Well, “highest railway” for a new entry as the Germans would say 
Actually, not so much as been going on in the last 2,5 weeks. Lots of work for uni, like preparing presentations, writing papers, and doing lots & lots of readings & case preparations was the main tasks of my days.
So, I’ll just point out the highlights apart from study life
Two important thing about studying first, though:
1st: turned out that I only have to do 3 courses the next term, which will give me much more freetime 
2nd: could change the topic for my master thesis, so I’m writing about consumer behaviour of Couchsurfers now & if it has an influence on the long tail of tourism.
The real highlight of the past 2 weeks started on October 29. First I went to the dispensary to get my vaccination against chicken pox after going there the 2 days before as well, on the first day being told that it was closed & on the second day being told that they had to get the vaccine … doh!
well, that wasn’t really a highlight so far, was it? but now it really starts: went to Paragon restaurant in the evening for dinner & then Morten, our Indian friends around Nitish, and I embarked on the overnight train to Bangalore! so what would we do in Bangalore, right? well. first of all it’s a pretty vibrant place to be, for seeing things (like Lalbagh gardens, UB city mall, etc.) and also for shopping – but that wasn’t really the reason for going there.
Our reason for going to Bangalore was ways better. We went there to witness the Metallica concert on Sunday, October 30 at “Rock in India”!! and despite waiting for hours to get into the concert area it was just awesome!!! after a support band from Delhi and Biffy Clyro from Scotland, Metallica played for more than 2 hours and literally burned off a firework of their best!!
The next day I hung out with Varun, my Couchsurfing host and his other two guests Ahamad from Iran and his wife Eeva from Finland. They are travelling since May already and want to keep doing so for the next 2-3 years We had a really great day discussing about Indian & also Iranian culture and I really learned a lot of new things that day. Later we went to eat together before I said good-bye to meet up with Morten, Jérem & Tobias at Hard Rock Café where 1 more highlight was waiting for me – the first proper beef since I left home; a 80 oz steak!! I can’t think of ever having enjoyed a piece of meat so much …
The other highlight in the past 2,5 weeks was definitly “International Day” at IIMK, where our group of foreign exchange students prepared stalls for introducing our universities & cooked some dishes from our home countries. Especially the French ratatouille, Italian pasta & Austrian Kaiserschmarrn were a hit! More than that we prepared an 1-hour program for the evening where we did a quiz about our home countries combined with a show of dancing, singing & sketches. It was great fun and I think the Indian students really liked it. After our show there was another event at auditorium where the Indian students had a competition on singing and dancing – that was a great thing too!
2 days ago we went to the restaurant “King’s Bay” in Kozhikode. Tobias met the owner in Bangalore and thus we didn’t have to wait for a table very long. The food there was delicious and we had a nice evening there …
well, that’s it again. a few highlights are coming up in the next weeks too. hope to go to Goa on Friday, and the week after we’ll have a study trip to Bangalore again. In term break in early December I’ll probably also go to Goa.
all u out there:
be safe, keep strong in faith & be blessed!
greez,
Gerhard
