A few weeks ago we posted Ashish’s thoughts on leaving Sønderborg after three years living here. However, luckily for us, he had also written about his very first thoughts before moving here. Over to Ashish:

The incident which I am about to narrate happened in similar settings in a non-English speaking, sub-zero, culturally rich, yet freakingly beautiful town of Sonderborg, where shops are closed on Sundays and open from 10 to 4 daily with an exception of Saturday when they close even earlier at 2 pm. I am at the edge of giving them free business lessons on “How to do business-Gujju Isstyle”..

Well enough drifting from the story now coming back…most of the houses in Sonderborg were built in the early nineteenth century.There are a very few modern day structures. Houses typically have wooden floor and a basement and an attic along with the main living room and kitchen and bedroom.

When I first landed here..according to the company policy, I was allowed to stay in a hotel [which of course was built in 1920] for 15 days and then had to find my own accommodation.

After a lot of searching and browsing through portals of rental properties I found one apartment which was close to the main bus station from where we commute to the office as I can’t afford a car here as it is insanely expensive.

I called the owner of the apartment and fixed a meeting to see the apartment. It was 1 block from the Bus station. The ground floor was occupied by the owner. I was offered the top floor.The first thing I noticed about the owner’s floor was his door mat which had name of a soccer club printed on it.

When I entered the apartment the light bulbs were hanging from the ceiling in football shaped paper cutouts. It was clear that the owner was a big football fan. It was not a surprise though as Europeans are crazy for soccer as we are for Cricket.

Another thing worth mentioning here was that the owners apartment was full of wooden idols and paintings of elephants.I found it weird and could not hold my curiosity and asked him about them.He showed me a picture of an asian girl and told me that her girlfriend is from Thailand and that she loves elephants and all the stuff which I see is actually imported from Thailand…including a 5 foot wooden elephant…man he must have really loved her girlfriend to allow her bring the monster all the way from Thailand.

After I signed the lease papers and moved in to the apartment I asked the owner if I can share his broadband connection. He agreed. But he told me that he doesn’t remember the password of his connection. All he remembered was that the password was 8 characters. and he rushed out as he was getting late for his shop. He owned a hot dog joint in the market which he claims he is running for 18 years.

Anyways so there I was in a brand new apartment where TV settop box was yet to installed and a 56 MBPS broadband with no password .It was frustating as I was really eager to test the speed of the 56 MBPS bullet train..

I was very hungry and hadn’t unpacked the luggage yet so was not in a mood to cook anything. So I just ordered pizza and coke. That night I tried every password which I could think of like his first name…his last name…name of the town…name of hisgirlfriend …elephant…hotdog… password..etc..but none worked.

You must imagine how can you pass 4 to 6 hours in an apartment without TV or internet. So I finally decided to go out and roam around to kill some time. I reached half way to the marked and all the way along I was thinking about what the password might be…suddenly something came to my mind..and I ran back to the apartment.

I opened my laptop and selected the network connection and entered the password THAILAND..this was 8 letters and made perfect sense. I waited holding my breath and the icon showed connection in progress and suddenly I got the message..Authentication failed..KLPD..All the excitement was gone. I closed the laptop and went to market again. I bought a jacket and gloves and some eggs. Eggs are life savers for bachelors and married bachelors.

While I was returning to the apartment as I was climbing the stairs I saw the owners doormat again…and I rushed to the laptop again. I kept the eggs and other stuff on the table and opened the laptop…again selected the connection…and entered a password…but this time it worked…I was home. I felt like home being on internet at least.

The speed was actually very fast.

And here I am writing this note on Facebook for sharing this incident. I often wonder how we often miss the things which are right in front of our eyes. Its like finding true love. Most of the time its right in front of our eyes yet we ignore it until some day we get that divine sign to finally realize it !!

still wondering about the password..go FCBAYERN!!