Approaching time to come home

Well, I only have five more working days and then I get to come home. It will be nice to come home and be able to eat a home cooked meal again. I am very tired of eating out for every meal and I am especially sick of Italian food. Yes you read that correctly, it reads that I am sick of Italian food. Every restaurant that is close by is an Italian restaurant. I must be in little Italy of Bangalore. I had a team member suggest Sunny's for dinner on day, Italian. The next day someone suggested Madili, Italian. I went out with some friends Sunday, last week, they wanted to go to Italia, obviously from the name Italian. Italia serves a combination of Italian food and Spanish food. We stuck with Italian food that night. The Italian food comes with a little Indian twist. Everything has added some spice to the food, except Sonny's which claims to be real American Italian. I was informed the owner and chef, Sonny, is from the United States so knows how to do Italian food American style. While eating at Sonny's there was a nice bartender who just wanted to talk to me the whole time. It was nice to have company, but his English was not that great and I don't think he comprehended about 3/4 of what I was saying. I think I answered the question of where I was from about eight times. He wouldn't take the United States as an answer, he had to know which state. He only knew New York and California which he thought were right next to each other. I explained to him a few times where Utah was and that New York was on the opposite side of the nation from California. While I was speaking with him there was another American there eating dinner. He said, "Your accent sounds familiar to me. Where are you from?" I told him and asked where he was from, turns out he is from Phoenix and works for Honeywell. Well, once the other American started talking to me the bartender thought he would be done speaking with me. This was Saturday before I went to a club with some co-workers and took an hour and a half to eat .

That night we went to a club which is only about three doors away, but I can never find again. Luckily Bhumika and Ankur picked me up from the hotel so I was able to find it the first time since I don't know any landmarks to find it. I think it was on the sixth floor of a building, but I don't recall which one. The club is very close to an American club, just different dancing. Not so much bumping and grinding with each other. That may be due to the fact that even kisses are edited out on TV. I met a few people that worked at Goldman that night, but they had a few drinks prior to me arriving and I don't know how well they remember me.

Getting into the club was interesting. Bhumika told me that a friend was going to get us in for free. We got up to the club level and the friend was waiting for us. they introduced me and he said let's go. Bhumika was in in front of me with Ankur and the new friend behind me. Bhumika made it in just fine, but the bouncer stopped me and said I could not go in. When the friend spoke up and told him that I was with him, the bouncer gave me a nice long look and finally let me in. It is an experience to be judged because I am different from everyone else. I don't know how much of this happens in the US, but I have felt it and it does not feel good. I am glad that I try to always treat everyone as the same.

The club was a club. Nothing spectacular from clubs in the US. I actually don't go to clubs much, in fact never, so it was different to go to a club. We thought laws in Utah were bad, well, in Bangalore even the clubs have to close at 11. I think I mentioned that drinks cannot be served after 11PM, and that is even true on weekends. Drinks stopped at 11PM and they started kicking people out at 11:15PM. I walked home so Ankur and Bhumika could just go home. It took about five minutes to walk back.

Sunday was a lazy day, I didn't do much. Bhumika had arranged to go to Lalbagh, which means Red Garden in Hindi. It is a botanical garden that is close to where Bhumika went to college. I was excited to get out and see a piece of Bangalore outside of the office. Well, we got to the garden and couldn't find parking. I am surprised anyone can park their cars here. There are no parking lots in the city. Valet parking is offered everywhere, but I am not sure where they take all the cars too. After the sidewalks are all filled, which makes it rather hard to walk anywhere, I don't know where they could put them. We found an empty spot on the sidewalk about two blocks away from the garden and walked over.

It cost ten rupee per person to get into the garden. This equates to about 25 cents. Not very expensive, but I am glad I didn't pay more to get in. At first Bhumika kept saying it was the off season and there wouldn't be many flowers. Bhumika I think is an optimist. We didn't see any flowers. The closet thing to a plant we saw was a building full of cactus plants. We didn't even really to get to see these as the fence around this building was locked and no one was allowed to see the plants. We walked around for a bit and went up to this statue on top of a big rock. The statue was blocked off by a fence so people could not get to close. There was a sign that read, "Protected Ancient Monument." It then goes on that any destruction would be prosecuted and to keep it clean. Either the sign is not effective or people don't car about monuments as there was trash all around the monument and many pieces missing. I am going with people just don't care, no rules are followed here. That is probably because no one actually enforces the rules.

We walked around a bit and saw people playing frisbee on the lawn. Well, we saw another sign that said, "Absolutely no playing games on lawn." There was a park ranger walking around and looked right at the people playing. He put his whistle in his mouth and I thought he was going to enforce the no playing rule. I was wrong. He blew his whistle a couple times while he was still walking. Once he blew his whistle he must of thought he did his job and didn't need to do anymore. He walked away without anymore enforcement.

After Lalbagh we went to Italia for dinner, this is Bhumika's favorite restaurant. She always starts off with chips and cheese. I think my hotel and Italia shopped at the same place for cheese, the cheesewhiz factory. Well, we then got some Indian style Italian food. We then went to get some ice cream, which no one knew where the ice cream place was. We went to a store they thought was the right place, but we were soon told we were in the wrong store. We walked out and Bhumika remembered where it was, we were one block away. The ice cream was just ice cream, they didn't have any crazy kinds of ice cream, but did have some interesting kinds. I tried the fig vanilla. It was vanilla ice cream with a fig newton blended in. It was interesting.

The week of work was just another week of work. I never get to see any of Bangalore since nothing opens before I leave and it is almost closing time when I get home. During the week I just ate more Italian food and didn't get as far in my testing as my manager would have liked. He gave me grief for not being as far as he wanted. The problem with that is that he has never done projects and doesn't understand the whole process. All week I have been working, but not 100% on what he wants because there are other just as important activities to make sure the project goes live with no problems. I spend about half my time working with technology on the other activities (part of the reason I am here) and half on "Pike's" activities. Well, Pike complained so now this week I have to spend all my time and get technology to spend all of there time on "Pike's" activities. That is not as beneficial to the project since most of the problems found come from non-Pike activities. Anyway, enough complaining.

Friday night I came home and booked a trip for Saturday to Mysore. It is a long day of site seeing. The cab picked me up at 7AM and I was to return around 11PM. To get to Mysore it is a three and a half hour drive! Good thing I don't mind talking to strangers, it was just me and my driver. We didn't go straight to Mysore. We made a few stops along the way. The first one was to the Tipu Sultan's summer palace. The gardens at the summer palace were much better than those at Lalbagh. Throughout the day there was a common theme: no pictures are allowed in most of the buildings. The palace was one of those. I wish I could have taken pictures, it was a very nice sight. every square inch of the palace was pained. Not just a single color, but many patterns and pictures. The palace was built by Tipu after he won a war in the 1800's. The pictures on the walls all depict a battle or someone that was close to Tipu.

After walking through the palace I decided to walk around the gardens for a while. All the trees are numbered just in case someone decides to come in and steal on. They will be able to find the tree and know exactly where it belongs in the line. I saw five gentlemen taking picture. Four standing for the picture and one taking the picture. I asked it they wanted me to take it so all five could be in the picture. There immediate answer was yes. After I took their picture they were very interested where I was from and why I was in India. I talked to them for about 15 minutes. I saw them a few minutes later trying to take another picture. I offered again to help and they said yes. When I started handing the camera back one said they needed a picture of me with them. We took a few pictures and talked for a few more minutes. Once people saw I was willing to be in a picture with them, almost everyone that walked by asked if they could take a picture with me. I probably spend a good 45 minutes taking pictures with people just walking around. One man even took a picture with me and asked if I could wait while he went to find his wife. As soon as she learned it was an American she came running over to get the picture. The same questions were asked: 1) Where are you from? 2) Can I take a picture with you? I felt like a celebrity. There was another white couple there, but they only took about three pictures and then were tired of it and left.

The next stop was Tipu's place of death. The only thing worthy of mentioning here is that the road to get there was a city road, but was not paved and was a dirt road. It was like going four wheeling in a city.

We next went to a Hindu temple. The temple is was very nice and well crafted. One thing I forgot to do on this trip, where my sandals. I forgot that you are supposed to take your shoes off to go in any holy building in India. Well, I had my shoes on so the laces got tied and untied a few times during the day. We drove up to the temple and my driver said he was going to stay in the car while I visited the temple. I took a picture of the temple and there was a very nice man that offered to take my picture in front of the temple. I said sure. He then followed me telling me history of the temple. He took a few more picture with me in them. Well, soon after my driver came up and said something to the other man in Hindi. He turned to me and said this man was a cheat. The guy yelled something at my driver and my driver turned around swinging at the man. The other man argued with my driver for a few minutes then came to me and said I owed him money for taking pictures. My driver said not to pay him and he was a cheat. We walked through the rest of the temple and as soon as we left the temple the other man was waiting for us to argue some more. We walked back to the car with my driver and the other man yelling the whole time. We got back to the car and they were still yelling. This was getting a lot of attention and others were now gathering around. Luckily all the new joiners took my drivers side and pulled the other man away. We got in the car and drove off. I learned a lesson: if someone is being nice, better still be wary of their intentions. My driver told me everyone was a cheat and don't trust them. I don't have any more pictures with me in them because I didn't want to start anymore fights.

Next stop was to Kings Refuge, a bird refuge. The cost for my driver to get in, 30 rupee, about 75 cents. The cost for me to get in 300 rupee, about 7.50. I learned that this is normal for getting in to anyplace. It cost a foreigner about 10 times as much to get in somewhere. Well, I paid an additional 300 rupee to take a boat ride. On the boat ride they guaranteed me to see alligators and different kinds of birds. The boat guide was this skinny man that rowed us around for about an hour. I mean to say there were 12 total people that constitute us. We first saw about 2000 bats hanging from some trees. Our guide starting rowing up and then we saw two alligators swimming about 15 feet away from us. Floating around we saw about six different kinds of birds including pelicans, ravens, and others I can't remember. The guide was nice to tell us everything we saw and joked around with everyone in the boat.

We then stopped at a Catholic cathedral, St. Josephines Cathedral. I am sure there are probably about a million Joesphines in the Catholic church, so good luck finding that one. I didn't have to take my shoes off there. I walked around and went into the catacomb. It is kind of freaky to think about what is in the catacomb. that is the highlight of the cathedral.

I told my driver I wanted to take a tour of Mysore Palace so we skipped the next place which was another garden. We got to Mysore Palace and my driver told me not to buy anything from the vendors and that they would cheat me. As I was walking up to the palace someone came up to me and offered me a bracelet for about 800 rupee or 20 dollars. Definitely not a good price. I got up to the window to pay my entrance fee and it cost me 200 rupee. I noticed that for a local it would only cost 10 rupee here. They sure take advantage of the foreigners. I went inside and learned the the Maharaja still stays in the palace and holds many events there. All my co-workers said this palace was nothing compared to the Taj Mahal. I felt this Palace was very nice, so I can only imagine what the Taj Mahal is like. If Mysore Palace were Disney Land then the Taj Mahal would have to be Disney World Paris.

I walked around and found the elephants in the yard. They were moving the elephants to near the palace. One of the workers asked it we (a group of us at gathered around) wanted to sit on an elephant. Of course the answer was yes. Unfortunately the guy driving the elephants didn't stop and kept going. No sitting on an elephant for me.

After walking around I went to sit near the entrance to people watch for a few minutes. A European family sat next to me with a baby probably about 1 yr old. The baby was now a celebrity! Everyone that noticed a white couple with a baby stopped to see the baby. It was like they wanted to make sure the baby looked the same across cultures. Very interesting the level of attention that white people receive while out in public here.

After the palace we went to another Hindu temple. It is considered on of the most eight sacred places in India. Again, the craft work was amazing. Walking to and from the temple we cows, lambs, and monkeys. There were cows and lambs walking around and three monkeys just hanging out in front of the temple. One man was trying to get money from people who were just looking at the monkeys. I didn't give any money to him because the monkeys soon showed they didn't know who he was. Turns out a lot of people are cheats.

We then made our way back to Mysore Palace for the weekend light show. Saturday for 30 minutes and Sunday for an hour the castle is lit up with more than 96,000 lights. When we got back to the palace there was a Bollywood movie being shot. There were so many people taking all the good picture locations. I didn't know what movie or the actors so wasn't very interested in the movie actors, more so in the lights. The lights were beautiful. I did take a picture of the Bollywood actors in case they ever become big in the US. Not that when/if they become famous I will know who they are and remember I took their picture.

All the sites were very beautiful and nice to see. I have learned at least one thing, I would rather share these experiences with family and friends, especially my beautiful wife Sheila. It helps the experience so much more if you have someone to share it with. A good experience but I would change it by having loved ones with me.

The drive back took three and a half hours. Only two and a half to get back to Bangalore and an hour to go the last 10 km (about 6 miles). the traffic here is terrible!

Sunday was a day of relaxation again. The time to come home is getting close and I am excited. It will be nice to come home.