Guardian Angels watching over me....

Guardian Angels watching over me….


Some people would prefer to call it glucklich or lucky but I prefer to believe in Guardian Angels watching over me. They have been working overtime ever since I got to Dusseldorf a few months ago. Here are a few instances I was convinced that they were especially looking out for me…

First was the week I successfully parallel parked on Nordstrasse at the first attempt as I had found a two car empty space. I was thrilled with myself that I did not have to reverse multiple times to squeeze between two cars and I was about to open the driver’s door and punch my fist in the air. Don’t know what instinct made me look in the driver’s side mirror and saw the tram approaching less than 1 ft behind my door – now this is a street which is open to two way tram traffic and only one way vehicular traffic and you park half on the pavement and half on the street. If I had opened the driver side door without looking the car door would have been history and I felt I had to thank my guardian angel for watching over me

Second time I followed a delivery truck into a pedestrian only plaza and got really wild stares from pedestrians who were walking there. I knew I was in trouble when the delivery truck parked and carried items into one of the stores and I found myself in a cul de sac with no exit.

I parked my car and walked into the first store that I saw. It was one selling infant clothes. Since my German was rudimentary, I explained my predicament in English. The store keeper could not understand me, but she found a colleague who could. I told her I was new to Dusseldorf and did not know my way around and had followed the delivery truck into the pedestrian zone.

Both of them conferred with each other and then the lady who could speak English told me to go out the opposite way and drive to my left and I would join the main road. I drove out in the direction that she had pointed and found myself on tracks which were solely for trams and not open to other vehicular traffic as they were doing some major renovation work on that stretch of the road. I had visions of encountering a tram going in the opposite direction and drove off with my heart in my mouth as there was no way to turn and go back. I reached a traffic light and found I was perpendicular to other traffic.

As soon as the traffic light turned green I made an illegal left turn to be on the same side as the rest of the traffic on the street. Was definitely sure that my guardian angel was looking out for me both on the tram tracks and at the traffic light and that is how I escaped becoming an accident statistic.

Third time I found two guardian angels in physical form. I was out doing my weekly errands – laundry, throwing away the different recycling items – paper, glass bottles etc., Some time back I had lost my wallet, so I was extra careful to lock the car door after I had the boot opened. I placed the car keys in the boot, so as not to accidentally throw it out with the items for recycling.

I threw away all the papers, cardboard and the coloured bottles in the different recycling bins and then shut the boot door with the keys safely in the boot of the car. So there I was locked out of my car with my handbag with wallet and phone sitting in the passenger seat of the car.

I must have looked totally shell shocked as I crossed the street and met a couple walking on the opposite side. I asked them if I could use their phone – they looked at my face and asked me what was wrong. I told them that my car was on the other side of the street and I had accidentally locked myself out of it. They asked what I would like to do and I said I wanted to call my husband who could give me his keys and I would be able to open the car door and drive away.

They asked how I would get the keys from my husband and I told them that I would take a cab there. They asked if his office was too far away and I said no, just 15 mts away and they offered to drive me there to get the keys as long as I could direct them. They were new to Dusseldorf like me and had arrived just 10 days earlier. They drove me to my husband’s office, where I collected the second set of keys and money for the cab and returned to pick up my car and went on my way to finish rest of my errands...

Changing to Winter time...

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….

Had a wonderful laugh early this morning....

I took Socks for a walk in the Hofgarten around 7.30 this morning. Met one of my friends returning from her morning walk with her two small dogs. As usual, the dogs always want to say HELLO to each other before moving on and the two of us started chit chatting. Just then another one of my neighbors’ joined us with her dog. I was introducing her to my friend in the park and told her that my neighbor had been here just ein monat. She asked us whether we were married to Germans. I told her no - my husband was Indian like me and my neighbor and her husband were Japanese.

She asked us what brought us to Dusseldorf and we told her our husband’s work. Next she asked how long we would be staying here and we told her about 2 – 3 years. She asked us if we didn’t mind that we had to move again in 2 – 3 years and we told her that we had been doing it for the last 20 – 30 years. She said that must be hard.

Her next comment was that our husbands should be paid well if they keep going to work in different parts of the world and that they should give us nice houses, pets to keep us company, waitresses (I think she meant maids) to help us adjust to moving around the world every 2 – 3 years.

I really laughed aloud at hearing her words. She thought it was only fair and asked us to pass on her compliments to our husbands. We wished her a schon tag and continued on our walk… I thought my early morning laugh was a wonderful way to begin the day..

Driving alongside trams in Dusseldorf

I grew up in Mumbai, India and am familiar with city trains but they always had their special tracks and the only time that vehicular traffic would interact with them is at railway crossings which have gates and lights and alarms which would open and close to allow the trains and road traffic to cross one another safely. This was similar to the other countries I lived in – US, Singapore and Japan.

However coming to live in Dusseldorf, I have had to learn to drive alongside trams on streets sometimes with scary results. My first experience of driving alongside them was my venture into Nordstrasse in the first week that I arrived here. I was in search of mundane things a dustban and brush, large towel for exercise etc.,

Parking along Nordstrasse is itself a nightmarish experience as I was re-learning to parallel park again after almost 4 years of never using this skill in the US. You also park seitenstreifen – which means half on the pavement half on the street. This is not helped by the fact that the street is only open for one way vehicular traffic but two way tram traffic. I had just managed to parallel park my car on the one available free space on the right side of the street, when the first tram came by. He patiently inched past my badly parked car. The second tram driver was not at all that polite. He came and stopped right beside my car and opened his window and rang his tinkling bell very much like a cycle bell.

I had to perforce roll down my window as well and he vociferously proceeded to tell me to tuck my car in further into the sidewalk all in German of course. Though I did not undertstand a word of what he said, his manner and demeanour was loud and clear. After another four attempts I managed to park my car with no inch of free space between the car tires on the right side and the sidewalk. I was so thrilled that when I returned home I posted on my FB page that I had successfully parallel parked my car.

On most streets which have tram traffic you see two sets of traffic lights at every signal. The first is the usual red, orange, green for vehicular traffic and the second is the same set of three lights but these light up with a white light - a horizontal line, a circle or vertical line. When we first arrived here we would notice these two sets of traffic lights at every junction. When my husband asked someone in the office they said we should not worry about the second set of lights just concentrate on the vehicular traffic lights.

But I learnt to my dismay that you very much had to pay attention to the tram traffic lights as well. When you drive beside trams on main streets – vehicular traffic is on the extreme right and left of the road while the tram traffic goes through the centre of the road. Often when there is a tram stop, there is a traffic light which lights up just behind the end of the tram with the words Linien verkherfrei (I guess literally means leave the road clear ahead for the tram stop) and this turns red and you stay behind this line so that the tram doors can safely open and take in or let out passengers who have been waiting on the sidewalk.

On one such occasion I found myself right beside the tram driver at the head of the tram both of us waiting for the traffic light to turn green. At this particular traffic light I had to make a left onto a main street and since there was no dedicated left turn signal as soon as the light turned green my usual practice was to go forward to the centre of the road and wait for a clearing in traffic from the opposite side before making the left turn. Most of the time I would only be able to complete the left turn when the lights were turning orange and the opposite traffic were slowing down in anticipation of the red light.

On this particular occasion on receiving the green light I made the usual move into the middle of the street to make a left turn. What I did not realize is that the tram driver had received the green light to move ahead as well in his case the vertical white light on the traffic signal and usually trams have the right of way in such situations. I unfortunately did not know this so was blocking the tram driver who needed to go straight across the main street to the opposite side. He was furious and kept ringing his little bell at me and I had no hopes of making a safe left turn until the last minute when the lights were turning orange and by then the tram driver had a stop signal as well.

My husband when I narrated this story had visions of getting summons in the mail for huge fines for having hindered tram traffic. I learnt a valuable lesson to look at the tram traffic lights as well when I am beside them at traffic junctions.

The neighbourhood I live in.....

The first time I thought that that the neighbourhood I live in was unusual was when my husband gave me instructions to drive to our new rental apartment. He said from the main road I should turn right into Arnoldstrasse and the landmark was a boutique selling wedding dresses called Veronica which was at the corner of the main road and Arnoldstrasse. Sure enough I saw the boutique first before seeing the street name due to its large picture windows which were all filled with mannequins displaying beautiful bridal dresses.

Once I had got familiar with driving to our new apartment I noticed that just two blocks around the apartment there were at least 6 if not more bridal boutiques with names such as Honeymoon, ATV Design, Braut Modern etc. Did not understand what the mystery was till we came to collect the keys to our rental apartment. We live two doors away from the City Registry office for marriages and births. Not sure whether the abundance of boutiques in my immediate neighbourhood is supposed to make people crave to get married and they can fulfill their desires by first buying or renting proper wedding gear before proceeding to the registry offices.

On the very next day after we collected the keys and the packers were busy unpacking all the doors and windows of the apartment were open, I could hear shouts and clapping sounds and found that I had ring side views of various groups of people going to the City Registry office for weddings. The ceremony itself is done inside the Registry offices but often the wedding parties stand on the pavement outside posing for pictures.

Other times since the Hofgarten is just across the street from the Registry offices, they put up tables and have champagne and music and hors d’ouvres etc., Living on the first floor and having a balcony which juts half way across the pavement below I get a bird’s eye view of all the events. Some weddings are simple with just the bride and groom and a couple of friends.

Others are more elaborate with families and friends and parties in the park. I have seen a fiddler serenading one of the wedding parties. Other times the bride and groom being driven by someone in full livery and a top hat in a decorated cycle rickshaw in the park. Often at the end of the festivities the group of cars with the wedding party will go honking down the street to announce the happy event.

All in all I think we have found a happy neighbourhood to live in as both weddings and babies celebrate life.

Navigating underground car parks in Dussseldorf....

I am very glad that living in Singapore taught me to reverse park. Almost every commercial building you went to in Singapore, you would find signs on pillars either saying reverse parking only or the aisle ways were so small that reverse parking was an easier way to get in and out of the car park – especially since we always had huge cars. And I think I got the hang of it over the 3 + 6 years we lived there… I did not want to forget this skill and all through the 4 years we lived in the US I would reverse park into my garage every day and try to do the same at car parks at work etc., I am glad I did because now I have to use the same skill on a daily basis.

Here are my adventures of getting into the two residential car parks on a daily basis since we arrived in Dusseldorf more than two months ago. We had picked up our rental car at the airport and drove to our service apartment in Felix-Klein-Strasse. Our instructions were that the keys to the apartment were in a lockbox right next to the apartment main door and we were given a code to open the lockbox and get our keys. The apartment key also opened the entrance door to the apartment complex. There was another key which was to enter the garage.

The entrance way to the garage was right beside the apartment complex a tight single lane, which had a wire fence on one side and huge concrete planters on the apartment block side. At any point of time only one car could go into or come out of the car park. This is quite common in residential car parks. You drove straight for about 150 ft and on the driver side you found a post with a keyhole in it. You put in the garage key and turned the lock and you would see the lights outside the garage come on. Basically traffic lights but only red and green.

As soon as you turned the key to open the garage door, the red light would come on both outside & inside the garage. This signaled to someone inside the garage that a car was on the driveway outside and to you that the garage door was not fully open. The entrance into the garage was a curved 90 degree ramp into the underground car park. We would inch forward down the curved ramp and as soon as the doors were fully open would enter and park inside one of the marked car parks. Again we had a huge car, so I would try to reverse park my car every day, unless I had to take Socks somewhere. Since she had to get into the trunk, I would park forward and have to go back and forth at least a couple of times to stay within the marked lines.

While coming out of the carpark, we would turn the key at the beginning of the up ramp and wait till the signal light turned green before turning out as you had no visibility of any cars trying to enter the garage. The rule was that if there was anyone driving into the car park on the straight entryway as another car was exiting the underground parking – the entering car had to back out all the way into the street so that you could exit the car park as it was more difficult to reverse back into the car park on a curve.

I have had this happen to me twice as I was driving into the car park and had not yet reached the key pole. It is scary backing out into the main road especially because there was a high school on the other side of the wire fence and restaurant delivery trucks parked on the street. Many of the students would be hanging out in the driveway and I would inch my way backwards hoping that I would not run over anyone’s shoes or get hit by some vehicle on the street. Anyway got the hang of doing this at least twice a day over the two months we lived in the service apartment and then we moved to the rental apt. And I have had to relearn the process of getting into the underground parking at the rental apt…

The entrance to the new apartment car park is from the street behind our apartment building. I have to make a sharp 45 degree right turn to enter the car park driveway and there are always cars parked on the street up to the entrance to the carpark and just beyond the entrance, so that at any point of time only one car can go in or out. Again there is a green hedge separating our car park driveway from the street and the key post on the driver’s side.

We put our garage key into the key post and here we have just one light outside the garage door which lights up orange to indicate to someone inside and outside that the garage door is opening. Once we enter the car park, we make one right angle turn and immediately another right angle turn to our car park which is numbered and allotted to an apt. Ours is number 21. I have become an expert in reverse parking with about 6 inches to spare on either side of the marked lines.

Getting out of the car park is a whole new process. We make the first right turn and the key post is right in the middle of the second straight stretch on the extreme left and your car is in a curve, so we almost drive up to the garage entrance and then back up and straighten the car and drive forward till we reach the key hole, put in the key and wait for the garage door to open before exiting the car park. This was really getting on our nerves and we asked if there was a solution. The house meister said yes, we could order a remote which we did. It took two weeks to arrive, but now we don’t have to back up and get close to the key post inside the garage, just point and aim as we are approaching the garage door to go in or out…..

Third time my wallet was stolen....

I have had my wallet stolen only three times in my entire life. First time was over 27 years ago. I had just started working and in the second month my dad insisted that I should ask my company to give my monthly salary as a cheque rather than cash. I had just arranged for this and I was carrying my monthly salary home that evening in cheque form. As usual travel to and fro to work was in Mumbai’s famous/infamous local trains which are packed like sardines in a tin during peak travel hours. I had squeezed into the ladies compartment and did not find a seat so was standing between two rows of seats and since there are no handholds there, put my office bag on the rack up there. Sometime in between Churchgate and Santacruz I got one of the 8 seats in those two rows and sat down, but did not take my bag off the rack, thinking that I would pick it up when I have to leave the train at my station. Big mistake….

I did not realize my wallet was stolen, till I got into the bus from Santacruz station to go to my house in Kalina. Opened my bag to take out change – 80 paise to pay the conductor and found no wallet. I searched desperately through my bag and had visions of asking the conductor to stop and let me off the bus to walk home as I had no money when to my relief I saw someone from my neighbourhood on the bus. I sheepily asked him if he could buy my ticket as my wallet was stolen – which he was kind enough to do so. Did not lose much money because it was towards month end and thankfully my monthly salary was a cheque, which I got reissued when I went back to work the next day. No bank ATM cards or credit cards in those days so that was not a hassle.

Second time my wallet was stolen I was carrying Aditya – he was about 1 ½ yrs old and I had his diaper bag on the other shoulder and we were traveling in a very crowded BEST bus. My wallet was in the outer pocket of the diaper bag. This time I had already paid for the bus ticket, so I did not notice my wallet was stolen till I returned home and emptied the diaper bag and found no wallet. Again did not lose much money, but I had two long distance train tickets to Kerala in my wallet. I went to the main railway station the next day and gave them my compartment and seat nos but I had to pay 10% of the face value of the tickets to have them reissued. Again no bank ATM cards or credit cards just some cash and coin change.

The third time my wallet was stolen happened this last Friday – 5th June of all the places in IKEA in Dusseldorf. I have been haunting IKEA these last two weeks after we moved into the new apartment. First to find some blinds to cover the bathroom windows and bedroom door, then to find curtains for all the rooms in the house. I had just finished over an hour’s discussion with the seamstress @ IKEA about the master bedroom curtains which had to be custom made through an interpreter as she spoke no English and I speak no German.

I next went to the curtains department and was walking around with my shopping cart purchasing rails to install the curtains in all the rooms. I had my notebook and pen in my hand, the huge IKEA blue bag and my handbag in the shopping cart. I was going through my notebook and ticking off room by room – 2nd bedroom – room width 312 cm, tracks come in only 140 cm length, hence 3 needed, hanging pieces for the tracks – 9 nos, checked them off the list, then on to bathroom, study room etc., My cart was getting filled up with the 140 cm tracks all standing @ 45 degree angle inside the shopping cart.

In between I was haunting the staff in curtains with questions like what kind of hooks would go on these rails, would the hanging pieces help to hang the rails from the ceiling. I must have been muttering to myself too working out the width of the rooms and dividing it up by 140 to see how many rails I needed per room. I think I must have spent almost an hour in this dept. Finally I was making my way to the cash counter with my loaded cart when I saw that my handbag wasn’t in the cart.

I rushed back to the curtains department and told the staff that my handbag was stolen at the same time desperately looking around to see if I could spot my bag. The staff first said they could not do anything but call the police – I told them to do that as my phone, car keys, driving license etc was in my handbag. One of them was kind enough to accompany me to my car in the parking lot and asked the house detectives to keep a watch on it. At the same time he was calling the police from his phone. We went back to Customer Service who helped me use their phone to call Anand and Aditya to get the spare keys of the car and come and collect me from IKEA. While I was making the calls they asked me to come to the Information Desk. The policeman and I got to the Information desk at the same time. They had found my handbag in the Bedding section on the 1st level. All the zippers were opened, I dumped my bag upside down and these were the items that were in the bag - my bag holder, my compact, eye pencil, chapstick, lipstick, comb and car keys.

I guess they only took the important things namely my wallet, coin purse and cell phone. The policeman gave me his notebook and asked me to list what items were taken – I started listing – Leather wallet with two Amex cards, one Visa card, bank ATM card, Delta Skymiles card, Library card, Metro store card, US driving license, about 50 Euro in cash and change, all the family wallet photos, ND leather coin purse and of course my Tmobile DASH.

The policeman and I walked back to Customer Service and he asked the IKEA staff if they had given me the numbers to cancel the cards, they scrambled around to get it for me. I tried calling the numbers from IKEA but the automated message was in German and the very first thing they ask is the card number which I could not remember at all, as all the cards I had were new. He said that I should go home as quickly as possible and call and cancel the cards. I called Aditya again and asked him to tell Anand not to come and pick me up as the policeman said that I was free to leave.

Got back home and started calling the various 1-800 nos to cancel the credit cards. Learnt something new about bank ATM/Debit cards in Germany. Anand and I always have a joint account and individual ATM cards. I got through to an English speaking customer service agent, he asked me to verify my name and bank account number and Bank Leizl number similar to a routing number and then proceeded to tell me that all cards under this account would be cancelled. I immediately protested and the customer service officer said that I could argue with him all I wanted but this was the procedure in Germany. Apparently the automated message in German told me that all cards under this account would be cancelled before I got to the Customer Service agent and since I don’t understand German all this went over my head.

Anand and Aditya were at that moment on their way to buy a frame for the washer/dryer which was delivered that morning to stand securely on top of each other and this store only accepted cash or ATM/Debit cards. I also had to go back to IKEA on the weekend and they only accepted cash or Debit card. The bank customer service officer said that the card cancellation would take effect within one hour. We could only get the cards reinstated at the bank when it opened on Monday but that would be too late for our weekend needs.

I immediately called Anand on his cell phone and asked him to go the nearest ATM and withdraw money that we would need for the weekend as he would not be able to use his Debit card after one hour. He did so and when the bank opened for business yesterday, we got his card re-instated. My cards will arrive in the mail in about 7 – 10 days time. I am glad I was not in the US as I would have many more cards to cancel such as Macy’s, Target, Kohl’s, TJ Maxx, Chase etc.,

Of all the things that were stolen I think I am going to miss my Tmobile DASH the most as I had over 400 contact details including wedding dates, birthdays etc and notes and for the last two months I had not synced it with the computer as the cables were in the sea shipment..I guess it was baptism by fire and I will remember to never leave my handbag in my shopping cart ever again