Sleepy PDX

Is anyone from PDX reading this? What happened to my Portland friends??? I miss you guys! I can't even tell if anyone is reading this blog. Where are the comments? Only people from Bangalore and my fam are posting comments. Let me hear PDX roar!!!!!

Home Free!

Quick update: I've moved to my apartment and I am swamped with work. Kylie is getting bigger and she's learning how to potty outside. She's now around 7 weeks old. I will have more updates this weekend.

Monsoon Sickness

I woke up on Thursday morning with a really bad sore throat.  It didn't bother me much until this morning. I woke up with a slight fever, throat and neck completely inflamed, vision a little blurry and some pressure around my forehead.  I could hardly get up without feeling worse so I stayed in bed all day trying to recover. I decided to call a doctor. Its very unusual for me to call a doctor immediately but since I was living in a different country I thought I would be on the safe side at first. I called the reception to call a doctor. The doctor came and did a check up. The doctors here actually do house visits. That was great! Because I did not want to have to ride the bumpy roads just to get to one. The cost was $11 for the house visit (for the BEST doctor) and $3.33 for the medicine she prescribed. Wow! I was really impressed...I was feeling extremely sick and a couple of hours after I took the medicine I was feeling almost 80%. I was able to get up, my headache went away, and my swollen throat eased up. I was so amazed.  This is the fastest recovery to any sickness I've ever encountered.

Bangalore Thomas Guide

The most invaluable item I have purchased in Bangalore so far is a 100 page detailed city map.  I had come across it while shopping in a small bookstore at a department store called Bangalore Center on MG Road.  If you know me, I love studying city maps. It is an important way for me to understand the way cities were built and why they funtion the way they do today. And its also the fastest way for me to integrate and orient myself with the city. Most Bangaloreans have never even seen this city map. I am very excited to have one in my possession and I plan to study it well. They should give this book to people that have newly relocated to Bangalore because this is not a very easy city to remember street names. In fact, there really aren't street names on the streets - its just not intuitive to find. In order to find out what street you are on, you need to look at the business signs because some of them have the whole address printed on the sign.  It really makes locating businesses/homes a little difficult. I read that Bangalore was built piece by piece. Each locality back then was built by a different ruler. So that's why the city layout is so complex. 
 
Looking at a Bangalore map reminds me of looking at a the cracks on a dry bed desert floor. There's no structure to follow the streets just kind of run into each other at various angles and some of the continuous streets' name changes at every other intersection. A typical Bangalore locality will be either a "indian name" Nagar or something else, then it will be in "indian name" Layout or a 1st, 2nd or 3rd Stage. There's even a 1st - ? Cross or a *.* Main Rd. Kinda confusing huh? I used to freak out with the complexity of the addresses but this new map will quell my fears. Other nice things about the map is I get to see where all the parks are. Bangalore has a lot of parks and it even includes landmark names, which is super important because landmarks are used in finding places.

So by the time you visit me in Bangalore, I will be able to give you a personal tour. :)

Pampered!

I have been here for a little more than one month now. Since I've arrived I have not cooked, cleaned my temp apartment, done my laundry or driven myself. I don't even pick up after myself anymore. I even have small groceries like water, diet coke, bread delivered to me. I have people here that do all that for me. I feel so spoiled but its just a daily part of life here to have hired help. The apartment I am staying in is a full service apartment. Think living in a hotel every day. Its just like that. In effect, I now have more time to do things. But what? I have no personal chores anymore. I suppose its more time to do fun things that I like to do. I am still trying to figure out what that is here in Bangalore. I should really start enjoying getting massages and facials every week. I can get used to that pretty quickly. :)

Darn rains!

Due to the heavy down pour (its rains like someone turned millions of faucets at full power) we've been having for the last few days I am unable to move into my apartment this Thursday, I have to wait until July 20th. No progress has been made. It is so frustrating! I just want to settle already. How hard is that????

Meet the Family!

After getting to know my driver Prakash for the last three weeks, he invites me to meet his family in the outskirts. He lived in a village near the Iskcon Temple in the NW part of Bangalore. I had just bought Kylie and thought it would be a nice gesture to meet his family. So after we got Kylie Prakash took me to his home. It took about 30 minutes to get there from central Bangalore. He lived in a very narrow street of about 30 homes where more than 60 families lived. There were dogs, goats, children, and adults, roaming the street. Each person we passed peeked into the car curiously. The street fit the car but another one would have caused issues.

We got to his house and he opened the door to a 12x12 room that contains a TV a small bed and a hindu altar - next to it was the bedroom and kitchen. His house was very small for the amount of people that lived there. His parents were sitting on the floor making paper incense holders for the Pooja (meaning prayer) and to sell to people. When they see us they quickly put their work away. Prakash proudly tells me that this is his mom's own business. The people will come to their place to make the purchase. She doesn't go door to door selling the items. The family didn't know that I was coming and Prakash was scolded for not calling them before. I meet his parents, his beautiful wife, two little girls, and Julie the Pomeranian, and two baby goats and the mommy goat. Sorry I cannot remember their names - I am seriously a tough time remembering names here...they are not the normal names I am accustomed to.

Since we just got Kylie, Prakash offers to give her a bath. So he asks his mom to bathe the puppy. Prakash leaves then comes back with shampoo....its not a bottle of shampoo but one of the sample sized ones. I say to myself "doh", how can I let them use that for a puppy? I made a mental note to replace that shampoo. So I watch Kylie getting her first bath...she is yelping at the top of her lungs. But when it is done Kylie is clean and beautiful.

I take a look around in the back yard, it is a good size. There is an Indian toilet outhouse and a clothes washing basin. The goat and her family also lives back here. Back inside, they offer me some food. I washed my hands properly and then was given a very huge plate of rice and dahl. The quantity of rice was enough to feed 3 more people...at least according to me. I became worried because I knew I could not finish it all. And all I kept thinking about was the scene in the Temple of Doom where Indiana Jones, the Kid, and Willie find themselves in India and they were being offered some food by the village women. Willie wouldn't take the food and Indiana says..."Eat it. This is more food than what some people eat in a week..."

So then I tried my best to eat up everything on the plate. They brought out more food, spicy, egg omellotte, and more dahl. My stomach was about to burst and then Prakash only finished half of his plate then he gave it to his wife. That was my chance to hand my plate to her also! After lunch, they served me some hot Chai tea, which was absolutely delicious. Chai is definitely my favorite tea here.

After lunch, the grandmother was smiling and staring at me. Then she started to say something in Kannada. Prakash said that his mother wanted me to try on a Saree and take pictures. She wanted a picture for herself. So I said I would love to try on a Saree. So the grandmother smiled happily and took me to the other room to change. The wife and mother then brought out their collection of Sarees. They were so colorful and elegant. I chose a dark red colored one. So they wrapped me up in the Saree, put a bindi and kum kum powder on my forehead and took pictures. Prakash told me that his mother said I looked like a doll and I am nice to look at. I thought that was funny. I am happy to be his grandmother's doll for the day. She also asked me if I can take one of her granddaughters back to the States.

Once the excitement was over they show me family and wedding pictures, then we watched TV for a little while. Cable television service here costs around Rs. 200/month, which is around $4/month. There wasn't much communication...they didn't understand any English and I of course couldn't speak Hindi or Kannada but I could tell that my presence for those few hours made it an interesting day for them. Prakash says that I was the first foreigner his mother has ever met. His whole family was very sweet...this was a memorable experience for me.

Happy One Month!

It has been one month today since I first arrived in Bangalore! One month has really gone by quickly. To celebrate my first month I went out with a couple of work friends to a pub called 13th Floor. I must say that I was very impressed with the place. The pub was on the 13th Floor of a business center called Barton Center on MG Road. The decor was very much a posh bar that you would see in Los Angeles or San Francisco where you go to want to be scene. If I didn't know any better I would think I was in Skybar over looking Sunset Boulevard in Hollywood. It had a very mod style and of course because its India the service was quite excellent. The place was pretty hip and it had a nice outdoor seating area where you can view the Bangalore skyline. The drinks were pretty tasty, I don't quite remember how much they cost. It wasn't that I was drunk but I just didn't pay any attention to it. There was a good mixture of male and women but of course the men still outnumbered the women by far. The only thing that I must complain about though is the music. They were playing late 80s early 90s music. And it was too loud. Its very hard to have any conversations. Throughout the night the music just gets louder and louder. I wonder why the pub owners prefer this. It definitely kills conversations.

Earlier in the day I met with up some people from Oracle. Remember my first day in Bangalore? How I heard electronic music coming out of a hall at a club resort? Well I finally met the people in charge of the party and had a great conversation with them. Yes I had found the scene my first day but it was just a matter of time getting introduced to them. I am pretty excited about the future party scene...it is definitely underground here, they don't even know who many of the famous DJs that we know about - in Bangalore it is still in its infancy stage and I am curious to see how they have fun here. They mentioned that Goa still has the best parties in India! How exciting! Slowly but surely my social life is becoming alive again!

I am so little and cute!

I am Kylie Kotton!

Cecilia and her new buddy - Cotton?

Head bobble.....

I just noticed that I have picked up the Indian head bobble. When you speak to any Indian whether you are asking them a question or just chatting about anything, they do this thing that looks like a head bobble to me. It baffles me! The first time I saw it I was thrown off a bit. They will tilt their head to one side, I think to the right and then slightly go to the left with a couple more "bobbles" You know those ceramic figurines that people have in the cars where the head is attached to a spring and it bobbles left to right when you move it? That's what it looks like to me. And slowly everyday I catch myself doing it too. I find it amusing and I laugh to myself when I do it. I think when they do this head movement, most of the time it means they are agreeing with you. I figured out when they tilt it to one side, they are saying yes. I haven't figured out what the gesture is for no. I think it is the same as ours. You gotta love it! :)