Friday Fundas

(Pic of my first attendance in a free LIVE Orchestra at Philharmonie and NO, I did not record or click any pics while it was in progress)

It's been a good 4+ months since my transition to Luxembourg and everyday reveals a novelty... some are pleasant while some aren't so. A couple of things have happened, we got a 'Giulia' for my Alpha (ok that's cheesy), got initiated into European road trips as a local, got our local driving license.... woohoo!, got our first ticket of  €145 for over speeding (and we thought that warning sign is all 'ha ha', guess we now know who got the last laugh huh), I also lost a minuscule number of kgs, saw my first live orchestra concert alone (yes it was free), learnt about cultures and traditions, Ate beef and got my jinx well... unjinxed!

Not so bad I'd say. The rest is more mainstream and happens to all here I suppose; waiting for internet to be fixed (takes 2 months), the official documents written in all the official languages except English (always), waiting for the car to be delivered (mostly 1 trimester, again depends on which one you are buying, could take 3 trimesters as well or you could get a premie if you are lucky).
Well, MOTH now knows the pains of labour - the excitement, the excruciating wait, the delay in delivery, the first nursing (for a scratch and a dent) etc. Handy experience for the future I say 👶😉

Well, this blog is about what happened today and my learnings from it. After almost a month, I realised that there was an official looking paper pinned next to our car. It read (in française of course) that since the beginning of time we had parked in the wrong slot.... I absolutely love the politeness that oozes out, ah I wish I had learnt the language earlier. For your perusal below 👇

After a few moments of panic, anger and a strange calm, I thought it was best to get it sorted. Perhaps it was a mistake coz the very spot was happily pointed to us by the Building manager and Managers can hardly be wrong no? (😂😂😂). Armed with a smile and the letter, I went to the agency and was immediately ushered in (perhaps they thought I was a prospective client, Good Start!).
Moments ticked by and an enterprising young lady presented herself. After the usual salutations, I showed her the letter and asked if it was a mistake. The confidence with which she answered (in the negative) shattered mine. She showed me the parking slot allocations which proved that she was indeed correct. I offered to immediately remove the car to which she replied... 'It's ok, I will never use the parking lot and it is my colleague who sent that letter and she also doesn't use the parking area'.

I will be honest, the first thing that ran through my mind was, 'WOW, now we don't need to park strictly within the white lines and have loads of room too'. Haha. I wished her well and promptly left.
And that's how a possible 4 months wrong parking problem got solved, smiles et al.

One learning definitely
Learning #12: Pick a fight on Mondays and look for solutions on Fridays.
Bon week-end à tous!

What's in a name?

"A rose by any other name would smell as sweet" is a popular reference to William Shakespeare's play Romeo and Juliet, So what's in a name?

Once in a while (read - more often than I would like), I indulge in my food cravings and love for the chinese ... food i.e.. That's what happened last saturday and I decided to order lunch .... just because...

The Swiggy equivalent here at Lux is webfood.lu, loads of cuisines and takeaway options on display at the site. Most of the places have free 'livraison' for orders upto certain amount. And before you go awwwing over something free, 'livraison' means delivery 😀.

A few filters and there was the restaurant of my choice. I zeroed in on one of my recent discoveries while sauntering around the neighbourhood. What had appealed to me at the outset, was that the restaurant had a nice sit out area and seemed a fairly popular one with the locals. So I said to my myself, ''why not'', quickly created a profile on the website and browsed through the online menu. I loved the selection of meals they had and the clear descriptions helped shortlist a few. The mild rumbling in my tummy quickened my decision making and so I ordered. A few texts later, I was informed that the time between gluttony and delivery would be roughly half an hour.

Moments ticked by, my rumblings turned louder and a quick glance at the watch said that a good 45 minutes had passed. That was strange.. This country was known for keeping trysts with time. I figured a walk to the place would have done further wonders to my gastric juices and gastronomic senses than this idling away in anticipation of food to be delivered.

Anyways, I looked up the restaurant number and with all the french (of level A1.1) that I knew, I understood that my saviour should arrive in another 5 mins. True to word, my phone rang within the next couple of minutes and I was subjected to a mandarin punctuated french (and I completely empathize, my spoken and broken french sounds weird with the Indian twist). Cut to scene: the delivery person had come and was unable to find the apartment, I thought that was strange and tried to use google translate to understand the matter further (my elementary knowledge of french had abandoned me by then 😅 ). A few translations later, I understood he was at the lobby but not able to find my name on the doorbell. I rushed out in a bid to salvage my tummy from the perils of hunger.

I found the delivery person with my parcel, PHEW! With no google translate, we were literally down to hand signals and I pointed out the name on the apartment doorbell. With a nod of his head and I what flashed across his face as some divine revelation, the person showed me the delivery slip... and here it is for your view as well...

Yes you keen observer you, you spotted it! Congratulations. Somebody had typed in a twice misspelled rendition of my name and wrote it as 'Babore Tacori'.. 😂 Wow! not once but twice? Man, that is funny.

I have had people misspelling and mispronouncing my name out of sheer cluelessness and sometimes out of meanness 😠, some out of creativity and some out of cruelty but then what can I say to the mean ones except ,'GROW UP!' Anyways since this blog is not dedicated to mean souls, so let me not dwell further on that.

Back to the delivery guy: he very politely apologized for the apparent mispelling and delay, offered some explanation (which I have no understanding of) and left with a smile. The earnestness of the whole demeanour left me quite impressed. They just added one more loyalist to their customer list.

Needless to say, food was superb and with this ....  'Babore Tacori' signs off forever, Papori, on the other hand will continue to write about her experiences.

Learnings this time, a few
Learning #9: Good to have a sense of humour. drowns anger and hunger 😈
Learning #10: Google Translate, Zindabad!
Learning #11: What's in a name ? .... I say ''Everything'' !

Coming up next: Expecting our first...

To do or not To do!

In my last blog, I had given a headsup about the title of my next - What not to do in Luxembourg, but this one’s dedicated to what ` to do’.

`Bienvenue à Luxembourg!’, flashed next to a smiling faces on one of the airport billboards. I can clearly recall that enigmatic smile and have begun to see the enigma behind that smile. Well, it has been a fairly fast paced month since I arrived at Luxembourg. Travelling to UK took a major chunk of that one month and now that I am back, I can almost say … `I have finally un-arrived’.

For starters, we have no wifi…One of the phones is doubling up as the hotspot and lifeline to the digital world. It is super strange for a country to be that high on the per capita income list and play a poor joke on every wannabe who wants to make that mandatory check-in on Facebook… or may be not… The application for the internet connection had been submitted on 21^st May and till today we await with bated breath to proudly adorn the router on a pedestal. Fingers and wires crossed!

Since I have already made an opening remark on `strange’, let this blog be exactly about that. India is fast moving towards a cashless economy, where 50 p, 1Rp, heck even 10 rupee coins are almost non-existent…. but I was surprised at the sheer volume of coin transactions this economy does… from 1¢, 2 ¢, 5 ¢, 10 ¢, 20 ¢, 50 ¢ to € 2 … a Numismatist’s dream portforlio I’d say ..… It is convenient when the prices are in the likes of €11,73 and so on….. but you can imagine the dread with which I hand over a note for that 1 kg of ‘Aloo’ and get a handful of jingling coins. I even have a special pouch for coins since my purse can hold no more. I am forever on the lookout to trade them in but, courtesy MOTH, that is like a distant dream. Whenever I am adamant to use the coins, he will put me on the forefront, and I take forever to deal out the coins of all shapes, sizes and denominations to the cashier who mutters away impatiently.

At the apartment, living among unopened boxes and scores of ‘VIPs’, I feel like I am `Terminal'ed’ in the cloak room of a railway station. You ask why? Well, it’s because you order a wardrobe for literally the future… a distant future … even when you needed it like yesterday. A popular Swedish brand said they could deliver within one month and take 3 months to assemble, WOW! Another popular brand said they could deliver in a month and also install on the same day, so no prizes for guessing whom we chose. In fact, I finalized my return date from the UK only to receive the internet and wardrobes with bated breath and open arms. And I am not kidding. We did devise a temporary solution though … well, when would that book case come to its real use… And why not? It takes me lesser time to decide what to wear (courtesy the glass panes) and pray as even Bhagwanji happily sits atop on the topmost shelf. One case, many solutions!

An `out of its original box ‘solution has also been made for my extra shoes and bags which now occupy the lowermost of the kitchenette shelves.. Visitors beware of what I serve! 😈😈😈 

And oh, did I recount how we finally made it through to who seemed like the only English speaking customer service personnel at Auchan?... By replying,`Je ne parle pas française’, meaning `I cannot speak French’…. and I got my work done. 😉

In line with lessons 1-3 and 4-5, here are MY real ¢¢¢:

Lesson 6: Patience is the key…… *goes back into hibernation*

Lesson 7: Jugaad is my best friend

Lesson 8: Truth is definitely stranger than fiction.

Next up: Welcoming our first….

English Dreams

While most kids of my era aimed to 'grow up' to be an Engineer, a Doctor, a Teacher etc. etc. I was still undecided but said the same things just to be 'cool and accepted' ... and mind you I was a topper in School. (I am hoping my teachers don't get a heart attack when they read the next line!).

Once I graduated from Marvel and Tinkle comics to Mills & Boon at the impressionable age of 12 😇, I found myself gravitate towards psychological thrillers and other similar fiction. By 13, I aimed to be a young writer and had also secretly decided on the name of the book... you guessed it .... 'English Dreams'. 20 years later, I still haven't written a book and probably lack the patience to write one too... but heck why not write a blog! After all, what matters is writing and expressing and my online scribbles could pass off as just that!

Meanwhile, MOTH was getting equally restless at not being able to get me a job interview where he had applied on my behalf. We needed to break the jinx and I, a new laptop .... what better reason to shop. "Chuck online search, let's just go and get the damn thing", said I and lo behold! A new gleaming silver ASUS laptop was placed in my hands.

To do a 'Shubh Arambh', I thought let me write my first blog. Taking cue from my professor who is a prolific blogger and an inspiration , I did what I usually do..... Google! 'How to write a Blog' were the first key strokes and a list of links appeared. BTW, did I tell you, it took me a while to type those first words? Why? Here, take a look and the initiated may guess why ..

For the less initiated, I will reveal in a sec..... Voila! It's not a QWERTY keyboard, it's QWERTZ 😖 plus a load of other French language symbols to distinguish words and their meanings example 'é ö ' (and as I type the two symbols, I have absolutely no clue why they are repeated in the same key twice 😲, haaah bet you missed it too! 😜). We were struggling to get to that damn '@' key till we discovered the 'alt gr' and trust me it had me doing "argggggh  grrrrrrr" the whole time.

I now felt what Columbus must have felt when he reached the Americas and not Japan as intended. Only he must have felt like a hero and I, well you can guess....

Anyhow, having tided over the initial hiccups and blissfully unaware of the ones waiting for me, I landed on the Blogspot page and typed what I thought would be a fancy Blogger's name..'theunitiated '... but that was not available, hmmm looks like somebody beat me to being the uninitiated. Next I typed, 'roywrites'... damn again...some Bengali got there first too. By this time, I was really getting desperate to get a unique name ... till I rolled my 'sleeves and my R's '... and here I am as 'WROYWRITES' and so shall be called in blogging circles henceforth! Ta Da!

It took me a good 2 hours to actually align my thoughts to the slower pace of typing, re typing, punching and pounding the keys and FINALLY there was the fruit of my labour..... My first blog!

After that first initiation and those lessons, here are two more cents
Lesson 4: Hail Google!
Lesson 5: I think I can write.... maybe....

And oh.. I am writing this blog from England, so yeah 'English Dreams' still hold true...

Next up: What not to do in Luxembourg

"Excellent choice, Sir!"

A week after I moved to the Grand Duchy of Luxembourg ensued by all the rejected job applications, it was time to beat the blues and paint the town red. A few debates, discussions and considerations later, the Man of the house (hereafter known as MOTH) exasperatedly says "if you only want to think about saving money and cheap eats, we may as well eat at home". That dialogue works every single time and so off we were to a place he had been to earlier and thought was definitely worth another visit.

We put on our best blacks (our favourite colour, hides all the unflattering bulges quite well and especially in a country where EVERYONE was fit and tall and oh well that rant is for another time....) and off we went to this restaurant which was cheap by no account and whose name sounded more like a type of fish.

First thought, "very nice ambience" and there's live music as well. This will be fun! The place was filled with what seemed like fancy connoisseurs who knew what to eat, drink and smoke. We had no reservation but were happily seated amidst other people. Next to us sat an elderly couple who seemed the jovial kind, then there was a family of 6 - well built men, women, grandpa, grandma et all, and further away there was a group of 4 wherein the women seemed to be more interested in comparing their painted nails and men looked blissfully drunk.

We asked for the menu from an enterprising looking young man and were promptly handed the drinks and the food menu. I needed alcohol for the reason stated in the first line and decided to try the LIT, it delivered what it promised to my happiness. And so it the main course.
Sometimes just asking the right questions makes life a lot easier but of course we are attracted to the hard way... having said that, following 'seemingly socially accepted norms in the culture one now lives in' is another pitfall we all love to fall in and happily that too.

Anyways, more on that later. We order Tapas for appetizer and the 'Poissons - Fruits de la mer' for the main course. The enterprising young man (EOY) mentioned that the main course can be served only for two. Since we matched up to the number plus did read the fine print on the menu card which said "serves two", we nodded in agreement. And that's when EOY said "Excellent Choice, Sir!". A quick mental math told us that with the €32 main course plus 2 LITs and the Tapas we did a pretty good job of selection and would wrap up a fine dinner within € 50. Smug in self satisfaction, we did what we usually do best, me honing my observation skills and MOTH googling away on the phone, occasionally sharing his learnings and I my conjectures.

Food was served in no time (must credit the fast service and the young hostess) and contained a huge plate of 'tapas'. We gobbled away, praising the chef and his sous chefs. Then came the surprise and the main course (they were the same). Two huge portions were placed before us and we found ourselves literally at sea with the 'Fruits de la mer'. We explained to the hostess that she was probably mistaken since we had ordered for a plate that serves two, and she said that is what the menu says and that that was what she had served -  'Poissons - Fruits de la mer' that can be ordered for two people and that it serves two. It dawned upon us, in an instant, that while we had read the fine print, the finer meaning another thing 😅😅. With no choice, we forked our plates and again did a mental calculation of what that meant on the final fine print. Needless to say we could not finish what we started and laid to waste what seemed a fine plate of 'fruits of the sea'.

The check confirmed our thoughts as we took a final sip of our strong LITs and against better judgement decided not to dogypack the leftovers. Again making another mistake of assuming behaviours and cultures in a foreign land.

Final Bill = €110.
Learnings = priceless.

Lesson 1: Reaffirming the saying- when in doubt, ask!
Lesson 2: Assumption is the conclusion of fools (had read this somewhere, makes for a poignant thought when one experiences it live!)
Lesson 3: Beware of the words , "Excellent choice, Sir!"

Next up- My first Blog on my new laptop