Europe changed to winter time one week before the US i.e. the last Sunday in October. Somehow Anand and I were not clued into it much at all. Maybe because we don’t know the language well, did not hear much comment on the radio or TV as we would have back in the US. Anand said he had not even been aware of it at work – (God I remember how paranoid we would be about our appointment calendars back in the US during the time change process).
So last Sunday – 25th Oct, we woke up at our usual time and did the morning routine, sit down breakfast with coffee etc., We wanted to visit a ceramic museum in town and we knew it opened at 11 am so took our bikes and reached there promptly @ 11.
The doors were of course shut – we looked at our watches and then decided to walk to the back of the building – thinking that we were at the wrong entrance. We did not have much luck when we got to the back of the building as well. Next door to the Ceramic museum was the Film museum and we saw some activity there – a lady was behind the ticket counter and there were a couple of other staff as well.
We went into the Film Museum to enquire what time the museum next door would open. The lady at ticket counter was getting ready for the day by counting notes and coins etc in her cash box. She took a break from counting and told us – elf uhr – which meant 11 o’clock. I showed her my watch and told her it was elf uhr and of course she went into an explanation in German – which I could not follow. She looked around and spotted a man having coffee and asked him to translate and he repeated what she had said in English. When we pointed out it was 11.10, he said no – it was only 10.10 as we had just turned back the clock by 1 hr.
We felt so stupid at our mistake and promptly changed our watches. We then wandered around the quiet streets of the old town or Altstadt till 11 am when we went back to the museum. It was more than worth our 1 hr wait to see the museum.
I guess the best thing about turning back the clock is that now when I walk Socks in the morning it is light at 7 am, but I hate it that it gets dark at 5.30 pm and I have to take her for her evening walk in the pitch dark. I guess the reason I hate the dark evenings is that there is no possibility of seeing light till the next morning….
