Saturday, September 1, 2007

Summer in Europe

At first when I started this blog I thought it would be complete description of my internship...day to day events... vivid description of every moment I spent in Europe. But then same old laziness came in way. Now I am back to India, here in my IITG dorm, nothing changed except my room number from 151 to 104.

Going back from where I left in previous blog i.e. back to Austria, first day... while leaving us to our dorm my guide told us that our prof wants us to be present on 8:30 AM sharp next day..... I do not wanted to create an impression that Indians are late. So we woke up early 7:30 !! we tried our best to be on time...with all efforts we left the hostel at 8:15 AM. Though the University was not too far but it was first day and do not knew the route. But after some search and asking people we finally able to reach the university.

Outside the doors of department of knowledge and information management system, we found people gathered smoking in the designated area. Most of them females. Strange !!, something unusual in India. Then we visited our professor , he was a tall and bit old person with long beards. He carried an aura of intelligence and vast experience he had. Later i had a small meeting with my mentor and then with the whole department.

The first day was more kind of getting familiar with the place.

Workspace

We were four people working in the room each one provided with an IBM pc. Two of them were Austrians, one among them girl and other two were we. From the day one we could able to feel the amount of professionalism the Austrians had. They followed their routine stringently. They were very punctual and so were the other Europeans. I was literally impressed.

Saturday, May 19, 2007

It started

It was 6th semester and as everyone I was thinking of the coming summers....long vacation.. should do something. Every year at IITG after the end of the third year students go for summer internship abroad or in India. Going abroad for inetrnship was a exciting option. So it started. Lots of work..making CV, apping, passport, reco, paper work,visa, flight tickets.... so many things and every stage was uncertain.

It was mid january 2006 my passport work was on the process. Making passport is a huge task easier said than done. Filling applicaton, police verification, SP office, passport office and all this along with hectic semester. But it started. I filled the form as my other friend.... moving with herd is better than alone...things become easier. After two weeks time came for police verication... i was lucky. I made the first visit to office.... work done in one day...i know it won't be possible. Than again next week visit... but the work was done.

In the mean time I was applying for internship..so many mails...very less reply.... finally a positive reply came.

Now the next stop was passport office...lucky we were that no visit to SP office was needed. Work was done on the first day...rare in India..... but the final passport we got on the next day. Well first step was achieved.

After few mail exchanges I got the confirmation letter from my Prof for internship in Austria. A great moment... First time abroad....first time on plane !!!

But things were not easy. We made our paper works done ...bonafide certificate, medical certificate, health and travel insurance...... a prelude for visa work. But we did it. Now the work was to get the visa date, tickets for delhi.

Visit to Delhi was good...first time to the capital.... heard a lot about the place. I remember Safdarjung enclave were I stayed.... Chanakyapuri the place full of embassies, connaught place, chandni chowk, Red fort , Jama Masjid, IITD, AIIMS and its flyover, Delhi buses, DPS vasantkunj, Heritage, India gate, Parliament house and offcourse Delhi people.... gosh!! in just two days stay. Well the best part was that visa was done in one day... Now i think i was lucky...things were done so quickly.

After two days of masti and four days in train i came back to guwahati... and faced quizes and endsems.

Now it was peace. We started for Kolkata on 6th May to catch the plane of 10th may. Home sweet home. Coming to Kolkata always feels good. This place has a charm in itself. But the time was less and lot of shpping was to be done. We did. Now came day of journey. flight on 10th at 00:55 hrs early morning. So we started at 10 o' clock evening on 9th. Pretty late but we reached. Final bbye to mummy and papa and then we checked in. We were late we knew. But then knows it may be for better. As we reached the counter time was 00:30 ....plane to leave after 25 min.... long time huh. To our surprise...our economy class was upgraded to business class !!! I think coming late sometime helps. Well that was cool. After immigration check and all that we were finally set for first flight that in business class and first time abroad and that to Austria. Life main bahut kuch first time hota hai...but so many first times at same time :)....

Well journey was good... we reached Frankfurt at 7:30 AM ...it was cold but not that much as i thought. From there at around 11:00 AM another flight to Vienna and then 4 hrs journey by train to klagenfurt...long journey. We reached Klagenfurt at 21:00 hrs and it was still not dark..that is Europe .... here sun sets at 20:30 and light persists till 21:00.

My guide came to receive us at Klagenfurt station. We reached our dorm and well slept our first night away from home.....