It has been longer than expected for me to write forth this little blog of mine. The reason is simple - I have been deprived from internet access at home ever since I moved to my new home in southern Germany. Of course I have submitted a subscription with a provider company; however, as it turned out, they have to rely on the bandwidth they receive from the former state-owned, former monopolist, Deutsche Telekom (or just Telekom). Naturally Telekom will cling to any advantage they have in this competitive business, so they won't easily give up bandwidth to their competitors, hoping potential new customers will eventually get annoyed with them, and return to the save haven of Mother Telekom ... Alas, but not me! Unfortunately I am forced to buy a landline phone connection through Telekom, but then I will have internet through their competitor, 1&1; and the latter will check recurringly for available phone bandwidth of their own in my area, so that in the long run I can transfer to 1&1 entirely. This is part one of the Great Escape - escaping from the claws of a former monopolist with almost proverbially poor customer service.
Escaped I have, of course, also from the limbo of unemployment; this being the second leg of my Great Escape. Though I had to relocate once more (the number of moves I have had in my live seems to already approach double digits), and this time to the very rural Svabian Alb (quite unlike the urban giants, Chicago and Berlin), I am happy beyond being able to tell you that I have secured this job! It is essentially how I have always imagined my first industry job to be - an exhilaratingly motivated, yet totally welcoming crew of colleagues, a super-exciting product of great impact on the high tech community, an adequate level of remuneration - all in all a very satisfaying package. Yes, there are disadvantages, too, but they are far outweighed by the pros (and of course I'm not allowed to talk bad about my employer ... but seriously, it's a great job!).
However, there is even a third part to my Great Escape, and that is escaping from the occasional dullness that arises on weekends in places like Oberkochen, population < 8,000, number of traffic lights: zero. Thus, in the first weeks at my new place it was literally every weekend that I drove south to a city called Ulm, which has the nearest IKEA. To those who are unfamiliar with the concept: IKEA sells furniture of decent (yet not great) quality for little (yet not very little) money. The trick is that they can rely heavily on mass production - IKEA is somewhat of the McDonald's of furniture, in terms of world-wide representation, even though they like to think of themselves as very green. Also, the furniture is assembled by the buyer; you only get the parts in a few boxes, and you have to demonstrate your crafty skills at home. Well, despite occasional breakdowns that are rumored to occur over the latter, finding a space to park your car at IKEA on a Saturday may well be a greater test of your patience ... Anyways, I think I have done quite okay in setting up all my furniture, and after a while you got it figured out that most IKEA pieces are built in similar ways. By the way, it's not that I moved into a totally blank apartment - I had a basic set to make me feel at home right away; but then I needed more shelves for the living room, and then I discovered that I could transport an entire dining table for 4-6 persons in my tiny Peugeot 107 (which is about the size of the trunk of a full fledged American SUV ...)., and then I decided I didn't like the old study room furniture I was given by my parents. In total I may have spent at least twice as much money in extra tours to Ulm than I did on the original pieces I moved in with. But buying and assembling furniture isn't the only escape from rural Oberkochen I allowed myself. Slightly further to the west from Oberkochen than Ulm is to the south, there is Stuttgart, the capital of the German state of Baden-Württemberg. That's where I have commuted about every week to spend time in places called Starbucks and Coffee Fellows. Even though I feel seriously apalled already by the smell of coffee, I do enjoy their free public internet - for customers, of course, so I resorted to a hot chocolate. I already drove almost 6,000 km with my new car - since I've got it in August, that is. Fortunately it is really not thirsty. According to the manufacturer it consumes about 4.5 L of gas over 100 km, which corresponds to about 60 miles per gallon. Given that gas is about twice as expensive in Germany as it is in the U.S., I do appreciate the low consumption. It's green, too, of course; and all of that makes up for the only 60 horsepower that force me to think twice before I take over a slow truck on a narrow road ...
But after a threefold escape, one might wonder whether I will actually settle down after all. Yes, despite the lack of entertainment, I feel like I have settled down in Oberkochen, and I could stay very well for quite a while. To explain why that is so, I am sharing with you some of the impressions I managed to capture - with my new camera, a Canon EOS 600D.
(a) me at the welcoming sign at the southern end of Oberkochen
(b) the train station of Oberkochen (it's really just an Asian restaurant with a beergarden, the actual station is a single platform)
(c) looking across the valley
(d) the southern tail of Oberkochen - I live now in the peculiarly peach-colored house in the center of the photo, just above the meadows
(e) a spiderweb outside my window that my camera was able to capture (I insist that there are no spiderwebs on the inside)
(f) the tower of the local church, at the center of Oberkochen
(g) an interesting fountain, also at the center, reminding me of far-far-away Alaska ("drill, baby, drill")
(h) a tree in the middle of the road near the train station
(i) southbound railroad tracks, leading to Ulm
(j) Oberkocheners like to wave their flag, too
(k) not so ugly ducklings
(l) an old building
(m) lots of light in that backyard
(n) the graveyard of Oberkochen - there is also an undertaker's business, so if I am destined to stay here for good, the essentials are taken care of ...
(o) a practice close-up of a leaf on the graveyard wall
(p) another practice shot, from above the bridge at the southern exit of Oberkochen
(q) a close up of the Rain Tree in Aalen, which is the seat of what Anglo-Saxons would call a county
(r) the old town of Aalen
(s) more of old Aalen
(t) a little ditch that drains water from the Rain Tree (along with my long afternoon shadow)
(u) a square at the center of the old town of Aalen
(v) Obviously the owner of this car doesn' know what (s)he is doing ... especially since the first group of (1-3) letters represents the county, but the subsequent 1-2 letters and 1-4 digits are random and can be picked according to personal taste, subject to availability ...
