I am Parth Shah... born 4th June 1984... 7.55 am... 60 kg... 5'7"... numbers attached to me.. 78 and 51...
Mannheim is located in Germany... 49°29′20″N 8°28′9″E... 97m above sea level... 0049-621...
all this detail is for the number lovers who would like to strain their mind to develop some interesting results to explain the following...!
I have been to Mannheim 4 times... in this fashion...
First time it was in Nov 2006... I was staying in Darmstadt at that time. We had a planned a trip to Paris. Got the tickets really cheap... 68 bucks to and fro... it was a group booking for 6 ppl. the tickets came through post... i suggested we shoul keep all the tickets together... some agreed others didnt.. so some of the tickets were at one of my friend other were individually distributed... i was under the "wrong" impression that my ticket is with him as i saw 2-3 tickets on his desk... at the time of departure i asked him about the ticket... he thought i was joking and replied positively...
at the time of boarding the bus we found the catch... yes tooooo late! had to take a cab... run home... search the ticket... and rush to Mannheim as it was the next stop... it was a 45 minute journey... 5 tense english speaking passengers in a bus with a very tense german driver knowing a few english words... similar case in the cab but with better ratio... i reached there before they leave... and was welcomed by a long cheer... happy to reach Mannheim for the first time... with a dent of 105 Euro for taxi and additional 10-20 on phone during the ride...
Second time, it was Apr 2007... this time it was a visit to Hockenheim, Germany. yes the F1 German GP destination... from there we went to Schwetzingen, which has a beautiful palace and more beautiful garden... and on our way back we decided to go via Mannheim! reached there by bus and then we were to take a train... we reached just on time... ran to the platform to see the train leaving 2 minutes earlier than the departure time...
We had a good one hour before the next train... they have good market on the train station only... we shopped... there is a nice Egyptian shop there... and not to miss the train again reached the platform 5-10 minutes earlier... we sat there, chatting, laughing for all those 10 minutes... the train didnt show up... then we heard an announcement that the train leaving from some other platform is the one we wanted to board!! waited for one more hour... bought the few things we didnt for the first time due to their high cost... and came back home two hours late...
Third time, it was in Apr 2010... 3 years later! I was traveling from Cologne (Ger) to Lausanne (Sui)... bought the tickets an hour ago at Cologne station and moved around for sometime... i was aware of both that i was going thru Mannheim and the two cases above... so was a bit more careful... my Cologne-Mannheim train got late for 10 minutes which in turn would make me miss my Mannheim-Basel train for which i had 5 min connection time... so i went to the help desk... germans are very good people as i have said many times... and their systems, as long as there is no chaos, works in perfect harmony... the guy there changed my Cologne-Mannheim connection from an IC to an ICE... Inter City to the famous German Inter City Express...
this ICE took a faster and probably shorter route and made me reach Mannheim an hour before my otherwise scheduled time... amazing isnt it? the sad side, i missed the beautiful scenic curves of river Rhine... :( anyways, so now i had one full hour at the Mannheim station in place of 5 minutes! so, i remembered the old time and shopped from the egyptian shop! how could i have escaped Mannheim in 5 minutes?! :)
Fourth time, again in Apr 2010... on my way back from Basel (Sui) to Frankfurt airport... it was kind of a reverse journey... i had a ICE till Mannheim and from there another to FRA... as there was Mannheim again, i took the second last train for the day to, you know, have a backup! i was a victim of the volcanic ash cloud and after spending a forced, expensive vacation in Switzerland, didnt want to miss the flight... so till Heidelberg, 12 minutes to Mannheim everything was in perfect order... and then my aura entered the Mannheim infected area... we had an announcement that we, those who wanted to go to Frankfurt airport should go and contact service point... as we disembarked the train, i found that our train is 180 minutes late and so is the next train... that is 3 hours at Mannheim, with the shoppes closed!
but you know what i said about the germans... they dont let you down just like that... at the help desk we were 24 ppl from that train... and everyone wanted to reach FRA as soon as possible... so the fellow there arranged cabs for us... first cab with capacity of 8... and 10 ppl went out for that... second again for 8 and we 7 went out for it as the rest were in a group of two or more... as we reached the cab, there were already 2 left out passengers from the first cab were sitting there... so out of 9, 8 took the seats... and yes as it was in Mannheim, i was the one left out... i waited till the cab rolled out... and then i went to the next cab, a sedan, which had two couples as the occupants.. thought of not disturbing them...
so went to the help desk again... and to my surprise, the fellow was setting the shutters down... i went to him as he was talking to another guy... found out that fourth cab with three passengers had already left... and also they wont arrange a cab for a single person as the cost would be higher... of course Mannheim-FRA would be no less than 50-60 km... more than 120-130 bucks for sure and that too as per 2007 rates! but before the thoughts can reach any further the person talking to this help desk guy came to rescue... he was from the same train and wanted to go to Wiesbaden... which of course is quite close to FRA... so we took a shared taxi to Wiesbaden via FRA... and thus left Mannheim in a taxi... this time the driver was Pakistani and knew Hindi as well as German... had good talk with the german guy as well... and reached Frankfurt airport in time as well...
so, till now four visits... a taxi drive in 2006 to another in 2010... i think there is something strange or rather i would say fishy about these trips... will find out... ya, am looking forward to another Mannheim trip sometime! :)
and if you find something interesting... do let me know... am curious.
