Metz Family

Carol's work in Hyderabad is finally done and now we are preparing our trip towards paradise. Tomorrow afternoon at 1pm we will head with Deccan Airways to the sunny beaches of the Indian state Goa. Six days relaxing in the sun. We will stay a stone-throw away from Palolem Beach, one of the most quiet beaches in the state. The accommodation is Ciaran's Camp . For sure, we will need the tranquility. Because we are relaxing and we are offline the next few days there will be no new posts until we get back to Dublin. Carol's Arbeit is nun in Hyderabad endlich geschafft und augenblicklich bereiten wir unseren Trip in Richtung Paradies vor. Morgen um 13 Uhr fliegen wir mit Deccan Airways an die sonnigen Straende des Indischen Bundesstaates Goa. Sechs Tage in der Sonne entspannen. Unsere Unterkunft ist nur einen Steinwurf von Palolem Beach entfernt, einem der ruhigsten Straende des ganzen Landes. Uebernachten werden wir in Ciaran's Camp . Die Ruhe koennen wir nun wirklich gebr...

This update covers the last couple of days. It is now Carol's last working week and Sebastian's first week in Hyderabad. On Saturday we started straight with visiting local sights in Hyderabad, including Hussain Lake with the popular Buddha stute and Biria Mandir (Temple). Indian architecture and culture is very rich and impressive. On Sunday we were heading to the world's largest film studios, Ramoji Film City. The film industry in India is the world highest productive one, more than the US or any other county. There are two different locations, the equivalent to Hollywood, Bollywood, which is located in Mumbai (Bombay) and Ramoji Film City close to Hyderabad. India is not co-producing movies with other countries therefore everything is copied for a film set, even an airport. We moved through the entire area with a visitor bus. By the way, the film "Om Shanti Om" is currently India's number 1 movie. You can watch the trailer below this post. On Monday we vis...

I arrived with a delay of 30 minutes on Friday night/Saturday morning. I was a bit disappointed about the flight as i was expecting a bit more comfort from a "traditional German Airline" called Lufthansa. The economy class is really a "woodclass". The 12 hours flight felt like a journey in a Dublin Dart Train with hard seats and noise. Anyway, i arrived well and that's the main concern. I got my first impressions of Hyderabad yesterday and i must say it is a very special culture here in India and very exciting. We have visited the Buddha statue, located within the Hussain Lake and a temple. Now, the adventure really begins... Mit einer Verspaetung von 30 Minuten bin ich Freitagnacht/Samstagmorgen angekommen. Ich war einwenig enttaeuscht ueber den Flug, denn ich hatte einwenig mehr Komfort von einer "traditionellen Deutschen Fluggesellschaft" namens Lufthansa erwartet. Die Economy Class ist hier wirklich die Holzklasse. Die 12 Stunden Flug haben sich wi...

A post from Dublin. I have finished the final preparation for my trip last night. I cannot wait to leave the cold and windy weather here in Ireland and to approach nice and warm weather in south east Asia. Ein Eintrag aus Dublin. Ich habe gestern abend die letzten Vorbereitungen für meinen Trip beendet. Nun kann ich es nicht mehr erwarten das kalte und windige Wetter in Irland zu verlassen um das schöne und warme Wetter in Südost Asien zu erreichen.

I've spent the most part of this weekend with my team colleagues as there were quite a number of team activities going on. For one, one of our colleagues got married and invited us to his wedding reception on saturday evening at the Secundarabad Club. Since all the ladies were going to wear saris, I decided to also get an Indian outfit so as not to be the odd one out;-) I later on learnt that a sari is not available ready made as it has to tailored to fit perfectly. As an alternative, I settled for a Salwar and Kameez (trouser with long top and matching scarf). At the reception, we were recieved well. The club itself is really huge and has different halls and gardens that can be hired separately, so there are always different events going on at the same time. Our colleague had appr. 100 guests, all family and friends. I was told that this was just a fraction of the crowd that shows up for the actual wedding!! There was vegetarian food served and after some great photo sessions, w...

I've had yet another short week due to Diwali, which is a festival of fireworks starting Thursday. The whole group of expats here tried organizing a collective trip out of Hyderabad but it turned out difficult to agree on one destination. So in the end I decided to take the chance of visiting Mumbai alone on friday. I therefore spent most of thursday just in bed and organizing the logistics. In order to get the most of the day in Mumbai, I booked the first flight from Hyderabad, which meant waking up at 3am. Anyway, everything went smoothly and when I got to Mumbai at 6am, the town was still asleep-;) The airport is obviously international compared to Hyderabad. From the airport, I got a cab towards the Gateway of India down south, from where I grabbed the first ferry to Elephantia Island. This is a 1hr ferry transfer to the caves with sculptures of the different Hindi Gods. This was a good escape from the busy crowded Mumbai. I came back to the mainland at 1pm when I got really hu...

On sunday (4th Nov), the three of us decided to visit the Golconda Fort slightly on the outskirts of Hyderabad. On our way there, the cab driver recommended us to see the tombs of Qutub Shahi, which lie 1km from Golconda Fort. There are appr. 20 different tombs, all made of carved stonework. The Golconda Fort is massive in size. We turned down all the offers for a guide and decided to just wander on ourselves. We took the steps all the way up 120m, luckily the sun was about to set and therefore not scorching anymore. At the top, it was almost just like at the temple, so peaceful, with the whole city at your feet. So once again, we were able to view the sunset and watched the day transition to night slowly but surely. At around 7pm, it was the muslim prayer time and all of a sudden, all the mosques began the call to prayer, which ascended to the top of the Fort from all 360 degrees...just i ncredible. Jason had a tough time trying to keep the men away from Jenny and I. Somehow, In...

Last saturday (3rd Nov), my colleagues Jenny and Jason asked to me to accompany them to some local sights in Hyderabad. Jenny is here only for 2 weeks and Jason is here for the long haul just like me. So we decided to start with the famous Charminar area located right in the middle of the city center. Well, the Charminar with it's pillars is amazing, but later on, we wished we had gone with a local colleague cos it became difficult to get through the crowd of street kids and street hawkers that surrounded and followed us all through. It was overwhelming to get so much persistent attention which we weren't prepared for, so after a short tour, we decided to go for a break in a quiet restaurant. We had lunch in a fabulous Chinese restaura nt facing the Hussein's Lake. After recovering from the Charminar experience,we went to the Birla Mandir Temple, which is located on a rocky hill and is built out of marble. The quietness up in the temple is a full contrast to the busy, ...

The Whelan's, a very small pub/venue located at Wexford Street, Dublin. The location where Fiddler's Green performed their Irish debut on last Thursday. I was a bit surprised that there were no promotions for the gig at all (except a small notice on the venue website), but after the concert i got the explanation from Ralf, singer of Fiddler's Green. Tickets were priced at 11.50€. But first of all, let's start with the actual review. The Whelan's normally provides space for approximately 300 people. This evening, about 150 people took the chance to see the "masters of Irish Independent Speedfolk". However, from those 150 people 130 were Germans (people who traveled from Germany especially for Fiddler's, Tourists and we - people who are living in Ireland). Singer Ralf started the gig with the words "thank you for coming out to see Fiddler's Green and their very first gig ever in Ireland"). Then he asked who's actually from Ireland and ...

This has been a short week (thank God-:) . Well, on wednesday evening, we had the compulsory Halloween party. Our team decided to go for a retro-look, so i borrowed some Elton-John specs from a friend. Apparently, there were other teams that were more creative and who really looked spooky! The good thing is that thursday is a holiday (state formation day), so we had enough time to compete for the best Halloween look till dawn and sleep late the following day. For the weekend, I actually wanted to get out of Hyderabad for a change, but the group that I planned to travel with somehow couldn't agree on a destination, so I guess I'll remain in Hyderabad and try out a few places here that I haven't yet visited. The weather seems to be changing, in fact, it even rained on Tuesday, so I'm crossing my fingers that this is a one-off occurrence. I hope the Dublin weather isn't following me all the way ;-( Btw, I already had my first visit to the Dr. Just like in Kenya, my ski...