Hi everyone. Just remembered I promised I would start a blog of my travels, it has been a little hectic so far, so just now had a moment to start it. Also am being lazy with my first post and just cut and paste the text of an email I sent to my mom, easier then typing the whole same story twice in slightly different words :) I do plan on adding some pictures once I get out to see more of the country. Right now haven't seen much other than the hotel and the road to work, and the office, though I will get some pictures up of all those things soon too. I miss everyone both in my family and at the office, and hope everyone is doing well.
No for a small disclaimer (and I am only partially kidding): This blog, and the postings therein, are not sponsored by, nor endorsed by Hewitt Associates, its subsidiaries, or affiliates; The opinions expressed here are my own and no one elses, and this is intended to be a completely informal way for me to keep those that care to read the blog up to date on my adventures and work.
(To translate: This isn't going to be just about work, and the writing is going to be less than formal and/or coherent, but hey I'm 8,000 miles away, give me a break)
Work is going really well so far, everyone there is so accommodating and nice, and they all want to seem to watch out for me too, they are great, and all really into the training. They already figured I wouldn't want to eat their cafeteria food, even though it's free, so they ordered me pizza Monday night and Wednesday, from Domino's pizza no less. Was exactly like pizza at home. I did eat the cafe food at work yesterday, and it was very good actually, though really spicy. The hotel food is better than anything at any U.S. restaurant that I have ever eaten at, and since they have U.S. customers mostly here, they have more American dishes than Indian ones actually. Costs about 10 dollars to eat a meal in the cafe at the hotel, but a 6 oz can of coke is almost 3 dollars, so one of the first things I did was find a gas station I could walk to to buy some for the fridge in the room, a glass bottle of coke, which is probably a dollar each in the U.S., comes out to 20 cents here, pretty sure the shop keeper thought it was strange that I was buying 5 at once, and he made me promise to bring back the bottles, and when I did two days later, the next time he only charged me 25 cents each for 5 more cokes, maybe he is happy he has a repeat customer for the next month :) So I have walked there every other day, it is perfectly safe by the way they say. Seems like it would be considering almost the whole block is Indian Air Force and Army officers apartments. Though there are these little three wheeled cabs that run around all over the place, and in the half mile walk I have to decline a ride at least 5 or 6 times from those guys as they drive by, it seems they think if I make eye contact I must need a ride someplace.
Haven't really had a chance to see much of the country yet, with working over night it has taken me really until yesterday to figure out when I should be sleeping. It is 7:00 PM at home right now, but 5:30 in the morning here. I am also a little scared about being a tourist by myself, but there is someone from another team in Lincolnshire that will be coming this weekend and we met before I left, and we are already chatting about taking some weekend trips together. Can't come to India and not see the Taj Mahal at least. One of the chauffeurs from the hotel that took me to work told me he would drive me all the way there, which is about 3 hours each way, I think he was so surprised I tipped him 50 rupees to wait for me at the mall (about 1 dollar and 25 cents) that he wanted to make sure I used him for any other excursions. It was just too hot to shop anywhere outside, and I needed some clothes, but was almost 10 degrees outside.
Oh, and I realized after I got here that I didn't bring enough of some stuff, like socks. The hotel washes two items a day for free, but after that I would have to pay, and even after the conversion, it costs about 4 dollars to wash one pair of socks, so it is cheaper to just buy them, hence the mall. As soon as I figure out the Indian equivalent of a Wal-Mart or something, I will probably start washing that kind of stuff in the bathtub.
But even though it is expensive in some things, the service in the hotel is like nothing I have ever seen in my life. Just a little story about it. They had left a small box of chocolates in the room when I checked in, just four little pieces, but it was so tasty I had to ask for some more. So I stopped down at guest services and asked where I could buy some. To my surprise, they told me they do not have it for sale, that it is a special creation of the house chef and and only provided for guests at check in. The manager then asked me if I would like him to send some to the room, and before I could respond, asked how many boxes I would like. So I sort of sheepishly responded "one ore two." He then responded "OK, I'll send ten, it can be a chocolate lunch for you today, on the house." So now every time I see that manager he asks me if I would like more chocolates, which I have managed to decline so far.
I did take a few hours this week to check out a bazaar, which sold a bunch of hand made artwork and jewelry. The work was all amazing, little marble figures, and bracelets, and carpets. The carpet dealer seemed to think that because I am an American, I must be rich, and spent an hour trying to sell me $2,000 carpets (with free shipping to the U.S!) before they would let me politely leave. When I told that to the guys at work, they said I can't be polite in those situations, just have to say a firm no and make my exit.
Also found a golf course nearby, so hopefully either he or someone else will join me so I can demonstrate my lack of any golfing skills whatsoever.
I miss Justin a lot, so much I try not to think about it, though I talk to him every day. I can not describe how painful it is to hear my little boy tell me that he misses me and wants me to come home, especially when I can't let him hear me upset or he would get upset himself. Guess I knew it would be hard being away from him, but didn't fully understand how hard it would be. But I will manage, and we will have a fun reunion, will probably reserve another room at Key Lime Cove in Gurnee for the weekend I get back, since I am going to take two vacation days to spend with Justin before I get back to work, will probably take me that long to sleep again anyway.
Anyway, that's about the story for now. Will try to post at least every three days or so, and will try to get the stories more interesting.
Also, as a "final" note, I have already went back and re-written or added to several pieces of this post, so it is even less structured then it was to begin with, for which I offer my since apologies :)
P.S. (Will this post ever end! jeez) Also should mention that while the actual flying part was OK, the Ohare flight was delayed almost 4 hours, and I had exactly four hours that I was supposed to be in Frankfurt, but because of the delay, even though the flight attendant told me it was impossible, I sprinted across the Frankfurt Airport, which is for no reason seemingly the largest airport on the face of the Earth, and I did catch my flight out of Germany on time, but the flight was not. They discovered some trivial dent in the wing during fueling that would have "possibly altered the airflow over the wing, causing turbulence" so we sat on the tarmac in Germany for over two hours before we took off from there. They then lost a bag of mine in Germany, and it took two extra days to make it to the hotel in India, and Lufthansa did also give me $50 in "We're sorry" money. So that was fun. All I wished for was a safe trip, and I definitely got what I wished. So I promise no more edits of this post, I will create new ones in the future. Thanks for reading my novel if you made it this far.
See ya-
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