DAY1
We started by taking a taxi to the Airport which was surprisingly expensive.The fun started by the Lufthansa Quick Checkin Machine that welcomed us with an error message and refered to the Checkin Counter with real humans. Here we were at least able to drop off our 2 bags and were told to hurry to gate C14 which was a 30minute trip to a complete different corner of the Frankfurt Airport. Having tickets, but not having our booked SEAT numbers on them we were kinda worried and walked as fast as we could to find our gate in time.
Finally there, it already looked very funny. Having hundreds of indian people waiting there, with lots of fancy clothes on. We went to the counter, trying to get proper tickets, just 2 seats close to each other, freedom for your legs… Then the stressed Lady at the counter said the words that destroyed our dream of having a nice relaxing flight :
“Mr. and Mrs. Kühn, we don’t have seats for you. Would you mind flying tomorrow?”
As everything was booked and organized (well now i know we could have rearanged things), we didn’t take her bribe of 650€ per person + hotel + dinner and had to wait in the lounge for our names being called again. Sitting there for 30 minutes waiting for other people to take that opportunity didnt make us less nervous. Finally our names got called and we got our tickets with the freaking worst seats in the entire plane. Thanks Lufthansa, last time flying with you!
Well after some more waiting, slow boarding, a whole lot of chaos because the indian people weren’t happy with the Lufthansa seat plan either and made their own arrangements in order to get their somewhat huge families sitting together, the plane finally got started. The flight itself was ok, besides the fucked up seats where you cannot really eat (not like the food was any good) and your knees start to hurt after an hour being stuck below the front seat. On a positive side, the indian neighbour to the left was a nice guy and even understood some german. He helped us filling out a “register form” which was given out by the lufthansa personal. This little form needs to be filled out by you in advance to speed up things on Arrival Counter in New Dehli, so dont put your ticket and passport too far away. If you plan to fly to India some day pay attention now. The Form is full of weird checkboxes (with explanation on the backside) like (NRI, OCI, and some other i cant remember) … it is “NONE” for you.
In those 7 hours of flight, we have been watching some Becker Episodes on my mp3 player and were trying to ignore that kid 3 seats ahead, crying, whining and shouting with passion for hours! We could have also used the headphones to watch movies they show on the plane TV. One was a really new movie with Eddie Murphy (think it has just been in the cinema) and the other one was a Bollywood movie with english subtitles, which you couldnt read from 5m away on a 14″ screen. Anyway, something really nice on such a huge plane is that you won’t even notice you are flying. Even tho we started through rainy clouds, we never experienced any turbulences or this weird feeling in your stomach when starting or landing .
DAY2
We arrived in New Dehli at like 1am in the morning and the airport was way better than expected. This was definatly not a third world country airport, it met european standards and everything was clean and new. Our indian seat neighbour was telling us something about moving somewhere downstairs to find the registration counter. Here we had to stand in line and wait again. Then they checked our Passports, Visa and the Registration Form. You are getting kind of worried when this customs officer isnt talking to you for like 10 minutes and then starts a discussion about the spelling of your surname. But after a hard time understanding this guy (obviously he was just asking if this was our first time in India) we finally managed to pass his station and moved on to find our luggage. There is no much difference to Frankfurt here, except you wait longer. Our first bag appeared very fast which made the 30 minutes of waiting for the second bag a pain in the ass and we started to get worried that they might have lost it.
At the exit there were millions of indians waiting with signs that had names on it. Luckily we even found our pickup guy, who then gave us the promised letter from Koenig with further instructions and money in it. We stepped outisde of the airport and were stunned by the dust and smoke Delhi was surrounded by at 2am in the morning. It smelled like burned down woods and houses. Following our guide to the car we had to pass a parking place with millions of motorbikes and a soldier with a machine gun protecting another parking place with cars. Once we found our car, he woke up the driver and handed us over. Now we began our journey to the serviced appartment where we were supposed to stay until the morning. And here the real adventure begins. If you ever thought, the Crossroad at Hanauer Landstrasse on a friday noon is insane, you should try Delhi at night. The driver started the car and locked all doors. We searched for seatbelts but there were none. Then we passed a last control station where he had to pay for the parking place and moved on the streets. From what i’ve read somewhere, you don’t have to pass a test to get a driving license in India, you just buy it, which explains alot … I’m usually pissed when one truck tries to overhaul another one and blocks a single lane, but try to imagine the following picture: Driving more or less blind in Delhi’s dust and suddenly there are 4 trucks showing up in front of you driving next to each other on just 3 existing lanes without any kind of lights on 
It was really amazing and scary. You were also hearing horns all the time coming from everywhere. When our driver came to crossroads with red traffic lights blinking, he just used his horn a couple times to ensure the possible cars coming from other sides would recognize him in time and wait even if they have green traffic light. And thats how they do it all the time. For foreigners it looks like everyone is driving on every side of the street, they always blow the horn for every occassion… when they drive into a curve they blow the horn to signal they are coming. They also blow the horn shortly before a crash is about to happen and everyone seems to know what to do…
We reached our appartment at like 2:45 am after passing soldiers or security personal which was sleeping in chairs at some corner of the street. The appartment was ok for us, enough for the night and we got the promised 2 bottles of water and almost instantly fell asleep for the huge amount of 3 hours. At 5:45 am our cab was waiting outside to bring us to the train station. We made contact with another nice english guy there, who was also a student for Koenig.
Somehow the train station and trains kept reminding me on the “80 days around the world” movies. The train station looked more like third world country and so did the trains. We had tickets for the “business class” with AIR condition, but we still didnt have the trust to accept their breakfast. While traveling for 6 hours you can see alot of the wonderful countryside india has to offer, of course along with very poor people living in very small boxes next to the rails. Now and then the train had to stop for cows which were crossing the rails. Even though there were some loudspeaker announcements telling the current destination, we were worried of never finding the proper station for us to get of the train. Asking the train personal was of no help either, because its probably one of the jobs where they use cheap workforce which has not been trained to speak english. Either way, in the end another passenger told us that DehRadun was the end station anyway. After 6 hours of noisy traveling we finally reached our destination DehRadun.
In DehRadun we stumbled over our new english friend again and together we looked for the exit. The exit area was crowded with indians trying to convince you to drive with them or buy random stuff they were carrying around. Our cab driver from Koenig spotted us and brought us to our hotel. The streets were overcrowded with people and vehicles of different kinds and the traffic was a complete mess compared to european standards. Everyone was driving on every side of the road, motorbikes sneaking through every hole they could find and people crossing the streets on top of that. After some driving along the streets we were shocked when we saw a huge sign with of our hotel name on it and a huge ruin behind it, but luckily we drove past it. Fortunately it turned out to be a new building of the same hotel which was still under construction. When we finally reached our hotel we were happy because everything was better here. It was less noisy, well protected by lots of security personell and even though by far not german 4**** standards, it was still pretty nice and clean. After some dinner (chili potatos awsome!) in the hotel restaurant for european prices, we went upstairs to finally get some sleep.
Day 3
At 7:45 am my mobilephone interrupted our sweet dreams and we went downstairs for some kind of breakfast. While waiting in the hotel lounge for the cab driver to pick me up at 8:20am i made contact with 2 more Koenig students. Shortly after 8:45 am the cab finally showed up and we were driving to the apartment house to pickup a few more students. Driving towards Koenig we have seen alot of people on the streets, trying to sell stuff, carrying around things or making fire in front of their houses. I am not sure what or whom they were burning there or for what reason, but the smell was totally breathtaking. Here and there you see dogs running around, looking for something to eat in piles of trash and garbage that is lying around everywhere. Further we saw a cow on the street and everyone trying to drive around it. Koenig’s Building seemed to be in a nice area where lots of companies were building their own houses.
At Koenig i met my trainer in lab 17. I still cannot remember her name properly, but she seemed to be a very nice and helpful person. She started by teaching the first 3 Oracle lessons that day. In between we had someone asking for the type of lunch we wanted, and i choose something unspectacular — fried rice again. In the dining room i met alot of other students, mostly from the UK, one from the netherlands and a few indians. I think there were people of every age from 20 to 50 and all very nice guys. Once we finished that day at like 4pm, my cab driver brought me back to the hotel. The Koenig students meet once a week in a restaurant called “Black Pepper” and i was invited too. We met up with the other two students who live in same hotel as us to travel to the Bar. Here we made first contact, bargaining with Tuk Tuk – drivers to get us to the restaurant.. 30 rupees seems to be the upper limit, you shouldn’t pay more.
The evening was great fun with lots of nice european people and some indians. We had a blast and i think it was one of the best experiences here so far 
