anything and everything I got. I never complained about some place. Still if I praise some place, Munich comes first. Of course, I cannot compare Nellayi and Munich. Actually I find Nellayi to be the best because of that psychological thing that it's MY place. Otherwise.......?

Okay, back to my main subject here. I cant enumerate everything. Still...

Ubahn - The most comfortable and reliabele public transportation system I've ever seen. I've been to Berlin, Vienna, Paris, Prague, Brussels etc. No where I've seen such a good ubahn-system.

Englisher Garten - The unique thing. Stretching about 10-15 kms long and 4-5 kms wide, the garden is actually a small forest. Isar flows through the garden. It's all green everywhere. Singles and couples come for walk here. (Spazieren gehen). Biking inside is a pleasant feeling. The small cascade near Odeonsplatz, the Chinese tower, the nudist (:?) area all are amazing.

MarienPlatz, Stachus, Odeonsplatz and numerous other places - Fully crowded and silent at the same time. So many varieties of people coming and going.. rushing.. lovers walking hand-in-hand, hugging, kissing. Tourists doing shopping, the large shops, Karstadt, the two-euro-shop, the fountain at Stachus which turns to be skating ground in winter. All the Doner shops from stachus to hauptbahnof.

Cinema, Readery and Video Shop - Cinema is the name of the theater where English movies come. I might have watched more movies here than I've watched in Ragam/Ramdas/Kairali/Sreelakshmi/Ayodhya/any other single theater. Readery is the second hand English books shop - the largest in Germany. Video shop with 3000+ English movies and the the friendliest macintosh-maniac shop keeper.

OlympiaZentrum - The Olympic village of 1972 Olympics. The trees with full of flowers, 100s of two-room bungalows, all the sport facilities, swimming, the Olympia-hill, the lake, the swans.. what not..

People and cleanliness - Yes, very important. Very nice helpful people who keeps every place so damn clean. I've never seen any place which is as clean as Munich. Whoever has come to Munich at least once would agree with this. Also when I say about people... all those beautiful girls with kutti dresses and tyres around their belly. Ones without tyres too are there, the plump plump old people, the cute cute kids, everyone so nice.

My University - One of the top 3 universities in Germany. The ELITE university in Germany. I don't need to tell more..

The Climate - The only thing people could say to be bad. As a matter of fact, it is not actually that bad. I am comfortable with it. It's just human nature to get bored very soon. 3 weeks of snow will get them bored. In November, it was about 3-4 degree Celsius temperature and my friends were saying it was too warm. Anyway the winter seems to have gone. The lowest recorded temperature in city is -19. Now it is about 5+ degrees.

I might have missed out many things.. Oh, anyway I cant list out everything.. it will take a loooong time.

People including I, have started changing the dressing habits. Three weeks back, I used to wear all the thermal wear, gloves, cap, shawl etc along with the heavy shoes. Two weeks back I stopped wearing cap and gloves. Last week I stopped wearing the thermal wear and started using normal shoes. Yesterday I stopped taking shawl. In another three weeks, I'll leave the sweater and jacket. Then another 2 weeks, I'll move to Bermuda instead of jeans and to normal footwear instead of shoes. Some people are a little too fast - they have already moved to Bermuda and of course micro-mini-skirts have already started displaying the white-bloodless thighs of those hefty girls.

I've become kind of expert in Munich. I know most of the places, most of the stuff. Traveling in cycle gives me the extra knowledge of all the kutti kutti streets and all. Very nice lovely city :)

Who all reached here? Please raise your hands :). Congrats and Thanks :)

Part II - An open letter to all the cryptobloggers

Actually, what is your problem? You can very well say that it's your blog and you don't care whether the blog is readable/understand-able. Fine, but still readers expect something good. After typing in the post, why don't you just change the point of view and read the whole thing again? Just try to think whether the reader would understand something of it. Again, tell me you are writing the blog for you. Bull shit! True, you might be writing for yourself, but you always have readers in your mind. Every reader and every comment gives you happiness. You do expect them to read/contemplate and comment. You keep coming and look for the comments.

As far as I can think, all my fellow bloggers are/were s/w professionals. If you cant think what would be the opinion of the end user, do you think your product will be good? Isn't it same with blogs? And the management/finance/marketing gurus, if you cant know what your readers want, how the hell are you going to do marketing? Learn to market yourself first, your blog first. Come, tell me .. it is the right of the writer to write whatever he/she wants. I don't think that person who told will come here and read this blog. Still, you know that's crap and just an argument to save your ass. Fine, enough.

To be honest, the whole blasting I did just here was triggered by a friend of mine. He used to write sensible blogs. Now his blogs are becoming cryptic. Dude, what I believe is this - "Any new reader should be able to follow the blog without having a prior knowledge of you and your thoughts". You can always argue against me... but those arguments are valid only for the "ilamaran-blog/My Soul" of yours in the private domain.

Signing off, Sands.

_