Impressions from my time in India: India might be smiling at you right now...

India is home...to many different cultures, religions, more than one billion people. And if there would be only one thing that I appreciate, it would definitely the way people are like. It makes you feel, as already mentioned above, well...home. Everybody is eager to help, everybody is smiling. This makes getting around in this country so easy! There's always a helping hand somewhere.

Being from a different country, being from Europe, being from Germany does have its advantages, I gotta admit!As a white person you're always something special, in many ways. On the one hand, there's the white guy, the wealthy rich guy who spends his money in the country. A person with bright skin, which is a good thing in the caste system. On the other hand there's a white guy who brought change to the country. And change is something which is not always considered a good thing! Some people tend to blame the white guy for pollution, increasing traffic jams, change of culture and of mentality.
There are always two sides to the coin. I've seen both. I have to point out though that most of the people like white people.

Meeting Indians is always something I definitely enjoy. Last week it's been my first time to ride the bus. There are some differences though to the German bus system! First thing first, you enter the bus while it is actually driving...not at walking speed, but driving at some km/h. A guy on the bus invited us to join the ride if we were on our way to Shanti Nagar (which is the district of the city we live in). On the bus, at first, people were surprised to see white people entering the bus. It is not a usual thing, since most of them go by rickshaw or taxi (since they have money for that). Then, most of them were smiling at us, some kids came over to our place and wanted to shake hands, saying hi. They went off, all proud and smiling. It is a great thing when you realize how people enjoy the small things in life and you actually contribute by being open-minded and thankful as well.

One night we went to a club, near UB City Mall. Great thing to relax, having a beer and enjoying the music. We also joined the Octoberfest in Bangalore. What fun! There've been a lot of Europeans, of course! We met some Germans, a french guy, British...Octoberfest in Bangalore is, however, a little bit different to Oktoberfest in Germany. A Bollywood was playing (crowd went crazy, I can tell you^^), there's been just one big tent with kind of a club, international music playing (crowd went crazy as well^^). The beer...well...nothing compared to German beer ;)
Another event, this time called Oktoberfest in Bangalore (you reckognize the difference?), was even better. We went to a hotel where everything was decorated bavarian style! All blue-white, beer mugs, German food (!!) like Frankfurter, Schwarzwälder Kirschtorte, Spätzle and many German dishes more...and of course, a German folklore band from Bavaria playing! They were playing lots of traditional stuff from Oktoberfest but also a Hindi song (the crowd went...well, you know ;)) and later on party songs. We really had a blast! A lot of Indian people were attending the party as well as Germans, Americans and so on.