My stint at Deutschland - chapter 5

Heinzelinweg is memorable for a variety of reasons. I settled down here peceafully for a much longer time and there was no need to worry about cleanliness and relocation. The area itself was very peaceful, far removed from cacophonies of busy city streets. Not far from it were several great lush green meadows,and forested regions.I often used to take long evening strolls in the afternoon which used to take me past the meadows with horses grazing, past a small locality with neat shopping areas and bus stops, towards the railway tracks, or towards the forest. You could walk miles along the railway track.

However for the first few months I had so little time to myself owing to incessant travelling. From my place, it hardly took 10 min and 10 euros to go to Echterdingen airport. And return could have been using a S Bahn, only if the time was suitable, number of S Bahns being very few on that route.

In October Stuttgart holds what is fondly called as Oktoberfest or Volksfest - a kind of festival, probably a long tradition in German countries to celebrate Herbst or Autumn which provides a rich harvest. A heavily mechanized Germany has still clung to its agricultural tradition. In Munich the Oktoberfest is famous, for buccaneers have made it famous. The quantity of beer that flows during this period is mindboggling and Germans look down upon anybody who cannot drink beer, their favourite drink.

Stuttgarter Volksfest is a much subdued affair, although it takes place in a huge area called Cannstatter Messe in Bad Cannstatt area, which is very near to the city centre or downtown.

I remember it to be a Sunday, I had come back from Utrecht to enjoy a lazy weekend after a hectic week of work. To be precise, it was 2nd of October, Mahatma Gandhi's birthday back in India. I boarded an S Bahn from office (our weekend work) along with Devmitra and few other colleagues and set off for Bad Cannstatt. I had once come to this area along with Devmitra on a previous occasion, but that was more of misadventure in search of Mercedes Benz museum which we could not locate at that time.

The Bad (pronounciation "Baat") Cannstatt derives its names from Bad or Baths in German, it has a natural source of hot bath (hot springs) which apparently has healing power and which are so ubiquitous all around Baden area (probably thats why the name Baden or "many baths" has come into being). The volksfest has a websit of its own - http://www.cannstatter-volksfest.de/, with an english version.

We got down from the S Bahn and walked towards the entrance. An amazing crowd, hitherto unthinkable in a quiet plac like Stuttgart, had gathered. It almost like the traditional fairs that we have back in India, only there the number of such fairs are coming down, because of various reasons, lack of space being one.

We enjoyed ourselves thoroughly, indulged in corns and cotton candies, took snaps with ghosts and witches and some of us got onto rides which were unnerving in nature (it lifts you to a great height and then drops you!)

On the way back we had dinner in Burger King. Next day early morning I had to travel.