On Wednesday night our class bought us dinner from a local restaurant called Paradise...great food!  It was the first time I've sat in the cafeteria as we usually eat at the hotel before going into work for the night.  We enjoyed watching cricket on the televisions and I even saw a ping pong table in the "Recreation" room off of the cafeteria!  I feel like if we had tvs in our cafeteria at home, people would sit there for way too long watching and never go back to work!  I also discovered the coffee cart and I got some very tasty chai tea.  I was told chai is one of the things I had to try while here and since I like it I was happy to have some!

Kristen, Rich, and I ordered in some breakfast to her room this morning...I got some oatmeal which was your typical oatmeal, so I was pleased.  We wanted to celebrate Kristen's new job(!) with some champagne and when we called to ask about their cheapest champagne we were told it was 15,000 Rupees, which is over $300!  Needless to say we passed on that! We had a good breakfast with some lively conversation instead!

It was Kristen's last night at work and we took A TON of photos and she got a few gifts from the class.  They had a LONG goodbye with each of them shaking her hand and promising to keep in touch and even some saying they hope to visit her in California. 

I chatted with my parents on the phone (hi mom and dad) and now I've found some E! News and Jay Leno on the tv so I'm going to watch that as I get ready for bed!  I'm not sure yet what the weekend will hold but I'm hoping for a few more sightseeing adventures on my last full weekend in Hyderabad! 

Half-way Point

Well, today marks the half-way point of my trip...I've been here a week and a half and have a week and a half to go!  I didn't blog at my usual time after work as my computer didn't want to connect from the hotel so I'm just going to write a bit before heading into work tonight.

Last night (Tuesday) Kristen and I ate at Kangan, the Indian restaurant at our hotel, again.  The last time we went we each ordered an item and shared and this time we got the same two entrees but a different starter...we had delicious food including one of our faves, naan (flatbread).  We also got a picture of the bracelet maker and I took a pic of the bracelet he made me this time.

We celebrated one of our trainees birthdays last night.  Rajesh turned 34 and there was a pineapple flavored cake to celebrate.  The rest of the trainees smashed cake all over his face on the outdoor patio and he didn't look super pleased about that but he was a good sport.  We took some class pictures as well.

We slept today and got up a bit early to go back to the mall as Kristen was looking for one final thing before she heads home.  We were surprised to see that it was raining outside!  At the mall we visited Creamstone (which is like our Coldstone) that Vineet had recommended to us.  I found a couple of tunic style shirts for myself and we went back down to Hypercity, the Super Walmart type store on the bottom floor of the mall to find some treats to bring into class tonight.  As we were shopping a cute little girl about 8 years old came up to me and said, "Hello Auntie."  (Apparently Auntie means something different here than in the US.)  I said hi and she asked me if I would take a picture with her.  Her dad was like, "Tell her what the picture is for..." and the girl said it was for a school project.  Her dad took a pic of us on his camera phone and I asked for one as well on my camera.  After they left she came back to find me a few minutes later to ask where I was from and my name.  I asked for her name as well and she said Arti.  She was a cutie and had very good English and you can see the pic of us to the right.

I'm off to work in about an hour for the night...our class is bringing in dinner from a local restaurant that is supposed to be very good!

Charminar

Monday at noon Kristen and I decided to venture to Charminar.  I took a couple pics of Charminar which I will probably load tomorrow but for now here is the wikipedia link if you want to see: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Charminar.  It is a big cool structure but we only looked at it for a minute as all around Charminar there are shops and of course, we went shopping.  I bought material for my sari and it is a very pretty fuchsia color!  I still need to have the top made and what someone is calling a petticoat but really it is just the underskirt part.  (Petticoat just sounds so 1800s.)  It was very crowded around there and very hot in the middle of the day and we returned back to the hotel to nap before going into work tonight.
Work went very well tonight, especially for a Monday when sometimes it is hard to get back into the swing of things.  We met up with another trainer, Richard, who came in from Texas and he is very nice.  There are two others coming in this week so I will have company next week after Kristen heads home, which I'm very happy about.  The time is flying by...I think I will be home before I know it!  I'm going to sleep now...hope you are all well back at home! 

Brunch and pool time...a very relaxing Sunday!

Well, one week down and two to go for those of you who are missing me! 

Today we decided to relax and have a low-key day after our many adventures yesterday.  I slept 10+ hours last night which was great and met up with Kristen at noon for brunch.  We decided to check out the Sunday brunch called Bubbalicious at our hotel’s Italian restaurant, Prego.  It was a good decision…they had all sorts of appetizers, pizza, meats, desserts, and drinks and we ate and drank our money’s worth!  It was our one meal today so I feel it was ok to indulge a bit.  We went to the pool this afternoon and tried to catch some sun though it was mostly cloudy.  It was still warm so we swam a bit and read our books by the pool for quite a while.  I’m reading Marley & Me…I realize I’m like six years behind but I knew that it would be sad so I haven’t picked it up off my shelf before now.  Marley reminds me a lot of a wonderful yellow Lab I used to know and love…I think a few of you might know who I’m talking about and agree!  Speaking of dogs, I miss my three little Yorkies at home though I’m told they are being well cared for.  Someone meanly said that Teddy has forgotten about me but I don’t believe it…he is a lot smarter than he looks!  J 

I’ve loaded the picture of me swinging the cricket bat from yesterday!  Make sure to check it out!

A tiffin and cricket

Hi everyone…hope you all have a great weekend!  We finished up our shift at work at 6 am Saturday and I took a quick 1.5 hour power nap before we were picked up at our hotel at 9 am.  We went over to the home of Vineet, the supervisor of the people in our training class.  He served us a tiffin, which is a light meal.  He made idly, which are small, circular rice cakes.  The idly is served with chutney…we had one chutney made with tomatos and chiles and another made with coconut.  The tomato/chile chutney was very good but the spice gradually increased as I ate more.  He also made Maggi, which is like our Ramen noodles, and we drank litchi juice (Yum).  Sadly his wife and daughter are out of town right now so we didn’t get to see them but he did tell us stories about how they met in college and that they have a love marriage and not an arranged marriage.  He explained that they were in different castes but both sets of parents agreed to the marriage.  We went through a large photo album with pictures from their wedding and it was very interesting to see all of the pictures!

After the tiffin, we went to see a cricket match at a local park.  Vineet organized this match for us to see today as Kristen had expressed an interest in seeing a match.  The UHC office over here has a few teams that compete in tournaments so we were watching two of the UHC teams play each other.  I had never watched a cricket match before so I feel like I learned a bit today!  I had a chance to swing the cricket paddle and hit the ball and it was fun!  Kristen took a pic of me hitting the ball on her camera so I’ll load that once I get it from her.  It was nice to be outside in the daytime here and enjoy the beautiful weather!  After the match Vineet took us out to dinner at a local restaurant and we had delicious food including a dessert new to me called moong dal halwa.  Dal is lentils but the dessert was rich and sweet.

Kristen and I went to the mall near our hotel to do some shopping after dinner.  The mall was busy tonight and it was interesting to see the stores that were there.  Some are stores that we have in the US like United Colors of Benetton, Puma, and Reebok.  The bottom level of the mall is a store with everything you could imagine, like a Super WalMart.  We bought a few snack items there including some litchi juice which we had and enjoyed this morning.  It was a full and fun day and we experienced some great hospitality!  I’m going to add a few new photos so please check them out!

Fire alarm

I've been doing pretty well sleeping during the daylight hours over here so I shouldn't complain, but one does not want to be woken up by a loud and scary fire alarm when they are in a strange environment.  The alarm went off at about 4 pm yesterday (about an hour before I usually get up) and as I was wondering what to do I opened my door and went into the hall and of course, nobody was going anywhere.  I found a hotel worker on my floor who explained I didn't need to evacuate and he said the alarm was going off due to privacy or piracy...something must have gotten lost in translation as I'm fairly sure we didn't have pirates setting off the alarm.  It continued to go off for about a half hour so going back to sleep was not in the cards.  I made it through the night at work and we just had a little breakfast with Travis who is flying out this afternoon.  Two more UHC people will be coming in today so we're anxious to see some new faces! 

We have a busy weekend planned!  Saturday plans involve tea at the supervisor's house before going to see a cricket match that he organized...he has also said he will take us out for lunch afterwards at a "lovely" place.  Also Saturday we're going to do some shopping and see a movie!  I'm sure I'll have much more to share and some new photos after our adventures! 

Kangan

Last night for dinner we went to the Indian restaurant in our hotel called Kangan.  The past few nights we've just been eating at the hotel buffet which has been fine but this place was great!  We ordered a few things and shared...chicken tikka masala (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tikka_masala), a curry sampler with lamb, chicken, and lentil curries, and naan (a flatbread).  Besides the great food they have a guy who makes custom bracelets for you while you eat...you just pick the colors and he starts making them on his little oven type thing.  Did I bring my camera down to take a picture of this?  Of course not!  (Rookie mistake.)  But, I will go back with camera in hand to take a picture of the bracelet maker and of the food.  We had to head to work before my bracelet was done so I'll be picking it up later tonight when they open again.

Other than that, I learned that Facebook has their offices in the same building as UHC...we are on floors 5-7 and Facebook is on floor 4.  I'm thinking about paying them a visit before I go.  I'm not sure what I'll do there yet, but if you have any good ideas, please leave them in the comments!  Maybe I'll show up and ask for Mark Zuckerberg?

I also got a chance to listen to the Indian version of the Black Eyed Peas song "My Humps".  The beat is the same but with different words and I'm told it was featured in a movie over here.  I'd put a link to the song in here but you might be disappointed if you were a fan of the original.

Two more nights of work and then the weekend...and our calendar is filling up with plans already!  Our colleagues here are very hospitable (if I haven't already mentioned that) and they are very kind to plan some social events for us.  I won't tell you what's ahead so you'll have to stay tuned!  :)  Thanks again for reading!

Chips

I've been getting some nice feedback from people who are reading the blog so I just wanted to say thanks for reading!  Today's post is going to be a little bit shorter than normal because I'm ready to sleep and because I didn't have any special outings today.

My 2nd day at work went just as good as the first.  On our break I got some interesting chips for a snack...they were Lays but the flavor was called "India's Magic Masala".  If I had to compare it to a chip flavor I've had before, I'd say it is similar to Barbeque but it had some unusual spices in the ingredients list (black pepper, chili powder, and tumeric I think).  Wikipedia tells me this flavor is very popular in India, Pakistan, and Bangladesh!  If I'm not going to find my favorite Dill Pickle chips here, I may as well try something new!

When we got back from work Kristen and I went to workout in the workout room on the 25th floor of our hotel.  That is the top floor and there are large windows where we can look out on the city.  Not too far from our hotel we can see an area where people are living basically in shacks...they have large blue tarps covering them to (hopefully) keep out the elements.  Kristen pointed out a couple of big water troughs where people were getting water.  The disparity between the rich and the poor here is something that was mentioned to me before I came but I have seen it just in the last few days.  There is an area we drove through Sunday pretty close to here that is called the Beverly Hills of Hyderabad and, like in Beverly Hills, the homes are huge and picturesque.  I'm not trying to make be a downer by bringing this up but it is just interesting what you can see by looking out the window of your hotel.

Off to sleep...we've got plans to eat dinner at the Indian restaurant in our hotel for dinner later!

First Day of Work - Complete!

Hiiii,
After our big Sunday outing I slept for 10 hours last night!  That's pretty unusual for me so I guess my body needed that.  When I woke up I went to Hussein Sagar Lake which is a big lake in Hyderabad that has a statue of Buddha in the middle.  Someone equated it to our Statue of Liberty but I'm not sure that is a great comparison.  You can take boats out to the statue but we happily viewed it from the shore.  We also visited a store to look at crafts and I got a pretty good deal on a decorative elephant for myself!  My first purchase of many, I'm sure.  :)
I took a small nap before going into work tonight...the shift here is 8:45 pm to 6:15 am.  UHC offices occupy three floors in a building very close to our hotel in the High Tech area of the city.  Our training room is on the 6th floor but we walked down the to the 5th floor where they have a cafeteria (with tvs...cricket was on, of course) and also an outdoor balcony-type patio!  I was impressed and wanted to take a picture but it was dark so I'll wait until I can get one when it is light out.  We went out there to have cake for one of our trainees birthdays, which was yesterday.  Her name is Bhargavi (pronounced Bar-gah-vee) and I'm guessing she turned 22 but didn't ask.  She had a beautiful outfit on and said it was a gift for her birthday.  I took a picture of it that I will post on here.  Something interesting about the cake was that people put cake on her face, kind of like at weddings where the bride and groom sometimes put cake on each others faces.  She also brought me my piece of cake and fed me the first bite lol.  Something new every day, right?

We have 11 in our class, two of them being women, which is a change from my department at home which has women as the majority and a few men.  They all have laptops and we're sitting in a conference room around one big table.  I brought them some gum and Hersheys candies since Kristen requested that...the quality of the chocolate here is not the same as in the US.  Also, I feel it is good to show up on your first day bringing treats!  :)

It's almost 7 am here and I'm off to bed for the night...or day.  I hope you're all enjoying the season premiere of Dancing with the Stars or whatever new fall tv you're excited about!

Hi all! In case you heard about the earthquake in India, know that it was in Northern India and nowhere near me. I've had a very long and full day and I'm now typing this out on my phone since the wireless on my computer is acting bad tonight. :(. I'll give a quick rundown of the highlights of my day!

We set out this morning to see a big temple about two hours away by car. I met up with Kristen, Travis (another UHC employee from Tennessee) and about five of our trainees from our class. It was nice to meet and spend time with them today prior to getting in the office tomorrow. On the way to the temple we made a few stops. At one point we got to see and feed bananas to some wild monkeys! The monkeys got a bit jumpy because of the bananas so I let Kristen feed them and I just watched. We also saw wild buffalo and pigs today, among other animals. When driving through a town we also saw a funeral procession. This was interesting as there were drums and they were carrying the deceased on what looked like a wicker mat and they had a piece of sugarcane sticking out of his mouth.  The temple was very interesting and crowded. We were not allowed to wear our shoes in there so our feet ended up getting a bit gross.

We had a pop called "Thums Up" today which is a cola made by Coca-Cola. I usually don't drink Coke but the others said it tasted the same as what we drink in the States. I had my first real Indian meal tonight for dinner! We had some assistance from one of our trainees with ordering and were able to share dishes so we could try a lot of good things. Among the highlights were tandoori chicken and biryani, which Hyderabad is known for. It was good and spicy but not overally spicy so I could still eat and enjoy it!

One final thing that Kristen had warned me about - the Indian people stare and take pictures of us when we are out and about! It is still funny to me at this point so I smiled and waved but she told me it gets less funny when the come closer to you to try and take pictures. We definitely stand out in the crowds...I think we were the only white people I saw out today. Tomorrow night I start work and I'm looking forward to getting in the office!!

I'm here!

Hi all!
I've arrived in Hyderabad and have checked into my hotel...the Westin!  For those of you interested in reading a little about the city, or seeing pics of the hotel, check out these sites: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hyderabad,_India and http://www.starwoodhotels.com/westin/property/overview/index.html?propertyID=3219 .  I hope to post a few of my own pics up here tomorrow.  I had a very good trip despite the length of the flight.  I flew Air India and the people were great and I had a very comfortable seat that reclined all the way flat for sleeping!  I sat next to a nice, chatty lady from Cedar Rapids, Iowa, who is also in Hyderabad on business.  She did not have the same excitement that I have about visiting India but she is only here until Thursday.  She and her work buddy waited with me in the airport until I got my luggage and then made sure I found the driver who came to transport me to the hotel from the airport.  SO NICE of them!

It was nighttime and dark when I got here so I didn't see much of the city on the way to the hotel.  When I checked in at the front desk I was given a pretty little flower arrangement that Kristen, the trainer here from California, left for me!  I spoke with her on the phone tonight and we're meeting up in the morning and going out to visit a temple with some of the people from our training class.  I am looking forward to it!  I slept quite a bit on the trip over so I'm not very tired now but it is midnight here so I'm going to attempt to sleep more.  I hope you're all having a great Saturday! 

Welcome to my Hyderablog!

Hello!
Welcome to my travel blog for my trip to Hyderabad, India!  I hope to post a little bit every day about my experiences working and sightseeing in India!  If you have any questions or topics you want me to talk about, leave me a comment and I'll try to address them!  I'm sending this blog to family, friends, and work associates so remember that when leaving comments.

I'm currently sitting in Chicago O'Hare airport waiting for the flight to Hyderabad.  The flight is scheduled to be 17 hours long and when I arrive in India, it will be Saturday evening.  I'm looking forward to getting some sleep and watching movies on the plane!  On one long flight previously I watched four movies so as long as there are some good selections I might do that again!

Thanks for checking out my blog...I'll post again when I reach Hyderabad!