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Yet another day, at another place

It has been an idle day. The rain has been pouring on and off over the city for the last 48 hours now. Since I live on the top floor of my building, and fortunately my window opens to the city side, I have the luxury of not being bothered by the moving traffic and seeing just the cars, roads, and entrances of houses for view. My balcony overlooks the city center to the mountain on the other side which has a few houses scattered here and there.

The city in ancient time was fortified and the remains of the outer city wall is next to my place of stay. There are two towers which are nearly the same height as our building. In the past two months alone that I have been here, I have seen the terrain change already. The mountains were brown initially or occasionally covered in a white blanket of snow and one could only see the houses as far as one could. I would not call them eye sore because most of them are idyllic old houses, with traditional red and brown slant rooftops, and timber framing. But what caught my attention was the only piece of modern structure made of cement and glass that stood out on that hill. Thankfully, the trees are no longer brown and naked, they are beginning to show new leaves in all shades of green which covers that hideous building now. At any given point in time, clouds, mist, and smoke from kitchen houses all keep vanishing into the air. I do not get to see the sunrise or sunset yet (location constraints and maybe work timing issues :P), but it is relaxing to see the clouds race past each other through the balcony door. They are sometimes grey and fluffy and at other times they are white and long. I have witnessed rain, snow, hailstorm, and a bit of sun this weekend alone. Pitter-patter raindrops, falling from the sky indeed :D

The only birds I see are the pigeons and peculiarly the people living in the building in front of us have domesticated pigeons, but they rarely set them free. That is one common thing I have noticed throughout my stay in Germany now that I do not see many birds in the city. Also, I am not sure how many cats are here either. I have seen just one and that too lives rather far from my place. Sadly, my residential building has a no-pet policy and in general, I am to believe that most people in this city or at least in the immediate vicinity of the neighborhood are weekend commuters.

Speaking of the city, it strangely feels quite international? There are 3 industries here, and I was told one of the companies has a branch office in India and most of the Indian community (which is a lot for what I am used to seeing) here works for them. The city is scattered in terms of land and civilization. I have been telling people that it looks like an octopus with its arms stretched out if you look it up on Google maps. Most of the residential areas or the markets are in the city center which kind of lies in the valley or along the imaginary arms which eventually get elevated as they are situated on the hills. This makes the traveling time and distance between two points longer as you would have to always pass through the city center to get to the next arm as the two arms are not connected by roads. The public transport is rather non-existent and expensive for what they offer. I was spoiled, I guess, at my previous place of stay because I had access to so many grocery shops in the vicinity and there exists just 2 which are pretty basic (one of them being Aldi, for those of you who know) but on the other hand, there is an Asian supermarket just 5 minutes away and I no longer need to plan about buying desi grocery in advance which is an upgrade.

So much so for the city as of now. I am consumed by the new routine, and I am still trying to figure out or take out the time for the things I like doing. This one, for instance, is one step in that direction, yet again. 😊







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  1. Anonymous2 April 2023 at 19:24

    😍😍😍 awesomeness of City Schwäbisch Gmünd crafted with excellent wordings😍😍😍

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