Ugadi!

Thursday was another holiday - Ugadi, the Telugu New Year. Not as big of a deal as Holi, but still very interesting and fun. Ugadi literally means “the start of a new year,” and it is believed that the creator of the Hindu pantheon, Lord Brahma started creation on this day. People spring clean their houses on this day and decorate them with garlands of mango leaves (this was done in the cafeteria). Also, Ugadi happens to be an occasion for many sales and for people to buy new clothes! Everyone dressed up to work – the girls wore beautiful sarees and bangles of very bright colors and elaborate designs, and wished each other a Happy Ugadi. Also, I tried some Ugadi Pachhadi, which is a mixture of (according to the Hyderabad Times) neeem flowers, jaggery, raw mango, tamarind juice, green chilies and salt. If it sounds like a weird combination, let me assure you it is. I had just a teaspoonful – it wasn’t bad, just very very different! The mixture of different tastes in this crazy concoction is supposed to represent the mixture of all the things in your life – sweetness, sorrow, triumph, suffering, etc.

I Try

Still working a lot and not much to report there. But I have other things I can discuss about India…like more stories about eating.

I would not describe myself as a picky eater. Sure, I don’t like olives (much to the chagrin of the Casazza family), but that is really the only food I can’t tolerate. I really love all kinds of food and also the social aspect of it, going out to dinner with friends and enjoying a nice piece of meat and a glass of wine. India has really taught me a LOT about food.

My eating experiences have been unusual, to say the least. First, breakfast, which I will demonstrate with a few graphics. For breakfast every day I make an egg sandwich and have a little banana usually. For the past 3 weeks, I have been using a flat skillet that is curved like this ) so the top is arched, just slightly. So for the past 3 weeks, my egg will either slide all the way to one side of the pan like so:
),, or, it will slide to one side, and I will unsuccessfully try to slide it evenly to the other side, but instead it goes everywhere and my sandwich is horribly flat like this ). Did you ever think when you make eggs in the morning how lucky you are to have a decent fry pan!! I have found however a new skillet that is flat, but deeper, so now the egg stays put but I can’t flip it, instead it kind of just rolls to one side and then the other and cooks. But I have three more weeks to figure that out. Also, I make toast. To make toast, you have one of two choices. You can A) stand at the toaster and hold the lever down, because it will not stay down, and literally watch your bread toast for 3-5 minutes, or B) stick a spoon between the lever and toaster so that the lever stays down, at which point you are free to go, but chances are 4 in 5 times, you’ve burnt your toast by the time you’ve come back to remove the spoon. So far I’ve only burnt mine one day this week. Kathryn seems to not be as lucky. I also recently got some cereal and “slim milk” (yes, slim milk) but have been taking it as snack after work. Maybe if I want to have a less adventurous breakfast, I will have it then too.

Next is lunch. Except, I don’t take lunch in India. (“Take” is something I’ve acquired while being here!) I eat breakfast around 1pm and then sometimes will have a samosa (veg pastry puff) around 6 or a granola bar. And candy of course because there is always candy here. But I don’t eat again until dinner at 8 or 9. So I am pretty much starving for a good 2 hours before I go to dinner. For dinner, we eat a lot of pizza hut which is good – I stick to veg. Other times in the cafeteria I will get a cheese sandwich and fruit plate (total cost - $1). Sometimes also biryani (rice). I know my poor mom is distraught that at this point I have not mentioned any vegetables (sorry mom, I get my biggest intake of vegetables from the veg pizza!)

Monday night I wanted to try some Szechuan noodles that I saw other Americans eating. And I love noodles and am sick of rice. “They will be a bit spicy mam,” my cashier told me. “It’s ok, I like spicy,” I replied. I took my ticket to noodle man and presented it. He shook his head. “Too spicy for you,” he said. “Too spicy?” I said indignantly. No one tells me what I can and can’t eat at 25 years old. “Can I try them?” He looked at me and shrugged his shoulders, as if to say, “stupid American, don’t say I didn’t warn you.” “I can’t believe that, too spicy. I like spicy!” I thought. I sat down and took a bite. Mmm…noodles…spicy…yes…very spicy, but good. Bite #2. A little more spicy. Bite #3. Now time for some juice. And maybe some of Kathryn’s fruit too. Cooled off now, for bites 4, 5, 6 and 7. hmm no….too hot again. Need juice need juice! Lips starting to tingle. But noodles are so good…2 more bites and I am sweating. 1 more and my eyes are watering. And after 10 bites, I’m done trying to eat noodles in India. I had to swallow my pride (and several tums, later) and get a cheese sandwich. My stomach hurt all night from just those few bites. One of my colleagues told me that when I return to the U.S., I will find the food too bland. Maybe so, but that sounded good to me on Monday!

Public Service Announcement

Since I am still working a lot with not much with not much to report, I am interrupting my regularly scheduled blog session for some ruminations about this year's NCAA men's basketball tournament. A Brit I was speaking with here didn't know what March Madness was, and I have to say, I felt this person was really truly deprived. As much as I love all sports (except unfortunately for me, not cricket), March Madness I have always really loved because there are so many games on in such a short time, and it usually involves a little drinking and a little gambling.

Having not being able to watch the games but only read about them is not as fun. And it looks like there were some amazing games this year, like there are every year, only maybe a little bit more amazing this year than last year according to my sources (Justin and Zach who have been updating me). Seems like every game I checked scores for went into overtime. Although I haven't watched any games or even followed basketball as much this year (after Vandy took a downturn), I think I've developed some new strategies for next year.

So what have I learned?

I learned that the 5 over 12 upset is still a slam dunk, as long as you pick the right one (I didn't).

I learned that Illinois is about as good as I thought they were last year (which is - not that good).

I learned that I have to stop picking Florida to choke, because they finally didn't. OK to still pick Arizona to though.

I learned that Duke may not ever win the NCAA tournament again unless Laettner finds an extra year of eligibility somewhere and can work some magic.

I learned Tennessee should stick to football. Take that, Rocky top.

Will Gonzaga ever make it out of the sweet 16?

I learned that my mom is now a college basketball fan!

Finally, I would just like to ask, does anyone know anyone who went to George Mason? Does anyone know anyone who picked George Mason to do anything? Not by chance or on a coin flip, but maybe because they are an alum or they've always rooted for the George Mason (insert name of mascot for this school which I have no clue what it is). I really hope that person went with their gut and picked GMU to go to the sweet 16, the elite 8 and maybe even the final 4. I hope they didn't brush off their allegiance to GMU for a Duke or a Memphis (who would pick Memphis anyway??) to try and win the office pool. If there is such an individual out there, I commend you. If I could ever get a drink in this country, I would raise my glassto you. I hope you enjoy the ride. And I thank you for taking UCONN out of the tournament so the entire extended Dreiss family does not have to feel too sad about Villanova losing too.

Now, back to your regularly scheduled program...

On week later...

As you can probably tell from my lack of entries this week, I’ve gotten quite busy with work. I worked at least 13 hours every day this week, including Friday, and 9 hours on Saturday. Emotions are running high in the office here and at home, where it’s getting a little close to our deadline and things are running behind schedule. As usual. This happens every year so I don’t understand why it seems to be a big surprise. Regardless, everyone is working long hours. But, we are able to take little breaks every now and then. First, one of the expat managers brought in a huge bag of candy on Wednesday (American chocolate, which she somehow got here, which wasn’t exactly the same but it was close). People went crazy!!! I didn’t get up from my desk and somehow still managed to get 6 pieces. Everyone here is very into sharing – whenever someone has “biscuits” or chips, they will always walk around and offer one to the rest of the group.

Friday night we ordered our team dinner again, which was Chinese food this week. I ordered sesame chicken and stir fry vegetables. What I got was chicken that Kathryn and I called “red hot chicken” which was in a bright red sauce and some spicy yellow sauce that apparently had vegetables in it, but it didn’t taste that way to me. It was by far the spiciest Chinese food I had ever had. I thought of my grandpa who always said he could tolerate any level of spice and wondered if could have taken this in stride. We had some chow mein noodles with yogurt (interesting combo) that helped to cool things off. It was the first time I had noodles in nearly a month and it was glorious!!! To top things off, we bought ice cream for the team – choco chips cones which are like drumsticks, not quite as good but almost there. The ice cream here really is pretty good, and the flavors are interesting (I had mango the other day), but I am looking forward to coldstone when I get back.

Later that night, around 230am, we got into a discussion about American movies. One thing I have noticed about the office is that when 2 or 3 people get involved in a conversation, slowly but surely the rest of the group will stop working, get up from their desks and come to chat. It’s actually nice to all take a break like that at the same time. Some of the movies that were mentioned that people really liked were Love Actually, Beethoven, Armageddon, You’ve Got Mail…notice a theme? Seems like all the guys here are romantics and not afraid to admit it! We also found out that Bryan Adams is one of the most popular singers here because he gives a lot of concerts in India (true, I have heard people blasting summer of 69 at least 10 times since I’ve been here). Also Michael Jackson was mentioned and how did he come up with the moonwalk? We said we didn’t know. The best part of the night for me was that we finally found out the song that Neelakanta has as the ringback on his phone, which we hear twice a day, every day and love. Of course we didn’t know any of the words so we couldn’t tell anyone what it was. It is from a film called Geetangeli, about two lovers who are both sick and end up dying. Sorry to ruin the ending, but I figure you probably won’t be picking that up at Blockbuster anytime soon. A lot of the songs that are popular here are from films, and they said that is the one thing that is missing from American films is the song and dance.

Well I’m headed to the office again and NK is apparently in a crazy mood, so I can’t keep him waiting. More to follow. I actually went out and had a beer last night – only the 3rd time I think I’ve done that since being here.

Sunday Morning

Sunday we finally got in a little R&R. We headed over to the Taj Krishna, one of the “leading hotels in the world” as it advertises. It certainly is an impressive hotel. As you walk in, a guard who seems to be about 8 feet tall (I realized later that he has on shoes that have about a 6 inch heel, I guess they are made cushy since he stands all day) wearing a fez, a long Indian dress shirt, a giant unibrow and possibly the most impressive mustache I have ever seen holds the door for you and says “good day, madam.” Guys get a salute! The lobby and halls, which are about as far as I’ve ever gone, are entirely marble, with marble statues adorning the sides, huge mirrors and gold drapes. When you think of India, a lot of times this image of grandeur and riches comes to mind (the other times of course, total poverty comes to mind), and the Taj Krishna really seems to show that. We met Emre, Paula and H at the pool which was sunken in behind the hotel – you had to walk down a long path of stairs to get there. All of the lounge chairs were full but the attendants brought out mattresses for us to lay on, which were very comfortable, but totally impractical for reading or basically doing anything but laying down. (To my Vandies - anyone remember Ash curling up asleep on the beach during senior week…these would have been perfect for that!) I got a veg club sandwich (totmato and cucumber) and French fries for lunch that were SO good. I think because I haven’t had anything remotely close to French fries in almost a month. It was practically the most expensive meal I have had since being here, but worth it. It was super hot outside but the water was very pleasant, so it made the afternoon nice.

At 3 Kathryn and I headed to pick up a gift voucher and some sweets for our colleague, Naren, who was getting engaged that evening. There are sweet shops everywhere here – I mentioned the incredible sweet tooth before. We got a kilo (!) of sweets for Naren and a small packet of pista chuhli for us to share (pistachio candy). As we got back in the car, I offered a piece to Neelakanta. “Do you want a piece of this pista candy?” “Yah medam!” he said as he flashed me a huge grin, snatched the entire bag out of my hand threw it on the seat next to him in the front. Needless to say, that was the last we saw of the pista chuhli.

Vivek, another colleague of ours, picked Kathryn and I up and we drove some 45 minutes to Naren’s house. When we arrived, we were ushered up a narrow flight of stairs to a rooftop terrace, where there were about 50 people seated (women all on one side, men all on the other) watching Naren and his bride to be, who were seated on a stage under some hot spotlights. By this point it was about 5:30 pm; the actual engagement ceremony had started at 3:30 or so. There were some other rituals done with each couple in the families, and then it was time for the tradition of feeding the newly engaged couple a piece of cake. Maybe not every guest, but at least every person from Deloitte (which was about 15) and numerous others went up to feed them cake. “Please come,” Naren’s brother asked us, “it is your turn.” So we went up to feed them as well, although you could tell by watching that they were both about to puke with every bite. While we were up on stage, they wanted a picture of the two Americans with the couple. I don’t mean to sound conceited but I felt like the room became quieter as everyone paused to stare at us in the photo! After this it was time to eat, which meant of course biryani, some spicy sauces I couldn’t recognize and a sweet. I looked around as people were happily digging in and stirring the rice up with their right hand. Just then someone handed me a spoon. I don’t really mind the eating with your hands, but the thing that gets me is there are no napkins in India! At least, there were none at Naren’s, and they are around but not plentiful in the U.S., and people will take one or two, not a handful. All of Naren’s friends joked that the food was too spicy for us (which it was). Someone offered us water which we politely declined, having no idea where it was coming from. Then two seconds later, someone else appeared with diet cokes for the Americans. I am greatly enjoying India and trying to do things the right way here, but I’ll happily play the American and take the spoon and the diet coke any day.

It was really interesting to see, but I couldn't help but thinking how overwhelming it must be to get engaged this way to someone you barely know. Vivek told us that about 30% of marriages now are love marriages and the other 70% still arranged (as this one was).

Catch Up

So I haven't done a very good job of keeping up on the blog lately. But I have been trying to post pictures, and they don't load, and the internet in the flat is spotty and slow. I'll do a quick recap of what's happened in the past few days since Holi:

Wednesday Night: Dad was here!! We had a nice dinner and talked about our experiences working here and the differences between our companies and teams. Very interesting and it was great to see him. Had you told each of us 3 years ago that we would meet up in India for business, I don't think we would have believed it. He also helped me with my NCAA picks (doing well so far, in 7th place in my pool out of 41...)

Thursday:
Nothing happened. I worked a long day. So, you didn't miss anything there. Oh well I did work out and watch an Indian version of "Deal or No Deal" while I was running. I couldn't tell if he won or not because it was in a different language and the program was also naming amounts of Indian money that I don't know how much is like Lahk I think was one. Anyway...

Friday:
Friday we came to work late, at 2 which was quite nice. That night we had our team dinner as we have promised to buy dinner every Friday for the team. We ordered food from Hyderabad House and Olive Garden (no, not that one. that's what I thought too) and gathered in the canteen to eat. As we sat down, I looked around and noticed everyone eating with their hands. Or should I say, their hand. Only the right hand was used to eat. Not a big deal if you are having pizza or a sandwich or something. But we had rice and a bunch of other stuff I couldn't tell you what it was, except that it was veg and spicy and saucy, and also chapati bread (like pita). I watched slightly amazed as people tore the bread with one hand, actually just with their right thumb and 2 forefingers. Kathryn and I were not very good at this and used our left hands as well at first, but instead of being rude we decided to struggle through it. It was very difficult, and one of the few times in my life that I have really felt like I was a minority, as I have rarely experienced that being a white middle class person. We went back to work for a few hours and headed home around 3.

Saturday:
Saturday the plan was to get up and go shopping, but instead I slept in again. I can't get enough sleep here, it seems like. We went to work only from 12 to 7 and then we went to Viraj's house, an expat here, and met up with a large group of other people mostly from IAS. He lives in Banjara Hills (nice area of Hyderabad) - we walked up onto this aweseome terracce that was huge, covered in beautiful flowers (it smelled so good!) and overlooked the whole city. He also had 2 dogs which were so cute that he brought from the U.S. - it was nice to be able to play with them instead of having to run away like we do from the stray dogs. I felt sick all day Saturday (I think it was something I ate at Coffe Day) but was able to enjoy most of the evening. Around 11, after having drinks and appetizers we headed to the Secunderabad Club. I can't really describe it except to say that it was huge, outside, and had a band playing American music, with the lead singer singing in an Elvis like manner. Pretty funny. We had dinner at 11:30 (more rice and more Indian food, which I like but am beginning to get a little sick of) and stayed until about 12:30, just chatting and drinking. After that it was home to bed.

So, I told you, nothing really exciting going on here. I'm heading to work again. And I am feeling better after a rough weekend. My experience with food has been that I am either starving because I haven't eaten anything all day, or I feel sick from what I just ate. Pretty much every time I eat I feel like I am taking a huge risk! But I have been mostly ok so hopefully I can survive the next few weeks. I do really enjoy the fresh fruits, juices and ice creams here!

Holi!!

Tuesday and Wednesday marked Holi in India. It is a spring festival that celebrates the triumph of good over evil. It started at work on Tuesday night with a big dance show in the cafeteria to lively music, everyone was whislting and hollering with excitement! But Wednesday when we got to work was the real fun. Everyone plays Holi by coloring each other. In the office, this quickly got out of hand! We were all having a great time, laughing and coloring for about 2 hours in the afternoon. Not your typical workday! Everyone was so happy, laughing and hugging and wishing one another a happy Holi. My face was pink for almost the entire day as I was unable to get my colors off very easily! I had so much fun on this holiday and think we should start celebrating it stateside!

Origin of Holi Festival: The legend of King Hiranyakashipu is associated with the festival of Holi. This legend signifies the victory of good over evil, of devotion surpassing ambition. King Hiranyakashipu was an ambitious ruler, one who wanted absolute power so that he would be worshipped as God. When this wish was made known, the King's own son, Prahlad, refused to obey his father. Prahlad was an ardent devotee of Lord Vishnu, and it was only to his Lord that he gave allegiance.
The proud King was enraged by Prahlad's disobedience and decided to punish him severely. He asked his sister Holika for help. It was believed that Holika was immune to fire and would never be burnt, so the King asked Holika to sit in the centre of a bonfire with Prahlad on her lap, so that the fire could devour him. The bonfire was lit, and young Prahlad sat in Holika's lap, in its centre, praying to Lord Vishnu. His devotion saved him, leaving him untouched by the flames, but Holika was burnt to ashes.

Big Shot

Monday night there were several "VIPs" from Deloitte who were visiting Hyderabad, so there was an excellent reception at the Taj Krishna hotel for all the Deloitte expats. We arrived at 7:30 (had to go to work at 11am to make up for it). Everyone was draped with a scarf and also given a red powder bindi as they walked in (see pic of Kathryn and Chris, above). The girls were given beautiful bangle bracelets which needed to go on both wrists. Not having dainty Indian hands, I was a bit difficult for them to find some for, and I practically had to cut my right arm off to remove them at the end of the night! Anyway, while we got nice bracelets, the guys got their heads wrapped in turbans (see Chris - he looked the best in it of anyone there!) There was also hookahs, women painting henna (I skipped this, perhaps later on my trip), a giant buffet of delicious Indian food and a fortune teller! It was quite a show - the picture of the design on the ground was made up of flower petals; there were several more like that there.

The fortune telling experience I found absolutely hilarious. I sat down and a man smiled and asked, "What is your name?" I told him, and he bent over to his friend (the actual fortune teller, who did not speak english) to tell him, and then the fortune teller bent down to a little box, opened a door and said "JACQUELYN!" Out hops a little green parakeet. "Jacquelyn!" He said again. Parakeet is more interested in my cosmo than telling my fortune. Parakeet really wanted to come say hi to Jacquelyn! So fortune teller has to step in and "guide" parakeet back to these little red folders. Then parakeet picks one up in his beak, hops over to fortune teller, and goes back into his cage. Some of my fortunes were that I am angry all the time (not sure about that one), that my marriage will be a love marriage and not an arranged marriage (Dad, hope that is ok), and that I will be spending my own money in the future and not anyone else's (good news for you, Justin). It was a very enjoyable evening!

Coming soon...Holi!!

"You, Slow Come!!"

OK, I'm going to have to cut the cute song-titles to my blog posts in the interest of time for now. I've been incredibly busy at work and this site has been down. So I'm quite behind!

Sunday as I mentioned earlier I went to work for a few hours. The rest of our friends were sunning themselves at the Taj Krishna pool, so I was not too happy to be in the office. Luckily, I only worked for a few hours, and then Kathryn and I went to meet up with Emre, Paula and H. We headed to Golconda Fort - it is MASSIVE and about 500 years old (I wasn't paying that close of attention!). The outside perimeter of the fort was 7K (almost 5mi). Once we walked in, this little Indian dude offered to give us a tour - we did not know what we were in for! He walked SO fast because he wanted to get the tour done before this light show that started at 7pm. Of course we all kind of wanted to idle around and take photos, not run up and down stairs. So he kept yelling "Please come!" and when it was dangerous/steep/crumbling rock/dark he would yell "Slow come! Please, slow come!" Pretty funny. It was dusk when we arrived to the fort, so we started doing some of our tour in the dark. I saw our guide walking up 3 steps into a very dark chamber and thought....no way. "You!" He called to me. "Slow come! Three steps." I couldn't see a thing, but I could hear bats, lots of bats screeching and flapping around not too far from me! I put my jacket over my head and ran through to get to the other side. Emre followed me, but everyone else was too scared (or not as stupid as we were) and found another way around.

At 7pm, our tour was over and we were ready for the light show. It took place in this big stone courtyard and started 30 min late due to the electricity going out (I told you it is a problem!) A narrator with a deep, stately Indian accent told the story of Golconda fort, how it was built, how it was the center of this Golconda city, which one day was named Hyderabad instead. Other parts of the story were told with different voices and lights all around us. My favorite part was they showed a light projection of a giant diamond and asked "Have you heard of diamonds?" to which the other voices said "Yes, we've heard of them!" The narrator said that there was one huge diamond which used to be part of Golconda, but it was taken by the Brits and is now part of the crown jewels. All of us were so tired and the show was quite long, and the air outside was quite comfortable so...we all fell asleep at some point! Oh well.

After the fort we headed to Fusion 9, a restaurant that serves many different types of food. It was nice to have chicken as I've been mostly veg since I've been here. Again, we couldn't really talk during dinner, only eat because we were so hungry and tired! The highlight of the meal was the "sizzling brownie," a brownie served in a skillet with chocolate sauce and ice cream. Since I'm not eating very much here (or often) things like this are really exciting!

Fortunately Monday we had another event with good food...pictures of the fort to come, by the way.

Everybody's Working for the Weekend

Today is Sunday, a day which I usually reserve for doing laundry, cleaning and watching tv at home. But, I'm in India, and someone does my laundry for me, cleans my apartment daily, and everything on tv is either cricket or in hindi. Which is good news, because I'm heading to work again. Thurs and Friday we worked 14 hours each day, Saturday 8 hrs. I work hard during the busy season but usually not quite this much! It's our staff who are really working hard and putting the hours in. So to not come in when we live 5 min from the office would really not be right considering most of them have to drive over an hour each way to get to work.

Friday and Saturday were a bit more fun than usual working days. Every Friday here is jeans day, which also means sneakers day, which also means t-shirt day - very casual! We also ordered dinner for the team so they (and we) didn't have to eat in the cafeteria again. Pizza hut for 18 people - which was probably 10 or 12 pizzas (they are smaller here, but they are still good!) and garlic bread - cost $54. Pretty amazing. I talked to a girl yesterday who got 3 pairs of beaded sandals for Rs 550. That's about $3 a pair!!

Saturday I think people were a bit unhappy to have to come into the office. Most of our staff are new and don't realize that the busy season is only temporary (at least in India - can't say the same about Chicago!!). Even the "experienced" staff have only been working at Deloitte 2 years. So we and the team lead, Pranab tried to encourage everyone and let them know it's just a push for another 3 weeks or so. To help with this Kathryn and I surprised everyone with 2 chocolate cakes we bought from the coffee shop (again, this cost about $12 - so cheap!). It was a sweet surprise in the middle of the day. I've noticed that Indians have a really big sweet tooth!! We brought American chocolate to the office because we heard how much everyone likes it, and we go through a bag a day (so we are not bringing it in every day anymore because our stash is being depleted quickly!) Also people are always bringing in sweets for things like weddings and buying a house (one guy in our group closed on a flat this week, which is awesome!).

Finally at 9:30 Kathryn and I bolted from the office and rushed back to the Jayabheri for an expat party that was going on. There are probably about 45 people on the ground from the U.S. here right now, which I didn't realize. It's great because it shows what a committment our office has to making this whole India thing work! I love working with our team, but I have to say it was nice to hang out with some Americans (and Britons) for a bit. As soon as we walked in, a girl handed me a Jagerbomb and introduced herself. Wonderful!! We got to the party late so we left about 20 minutes later (I managed to grab a chicken quesadilla on the way out and it was so wonderful to eat meat!) to the Touch lounge - a very trendy club where the beers were $2, ha ha. We met up with Emre from NY office and Hiram (H) and Paula from London there and chatted with them for a while. Touch was cool but extremely loud techno music was on the whole time, fun but difficult to hear anyone!

Ah, I have to head to work again. I have some more stories from our first night out in India that I will continue later. By the way, I still think it's totally weird that I'm in India. But I'm really enjoying my time here!

Speed of Sound

One thing I will say about India is that there is a lot of noise here. A good way to picture this for yourself is to imagine yourself in New York City, right in Manhattan, say in a poorly insulated apartment that allows you to hear all of the yellow cabs which honk constantly and traffic outside. Then imagine maybe that there is a loud group of tourists yelling to each other oustide your window. Also, your upstairs neighbor likes to move furniture around a lot (for me, this is no different than my assinine neighbor in Chicago). Finally, that they are doing construction outside your apartment, and by construction, I mean dropping a lot of metal poles on the ground that make loud clanging noises and then hammering them several times with some kind of giant hammer that is extremely loud. Now you know what I wake up to every day in India!

Actually, the noise is fairly easy to overcome and doesn't bother me too much. The office is quite noisy too. Every hour or so the noise level increases immensely and it somehow seems that everyone is talking at once. We have open cubes, (like the old office on 37 at Pru II, for you Deloitters) so it can get pretty loud quickly. Also people do not use headphones and play music and also SING pretty clearly!! Usually at this point I put my headphones on. It is very different from the work environment at home, where I find people are mostly quiet and working (although Friday afternoons and Saturdays people tend to get a bit wild). The team in India is always working together and talking, and they really enjoy working as a team rather than always by themselves. I find this to be a nice change and also a good stress reliever!

I made it through my first full day of work yesterday!! It was great to be in for the whole day. Kathryn and I gave a presentation back to the office at home on how things are going here (great so far) with a lot of pictures and some working tips. The picture above is of our team here. For some reason, people do not like to smile in pictures here, but as soon as you are done taking the picture, everyone starts laughing and smiling. For as much as we are all working, so far everyone is in good spirits.

There goes the banging on the metal pipes again...

Time to Get Ill

I asked my dad last week if I could still get sick in India since I hadn't yet and thought I was "out of the woods;" he laughed and said you can get sick at any time in India. To prove his point, I got sick on Tuesday, only my 5th day here. It started with some "stomach issues" (I keep my blog edited) in the morning and then by mid-day, nausea, fever and slightly chilled (though I couldn't tell if that was the airconditioning in the office, which is drastically different in every room just like in the Chicago office!) I took some advil and pepto and felt better, better enough to have pizza hut for "lunch" at 6pm. But by 7pm it had all come back, much worse, and I was in no condition to review work. Feeling weak and frustrated, I left the office around 7:30 and went home. I tried multiple times to call the travel clinic back home who did not understand that I just needed to talk to a doctor or nurse for 5 minutes to know if I should start my cipro antibiotic. I went to sleep that night in long pants, sweatshirt, two blankets and no A/C on in my room - that tells you how bad my chills were by then.

Wednesday I woke up at 11 and felt no better. I decided to take the Cipro and skip work and went back to sleep until about 4 (please keep in mind I was sick and not just being a lazy slob who sleeps all day). Upon waking up my fever had subsided, thank goodness, and I was feeling a bit better. I called the travel clinic about 8 more times and finally after becoming hysterical on the phone they let me talk to the nurse. I found it very difficult to gauge if I needed to go to the doctor or not, or if I could just take the antibiotic, and I just really needed a bit of advice. After talking with her, I decided to see how I felt after the second dose of Cipro and if I wasn't feeling totally better, see the doctor.

So today, Thursday I feel much better! I am so excited to go to work. I have a slight headache but I think this is maybe due to either dehydration or the fact that I am probably in caffeine withdrawal. Hopefully today will go well and I can avoid the doctor. If not, I do have the number for someone recommended by Deloitte so it should be no problem to go.

Goa Part II

Our only real full day in Goa was Sunday. We woke up around 10 and had breakfast in a cabana by the beach, and were visited by several stray kittens while we were eating. These cats are SO tiny - probably about 1/2 the size of one of my cats (and probably about 1/4 the size of Kelly or Tim's cat...ha ha). Cute as they were, none of us wanted fleas so we tried to keep away. We went down to the beach - about 1 min walk from our hotel door. The beach was gorgeous and HOT of course. When it got too warm, I just went for a dip in the Arabian Sea. The water was perfectly clear and a wonderful temperture. It just felt great. The major difference between this beach and any other beach that I noticed was that every 2 seconds, someone walked by trying to sell you books/fruit/pashminas/jewelry/sunglasses/peanuts/chai/water and pretty much anything else you could think of.

Jill and I took a long walk down the beach where we were approached to jet-ski, go to happy hour and also for photos. There were a lot of Indians at the beach, but lots of British tourists as well. At the end of the day, we had an amazing sunset, where we watched as the sun basically melted into the water. It was pretty awesome. For dinner that night, we had italian again, at this restaurant called J&A's that was on a goregous, christmas light -lit patio under palm trees and stars. As we finished our meal, the power went out (extremely common, I think it's happened at least once a day since I've been here) and then we really got a good look at the night sky!

Monday morning we had enough time for a quick breakfast and another swim. Goa was really beautiful with lots of really nice people there too. The thing that got me the most is that I would have never known such a place existed in India if I didn't go there myself to see it.

To see my pictures from Goa in addtion to what's here, copy and paste the below link into your browser. Lots of sunsets!

http://www.kodakgallery.com/Slideshow.jsp?Uc=5lax6oc9.66fmiw6p&Uy=5fcntr&Upost_signin=Slideshow.jsp%3Fmode%3Dfromshare&Ux=0&mode=fromshare&conn_speed=1

Love is All Around

I have 20 minutes before heading to work to write about Goa, which doesn't seem like enough time. So check back as I will probably need to write more about our awesome weekend!!

If you have seen the movie "The Beach," then you can picture the area where Goa is located. OK, I didn't see any Leonardo DiCaprio look alikes there and there were no lagoons or crazy sharks or anything like that but it was very lush and beautiful. Goa is located on the the west coast of India on the Arabian Sea. Jill (also from Deloitte), Kathryn and I arrived at the airport and ran into two guys, Andy and Chris, also from Deloitte, which worked out well for the weekend. When we arrived in Goa, our driver picked us up and immediately started blasting this Indian type techno music. It's impossible to describe the sound, but there was a lot of drum beats and chanting and the music felt exactly how it looked outside - sunny, sparkling water, green trees and flowers everywhere driving on the road, accented with lots of people (some of whom we almost took out driving!), cows, bicylces, colorful shops and mopeds. I felt quite happy and relaxed as we sped around the winding road for 45 minutes to the hotel.

We stayed at La Calypso Paradiso, right on the beach. Fortunately, our rooms were also right on an Italian restaurant, Bella Ciao. Everyone was so excited for pizza and beer!! We all sat and talked for several hours on the deck, looking out at the sea and eventually watching the sunset. It was warm, but a wonderful breeze was blowing off the water, so it felt perfect. After our late lunch, we all showered up - this was interesting for Jill and I, as we were sharing a room where the shower had no door (it had broken). So the bathroom became a splashy, swampy mess. Very fun. We got in a car and drove down basically this "dune buggy" road, crossed a scary bridge that felt like a roller coaster, and arrived at Ingo's Saturday Night Bazaar - a huge market with hundreds of merchants, a band, drinks and food and thousands of people from all over the world. I didn't feel like shopping at all, and it was somewhat overwhelming to even look in the tents because there was so much merchandise. But it was fun to people watch and walk around. A man was selling recorders and could play the first 10 or so notes of the "Titanic" song, which we heard about 100 times while we were there. We left around 930 and headed back to La Calypso. There we went down to a cabana on the beach and ordered nightcaps - I had a "mojito" (it was pronounced with a hard j sound there). We had company as well, as some stray kittens cruised by us and a stray dog came up, dug a hole and curled up in the sand right next to us. But the most fun visitor was a man in a cowboy hat who came up and announced he would sing "Love is all around by wet wet wet." He actually did very well with the words and sounded pretty good, however I think we all still found it quite funny that we were being serenaded and had a hard time keeping our composure.
ok, I must head to the office - part II and pictures to come!

Ants Marching

Friday was my first official day in India. I managed a decent night's sleep, when I awoke and got ready, Swarne arrived and cooked me some scrambled eggs (I must have looked hungry as she wanted to make me 4 eggs). Then we went on a tour of the Jayabheri and saw the pool (beautiful), work out room (will do), basketball and racquetball courts, and the conference center "in case I want to hold meetings here." There's also a room over looking the pool which we can reserve for parties...yet another reason for someone to come visit me.
Around 3, Neelakanta (our driver) took Kathyrn and I to Hi-tec City, home of RMZ futura block A where we would be working. We just missed President Bush who was in the area on Friday - Swarne observed that he "seemed like a nice man." I suppose he does seem nice...at any rate, we arrived to the office and went to block A, then back to B, then back to A and walked in to meet the IAS group. Heads popped up gopher like out of cubes to get a look at the 2 blondes from America. I don't think I have ever made such an entrance!
We met members of our team and were shown our seats - I share a desk space with Naren, who has been at Deloitte 2 years. It was very exciting to meet people who I have been talking with and working with a lot over the past several months. A bit later on we were led into a conference room where the midwest team had gathered to have a welcome reception for us - complete with flowers and 2 cakes! I was touched. And the cake was excellent.
Later as we settled down to working, the questions began. I was helping Sabya Sachi with a question on e-filing. "Is that ok?" I asked. Sabya Sachi shook his head no. "Err, do you understand?" I asked again, confused. "Yes, that's fine," he said, as he shook his head no again. I remembered then that it is common in India to shake your head to the side to mean "I understand, I'm listening to you." This happened several more times throughout the night and each time I felt my head beginning to jerk side to side as well.
Around 8pm, exhaustion/jetlag began to hit. We left at 10pm in the middle of an intense thunderstorm. Upon arriving home, we found that some friendly ants had made a trail to the trail mix I left open in the kitchen. So much for Trader Joe's in India. I fell asleep immediately and made it through the night, although I woke up numerous times.
Today Kathryn, Jill and I are headed to Goa, a beach town on the west coast. The weekend will surely bring lots of stories and hopefully good deals on jewelry.

Around the World 3.2.06

I am now on the other side of the world! My flights were good, relatively uneventful. Sitting in BC for the first time was wonderfully comfortable but also a little confusing. Example: Attendant brings over a tray of food. I reach up to grab the tray. "No miss, you need to take the whole tray." Later, she came by again to pick up the tray. A ha, I thought, and hand it to her, but "Miss, I only need your plate." They also didn't believe that I was 21, which I thought I was beginning to get past!
Entering the airport, the first thing I noticed was the heat. Also, the walls and hallways were quite plain, very little advertising and not in your face with food and merchandise everywhere like at U.S. airports. In fact I saw a lot of handprinted signs (example: the "Customs" sign was made out of a marker and 8x11 paper) Both of my bags got lost in Frankfurt, we only had 30 minutes to make the flights, so that was expected! The lost baggage episode was interesting, a group of people congregating all around this one poor woman with no order to anything. People complain just as much here about the process as at home. The good news is we got Rs 8,000 to cover expenses which will help me since I need to get clothes for Goa!
Our driver met us outside; I couldn't see much in the dark, but already I was in amazement as we drove with all of the buildings and people standing around everywhere despite that it was 2 in the morning. Our driver gave little "beeps" as we zipped along and used the lane lines more as a suggestion than a rule. The guest house was about 30 min from the airport, Swarne (our housekeeper) met us and showed us everything in the place. The picture above is in our dining area -not quite sure why there is a Christmas tree...She offered to make PBJ -needless to say I liked her immediately.

After a brief call to home I'm now off to bed. The adventure is just starting and I am excited for what's ahead. Good thing I am finally here so I can post some more exciting stories.