ICE, Inter Continental Express are supposed to be one of the fastest trains in the world and the trains are really superb as people told us. Only problem was that it reached our transit station Stuttgart around 10 minutes late, and hence we missed our connecting train from there. We did something that no one mite have done in the ICE, with my dear mom packing some idilis for me we took them out and gobbled them with a slurp. And we also gained some goodwill of a fellow Indian traveler when we offered one to him, he was ecstatic on eating it ... so where we. Hmm, things had started cool off by now and suddenly we both could feel the chill around. The jacket which was on the top of the luggage suddenly seem to have found 2 legs and had taken it self to the bottom most part of the bag. But as true warrior we didn't give up and got that damn life saving jackets. Stuttgart railways station was some thing like VT gaon ka railway station and people claim that it has 27 platforms, whereas I cud see only 18. Here we found that the connecting train left on time and now that we would have to wait for 2 hrs for the next train. We then had some coffee and began to talk on topics that we had left half way or of which we were bored in the plane. The wait went on and on and finally the train came in which was 5 mins late. As luck would have been the train was too crowded as per German standards and we had to use out local trains skills a bit to find a place to sit, but then to be politely asked to get up by a old lady. Initially I thot it was a "Fakt Striyansathi" (reserved for ladies) seat, but then came to know that she had taken a reserved ticket. :-)

We cud find a comfortable seat then and scenery passed by. People said that we mite have seen black forest, and we did say yes... how can we say NO when people were so insistent that we mite have seen it from the train ... :-) ... Next stop was Singen and we had to get a local from here. The train reached here around 6 mins late and we had to rush off from one platform to the other only to reach on time for the connecting train. We just cud imagine to miss the connecting train this time. While in this train we suddenly realized that it was around 2330 hrs India time and we now had been traveling for 24 hrs :-((( ...

We had a co passenger who was very unique, a good-looking girl who had made herself up to look like a tiger. She had some bare minimal tiger skin like clothes on with whiskers on her face and all those typical tiger looks, even was present a good enough tail. We were shocked and thought is this was this place would be life?? I could imagine how good a chimpanzee/polar bear my partner would make(he later told me I'd make a good camel/giraffe) . There were more such items around, moving in all sorts of weird dresses ... maybe the way we were dressed they thought we were part of the celebrations too ... people dressed like Asians for them ... lol ...

Getting down the station was a real chilling experience, with a colleague there to receive us we moved on towards the apt. We had to take a cab and had the option of either going in and Mercedes or a BMW. Mercedes is what we voted for and it was a superb Merc C series(I guess). We cruised along at 150 mph and reached our place in 30 mins. The apt was good enuf, spacious and well furnished with a view of the Konstanz lake (the lake is around 40 secs or 40 steps from our house). The surroundings are stunning and on a clear day we could see the Swiss alps. Swiss is just 20 mins walk from here. Alas!! We don't have a visa for Swiss. We then had to go back to the city have some food, Turkish food ... more of bread, cheese and Turkish masala, was like pizza and called pide ... and some apple juice ... it was really good but nothing compared to the wonderful idlis. :-))

To tell u more about Kontanz, This is more of a village. A small place and with wonderful people around, it is one of the hot tourist spots for its wonderful lakes and scenic beauties (which mite come alive in summer) and also for its close proximity to Swiss. Its one of those places in Germany which was unattached during the Second World War, 'cos allies didn't knew whether it was in Germany or Swiss ... As usual like a typical European country, its a costly place to stay and a nightmare for veggies like me. But with ample Turkish, Mexican, Indo-Chinese restaurants around we can manage to live on some veggie food for couple of days/months.

The bottom line is that by the time we went to sleep we calculated that I took at just 26 hrs to reach the destination .... whew !!! ... we felt real tired ... yawn !! hhuh !!! yawn !!! #$%^&* stretching .... mmmm ... Zzz ..Zz... huh !!! ... yawn ...