Look to the side bar list to see "bucket o photos." I just filled up my "princess pics" site. So, here's the new one. I've posted some not-so-exciting neighborhood photos. I suggests the slide show.

I met some of my SEs today. I went to their meeting and every once in a while someone would use a Hindi word and they would turn to me and translate.

One time someone said, “Tikay” which is “Okay.” I said, “I knew that one, I know two words in Hindi, “Tikay” and “Bus.””

“Oh- Haha- ha-ha-ha” they laughed like that was a great joke.

Maybe it is funny that the only two words I know to say in Hindi are “okay” and “stop.”

So I have a washing machine. (I’ve only ever has access to my own washer when I’ve lived in third world countries. I like to think of it as a perk.)

I sorted and loaded up my clothes the other day and turned it on and . . . nothing happened. Many of the electrical sockets have on/off switches here, so I switched the socket switch and turned the washer on and . . . nothing happened.

That sucks!

I called my “in the event of any issue” contact guy and he said, “Sure, I’ll send an electrician tomorrow.” It’s been over a week. I guess I should call him back. He also mentioned something about telling the guard. (My apt building has a “chokidar” a “gate man” if you will. He just kind of hangs out all day and watches people walk in and punch the code in to open the door. I guess he opens and closes the gates for people with vehicles.)

I told him my problem and he said, “Yes, yes, okay.”

I don’t think he had any idea what I told him.

In any event I went to check on the situation again yesterday. In case, you know, for no reason at all something had suddenly changed and it was going to work. I opened the washer and there was a big fat RAT! Just sitting there happy-as-you-please on my new blue shirt!

I, of course, reacted immediately by 1. Screaming, and 2. Hysterically slamming the lid shut and running away. I noticed that the rat squeezed his way out of the barrel and into the casing of the machine before I slammed the lid.

I know I shouldn’t really be shocked. There are rats, (and dogs and cows) everywhere. I saw one (rat, not cow) in the drain outside the other day. The rats are in the Microsoft building, big time. They aren’t shy either. They run across the ceiling and they have colonized the cafeteria. Lots of LSs (Language Specialists, this place is full of acronyms) refuse to eat there because of the rats.

But it’s no use, they are everywhere. If they are here, they are in every restaurant.

I would have to go to the bother of cooking all my own food, and that’s just not going to happen.

I have, on the other hand gone to the bother of buying new clothes (just one outfit so far, I have hand washed a thing or two as well) until I figure out how to get somebody to fix my outlet.

I’m taking a break. This is my first day at work “on my own.” I have accomplished next to nothing. I have attempted to accomplish at least two or three things.

I did my first report and after sweating over it for over an HOUR (that’s a long time for me to do any one thing) I got a ‘server error.’

I’m in a freaking room full of software engineers, but I had to call the “global helpdesk” (in the US) so that they could route me to-- you guessed it-- an Indian SE (software engineer, remember that so I don’t have to type it out each time) so that he could transfer me to another one so that he could tell me I had contacted the wrong department.

My job is to help the communication process between Indian SEs and North American customers and I didn’t understand what my guy was saying. That was on account of his accent as much as I didn’t even know what I was asking him to do. I only knew that my computer wasn’t doing what I wanted it to do and nobody on my team knew how to deal with it.

It still doesn’t work.

Drat.

I started mah perpetratin' yesterday. I was Ballin' Benjamin . Yippie yo, you can't see my flow. He?s mah second degree of separizzles from Killa . Bounce wit me. They worked bitch briefly in Moscow . Boom bam as I step in the jam, God damn.

Sound in the least bit familiar? this is the "Gizoogle" "translation." I added it to my side bar list.

www.gizoogle.com

Do it now!

I started my training yesterday. I was “Shadowing” Benjamin. He’s my second degree of separation from Summer. They worked together briefly in Moscow.

The line of newbies at work goes like this newest: Me- Sergio- Benjamin- Leslie.

Leslie, Benjamin and I sat down to eat dinner before we started training. It was like the Spanish Inquisition. It started out with general questions, “Where you from?” “Where you been?” “What were you doin’ there?”
When we got to “What did you study in college?” I knew the Inquisition was about to go into full swing.”

“Tell me, tell me Don Miguel . . .”

I said, “Bible.”
They both looked at me as though I’d said a fancy French word.
Leslie said “Bible? You mean like Theology or Bible” (an extended southern glide /ay/ working here Bible as in isle.)
I said, “I studied Theology, comparative religions and Biblical Literature, but yeah, we just called it Bible.”

Later we spoke about the idols . . . how I’m a bit weirded out by the idols. It’s not that I fear them, because although I believe they are representative of power in the spiritual world, they only have the power that people give them through fear, worship and prayer. I think it’s defiantly a spiritual warfare issue. I don’t want them at my desk, in my apartment, in my space. I’m not inviting idols in. (As a matter of fact I put a big JESUS poster at my desk, kind of as a counter measure. I’m sure that won’t win friends or influence people there, but whatever.)

I don’t even like how these idols look. They have scary faces and distorted colors and shapes. Some are fearsome, some are meant to be beautiful. Some are impressive in stature, if only known as art they are amazing.

They asked if I would go to the temples. I said yes. I would like to see the historic places, the temples and to see the places of the monolithic statues, I just don’t want them in my space . . . I mean, maybe if they could keep the mosquitoes away . . . . no just kidding! I would rather live with mosquitoes than evil statues looking at me all the time.

Yes, it's long and no you probably won't care. Skim!

This corporate life isn’t what I thought it would be. My experience has always been with Christians and expats outside of the business arena. I’ve always been around people who were excited about a new person joining the group, who were eager to help, who wanted to know the stories of the new person. They gave gifts and suggestions and love for no reason aside from the fact that they knew what it was to be the new person and welcoming was part of the call.

In the business world I was just plopped down. I was given some things I needed and I was told who to call if I had a problem. But I wasn’t given any personal or social guidance. I wasn’t given many helpful hints; I wasn’t automatically welcomed into the group. I was just here. I was (am really) alone and lonely. It’s like being the new kid in school. It takes time to see where to fit in. I’ve always been shy (shut up! it’s true!) so it takes me longer.

I’ve decided to be a church person again. I went to a national, Methodist church last week. I wanted to find an international group. My boss is the only one I’ve found at work (so far) who is a church goer, and he told me about the church he goes to. He said he wouldn’t be there this week because he was traveling, but he was sure I could go with his wife, that she could pick me up and we could go together.

That sounded easy and safe so with all confidence I called his wife, whom I had never met. I asked her about the church and she sounded totally distracted and frazzled by her motherhood duties. She told me she wouldn’t be going to church this week because it was too difficult to get out alone with two children. She had a slight accent, so when she told me where the church met I was unsure of what she really said. It sounded like, “They meet at the Posh Regency Hotel, or Gateway Hotel.”
I said, “The Regency Hotel?”
She said, “Posh Regency”
I said, “Okay.”
I thought it sounded kind of uppity to put the word “posh” in the name of a hotel, but whatever.

She said, “You can find all the information in a book called In and Out of Bangalore.”
I thought I had seen that book and I knew I could also find it on the internet so I said, “Okay,” without asking any more questions.

I went to the bookstore, looked for the book to no avail.
I got on line, but forgot to look up the church.

I got up Sunday morning and wondered if I should try to find this place with such sketchy details.
Inventory:
I knew what time they meet.
I kind of knew the name of the meeting place.
I had no idea where that place was in relation to where I was.

I decided to press on. If I didn’t find the church I would at least find something.

I flagged down my first auto-rickshaw. I was trying to explain and at the same time figure out where I wanted to go according to the map. (Not so easy when the driver doesn’t speak English and I don’t even know what language he speaks.) Some friendly neighbors came along to help me out. They asked where I wanted to go, I told them. They told me I shouldn’t stay at that hotel, it was too expensive. I told them I was just visiting there, not staying. They talked to the driver, and whatever they said made him mad, I thought there was going to be a fist fight.

The driver got in his rickshaw and drove away and my friendly neighbors said, “You didn’t want him for a driver, he wanted to charge too much.”

They told me what to say to the next driver.

Okay.

I walked for a while before I found another empty auto-rick and that driver said, “Yes, yes madam.” I got in, he went one block and stopped. I guess he needed gas, which I noticed interestingly enough, comes in cylinders or tanks, like propane. It’s probably not propane, I have leery thoughts about riding around in an auto powered the same way a grill is, but that’s all together another issue.

He then told me that I needed to find another auto-rick because he wasn’t ready to take me after all.

So . . . I got in another one and he started driving. I noticed his meter didn’t work, but by that point I didn’t care. He drove me to the main street that I had said the hotel was on, but then he stopped so that I could ask directions. (He wasn’t asking because I’m sure he was driving illegally and it was the police that were standing on the corner dispensing information.)

The police officer said, “Don’t let him drive you, just walk; its three minutes down this street.” So, I over paid the driver who didn’t have a meter and started walking.

Having not been out of my neighborhood alone I started feeling like a tourist, walking around a strange city alone and clueless. At the intersection I asked, “Where is the Park (not Posh) Regency Hotel?” As, after consulting a map, this was my best guess about the name of the place I was headed toward.

He pointed it out to me. Well, that was a good sign, at least there actually was such a place as the “Park Regency Hotel.” I walked in and asked the desk man if there was a church there. He gave me a “ you crazy white women” look and said there is a church called St. (Somebody) down the street.

I said “Okay” and smiled and left. That was a bust. I had the wrong place after all.

I decided since I didn’t find the church to walk on down the street to see what else was around. Some shady little salesman tried to get me to go to a “Good store, open, open! Good prices for you!” I said, “no, no, No, NO!” And kept walking. I know that scam already. These guys on the street get commission to get people to go to certain stores. The commission comes from the hiked price the store owner sells the merchandise to the customer for. (I feel a little guilty about ending that sentence with “for” but we will all have to deal.)

As I walked on I saw a sign that said, “Taj Park Residency Gateway Hotel.” Well, wasn’t that at least part of what I scribbled on that paper when the boss’s wife had told me the name of the meeting place? I dug the paper out, I had forgotten all about that “Gateway” bit. I crossed the street to investigate. As I approached I could hear some Christians singing. I followed the singing and opened the door and I saw white people (It’s like the Sixth Sense, “I see white people.”)

I walked in and sat in the back. It was a smallish gathering maybe 35-40ish people. There were some Indians, more whities. They had new people introduce themselves. There were a lot of newbies maybe 1/3 of the group. I said, “Microsoft” and people looked at me like I had said a magic word. I wanted to tell them it wasn’t like that . . . I just quality control.

I saw a guy in the front of the group who looked vaguely familiar. I wondered if I knew him from somewhere, then forgetting how small some circles are, I dismissed the idea thinking, ‘He just looks like someone I used to know.’ Sitting next to Vaguely-familiar- guy was New-guy who introduced himself as new to “The Company” and very excited to be here. I knew what that meant, but wasn’t sure why it was being communicated in that way. I thought India was open.

After the service several people approached me, there seemed to be an unusual number of Texans in the room. I should have been suspicious, but I was thrown off by the Texas Instruments people.

Vaguely-familiar-guy came up and said, “Hey, do you remember me from Golden Gate?” That was it! I did remember! He and I had never really be friends or hung out, but I had seen him around and knew his name. Well, isn’t that funny? Six years later, around the world I wander into random church “A” and see someone I met in CA! He talked to me in low tones about “The Company” and his work.

I told him I knew “The Company” was in town on account of the Hospital, but I didn’t know how many there were and I couldn’t figure out how to find them. He said, “Let me introduce you to my co-worker!”

When he said her name, I thought, ‘I’ve heard that name before, I think, but maybe not.’
(Why do I doubt?!)
She was Friendly and Funny and suggested we all go to lunch (VF-guy and New- guy, she and I.)

We went to a Chinese place and I wondered if VF-guy’s coworker had ever worked in The Ivory Coast. Strange thing to wonder of someone you just met perhaps, but once, way back when . . . I had traveled far and long from Ft. Myers, FL to San Antonio, TX to a conference where someone quite like this lady had worn red suspenders and ridden a unicycle into a conference center full of screaming teenaged girls. That Unicycle rider had worked in Ivory Coast. I had to ask.

She said, “That was me! I can’t believe it!” She told the story of the unicycle and the conference and the suspenders . . . how funny, I think she drew a palm tree on my program one night back in 1990.

We talked the rest of the day about security and The Company and my company and why Microsoft was a magic word. We went to a prayer service for a community center for children with unstable family lives. (Those babies were so precious.) I’m sure I’ll be back there. She introduced me to more Company people and when we spoke the other magic word “Journeyman” I was at once included in the group story.

And after years of thinking I couldn’t be involved in that group ever again, I thought, ‘Maybe I could, maybe in a different way from last time.’

This is a time for healing after all.

God is good. I have a broken past but a healing future.

Georgy-porgy pudding pie, kissed the girl and made her cry.

1. Cow hanging outside the "Authentic Service" repair center on the corner.

2. One of the many growling threats we must pass on our walks.


There are stray dogs and cows around every corner, (a cow tried to sniff Buzz today, he was not happy about that.)

Speaking of stray dogs, I bought a monopod for my camera before I left, it’s a collapsible stick to keep my camera steady . . . I think it was my best “going to India” investment of all. I take it with me for every walk Buzz and I take around the ‘hood. I wave it at the stray dogs and yell, “Stay back!”

Sometimes people on the street help me out by yelling at the strays or throwing rocks at them for me :0). They are mean dogs! They always growl at Buzz! They are big dogs too, if they bit him they could puncture his lung!

I took my camera for a walk again today. (BTW- I tried to upload some videos, but they were too long, they need to be edited—seems like a project for tomorrow.) Where my camera goes, small children will follow. I’m like the pide-piper! Consider:

I pulled my camera out to take a picture of my neighborhood temple.

Children appeared before the camera was fully out of my pocket.



After one picture, they had multiplied.


After two pictures again they were more. I think this only illustrates my theory on Indians taking over the world. There’s two, you blink there’s now three, you blink now there are five . . . I’m telling you they are like tribbles . . . larger, less fluffy tribbles, who aren’t from outer space.

the temple, which was the intended target in the first place

God is good, all the time. So we Christians say.

I found my phone, rather it was found . . . somewhere by someone seeking good vibes join me now in good vibing that person, repeat after me, "yeah, yeah!"

I once had an agreement with a friend that whenever we were happy about something, we would interject "yeah, yeah!" into the telling of the happy story as a show of enthusiasm. Either speaker or listener could interject. Conversely we could interject "whoa-whoa" into sad stories.

FYI

In other news. I hope to get some nitty-gritty stuff done this weekend, get some comfy furniture, get some matching curtains, or at least not-clashing curtains. I want to go to the supermarket to get basic kitchen supplies and baskets to put my supplies in. I need to buy some dog food for the beastie because he's been (happily) eating eggs and rice and bread, but there is no way I am going to cook eggs for my silly little dog every night! And on a more exciting note, get some fabric to get some clothes made.

I could buy clothes, but there is a tailor just on my street and he is such an interesting looking man I want to have an excuse to talk to him. He looks like the stereo-typical guru on the mountain. But he's not a guru (there are several of those in the neighborhood too) he's a tailor and he's not on a mountain, he's sitting in a little shop behind an ancient sewing machine on my street. He's ascetically thin, he has wild wavy black-grey hair. He doesn't wear western clothes, he wears the traditional short length wrap skirts.

He's wrinkled and worn, but when he smiles his face lights up in honest contentment. He always smiles at me when I walk by, not just a "Oh there's an Angrezi" smile, but "Hi! Welcome to the neighborhood, you want me to make you shirt?" smile. I like him.

I'm going to ask to take his picture when I go there.

I’m frustrated today.

I managed to lose my cell phone already. (That took about 4 days.) I’m less concerned about the money (although it was a bit expensive) than I am about all the information lost and the inconvenience of not having a way to contact people or be contacted.

I’m currently in optimistic mode that some kind soul who is seeking good karma will turn it into lost and found.

Saturday, if no good karma is shown me, I fear I will have to go buy a new phone. The first time around I got lucky enough to inherit Kate’s (someone who left just a week or so before I came) SIM card (and her apartment and her furniture.) It already had the entire list of important phone numbers programmed. More importantly, it was already activated, so I didn’t have to wait to get connected.

I’m told that since it’s still ringing that it’s most likely only misplaced, not stolen . . . and turned off . . . and SIM card switched . . . and being pressed against someone else’s little brown ear.

Jackfruit is the largest tree-borne fruit in the world, reaching 80 pounds in weight and up to 36 inches long and 20 inches in diameter. The exterior of the compound fruit is green or yellow when ripe. The interior consists of large edible bulbs of yellow, banana-flavored flesh (lies! they are all lies! it tastes quite terrible, I would say indescribably bad, but that's not true, I could probably describe it but that would require me eating it again, and I'm going to try to avoid that) that encloses a smooth, oval, light-brown seed.

The seed is 3/4 to 1-1/2 inches long and 1/2 to 3/4 inches thick and is white and crisp within. There may be 100 or up to 500 seeds in a single fruit, which are viable for no more than three or four days. When fully ripe, the unopened jackfruit emits a strong disagreeable odor, (this is true) resembling that of decayed onions (decaying onions sitting on top of a pile of dung), while the pulp of the opened fruit smells of pineapple and banana. (Pineapple and banana that have been left to suffer and rot in fields of decaying chipmunk bodies.)

There are two main varieties. In one, the fruits have small, fibrous, soft, mushy, but very sweet carpals with a texture somewhat akin to a raw oysters. The other variety is crisp and almost crunchy though not quite as sweet. This form is the more important commercially and is more palatable to western tastes. (I think I had this kind, it was not palatable to my western taste.)

Bangalore has a certain odiferous quality.
The city smells of exhaust fumes, human body odor, garbage, feces, urine, burning and jackfruit.

Generally all these scents work together, so that no one is overpowering and the effect is unpleasant, but not overwhelming.

Occasionally one may walk into an area of a high concentration of one scent and want to gag, but she doesn't because that may be perceived as rude.

Don't get me wrong, there are small pockets of delicious smells. Many of the women wear jasmine or other fragrant flowers in their hair. In the morning and evening the smell of frying onions all over my neighborhood is wonderful. I walked through the fancy hotel garden last night, it was lovely with the scents of fresh flowers, clean water falling from the fountains, newly laid sod . . . those are nice things . . . Jackfruit is not.

Avoid Jackfruit.

I took my camera out for a walk yesterday, got some very jiggly video of my neighborhood and a few stills.

These little girls (and about 12 other kids) saw my camera and ran after me shouting "Auntie! Auntie! Camera!" I got some video, they seemed please with the whole thing.

I've got a website ready to download videos for the world to watch, just need time to get it up and running. I'll let you know when that happens.

I went in for my first day of orientation at Microsoft today. I got the tour of the complex. There are 5 or 6 buildings in the "IT park" and Microsoft has two buildings. Really one and a half, as they share one with IBM.

It all makes perfect sense, IBM has floors 2 and 4, MS has 1,3,5. That must have been a brilliant idea at one point in time. Right now it comes across as odd since you can't use the elevators to get to all the floors, nor can you use the stairs to get to some of the floors from certain other floors, so you just have to know whether to take elevator or stairs to which floor according to which floor you are currently on. My desk is on the third floor, I don't really know exactly how to get there.

I got registared as a foreign (devil) today. This gives me all the rights of a national. Now I can go to the zoo and pay in rupees instead of dollars. (Yeah me!)

Tomorrow I start my evening schedule, next week (I guess) I'll start my night schedule. I hope that goes well, because right now there is some sort of construction going on in the next lot and radomly spaced through out the day since I got here there is an ungodly-loud rumbling machine just outside my bedroom window starting and stoping any time between 6am and 11pm.

Tune in next time for "Scary Fruit Bats of Bangalore," and "The Smell of Jackfruit."

I'm so sitting in a hip trendy (British?) bookstore/coffee shop/internet cafe. I've just eaten my fill of quiche, fries and strawberry lassi (yogurt drink). I expect my total to be about $5.00.

Not counting food, I've noticed plenty of things in this city are a bit pricey.

I just tormented some carpet dealers for about 45 minutes. They showed me about 2 dozen carpets and half a dozen bed covers, I had no intention of buying anything, but they sure were doing their best to get some "good luck" from me.

The carpets were Kashmir wool 5'x7' 400 knots per inch for the "special price" of 17,000 rupees also known as $377.78. Actually that doesn't sound so bad. I'm going to check around for better. What I'd really like to do is go to Kashmir to look, but that will have to wait, and I want a carpet soon.

After consulting an Indian map it seems I have (unbeknownst to me) been to India before. Pakistan says it's theirs, and everybody else in the world calls it a "disputed area" but according to India, I've been to India! Gilgit on the Indian map.

When Uday picked me up from the airport he asked if I had ever been to India before. I said “No.” He asked where I had been. I said I had been to Cypress, UAE and Pakistan. He said, “India is same like Pakistan, only different culture” which made me smile.

A Pakistani would never say such a thing.

Culture includes a lot of stuff!

Saying, “India is like Pakistan, just a different culture.” is NOT like saying “The USA is like England, just a different culture.” It’s more like saying “The USA is like Russia, (during the Cold War) just a different culture.”

Let me compare:
Culture- different
subcategories:

Language- different, nearly all of them. Urdu and Hindi are really the same, but you wouldn't know to look at it, and since I don't know how to read either or how to speak any of it, it makes no difference to me.

Religion- different, I’ve seen a few Muslims, heard the call to prayer last night, saw a one Methodist church and a few Catholic churches/schools and one van that said, “Jesus Lives!” otherwise lots of Temples, Idols, cows, vegetarians and Hindus.

Food- different, all things come in veg and non-veg. This makes me happy. Eating methods are similar though, I went out to eat yesterday with some Indian folks from the company and the whole eating without silverware and not using my left hand was tricky, very tricky.

Clothes- different, in Islamabad if you saw someone wearing anything aside from a shawar kamis you were probably hallucinating. Here, western clothes, shawar kamis, saris, other things I don’t know the names of, everything seems okay by them. I was informed to avoid sleeveless, but I’ve seen plenty of Indian and Westerners wearing sleeveless, but not halter tops, tank tops or any short skirts or shorts.

Transportation- same, the traffic here is well, Asian. Hard to describe- there are lines on the road, but they seem to be there more for decoration. More than half the traffic is motorcycles, motor scooters, auto rickshaws or bikes. You then move up to tiny hatch backs, micro vans, standard sedans, SUVs, work trucks and busses. The streets are narrow, and half torn up and partially covered in garbage.

Driving standards- Honking for any and every reason!

Examples: you may sound your horn for any of the below reason, list not exhaustive.

“Here I come!”
“You’re in my way!”
“I’m going to get in your way!”
“I will soon be crossing an intersection!”
“Hi friend!”
“I like the sound of my horn, don’t you?”
“Get off the sidewalk, I need it!”
“You need a ride?”
“I’m done with this space now.”
“I know the light has changed, but I am going anyway, so watch out.”

Etc.

Stopping for pedestrians is not “the thing.”
The average driving speed is probably about 30mph max, it would be impossible to go faster on account of there are 8 million people also trying to get where ever you are.

(Curious) nationals- different, I have been warned twice now that Indians are very curious and that they stare and will ask any sort of questions, just because they want to know. Okay, so I was ready—the people who gave me these warnings are either extra sensitive or they have never been to places where men have the ability to stare at women as though they were transferring semen directly from their eyes (nearly everywhere else I’ve ever been, including my old neighborhood in Arlington, TX.) Sure, the Indians look at me, but it’s more like “Huh, there’s a white girl.” Not, “I will rape you with my eyes and you will have 10,000 of my babies!”

City animals- different, here I’ve seen cows and dogs. Islamabad was more concerned with sheep, goats and an occasional monkey or toothless bear.

Western Influence- different, I’ve found every kind of book, clothes, TV, movies, music, food etc. I’m surprised at the variety, but what is the same is the randomness of it all. Here’s an Usher CD and a New York Times Best Seller, but that’s it. You might find some other choices in another store on the other side of town, but you never know.
I’ve been told there is still some censoring of Western movies, but not to the same extent as what I saw in Pakistan.

Here the West is very popular, nearly as popular as the East is in the US.

I went into an “American Dollar Store” yesterday. Strangely everything costs the equivalent of $2.00. I bought a few things anyway. Some of the products were labeled both in English and Spanish. Now that is a little bit of home!

I haven’t ordered it yet, but I have a brochure for pizza. I can order a “Mexican” pizza which has jalapenos and an “exotic Mexican herb.” Fancy!

Popular Hollywood movies come out in world wide release here, for example, “The Da Vinci Code” and “X-3” are already showing. Less popular movies make it in their own time, “Endless Sunshine of the Spotless Mind” I was told, just showed a few months ago. Movies are very popular and I’ve been told you should make reservations days or weeks in advance.

The Black Eyed Peas will come here in concert soon. Random, like I said.

There are a few Amazing malls here- like what you would expect in the US or in UAE. There is one called the Galleria, which puts the Galleria in Dallas to shame. The Galleria here is much smaller, but it is opulent. Everything from the rose petals in the fountains to the hall of polished marble pillars, everything sparkles and shines, it’s elegant and exotic and outrageously expensive, but maybe that adds to the allure.

Toilets- same, the guest apartment I’m staying in has two bedrooms, two bathrooms. One has a western toilet; the other has a squatty potty. Toilet paper is a partial mystery here. They have it, but I get the feeling they think the whole idea is kind of gross. They wash after every time, hose and/or bucket to be found in every restroom/bathroom. I’m not sure if I’m supposed to flush what I use or not. The showers are the same, not actually a shower, per say, more of a shower head sticking out of the wall and a drain in the floor. I kind of like it better, you don’t have to worry about scrubbing the shower, just squirt everything with the hose and move on.

All that to day, I’m going with everything is pretty dang different here than anywhere else I’ve been.

Buzz and I have arrived in Bangalore. He barked at the stray dogs in the street and avoided the cow.

More later