The pool

The nice thing about the Novotel is that it has a great pool and hardly anyone uses it. I packed my swimsuit, but forgot the cap and goggles. Yesterday I found those items at Hypercity so I am all set to swim daily for the next two weeks. My freckles are already back in full force... sigh...

Throwball Tournament

This morning was our throwball tournament at the Lal Bahadur sports complex. It was a lot of fun, but we did not win either of our games. I scored a couple of points in serving but was otherwise not very helpful!

End of Busy Season Party 2010

Backstage after getting all done up - me, Kabina, and Christina. The room was soooo hot and we were all sweaty. :(


The setting... a covered area at Shilparamam - Sampradaya Vedika.


Kabina, Matt, and me

After the fashion show - Manjari, me, and Bhavana

Party planning

These are the dresses that we are supposed to wear for the fashion show on Friday - ghagra choli. First of all, the midriff-baring dress thing is not going to happen. No way! Also, we are supposed to buy them before Friday. Mais c'est Mercredi, et trop cher pour moi! Hopefully we can find a place where we can just rent the dresses...

Anyway, the whole office is getting really excited about this party. We had a few visitors come through our floor early this afternoon to get everyone pumped up about it.

Too many meetings

Somehow I've gotten roped into a couple of extracurricular activities around here which seem to be almost as demanding as my real job! I joined a women's throwball team and we have a tournament on Saturday morning against a few other teams within our firm. We had practice last Friday and we are supposed to have two more practices at some point this week.

Next, I was guilted into volunteering for a fashion show to be held at our end-of-busy-season party this Friday night. Today was our first fashion show practice which took an hour. An hour. To have me awkwardly practicing runway poses. Me. This is why I am an accountant. I am no model, folks. I am not graceful. I hate being the center of attention. And I had to practice strutting down an imaginary runway with an Indian tax manager telling me, "Stop there! Turn! Hand on your left hip! Turn the other way! Pose there! Twist your body more to the front! Lean back!"

Ohh emm gee. I wish I could have taken a video of the practice. Not a video of me. A video of the manager/fashion show producer.

The Hyderabad folks have a disco theme and will be modeling disco wear. However, they wanted to have the U.S. expats and short-term rotators do a fashion show in traditional Indian dress, which I guess means that I have to go buy a sari in the next two days.

After fashion show practice I had about one whopping hour to get some of my real job done, and then it was time for a team dinner. Since there are 13 Hyderabadi team members, I split the team into two groups to enable me to get to know everyone better. Tonight, the senior consultants and experienced staff went out. On Thursday, I'll take the newer staff members out. We went to a place called 36 Chhatees where I had more Indian food than I'd ever had in my life. The team was highly amused at the foods that I deemed spicy. Baby steps.

I forgot my camera, and my iPhone doesn't take great pictures in the dim lighting - but here's our dinner group (clockwise around the table): Anupama, Manjari, Vinod, Narayana, Gouri, Srinivas, me, and Bhavani.

Hooters

Womens' dress in India is pretty conservative. For example, women do not even wear knee-length skirts to the office. So I must say I was quite surprised to notice Hooters in Hyderabad.

Weekend 1 of 3

It's Sunday afternoon already, and I just realized that I only have two more weekends left here. It's been a solitary but enjoyable weekend.

Yesterday I intended to join a cricket match in Secunderabad for expats & rotators. Unfortunately, my sleep schedule got a little messed up on Friday, and I wasn't able to fall asleep until 7 AM Saturday morning. Needless to say, I decided not to go to the 8 AM event! Instead I slept until noon, then went shopping at the mall. The Inorbit mall is nice, but it's so westernized that I almost didn't feel like I was in India (except that I only saw maybe 2 other caucasians the entire time). I browsed in a few stores, but nothing seemed like a good deal. Plus, I wasn't really looking for anything specific.

Finally, I made my last stop at HyperCity - think Target - to buy groceries. I don't like Indian food or spiciness, so my options here are extremely limited! I'm already tired of my three main options from last week: (1) room service, (2) Subway, and (3) Zone bars. I don't know why I didn't think of it before, but yesterday I asked the hotel to remove all the items from my mini-bar refrigerator, and I stocked it myself. Behold the bounty from HyperCity:


By the way, this juice box is my new favorite drink. I hope I can find this somewhere at home. I don't know why this flavor is not more popular in the US... sooo delicious!

We understand your world.

Oh really? Because if they REALLY understood, wouldn't they use an image with the correct currency in the wallet?

Let's go to the mall!

I needed a couple of small things that the hotel didn't have, so I was told to go to Inorbit, a shopping mall near the hotel and office. The signs say that it is South India's largest shopping mall. I got a couple of things at HyperCity, which is like a Target.

I didn't actually need Listerine, but the label amused me so much that I had to buy it.


Also, as I was leaving the mall, I saw a sign for Gloria Jean's Coffee. Working at Gloria Jean's in the Saddle Creek Shopping Center in Germantown, TN was one of my first jobs. I loved that store, and I've complained a lot about it being gone. (I don't actually drink coffee at all, but I like Gloria Jeans' non-coffee drinks better than Starbucks'). Imagine my surprise to see that I can get Gloria Jeans in Hyderabad but not in Germantown. I didn't actually have time to find it, because I wanted to get to the office early, but I am definitely going back to Inorbit this weekend. :)

And of course, my good friend Coke, dressed in a festive label. I'm so glad I can get this stuff anywhere in the world!!

Commute!

First Day (Back) in India

I'm back in Hyderabad for the first time in almost exactly 3 years. Honestly, I had been so focused on planning my post-India vacation in London & Paris with Brittany that I forgot to be excited about being back here in India, but once I landed I was reminded of a lot of fun memories from my last trip!

I left Memphis at 2:48 pm on Saturday. First stop was Chicago, where I had a brief layover - just enough time to hit up the United business lounge, watch an episode of Glee season 1 part 2, and get all relaxed with my new favorite drink, a Tanquerray and tonic (thanks to Critter for the recommendation). At 6:30 I departed Chicago bound for Frankfurt - an 8 hour + 14 minute flight. The plane was pretty old, and business class didn't have the lay-flat seats. It was not very comfortable. Also, the power in the seat didn't work so my computer became useless after the second episode of Glee, after which I was intending to get some work done. I decided to take that as my cue to try to sleep, so after dinner was cleared away, I took a sleeping pill. The next thing I remember, they were serving breakfast with only an hour left in the flight.

It was 10:00 AM when we landed in Frankfurt. We had to walk off the plane and board a bus that shuttled us to the terminal. An older gentleman sat next to me on the bus, and his wife was right across the aisle. Noticing a St. Louis Cardinals luggage tag on his bag, I asked where he was from. It turns out he and his wife live in Alton, IL, which is only about a 20-minute drive from the college where Phil and I met as undergrads. I didn't catch their names, but hopefully my they are now having a fabulous time on their tour of Rome and their cruise around Greece!

I only had an hourlong layover in Frankfurt, so I made a quick stop to buy some postcards for all my favorite little Texans (no, not Brittany...) and then had to rush to my next gate. Fortunately, the Lufthansa plane was a lot nicer than the United one. My seat mate was a nice man from Ohio who was making a 3-day trip to Hyderabad, a 2-day trip to Chennai, and then returning home. I can't imagine that kind of itinerary. I'm glad I'll be staying here long enough to get accustomed to the time change and decompress after 24 straight hours of travel. Honestly, if I had to get back on a plane on Friday night, I would not be my usually pleasant self. I think four weeks is just about a perfect stay for me.

The flight from Frankfurt to Hyderabad was 8 hours + 22 minutes. I stayed awake the entire time. What a short day! We departed Frankfurt at 11:00 AM local time, and about four hours later I looked out my window to see the prettiest sliver of the moon on the horizon:

It was a very strange feeling... the shortest day I can ever remember! We finally landed in Hyderabad at 11:30 PM local time at the new Rajiv Gandhi International Airport, which is stunning. (Actually, it's not "new" - it's been open about 2.5 years, but the last time I was here it wasn't open yet, so it's new to me.)

Lucky me, my 2 checked bags were the very first to come out on the belt, so I was out of the airport very quickly. It's pretty intimidating when you walk out of customs to the area where all of the drivers and relatives are waiting for passengers, especially since I was the first one from my flight to walk out. However, my driver from the hotel found me right away and then we were off.

I was actually looking forward to the adventure of getting re-familiarized with Indian traffic habits, but the trip from the airport to the Novotel was uneventful. There's a highway that goes right from the airport to the Hitec City area; it looks pretty new. We hardly encountered any other cars along the way and it only took about 20 minutes to reach the hotel. I got checked in, unpacked, called Phil on Skype, and then crashed around 3 AM, waking up on my own at 8 AM.

Sunday was complete waste of a day! I wanted to get a lot of work done, but I found myself stuck in a post-travel haze all day. I did venture out of the room for breakfast and then sat by the pool for 10 minutes, but I didn't have a book (stupid me didn't pack any non-electronic reading materials) so I got bored quickly. I spent the rest of the day as a lazy recluse in my room. The day's non-highlights included a 3-hour nap, work, staring out the window at the people playing volleyball in the pool, watching French programs on TV, and video chatting with Phil and Brittany via gmail.

I made myself go to bed at 12:30 AM with hopes of sleeping till 8, but only slept for 2 hours and then popped up, wide awake, hungry, and bored. Please pardon this long, tedious blog entry but there's not much else to do at this hour. Now I have 7 hours before I have to go in to work (my team works 2 PM to 11 PM IST but I like to get in by 1 PM). At some point before then I should probably get a couple more hours of sleep.... like I said, I'm glad I'll be here long enough to adjust!

Memphis, Chicago, Frankfurt, Hyderabad, London, Paris, Miami

Yes, that's my travel itinerary - 4 weeks in India, 5 days in London, 2 days in Paris, and 4 days in Miami. I just threw Chicago and Frankfurt in for effect, but I'll only be passing through their airports. I'm very excited to have something to blog about once again!