As I reached the hotel lobby, a
lady slowed her pace and softened her face. She greeted me with her welcoming
smile. Mdm. Monika, the owner of the Centro Hotel. We had a casual talk before
she received my cash. “My staff is working on your room, someone just checked
out. Maybe around 2pm?” Mdm. Monika explained in her most soothing voice.
“Okay, any places to suggest while waiting the room ready?” I replied gently
with a smile too. “Ehmmmm.. There’s a castle with some sculptures and… nothing
much”. Then, I started to walk just to get myself familiar with the town. She was true, nothing much.
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| The right side of the hotel occupied by residential area. |
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| Looks familiar? Somewhere in Malaysia? |
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| One of the ancient sculptures |
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| About 10pm at night, in front of Selzgold Hotel. |
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| Castle is undergoing maintenance. |
I hadn’t been on a good long walk
for months. Alzey was a pleasant place to go while having training in
Wendelsheim. It is a cute town with not so much going on. The town is so quiet
and occupied with migrants mostly after 7pm. No shopping center or subway, Alzey
is just a plain town. Of course I can see some of the ancient sculptures,
castle and walls but those are the things that people typically do- preserve
them as much as they can. I didn’t feel well, had runny nose and fever on my
first day. So, that’s all I got for my first day.
It was summer. I prefer to sleep
after Subuh prayer (1.40am) and every 4.30am in the morning, I woke up for
shower and wandered around the street. I became a regular customer to a Turkish
bread shop. Not to mention the ‘Ali Family’ minimarket, I can get all halal
foods as much as I wanted. I got to know
that they are Muslims when I saw the shelf of religious books and al-Quran. I
got 1L of apple juice, 1 khabab, 3 plums, and 3 Turkish sweets with €8.00.
€8.00 is definitely enough for lunch and dinner if you are not choosy. How
heaven! What can I get for RM8.00 in my country? While visiting other
countries, I can’t stop comparing, please accept my apology.
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| The Turkish bread shop selling religious books and al-Quran |
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| Turkish bread shop. From raw wheat to various bread. I can feel the floury fresh bread. |
Wendelsheim, the adjacent ‘town’
where the training center is located. I don’t know how to describe Wendelsheim.
By ‘google image’, you can imagine what Wendelshiem is. Not really a town or a city.
My half-an-hour car riding to Wendelshiem was confusing. Left and right of the
roads are wheat fields, wind turbines, scattered houses, and grape fields.
Mostly green. They made me hard to memorize the route to the training center.
The signboards not really helped for a new comers like us. As I walked out from
the Mercedes MPV, t he wind whipped my face so hard, chapping my lips and made
them dry. The place is not concentrated with people, thus they never know what peak
hour is and why do people hate traffic jam so much.
Next day was the first day of my
training. Knowing that I’m the only Asian and Muslim, it doesn’t made me
uncomfortable. I’m here because I wanna be here. It wasn’t difficult to get
along with them. I easily made them laugh and they made me LOL too. Some of
them were curious about my practices as a Muslim. I made a chance to explain
some of the misconceptions about my religion. I wish I can do it more often.
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| View from the pantry. |
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| Peaceful surroundings |
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| With Mr. Helios |
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| Farewell dinner with technocrats. |
As always, the training for
engineer was focused on hands-on rather than making notes. As we dissemble and
resemble the instrument, we kept the notes in mind, mostly. We touched
instrument more than the pen and paper. We shared same background and we
enjoyed the whole training concept. We know we are gonna have an evaluation and
a test at the end of the session to make ourselves certified to operate and service
the instrument, but it didn’t bother me at all. Learn as much as I could.
Immuno Fluorescent Assay (IFA)
technology is a new thing to me and thus, it was a fantastic experience. I have
something to compare with ELISA which I’ve familiar for years. Factors like
result efficiency and effectiveness of the process are comparable. Of course
they are so significant.
My activities were not so much
different from day to day. I made more friends and tried varies of local food.
On the last day, I felt better than the days before as my flu didn’t affect me
so much. During evaluation and test, we were allowed to use all resources we
have accept discussion. We were allowed to play with the software, refer the
notes, open the instrument, but no discussion. I obeyed. Compared to the tests
I had before, this is a little bit tight but I don’t care.
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| LOL! |
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| Messing around with Mr. Helios. |
After half an hour break, the
trainer announced the marks for each of us. Surprisingly, the top scorer goes
to the only Asian participant from Malaysia. I got one minor mistake and the
score was 78/80, 98% in percentage. I
was thinking I flunk as I have zero experience compared to anyone else in that
room. Or maybe because of that I was being too focused. I just kept the
presence of mind, how to get the high score for the technical quality as well.
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| Thumbs up! |
After business card exchanged,
alhamdulillah, all done here. I grabbed my suitcase and it’s time to say “lets
meet again” to everybody.
