Singara Chennai - Fantastic Frankfurt - Heavenly Helsinki (Part 2)

Frankfurt.

My colleagues in office who had already travelled to Helsinki via Frankfurt had warned me the airport is so big and difficult to find you way through it. Lufthansa made things very easy for me. Even before landing at Frankfurt I had all the details of my connecting flight to Helsinki. In-flight display provided me the info of terminal and gate numbers to board the flight from, and the airport map clearly showed me how to navigate to the gate.

Though I had only one hour for the next flight, I casually walked across Frankfurt airport since I knew where I'm going, observing the airport's magnificence and gorgeousness. It was surprising to see lots of cyclists inside the airport terminal.

My colleagues had warned me that the immigration check in Frankfurt is very severe. The airport authorities disappointed me. All the security checks got over in less than a minute. I reached the boarding area for my flight to Helsinki well in advance.

I knew it shouldn't be difficult to kill time there.

It was time for my favorite hobby. I started observing the people around me. Not even a single Asian / African face. Only Europeans, especially people from the Nordic. For a moment I felt a bit of loneliness and uneasiness in me.

I told myself, 'Yes, I am in Europe!'

The already short flight of 150 minutes from Frankfurt to Helsinki became even shorter as I got my seat next to 2 European girls returning from their vacation.
Thanks to a family man who wanted to switch my actual seat for this one so that he could sit with his family. That man spoke to me in Finnish without even thinking I wouldn't understand his language. I somehow understood what he meant and changed the seat.

These girls were all the time smiling and laughing and talking in Finnish and only Finnish. When they spoke to me, I noticed how horrible their English was. At that time I didn't know it was only a trailer for the big picture which is waiting for me in Helsinki.

[If you think you can easily manage anywhere in the world or at least in the west, with your English, visit eastern Europe.

There are only 2 languages in Finland - Finnish and Swedish. Many people do speak English but they struggle a lot. Everywhere - name boards, information, instructions, newspapers, television channels, ingredients on food packs, everything in Finnish and Swedish. No English at all!]

Helsinki.

Upon disembarking form the flight and collecting my luggage I went to the airport taxi counter and showed the polite gentleman there my address. He looked at it and said '8 minutes, sir'. I didn't understand why he said that. I kept waiting, checking my watch. In exactly 8 minutes came my taxi. I got out of the airport and inhaled the sweet smell of Finland.

--S--

Singara Chennai - Fantastic Frankfurt - Heavenly Helsinki

Think of what you'd love to carry with you if you're sent to a foreign country for several months where they don't even speak English? I took 5 books of my favorite Tamil writer - the late Sujatha, totally weighing about 2-3 kilos. Enough material for me to read, read and read for the next several months.

It was my first international flight. So my parents, brother and uncle had come to Chennai airport to send me off. Due to some security arrangements (?!!) visitors weren't allowed inside on that particular day. I was so upset because I had so much time to kill until I board the flight, and now I had no company. They were also upset since I had to manage all things alone with no one's help. Anyways, as long as Chennai security is on alert I'm happy.

All the way from the entry point to boarding point, for some reasons the movie 'Ayan' kept coming to my mind.

I had very less idea about boarding an international flight. And even lesser idea about 'how to pack your bags so that you can get away with few extra weight than permitted'. I made the terrible mistake of packing all my favorite books and my winter clothes in the same hand luggage, which looked a bit over-weight. At home it measured just few grams over the permitted level. Damn my weighing scale. At the airport it weighed at least 3 kilos over the limit. I had to decide between books and winter wear. Survival or Sujatha. I made the tough decision and pulled out all the books one by one, only when it came within the limits.

I tried to change my mind by observing other people around. There were confused foreigners, casual dhotiwallas, scared lonely women, naughty kids and some very-good-looking girls of Lufthansa airlines. After some time a person came and sat next to me with a book in his hand. He was unknowingly, unintentionally teasing me. It was Sujatha's 'Srirangathu Dhevadhaigal' in his hand!

I wonder how things like this could happen. There seems to be some sort of connectivity in all that happens around us. Otherwise how will someone come and sit next to me in such a big airport with a book of my favorite writer in his hands, whose books I had just some time ago left back half-heartedly?

Finally, after waiting for 100 odd minutes, watching 100 really odd people, IBM-Infosys-Oracle-Cognizant backpacks, I set foot on the Lufthansa carrier to Frankfurt. After politely declining drinks and patiently finishing my food, I casually sat and observed other people around. There were mostly Indians, Tamils especially.

To my right was a German guy who watched movies without wasting even a minute of the 10 hours flight. To my left was a boring Indian family. At the front were some naughty americanized-tamil kids and behind me a loud Polish family.

Overall it was a not-bad journey. My personal excitement of first long distance flight was neutralised by boring people and their loud snores. Also the environment was 'almost Indian'.

I managed to watch SRK's 'Rab ne bana di jodi' for some time until I could bear it no longer.

The flight was nearing Frankfurt.

--S--

Germany

Coincidentally Germany happened to be the first country I set my foot on outside India.

Coincidence because that was the first country I wanted to go even when I was a small kid.

When I was in 3rd standard I had a lesson in English prose. It was a story about a boy, set in a rural area in Germany. Though I don't remember the exact story now, I remember very well the effect the story had on me. The kid's mom would send him to his aunt's place in some other village and he would take walk along the woods to reach the place. The naughty kid would carry a cheese bar to his aunt, but how? He would tie it to a string and pull it with him like a god. This scene and the sketches shown in the pages presented a very beautiful image of Germany to me.
In fact, that story would have fitted well even if it was set in India, Brazil, China or any other country in the world. It just happened o be Germany. (for some reasons?)

Later on someone told me that Steffi Graf and few other tennis stars are so rich that they even own some islands. I always imagined islands to be like a paradise. Steffi happened to be a German. This again increased my interest in Germany.

When I learnt about Adolf Hitler, Munich olympics, Berlin wall and all, my opinion about Germany moved drastically southwards.

Sigmund Freud in his 'Interpretation of dreams' said, "every dream will reveal itself as a psychological structure, full of significance, and one which may be assigned to a specific place in the psychic activities of the waking state."
Thinking slowly, i realise how true it is. All our dreams are result of what we see, what we read and what we think about in real life. It is magical that somehow somewhere they connect and make sense. He meant only about dreams and how they can be reasoned out. Not how dreams in turn becomes live. This is a mystery and will always remain one.

Okay. Coming back to Germany...

Well, you might wonder what did i do in Germany!

It was only a one-hour transit in Frankfurt, on my way to Helsinki ;-)

--S--