Home!

I'm Home!!!

Flying home was looooong and tiring. 30 hours awake by the time we got home.

<3

Amazing trip to Kerala

Ignoring the fact that in the past 48 hours, I probably spent well over 24 of it in the car... the trip to Kerala was so amazing! As soon as you get out of Bangalore it changes. There is less traffic.. though never NO traffic & I think I actually like the driving in the city more! On the country roads, it's a little narrow road & the pass each other like it's nothing. More than a few times, there was screaming & falling coming from us girls =) Hah.

Everything is so green & beautiful. I'll post pictures now & stories later. We spent the first day on a house boat in the Backwaters of India. Then the second day was the wedding & the trip back. The wedding was beautiful, very quick though. & it is HUMID as anything down in Kerala. Unfortunatly Sindu T's father was not well enough to attend the actual ceremony but you do see him in a picture. He is sitting down in a white chair. He stayed at the reception hotel but she visited him many times.

Then we changed, shopped quickly & got back in the car for the ride home! We stopped at so many people's houses I can't even keep up! Everyone is so nice, but everyone wants to feed you! Ugh, Harriet you're right! Hot Dogs... Mmmm. =) ANYTHING! Actually, on the way back, we stopped to get some ice cream (cause we all had sore throats & coughs by this point) and they had "American style cream & onion chips"... Lemme tell you, they don't taste like sour cream & onion chips do back home! & they're even from Lays! But they were a nice break & filled my stomach.

And now pictures =)

(sorry, they're horribly out of order)

Busy Busy Busy!

Gosh, the days are so busy, I can't even keep up with writing a quick blog!

Last night the group went out for dinner. I only took ONE picture we were having such a good time! I wish I hadn't forgot! We went out to a Thai/Chinese restaurant that has really good food & they have chopsticks, which is great!

I won't be able to update for a few days. Tonight after work we are leaving for Kerala & will return on Thursday night. I'm hoping to have internet access again on Friday, as long as we come into the office. If not, I may not have an update until I get home!

So busy!

I can't believe we've been in the office for two weeks already!!! Time flies here, there isn't really a moment where you have free time.

We get up & have breakfast around 7:30 & leave by 8:00 for the office.
We arrive by 9am & start working. They have tea around 10:30, lunch at 1:15 & tea again around 4:00. Before you know it, it's 6:00! Sometimes we have to stay for one reason or another, I don't think we've left the office at 6pm yet.. usually 6:30 or 7.. Tonight... it's 7 =(.

By the time we get home it's at the VERY least 8pm. We haven't not hit traffic yet. And one day we even got stuck in mud! ugh.. i took pictures, but haven't taken them off my camera yet.

The hardest part is, everyone wants to take you somewhere & all you want to do is go home, eat & sleep.

Last night was Shalini's son's birthday party. We took Padmini home & picked up her son & then headed over. We didn't even get there until around 8:30. We hung around until about quarter of 10, dropped Padmini back at her house & went home. It was around 11 when we finally got back to the hotel!

Tonight, is a quick shopping stop & then SLEEEPPPP. But I think we're having KFC for dinner first =) If I never ate rice again, I can't say i'd be sad. Yesterday they made us french fries for lunch! It was great... though they were cut so small they were more like skinny potato chips.

I'll update again soon!!!

It's all sinking in now...

The simplicity of India really starts to make you rethink things. At work, when they cut the grass, a man literally sits cross legged on the grass with a sickle & cuts handfuls of grass. It's amazing, they have so much technology at their fingertips, but somethings just don't change. And the more you look at things, the more you realize they don't live survival of the fittest, just survival. If they used a lawnmower, he wouldn't have a full time job. Many of the things they keep simple really preserve jobs for the lower income society.
It's kind of the same thing with the wild dogs. At first you look at them and feel bad. They don't have a warm place to sleep at night & who takes care of them? But as you watch them, they live like a pack. They find food & they're free to roam where ever they want. The more you look at watch them, you start to feel worse for the dogs that ARE pets, chained outside of a house, not able to play with all the other dogs. It's just different here, & when you just sit back & observe, see it all fall into place.
Personally, it makes me feel very silly for being materialistic... (not that I even really am!) I see them want something & it makes me want to give it to them! Why do I need this wallet when I have 5 others at home... stuff like that. So far this has definatly been an interesting trip.. I can't wait to see what else India has instore for me!!

Weddings - 1 down, 1 to go! (& lots of pictures!)

Today we got up early (6:30 on a Sunday! if you notice, I'm actually still in my PJ's!) and went for a walk in a park with Shalini & a friend of hers. We rode the scooters over! They're actually really fun, once you get over the initial feeling that you're going to hit a bump & fly off the back. =) The walk was beautiful, trees, dogs, flowers. & these horrible looking snake houses! I'm just glad we didn't see any snakes to go along with them. Apparently the ants build them & then the cobras take them over & live in them; they're about as tall as a person.
Towards the end of our walk, we came to a field where they were playing cricket so we decided to sit & watch for a while. Quite an interesting game, so many rules though.

After we decided to pamper ourselves with Manicures & Pedicures before the wedding... if only I knew what I was getting myself into, I would have opted to stay at home! Here I am, sitting in a bright pink room, on a plastic lawn chair with my feet in a bucket of hot water. Hot water that was minutes prior to being in the bucket, heated

on the stove in the main part of the shop. It was pretty interesting. Cheap but not relaxing at all.

Then it was back home for a quick lunch & a nap! I was sooo tired. I slept from 3 until 6 when it was time to get ready for the wedding! Watching them wrap us up in the Sari's is crazy, they do it so quickly & without even thinking & it looks so effortless too when they're done. & man, those things are HOT! & ontop of that it was super hot out. So we get all dressed up in our sari's & took some pictures.




















Once the pictures were taken we climbed into an Auto Rickshaw & took off for the wedding. I must say, it felt a little out of place to be in a Rickshaw in a beautiful Sari, but I've gotten quite used to them by now. The venue was covered in lights & very pretty. Since we were there a little before the rest of the group, we went next door to the temple to see the inside. I'm getting used to having to take my shoes off everywhere now! Though I had on shoes with ankle straps... which were difficult to get off in the Sari. On that note, it's pretty hard to do EVERYTHING in a Sari. I give them a lot of credit for wearing them. Walking up stairs was the hardest part to get the hang of. You have to lift from the right spot or else you just step on it anyway. I stepped on it a few times =) but no disasters, Shalini had me pinned in there very well!

















So after we went back into the hall for the reception. The Bride & Groom have to stand on a huge stage under all these lights, while people stand in a recieving line & wait to get a picture taken with them. Once you have gone on stage, you go into a back room, eat & leave.

While you're waiting in line though, there's singing & some guy walking around with a huge camera with a SUPER bright light on it. They like to shine it on us too... we defiantly stand out from the crowd! By the time we got up to the stage I was so overheated & dehydrated all I wanted to do was drink a huge thing of water & go to bed. Unfortunately, we can't drink the water there so we had to send someone out to get us a few bottles. So we all sat & ate (off of banana leaves) & made our way out of the building. Before departing, we took a group picture.



Then Abdul was nice enough to give us a ride back to the hotel in his car.

Falling asleep will be easy tonight!






Here are some more pictures that didn't fit up above =)

Weekend Finally!

Friday was a long day at work We only have a few more days left in the office & so much stuff to do!Friday night we had a nice dinner in an open air restaurant on the top floor of a resturant. The food was good & it was a beautiful night! I finally found Malai Kofta on a Menu! Though it was not the Malai Kofta that I am used to back home at all! It was in a white sauce & the balls had cheese in them... odd since most everything else i've had has been very similar. Mmm, garlic Naan! =)

Saturday we finally got to sleep in! We had a late lazy breakfast & called Shalini to find out the plans. We called a car & headed off. It was our last day to shop for everything we needed for the wedding. We picked up bangles, bindi's & the underskirt's for Sari's. On the way out we stopped & picked up some snacks, vegetables & fruit. I'm constantly amazed at the prices here. We picked up about 3 bags of fresh vegetables for Dinner. It came to 130 rupees ($3)! The fruit was a little more, but still only around 300 rupees ($7.50) we bought Pineapples, Guava, Papaya, Pears, Apples & Bananas! & I bought Pomegranates!! my favorite!


We decided it would be better to stay at Shalini's house (left) for the wedding since she had to dress us! So back to the hotel to pack up an overnight bag. On the way back, we picked up some KFC (yes, KFC in India!) for dinner. I was glad too because eating so much rice is starting to get to me. I don't usually eat rice at home very often. On that road there was also a Subway, & Pizza Hut. Interesting...





Christina, Shalini & I sat up painting our nails for the wedding. We somehow convinced Shalini to paint her nails BRIGHT pink (neon almost) that I had brought from home. With all the bright colors they wear here, they still wear very dark plain nailpolish. But we got it on her & her mother & her friend! =) They think it looks better on us, we think it looks better on them!


Can't wait for the wedding, I'm getting so excited!!

Homesick

I've only been gone a week! And I'm already quite homesick. The people here focus so much on their family, it makes me miss everyone. Even the kitties & rico! I talk to Paul everynight (morning for him) on the internet, which works out well & I have called home once, but the call was short. I just hope everyone is doing well & knows I miss them!

They have a nice newsletter here at Waters India that they print up & mail out every month. This was in this Month's version.

My Father
When I was:
- 4 years old: My daddy can do anything
- 5 years old: My daddy knows a whole lot
- 6 years old: My dad is smarter than your dad
- 8 years old: My dad doesn't know exactly everything
-10 years old: In the olden days, when my dad grew up, things were different
- 12 years old: Oh, well, naturally, Father doesn't know anything about that. He's to old to remember his childhood
-14 years old: Don't pay attention to my father, he's so old fashioned.
- 21 years old: Him? My lord, he is hopelessly out of date
- 25 years old: Dad knows a little about it, but then he should because he's been around so long
- 30 years old: Maybe we should ask dad what he thinks. After all, he's had a lot of experience
- 35 years old: I'm not doing a single thing until I talk to dad
- 40 years old: I wonder how daddy would have handled it. He was wise & had a world of experience
- 50 years old: I'd give anything if dad were here now so I could talk this over with him. Too Bad I didn't appreciate how smart he was. I could have learned a lot from him

I'll have more of an update later. I've got to go pick up the Sari's for the weddings this morning & have some other running around to do.
Sammie

Day 4, back in the office!

I can't quite keep up with the weather here. It rains atleast once a day & usually when I'm outside =P Atleast the heat isn't unbearable, though it can get hot.
I've loved getting emails from everyone! I can't check them at work, so when I get home it's a nice treat to hear from you all! I wore my Ganesha necklace to work & everyone loved it! Yay. I think I may have to take a trip back to the scarf store before I return. The prices were just to good to pass up!

Today was actually uneventful. Got some good training done, started my pricing presentation, though I have a few more emails I have to get to. I love being out on the floor with everyone, it's so nice to watch them interact with eachother. They take care of eachother very well. I also love the way everyone eats together! In the morning everyone goes & gets tea, some sit for a few minutes while others return to their desks. Then for lunch everyone goes down & sits together. Once everyone is done, they break off into smaller groups & walk around the grounds. The office is beautiful! Everything is so open & you can actually breath fresh air! That's a nice break from how closed off the Milford office is. You actually HAVE to walk outside to get to the Cafe & bathrooms. (though I was shown the long way the other day when it was raining!)

I will update more with new pictures & info once I get home. Christina, Sharlini & I (along with the new trainer, forgive me, I can't remember her name!) are going off to an exhibition tonight.)

Sammie

Day 3 (not in the office)

So no work today due to the strike. Went out & did some shopping. First we stopped at the Cauvery. It has tons of wood carvings & brass statues. I bought a gift for someone =) Then we headed off to a store that Christina buys her loose stones from. The guy was super nice. He asked me for my birthday & then told me which stone would help balance my life. I bought one star ruby, which is specifically from Bangalore & then I bought two stones for Paul's birthday & am going to have them made into a ring. They both happened to be purple so they looked pretty next to eachother. I also picked out two peridot stones to have earrings made out of.

So then we headed off to this store that had all sorts of good stuff. We looked at beadspreads but they were more than I wanted to spend, then we looked at a few more carvings. Everyone keeps telling me I need to bring home sandalwood, but I want a big statue of Ganesha in a darker wood. I'll have to find a smaller sandlewood statue for myself. Also in that store was a cute little jewlery spot. Christina & I spent about 40 minutes looking through all their stuff. Finally I found something perfect! It's a pendant, with a 10 karat blue stone in it. It has Ganesha carved into it. It was more than I wanted to spend, but I was assured that the stone alone was worth it. So I purchased it & I am so glad I did! It's beautiful!

So much for a relaxing day! We walked all over the place! We had dinner at the Hard Rock Cafe, interesting! It was actually my first time in a hard rock cafe! Now it's time for some down time so I will update more again later.

Goodnight!

Sammie

Day 2!

Day two has run much smoother than day one. Though not without a few bumps in the road =) I trained Vinod for most of the day, though they had a training on Lotus notes for about an hour and a half, so it gave me a chance to get some of my own work done.

Edit: Day two has no longer gone smoother than day one!!!

I wasn't feeling well, it was a little hard to breath, but I had never heard of poppy seeds in indian food so I kind of ignored it (fyi, if you don't know I'm allergic to poppy seeds). I also had the hiccups so I blamed it on this. Then when I went to leave it was getting worse, so I took a benadryl. So I'm in the car on the way to go shopping for a Sari for the wedding & I ask Shalini... "Does indian food ever contain poppy seeds?" And she says, oh yea that thing you tried today does, often we grind them up for flavor!" GREATTTTT... So now I really don't know what I'm going to do. I'll have to be asking before I eat anything.

Then like 10 minutes later Shalini gets a text from the office saying that Waters is closed tomorrow. The government decided that no one in Bangalore will work tomorrow because it will not be safe. Lovely! Though I can't find anything on the news about it.. so I'm not sure what's really going on.

The good news is, I got two Sari's. One beautiful black one & another orangey color. Then I also got a Salmar in a beautiful orange/red with tan pants. We bought the material & took it down to a seamstress. Got measured & left it there. The first wedding is Sunday & Sindu T's is two sundays from now. Can't wait to get them back & try them on!

Quick Update

Today was our first day in the India Office. Sunday we went shopping around Bangalore. Took a few rickshaws... interesting. Walked down to Commercial St. also interesting. It's so hard to explain India. It's this amazing place where at first everything's chaotic, but the more you watch it & observe everything, you realize it just works. It works perfectly.

Tonight we went out to a great restaurant on the top floor of a big building. I had Palik Paneer Kofta. Since in the US I usually have Palik Paner or Malai Kofta, I figured this would be good! It was!! And the garlic nan. The major difference I've noticed is that the rice is brown (well, not white.. not sure if it's brown or just cooked in something to make it not white). Where as in the US, it always seems to be jasmine rice. Still good though. I actually haven't had bad indian food yet & I haven't been sick from it. So I'm glad about that!

I promise to update more!!! I just haven't had time yet!

Sammie

And it begins!

I just barely finished packing before the car & Christina arrived at the house. On top of that, my bag was currently 5 lbs over the weight limit! (just picture Paul & I weighing this huge bag on the small bathroom scale.. hah) So I said my goodbyes & jumped into the car. Arrival was uneventful & we checked in with no problems (come to find out the overseas limit is 70 lbs). Since Christina flies with British Airways all the time, we got to go up and sit in the lounge. Pretty nice spot to sit while waiting. Much better than the terminal! Watched a little Reba, drank some great iced tea & had snacks. So then we boarded.

I ended up sitting next to this supernice Indian Couple who were headed to.. you guessed it! India! About 5 minutes into the flight the captain comes on & starts his sentance with "Just wanted to let you know, we're having a problem... " Cue heart leaping out of chest as this is my first major flight in a long time! Thankfully after much to long of a pause, he finished " we're just resetting the Video system" etc, etc.

The flight total was about 6 hours & by the time they finished dinner service, it was almost halfway through & ontop of that I couldn't sleep. I probably got about an hour sleep the whole ride. I did get to see the moon rise thought.

When we landed in Heathrow it was around 6am & I actually got to see the sunrise from the plane... what a beautiful view! We had already started the descent to land though so unfortunately I had put my camera away. Though I doubt a picture would have done it justice.
So we landed, and began our long voyage to terminal 5. We were going down an escalator to wait for a bus & at the bottom, the line was so long that there was no where to get off the escalator! Christina's shoes must have fit right into the teeth of the escalator because it wripped the rubber bottoms right off her heels! She clicked her way through the rest of the terminal! =) That was the beginning of our interesting adventure!

To get to terminal 5, we waited in this line for about 20 minutes, got on a bus with lots of people, drove (ONE THE WRONG SIDE OF THE ROAD! excuse me, left side of the road) for about another 20 minutes. Then took a inside little metro type thing, and lots of escalators!



The terminal itself was ac tually quite nice. But the lounge was closed, so out with the civilians it was for us!

The flight over to France was a little less than an hour in the air, nice & quick. We landed in Paris around 10am, got our luggage, went through a passport check & found our driver. He was very nice, not much english though. We drove right into the heart of Paris & to our hotel, about a 5 minute walk from the Arc de Triomphe!

Im so compleatly exhausted I can't even begin to type the rest of my journal up (been keeping it in writing so I don't have to remember anything! I will leave you with some interesting pictures though.

Love,
Sammie

Today's the day!

I'm all packed & ready to go! Just a few last minute running around things to do today & I'll be on my way!

We fly out of Boston tonight at 6pm & after a few stops arrive in India at 4am Sunday Morning!! Ugh, that's early. Im really hoping I can sleep on the Plane cause if not I'm going to be one cranky lady =P

One of our previous employees will be picking us up at the airport & taking us out shopping. Then hopefully to the hotel for a good nights rest!

India Trip Blog

Ok, here's were I will be adding all sorts of adventures & pictures from my upcoming trip to India, & quick stops in Paris & England.

Feel free to leave comments, I should be able to pick them up most days atleast during the week.

See you all again soon!

-Sammie

(pictures above & below are from Erika Sidor's recent trip)