Training Team Offsite Dinner

For our quarterly offsite, the training team visited a posh new restaurant called Tandoor. We took over an entire room and warmed up for dinner with some singing and dancing Bollywood favorites.

Fab India

Yes, fab is a description of what I think of India, but it's also a really great store in Hyderabad that I finally visited last week. It could be an Indian version of Anthropologie but with much lower prices -- the kurtas (longish tunics), salvars (drawstring bottoms with super tapered legs), and churidars (wide baggy bottoms) cost about $8-15. I bought enough to go through an entire work week dressed locally. Besides the price and the fun colors, the best part is that everything is incredibly comfortable (light linen and drawstring everything). Here I'm modelling a kurta and chiridars. The other photo shows the ridiculous shape of my hot pink salvar. Fab!

More on where I live

I've heard some requests for more details about our sweet pad in our gated community, 'Vasanta Valley.' The constant foot traffic (cooks, cleaners, security guards, house managers, etc.) in and out of the house at all times prevents any opportunity for privacy, but besides that, it's a very pleasant place to live.

Check our wide variety of American-style snacks, all ready upon our arrival. (We imported the coffee beans and beer coozies.)

On Coffee

My first day in the office, I discovered the only way to make coffee is with one of the automatic machines in every breakout room. It seemed like a reasonable, though not ideal, alternative to our individual brews and espresso machines in Mountain View. I pressed 'espresso' and out came... a full cup of half milk, half coffee with lots of sugar. I thought it was a mistake, so I put this cup aside and tried again, careful to press only the button that was clearly marked 'espresso,' and got an identical concoction. I was embarassed to be causing this much waste, but at this point was even more determined to get my single shot of espresso. I dumped the first two cups of sweet milky coffee and tried a third time, only to see the exact same liquid sputtering into my cup. I gave up, and asked some people sitting around the breakroom if the machine was broken. Even more embarassed now, I learned that espresso in India does not equal espresso in the US. Espresso is coffee with milk and sugar. My mistake.

However, last weekend in Mumbai, I visited Barista, a hip coffee shop chain that rivals Cafe Coffee Day. [The two companies seem to take their competition to a new level of immaturity-- if one of the two already exists on a particular city block somewhere in India, its counterpart wastes no time in building a new franchise next door.] On the menu, I looked for espresso and saw their explanation, which explained that unlike normal Indian espresso, Barista espresso is served without milk. Finally! And only three weeks into my life in India. My espresso arrived in a neat little shot glass-- free of milk and sugar as promised. I sipped it as we watched the sun go down on the beach. A lovely end to the weekend.

Mysore: palace, kids, head bobbles, zoo

Bret, Ronnie and I spent the weekend in Mysore. It's a lovely small city with an unfortunate name. There's a beautiful and well-kept (no shoes allowed inside!) palace, a colorful market, and a great zoo. We spent lots of time in the market, where Bret and Ronnie tested out dozens of perfumed oils while I hung out with some cute kids and scolded them for not going to school.

If I give you a pen, will you go to school on Monday?

After a long day in the sun, we headed to Parklane restaurant. They let us in the doors two minutes before opening time; when we looked around at 11:30pm and realized we were the only table left, we headed home in an autorikshaw.







Since the guys were jealous of how well I've mastered the Indian head bobble, they tried to work on their skills, but with only a little success:

Cheers to Beers

Happy Birthday to Erin!

Find me in India

My Maps is a supercool feature in Google Maps that will let you track my progress in travelling around this amazing country! Check out Where I've been (it's only been 3 weeks, I have a lot more to explore). Then create your own.

Mandar's Wedding

Mandar was kind enough to invite me to his wedding along with hundreds of his other closest friends and family. We spent the entire weekend preparing as if it were for prom: we bought saris, had blouses stitched, bargained (not very successfully) for bangles and sandals in Charminar, found sparkly necklaces in Shilparamam, and had henna painted on our hands and feet.



We found a site with instructions on how to wear a sari but in the end we definitely needed help. The woman who cleans our apartment came over and dressed us, put flowers in our hair and bindis on our forehead. Our security guard commented 'Now you are real Indian women!'

On Stray Dogs

I love the fact that I live close enough to the office to walk home, but after dark, I take a driver on account of all the gross stray dogs in the streets. There have been four notable attacks by stray dogs in India, and the topic is all over press. Scary!
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An update from today ... So I tried to take a picture of one of these dogs on my way to work today. I wasn't satisfied with the first, so went for another... and then nearly got attacked. Can you see the look in his eyes and the ready-to-pounce stance? It's blurry because I screamed and started to run. I will never take a picture of a stray dog again.

Kerrie, Gulls, Char in Kerala

The three of us met up in Fort Cochin and had a fun time people-watching along the boardwalk. I had no idea the Christian influence was so strong in Kerala. We arrived on Good Friday when the city was unfortunately dry but as a bonus got to observe several processions around the town with solemn Christians carrying crosses. We even caught a glimpse of the largest Pieta in Kerala.


The next day we took off on a boat ride and landed at Coconut Lagoon, a posh resort surrounded by water. We were greeted by fresh coconut milk and later on in the weekend enjoyed Ayurvedic massages (more on that later), did yoga (more like a nap), observed a cooking demo, sat around the pool and generally felt like we were very far away from India. The highlight was a leisurely and educational boat through the backwaters. Our guide pointed out the local birds, flowers, rice paddies and lobster and duck farms.

Early Monday we headed up scary twisting roads into the hills of Kerala. We drove through beautiful tea platations (Tata estates) and the temerature dropped the higher we went. Our hotel was a lovely spot with its own cardamon and coffee plants and a great view. r