Final Weigh-In

I've been fighting stomach issues since the first few days I got here, and it's finally taken me down. I really wasn't feeling well before the party on Saturday, and I think that pushed me over the edge. I weighed myself at the beginning of last week and again today - I've lost almost 10 pounds in 7 days - not good! Wish me luck on this flight back. Hope everyone enjoyed the blog. :-)

Party Aftermath

This party was insane - I'm about to hit the sack but wanted to give the highlights:

1 - I met some American and Canadian peeps there - something new for me, so that was comforting - about a month late. :-)

2 - we all drank a LOT - the bar was open from 8pm -1 am - not good for me. They had literally 100ft of buffet food set out for everyone in addition to the open bar - craziness.

3 - they had an Indian fashion show there - pretty cool experience.

4 - I got a temporary tattoo of a yin-yang on my forearm - will last about a week.

5 - I got all infection and dead skin eaten off my feet by some crazy Malaysian pedicure thing - I took my shoes/socks off and put my feet in this tank of water. These crazy fish attach themselves to your feet and eat all the dead skin off and suck out all the impurities! Here's the website: http://mysadfish.blogspot.com/2009/04/fish-pedicure.html

It was wild!!!!!

Cocktail Party!

I just got an invite by the hotel to come to a VIP (am I one of those??) cocktail party out by the pool tomorrow night! I was running on the treadmill and a lady came by with my invitation. This will be my first Indian formal party - I'm sure I'll have some things to blog about. :-) Stay tuned...

Wedding

I know everyone is dying to see the Indian garb I was sporting at the wedding last weekend. I will write more later about the actual experience, but here's a quick pic for now. It's about the most unflattering picture I've ever been in (I haven't gained that much weight over here) but it's the only one I have where you can see the entire thing. Enjoy...looking forward to the comments!

Conversation Gone Bad

I was sitting at the hotel restaurant tonight enjoying the chicken dish I described in my previous post and was approached by a new manager there. He introduced himself to me and seemed very "with it" in regards to his english and general understanding of customs/cultures. After exchanging pleasantries, this is where the conversation went:

Manager: "So where are you from - the US or Australia?"
Me (thinking) : uhh oh - I was wrong about this guy
Me: "I'm from the US - North Carolina - it's in the Southeast."
Manager: "Oh, very nice sir. What state is that in - California?"
Me : "No, North Carolina is the State - it's in the Southeast, about 4 hours from Washington DC."
Manager: "Oh, so it's in North America then..."
Me (laughing inside) : "Yes, that's exactly right."

Now I give you a very similar conversation that happened in the movie Dumb and Dumber which was what I was thinking when this was going on.

Lloyd: "That's a lovely accent you have. New Jersey?"
Lady: "Austria."
Lloyd: Austria! Well, then. G'day mate! Let's put another shrimp on the barbie!

Chicken Dish

I feel that I need to write about this because it's such a constant force in my life when I go to India. There is this chicken dish that the restaurant in the hotel serves called "char grilled half country chicken". I discovered it at the very end of my first trip here in 2007. Tonight, as I was dining on this delicious delicacy again, I was estimating how many times I've had it in the 3 trips to India - I think I hit 30 tonight and I never get tired of it.

I've had a lot of chicken dishes in my day and very few are memorable. This one, for whatever reason, is, and I feel would be whether I was in India or back in the US. It's a perfect balance of a deboned, small, half chicken that is butterflied and pan seared with rosemary, thyme, fresh parsley, and a little garlic, then roasted. It's served on top of some perfectly-roasted baby Yukon gold potatoes and pan-seared mixed vegetables. A thin Thanksgiving-style brown gravy is drizzled on the chicken right before serving. I don't think words do it justice - it's that good!

Birthday

My good friend and co-worker Harish celebrated his 30th birthday today at the office. For those of you who don't know, one of the customs here is to get icing from the birthday cake smeared all over your face - I have no idea where this tradition started but it's pretty insane. Dalvir, being the kind person that he is, made sure I was also in the mix. Here are 2 pics from our afternoon. :-)

Change of Plans

There's been a last-minute change in plans for this weekend. I received a surprise invite to attend the wedding of Dhiraj (guy on the FGS team)'s sister!!! Holy crap - I'm honored and am every excited to see an Indian wedding for the first time. I'll be going with Deepak (another guy on the team) on Saturday am to a small town outside of Agra (where Taj is) to attend the wedding Saturday night. It should be wild. I'm headed out to the markets tomorrow after work with Deepak to get an Indian wedding outfit of some sort! Stay tuned...

A Real Indian Village

Suckwinder, my driver, was from Chandigarh and his village is there. As part of our trip last weekend, he took us out there to meet his family! It was pretty awesome to see that part of the world lives. Here are a couple of pics from the outing.

Me with Suckwinder's mom and their buffalo outside their home


On the roof of their home (Suckwinder is on the left)


Me doing some hard work in their mustard field

Current Events

I was reading the paper yesterday during breakfast. I know this is so common back home that it doesn't even make the news, but I guess these things are noteworthy in India - here's the headline:

Gored boy survives critical injury

That's right - a 7 year old kid was walking home from school here and a mad bull gored him in the stomach!!!! That is unbelievable to me. And we get scared at home to leave our kid at the bus stop.

Travel Plans!

Dalvir, acting as my local entertainment planner, and I have finalized weekend travel plans. On Saturday we're going to Chandigarh which is Dalvir's home town. Here's a pic I dug up online. We're going drive drive up Saturday early morning (takes about 5 hours), spend the night, and come back late Sunday.




Our next weekend trip will be the following weekend. I'm headed to Udaipur on an overnight train leaving from Delhi Friday night and coming back overnight Sunday night. Vivek and Deepak from the FGS team are going with me. Here's a pic - it's called the city of lakes. Should be some crazy times!

Monkeys

Every time you go in and out of the office here, there is a security check post. A couple of guys/girls go through your bag and check off the various electronics you bring in and out of the FGS office. I was leaving yesterday and waiting outside for my bag to be searched. Literally a dozen monkeys came out of nowhere and ran right by me. The security guy said "monkeys going to their home too". It was pretty awesome. I didn't take this picture, but these were the kinds of monkeys that ran by me.

Music

There were a few musical selections I've heard here that were memorable. I got my head shaved with a straight razor in the hotel salon over the weekend by the local "barber". There was pretty typical kind-of background music on when I was sitting in the chair waiting for the guy to come in. Literally as soon as he started lathering up my dome to get started, "Unchained Melody" came on - think the pottery scene in the movie Ghost - I was petrified. There were no issues with the haircut, but I was really creeped out.

The second music selection I heard was during dinner at the continental restaurant in the hotel. Again, it was kind of low background non-descript music until I recognized the tune - it was an elevator music version of The Rain Song by Led Zeppelin.

The last was tonight. I walked over to the big mall that is near the hotel for food/kill some time. As I approached the McDonald's in the food court, Foreigner's "I Want to Know What Love Is" was blasting out of the speakers - now that's some Americana for ya!

The Cloak Room

For any "new-to-India terminology" peeps out there, that means the bathroom.

I ran a few miles on the treadmill last night at the gym in the hotel. Right when I finished running nature made its call, so I had to bee-line it to the cloak room in the men's locker room. Keep in mind that it's hot and humid as all hell in the gym, so I was pouring sweat. The actual bathroom event was pretty uneventful (especially compared to what your gut goes through typically over here), but when I walked out of the stall there was a worker standing right there and had a shocked look on his face and asked if I was ok - I'm sure he thought I had just recreated the scene with Jeff Daniels in Dumb and Dumber because I was still red-faced and pouring sweat coming out of the bathroom - made me laugh pretty hard.

Slang

I was reading the daily Hindustan paper this morning at breakfast. For reasons I don't understand, there was a completely random article about Pamela Anderson in the "Style" section - complete with a "current" pic of her (looked like it was from 1992). That's pretty typical in the paper here - they dig up some old stuff about a has-been celebrity in the US and that's what makes the news.

I digress - what was funny to me was how they described her trashiness:

"Mutton dressed as lamb"

Gettin' my worship on

Dalvir took me to his place of worship in Delhi on Sunday. It was a pretty cool experience to see part of his normal routine. Here are a couple of pics that show what is was kinda like.

Got the doo-rag going

A couple of pics from inside the Gurdwara

Construction

I snapped this pic Sunday - a little road widening in Delhi

Markets

A couple market pics from my outing with Dalvir

Eggs

I was waiting in line this morning to order my daily omelet. Here was the conversation between the chef and the lady in front of me.

Chef: "Can I help you?"
Lady: "Yes, can I have 2 fried eggs please."
Chef: "Would you like 2 fried eggs or 2 portions of eggs?"
Me: Thinking ...WTF did he just ask her?...
Lady: Looking confused... "I would like the count of my eggs to be 2."
Chef: "Certainly ma'am."

Does anyone know what a "portion of eggs" is??? Holy crap! So after breakfast, I went up to the room and looked it up here. A portion, or serving, is 1 egg!! So he basically asked her: "would you like 2 eggs or 2 eggs?" The hilarity is non-stop.

The Spa

Random Observation:

The spa is pretty typical at the hotel - massages, facials, body treatments, etc. They also offer pretty standard snacks/lemon water/juices. What I found funny was the huge cooler of Red Bull right next to all of that - nothing says unwind and relax like a couple cans of Red Bull!

Treadmill

I decided to do an easy post-marathon run this morning on the treadmill at the hotel. Although I wouldn't call it a slow pace, I wasn't exactly breaking any records - my plan was to do 3 8 minute miles.

After running for about 10 minutes, it seems like I start to run a little slower but don't pay that much attention - Bollywood music videos are on the TV so I'm distracted. After 2 more minutes, I look down at the speed indicator - it's literally fluctuating from 12.9 km/hr to 11.5 km/hr - moving all over the place pretty quickly.

I then see something I've NEVER seen before on the display - "Unable to keep up pace" - and it gradually slows down to almost a walk.

I can't believe it - I OUT-RAN a treadmill!!

Haircuts

Dalvir (main Reged contact in India) showed up at the hotel last night to say hey. The guest relations lady was trying to track me down so I could meet up with him. She found me in one of the hotel restaurants. Here's how the conversation went:

Girl: "There you are! I've been looking everywhere - someone is in the lobby to see you."

Me: "Great! Thanks for letting me know."

Girl: "I was asking people - 'have you seen this tall american guy with a brush cut?'"

Me: "A what?"

Girl: "Your hairstyle. That's what we call it here - a brush cut - you know, because you don't need to use a brush on it."

Me: "Shouldn't it be called a 'no-brush cut'?"

Girl: ...blank stare...

I started laughing and she just kinda giggled and wandered off. This place cracks me up!

The Weather

Here's a pic of what it literally looks like outside this time of year. I'm glad I already ran my half marathon - I'm already starting to cough and I've been here 24 hours.

H1N1

Or as Jennie likes to call it - "The Hinny"

As we're about to land in Delhi, I have to fill out this H1N1 form with all these warnings on it about being quarantined, an "extensive" medical exam at the airport, etc. The form includes checking off any flu-like symptoms I currently have, my name, contact info, etc. From my experiences here, I'm wondering how legit this whole thing is - it sounds way too official.

We get off the plane and are greeted by about 50 people in the Michael Jackson masks/gloves/scrubs - the whole nine. There are tables set up that we have to go up to and deliver our forms to. Also, there are tv's set up next to each table that show thermo-imagery of everyone in line - seems like these guys are serious.

I walk up to the Indian masked man and hand him my form while also looking at my thermo-image self on the tv - it's pretty red compared to the dude next to me, so I'm a little concerned. What happens? He literally doesn't even look at it - stamps it with an official Indian notary of some sort and I'm on my way to customs. I at least wanted to be screened after all that effort they put in! Geez...

I almost missed my flight

So this is a first for me - I'm at RDU airport a full 2 hours before my flight. I roll up to the airport bar that is literally right next to my gate with 1:45 to spare. I have a beer. I am on my second beer (I have 1:35 minutes to spare). This lady rolls up next to me and starts yacking about her job - she sells MRI services to vets - kinda crazy. We start chatting about dogs and injuries - 2 things I'm well versed in. Next thing I know it's 5:02 - 13 minutes before my flight takes off. I quickly close my tab and run 20 feet to the gate - everyone is gone. The plane is still there but no one is attending the gate and all doors are shut. I roll over to the next gate that is loading people and ask someone to help me.

The guy gets on the computer and says I can take a flight that leaves in a couple hours to Newark.

Guy: "Newark is your final destination right?"
Me: "Delhi is my final destination guy."
Guy: "Oh s%&t - let me see what I can do."

Guy radios to the pilot of the plane, tells him the deal, and asks if they can re-open the airplane door. Pilot says no because that entails an additional 30 minutes of checks/balances and would cause everyone to potentially miss their connecting flights.

Guy checks out upcoming flights to India - I can go standby on a flight that leaves Monday night (5 days after I was supposed to leave!). Here is the best part - he tells me to hold on and disappears into the walkway you go down to get on the plane. He comes back and says for me to follow him.

Guy: "I bribed the maintenance guy to open the airplane door. We're just going to fudge the records!"

Me: ...can't even speak...

So that was it - I got here fine because that guy completely broke the law - welcome to India!