The Staycation

When you can't get away for a short vacation, why not bring the short vacation to you? This was the theory behind our activity on Saturday. After a quick trip to the gym and a brief visit to the jeweler at Connaught Place (Mom, it's a good news/bad news kind of thing, your ring was ready but the earrings may or may not have been sold), we headed back to Gurgaon for a night "away".

Lindsay had wanted to get out of town for a couple nights to relax prior to our annual home leave in May, but for a number of reasons, we just couldn't find a weekend that worked. We could, however, find one night that worked. Thankfully, we have an addiction to Sunday brunch. This addiction lead us to join a "club" at one of the local hotels for discounts which in turn earned us a complimentary night's stay. Thus, the "staycation" was born. Even though it's primarily "just" a business hotel, there are certainly far worse places to spend a night than The Leela in Gurgaon.

What does one do on a staycation? Pretty much act like you're on vacation. A couple mindless hours by the pool where I switched my reading from "Escape From the Land of Snows" (an excellent read about the Dalai Lama's escape to India) to Tina Fey's "Bossypants" because, you know, it's vacation. The pool was followed by a pre-dinner drink and the best Italian food I've had in India. Sunday morning consisted of room service, a massage, and a late check-out. Not a bad way to spend twenty four hours.

The Leela is the first prominent landmark you see when passing through the tollbooth from Delhi. It's not located in what you would think is a very "vacation-y" location. I mean, it's adjacent to Gurgaon's largest mall. Strangely they did an amazing job of designing the hotel around the location.

The Italian restaurant Zanotta is a prime example. It's perched on the six floor overlooking none other than the same allegedly corrupt toll booth I complained about on the way to the hotel. But here's the thing, overlooking a toll booth that is 30 lanes wide at night is actually quite interesting. On the left side, a series of red brake lights; on the right side, a series of headlights emerging from the toll booth. On both side, cars and motorcycles swerving to select the best lane. Mesmerizing and oddly relaxing.

With a trip home in nine short days and what will be a long and hectic day trip to Amritsar this coming Saturday, the staycation achieved its primary objective. And while I'm sure our drivers found it a little odd and ridiculous (probably even more ridiculous than those reading this post), the staycation proved you don't need a flight and multiple days to get away.

Sunday Brunch, A Tradition Like No Other

During the high heat of the six month Delhi summer, an expatriate weekend is hardly complete without the time-honored tradition of Sunday brunch. Over the past six weeks, we have been out to brunch exactly six times. I've determined Sunday brunch is the sole reason I haven't seen Biggest Loser-like weight loss. Brunches in India typically fall into one of two categories; the "over the top social scene" brunch and the "restaurant just wants to make life easier on themselves" brunch. We've been to both, and not surprisingly, find ourselves gravitating toward the former category.

Over the past few weeks, we've been fortunate enough to brunch (is it inappropriate to use it as a verb?) at Set'z (which is apparently a trendy way to spell the word "zest"), Olive, and the Leela Kempinski Gurgaon. Each of these places is basically at the same price point, INR 1800 - 2400 ($40 - $50), which is a lot of money here for a meal, but surprisingly, I've never walked away disappointed or feeling like it wasn't worth the price. Not only is it basically our only meal of the day but it also serves as entertainment for the better part of the afternoon. From my perspective, I'm actually keeping Lindsay from shopping for 3+ hours on a Sunday, so it could be (easily) argued that these brunches actually save money.

Set'z (aka, Zest)
Like many nice things in India, Set'z is located in a mall. However, the DLF Emporio Mall is unlike any other mall I've seen in India. If you're into super-luxe shops, it puts the Magnificent Mile or other shopping meccas to shame; it's home to Delhi's outlets for extreme luxury goods; Versace, Dior, Cartier, Armani, and Jimmy Choo to name a few. For the most part, the only thing I can afford in the building is brunch at Set'z. The food is split into geographic genres that span the globe. Culinary highlights include freshly tossed Caesar salad and some of the best sushi I've had in India. In addition to the food and what helps provide the value in the INR 2000 cost, is the free flow of imported sparkling wine or whatever your beverage of choice. Of course, this portion of the brunch basically renders the rest of your day unproductive, there are certainly worse places and ways to toil away an afternoon in India.

Olive
Set in close proximity to Qutab Minar, Olive at 1 Style Mile has long been one of our favorite restaurants in Delhi. Part of the allure of Olive is it's outdoor setting under a huge banyan tree. So while they do have indoor seating and it's likely a better choice during the winter, they do a nice job of cooling down the outdoors with large fans and misting machines (yes, like the ones on sidelines at football games). The spread at Olive isn't quite as extensive as the other locations; however, there are still ample choices including their thin crust pizza and a live grill with excellent prawns. The only down side to Olive (since the price requires you to drink to achieve the desired level of value) is that sparkling wine is not included in the price. While the other choices were more than adequate, you've got to think this will become some sort of competitive disadvantage down the road.

Leela Kempinski
The Leela was the site of this week's brunch and easily had the most extensive selection. If you wanted it, you could basically have it. I hadn't been to the Leela hotel, which is one of Gurgaon's newer business hotels, and had heard very good things both about the hotel and the brunch. They even found a way to give a hotel located adjacent to one of Gurgaon's largest malls actual views of something other than construction. While our table looked out over the hotel entrance, just across the road was actual open space yet to be claimed by DLF or Unitech or whatever other development company comes along next. Described by the locals as jungle (and who am I to argue), it actually looks a little more like desert with scrub trees, it's still a nice break from the constant views of progress (i.e., cranes and construction). The only detriment to the experience was the "iced popsicle with alcohol" the waiter passed around the table. It was ice on a stick soaking in some blue liquid in a tumbler. Looked appetizing enough. What they failed to mention was that it had been "Indianized" with a dusting of masala powder. Not a flavor I enjoy, yet not near enough to destroy the experience.

While it's probably not necessary to hit these brunch spots each week, if for no other reasons than it both makes me sound like a pompous entitled brat and inspires a certain level of lethargy and naps, these Sunday afternoons do provide a great way to meet and connect with friends (and provides a nice respite from the heat, noise, chaos found in most other parts of our expatriate world).

The Birthday (aka Goa, Part II)

While the trip to Goa was timed perfectly for a much needed break from Delhi, the primary purpose was to celebrate Lindsay’s birthday. It was also the first time we’ve done a resort-style vacation without a thing planned besides informally figuring that we’d need to find time to schedule a massage and a strategy to snag the preferred chairs at the pool. Upon arrival, we took a tour of the grounds and quickly made our way to the pool, which was a beautiful southwest facing infinity pool overlooking rice paddies (someone old us it was wheat, but I had never heard of a wheat paddy, but then again, it’s not exactly Kansas, so they very well  may have been wheat paddies) with palm trees blowing in the distance. You couldn’t actually see the Arabian Sea from the hotel, but you could just kind of tell there was a massive body of water lingering just beyond the last row of trees. We spent the afternoon alternating between swimming, reading, and cocktails. Yeah, that’s right, cocktails in the afternoon. Shocking.

Apologies for the length of the post, but I’ve tried to break it up in pieces.

Ranger, Leisure Concierge

While sipping cocktails by the pool, the leisure concierge, whom we had met at check-in, found us at the pool and brought his menu of offerings. His name was Ranger, and he claimed his parents named him after the Lone Ranger. While that was probably just a story to endear himself to unsuspecting tourists that could pronounce and remember the name, he seemed like a good enough and genuine dude. Among Ranger’s more interesting offerings was something called “beach bubbly” which amounted to sparkling wine sunset beach picnic and a combination outing to the local fish market to bargain for seafood and a lesson with Chef Linda as she prepared the food you had purchased. Thankfully (as you’ll learn later) we opted to skip the beach bubbly based on the menu but figured the fish market would be a good opportunity to feel like we did something “local” rather than only lounging by the pool for three days.

India’s Pike’s Place Market

 We awoke early on Lindsay’s actual birthday to venture to the fish market with a guide and driver. We were too early for the retail market so we headed to the open-air wholesale market, and we were glad we did. It was a market in its most basic form with dozens of impromptu stalls selling everything from snails to sharks to other various sized fish pulled from the Arabian Sea. It certainly wasn’t a place heavily visited by tourists as evidenced by the fact that we were able to walk around without the constant pull of hawkers and beggars; basically, we were left alone to explore. Lindsay placed herself in charge of bargaining for the night’s main course and relegated the the evening’s starter to your’s truly. As we approached the kingfish section, it was time to bargain. We really had no idea how much fish we needed, so a “medium-sized” kingfish seemed appropriate.

Lindsay quickly got herself into Indian market bargaining mode. The salesman’s first asking price was Rs. 1200 (I’m not going to convert everything into dollars here, but let’s just assume we’re using a $1.00 = Rs. 46 rate going forward which makes this a $26 fish). At least he recognized us as Americans. Lindsay’s initial bid? Rs. 350. The salesman quickly got crazy eyes and started yelling incoherently (“incoherently” is another way of saying it was a language I didn’t understand). Apparently, he was insulted. He grabbed the fish, took it to another stall that had a scale (in hindsight, it’s a little odd he didn’t have a scale), and weighed the fish; just over two kilos. He came back and basically said, 500 rupees per kilo so 1000 rupees. Lindsay pulled the “let’s start walking away” move. Having taken two steps toward his neighbor, we heard his price quickly begin to fall.  His newest offer was Rs. 500. Lindsay had the figure 450 in her head (not sure exactly why, maybe because it was close to $10?), made one last effort to try and get that price, and felt comfortable with Rs. 500. Upon walking away from the stall, the hotel guide who had been mysteriously silent through the entire process said, “You got a very good price on that fish; it would have cost at least Rs. 700 or 800 at the market in town.”

Since the tiger prawn selection was somewhat limited at the wholesale market, the fish market in town was our next stop. The Margao marketplace resembled some of the markets we’ve seen in Thailand; however, it was still early in the morning so the crowds had not yet arrived. The first stall we found had absolutely enormous prawns that were the size of a fist. The price for those was equally outrageous at Rs. 1100 per kilo. The shopkeeper was treating it as fixed price and wouldn’t budge .We walked away. We weren’t so fortunate this time as we allowed to keep walking. At the next stall, they didn’t have prawns nearly the size but the prices were much more reasonable. The second shopkeeper also seemed intent that it was going to be a fixed price affair; based on the commotion Lindsay caused when she stepped on a stray cat as I was trying to bargains, I decided that Rs. 225 for a half kilo of prawns (about 12 based on the size I had selected) was fair for my purposes and dinner had been purchased.

The marketplace also contained fresh fruit stands with the world’s smallest bananas (probably figuratively, not literally) and a butchers’ row with stalls dedicated to various meat types, including the first beef butcher I’ve seen (Goa has very much a Portuguese influence, and with that has many more Christians). After walking around for ten minutes or so, we figured we had had enough local flavor for one day and headed back. At 8:30am we were at the hotel.

Chef Linda

The rest of the day played out quite similarly to the day before; swimming, reading, and cocktails. We did, however, find the time to squeeze in an afternoon massage.  The second bookend on the fish market experience was to learn how to cook the local catch with Chef Linda at one of the hotel’s restaurants. While the lesson basically amounted to us watching her prepare the food, it was still a fun experience to get into the kitchen and see how it was done. If nothing else, it convinced me that buying and preparing fresh shrimp isn’t really as gross as I had always suspected (i.e., I won’t feel as tied down to the bags of frozen cooked shrimp in the grocery store at home).

The prawns were prepared with loads of butter, garlic, coriander, and chopped onion and were absolutely delightfully delicious. We selected two preparations for the kingfish; simple grilled  filets and chunked cubes in a red masala. Both preparations were great, though Lindsay was partial to the grilled filet and I the masala; if for no other reason that I could enjoy with some naan.

Lindsay’s birthday concluded with one last cocktail by the pool that was interrupted by Ranger, who had learned it was Lindsay’s birthday, and one of his leisure concierge lackeys that brought a birthday cake and serenaded her with a “Happy Birthday” song (Ranger also plays acoustic guitar, his talents are multi-faceted).

The Beach

The day after Lindsay’s birthday we had very little planned so decided it was time to experience the Goan beach which was supposed to be a ten or fifteen minute walk from the hotel. I think we may have missed a turn and the walk was a little longer; however, it gave us the opportunity to walk the main streets of Majorda, the nearest town. To be perfectly honest, the beach disappointed. As soon as our feet hit the sand, every shack’s front man approached us to either have a drink, rent a chair, get a beachside massage. If a front man wasn’t approaching us, a beggar was. In short, it felt like India. Not that that’s a bad thing; it just wasn’t the intent of the trip.

As sad as it is to say, the most entertaining part of the beach was getting photographed in the ocean (it’s my newest thing, kind of like (but nearly as entertaining as) getting a photograph at the entrance to a National Park). Honestly, the only reason that was even entertaining was that Lindsay had set down her flip-flops to take the picture and an unexpected large wave nearly washed them into the sea.

The most surprising thing about the beach was the way it catered to Russian tourists. Many of the signs labeling the beach shacks were written in Cyrillic script. Upon seeing the script, I started to feel like I was at some Black Sea resort. While I’m sure there are many nice resorts on the Black Sea, again, not the intent of the trip. Upon seeing one beach massage in action; which consisted of a topless Russian woman laying facedown, with her husband basking in the sun a few feet away, the male masseuse eagerly working out any knots, and some sort of masseuse’s assistant leering at the customer. Surprisingly, Lindsay wasn’t into this and decided it was time to head back to the hotel.

Holi

The downside to traveling on a holiday weekend is that you end up missing the ability to actually celebrate. Holi is India’s festival of colors and amounts to participants having colored water fights. It stains clothing, hair, you name it. One American colleague here on a short visit took part in the celebration and came to work on Tuesday with her blonde hair looking like a clown wig. When I saw her later in the week, nothing had changed.

On the ride to the airport in Goa, there were numerous revelers on mopeds that were absolutely covered in colors. We couldn’t get any pictures because our driver was driving a bit fast and erratically, which is to say he was driving very normal. My sister actually passed along a good slideshow (the pictures are well beyond anything I could have produced):

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/35662831/ns/news-picture_stories/displaymode/1247/?beginSlide=1

Needless to say, it’s something I’d like to experience next year. When we arrived at the gate in Delhi, the Kingfisher ground crew had obviously partaken as their hair and skin was stained underneath their clean work uniforms.

The trip and break from “India” while remaining in India was exactly what we needed. By the second day of the trip Lindsay mentioned that something like this might be necessary every eight to twelve weeks. While I’m not sure I need the tropics that frequently, we’re only three short weeks from our first “John” trip of this adventure; two weeks trekking in central Nepal to Annapurna base camp. Not much time to get into hiking shape.

Suite, Suite Persistence

Ah, such a delicious little pun for what you’re about to read.

Business hotels in India are extremely comfortable, modern facilities where one can easily lose sight of what it means to actually be part of society.  That being said, after seven nights in a standard room filled to the brim with six large duffel bags worth of clothing, four carry-on bags worth of stuff, and two increasingly cranky Americans, something had to give.  In this case, that something was the temperature of the room.  Having made multiple calls to the front desk and having multiple visits from maintenance, it was time for resolution.   Maintenance routine seemed to be, (1) come to the room with a ladder, (2) remove a piece of the ceiling, (3) claim to make some change to the filtration system, (4) tell Americans to wait 30 to 60 minutes when all their troubles would disappear in the cool breeze of an air conditioned room.

On what we believe was the fifth call, the Duty Manager decided he would personally come to the room with maintenance to ensure his customers were happy.  After following the same four step maintenance routine, we finally said, “You’ve been here before, we’ve heard the same story, it’s not going to be fixed in 30 minutes and I think we both know that.”  Finally, the duty manager admitted that he would have to “turn the cold air on for the entire floor.”  Our response, “sweet, let’s do that.”  For some reason, this response was unexpected and he then said, “OK, I will turn on the cold air for the entire floor and everyone’s room will cool down to 21 degrees.”

As you might imagine, this response perplexed Lindsay and I both and we both went on the offensive with two very different arguments.   Lindsay chose the “emotional customer-focused” argument claiming that wouldn’t he just be upsetting all the other customers for the benefit of us.  I chose the logic-based argument of “then why do you even have thermostats in rooms if guests can’t select their own temperature”.  We were making sweet music, and it wasn’t even planned.  Though even we couldn’t have guessed what would happen next.  He responded, “Perhaps we can change your room, we could see if a suite would be more to your liking.”  Bingo.  It wasn’t even our goal as we had no intention of packing up six duffels worth of clothing and going through the effort of changing rooms.

Then we saw the suite.

I’ve never seen two people pack that much luggage so quickly.  Within 30 minutes we were unpacking in a spacious two-room suite where we can actually sit on something besides the bed without also sitting on what could also be referred to as out "dresser".

The temperature?  Absolutely frigid.  Lindsay slept in multiple layers the first night and is now officially banned from calling the front desk.

How the f*!% do they make pasta spicy?

Undoubtedly, the quote of the week was, “How the f*!% do they make pasta spicy?” (I know, I’m censoring myself here, but for some reason it’s more enjoyable than the F bomb).   

Little did Lindsay know that the room service pasta on a weeknight was the least of her worries.  For dinner on Saturday we selected a restaurant that we were familiar with that has since opened an additional location in Gurgaon called Turquoise Cottage.  It specializes primarily in Chinese and Thai cuisine and turns itself into quite the night spot around 10pm.  Like most places in Gurgaon, it’s located in a mall.

At any rate, I ordered the Tom Yam soup and allowed the waiter to up-sell me on some sort of Singapore chili crab dish (what can I say, I was tired of chicken) while Lindsay ordered some sort of dish with prawns.  Mid-way through our second mojito, Lindsay asked to try the soup.  As she described it on Facebook, she bit down into something twice and her brain registered a bit late that she had bitten directly into some sort of hot chili.

For those of you familiar with Lindsay, you can probably imagine what happened next.  For those of you not so fortunate, there were tears, orders to multiple wait staff to bring some combination of ice, water, napkins (for some reason, patting napkins on the tongue seemed a logical response), additional ice, some sort of dairy product (we somehow found the one restaurant in India that didn’t have any yoghurt in house), and finally more water.  In addition to the water, there were multiple attempts to relieve the pain in the mint and crushed ice filled mojito.

After what seemed like a long, long time to me (I can only imagine what it seemed like to her), she stabilized.  At that point, the panic restarted as the realization set in that she had had a LOT of ice in a restaurant not associated with a five-star hotel, which isn’t necessarily the most hygienic of decisions.  Thankfully, either the Xifaxin we’ve started taking is doing its job or we just got lucky as there were no further issues.

Through all of this, she still hadn’t received her main dish (apparently, her reaction had scared our waiter, who made himself scarce the rest of the evening, leaving others to tend to us) and the kitchen was busy remaking her dish.  A dish, which turned out to be perhaps the most bland, flavorless Chinese food I’ve tasted since I was in Ireland.

The "Looksie"

It's official: I have something in common with Plaxico Burress.  Thankfully, my ability to travel and general sense of personal liberty won't be quite as limited; however, we both should return to mainstream American society at some point in 2011.

It's probably a little anti-climactic to some of our closest friends and I'm sure many are sick of hearing about it, but Lindsay and I are moving to India in January.  In preparation for the big move, Lindsay and I spent the ten days prior to Thanksgiving on our official "looksie" trip to Gurgaon, primarily to find a place to live but also to spend time in the office getting to know our new co-workers.

Lindsay had been back twice this year; however, this was my first trip to India since our six-month assignment from October 2004 - April 2005.  While some things have absolutely changed (Gurgaon has quite figuratively exploded), some things remain much the same ("Friends" is still a staple on Star World TV's "happy hour" in the evening).  The biggest difference between this assignment and the last (other than the duration) is the fact that we'll be living as "true" expats this time around; that is, in the comfort of a fully-serviced apartment close to the office rather than in the comfort of the Taj Palace Hotel in Delhi.

As with any trip to India you learn to expect the unexpected and learn to be more patient; however,in the end, the place finds a way to endear itself to you.   That being said, here are the quick hit highlights and observations from our trip....

Ahhhhh, Safety
"Security" is a way of life in India.  I'd estimate that on the average day, a person probably goes through some semblance (or appearance) of a security checkpoint five of six times.

Our hotel, the Crowne Plaza, employed two layer security to gain access to the lobby; however, the layers seem to vary based on the audience.  When driving onto the hotel grounds, we were surprised at the level of care that was taken to ensure the car wasn't wired.  In fact, the car was checked in no fewer than four places: under the car, under the hood, in the trunk, and in the glove box.  All of this in intended to make one feel safe; however, I'm not convinced the guards are trained on what exactly to keep an eye on; however, the rifle carried by one is imposing enough.  In addition, we learned later in the week, with thanks to a former co-worker, Jaideep Agrawal, that when he drove in alone to pick us up that the check was nowhere near as thorough and he was allowed to pass through without the guards looking in the car.

Once you graduate the first check, you then must pass a bag screen and walk through a metal detector to gain entry to the actual hotel.  However, you're not forced to empty your pockets so every person sets off the alarm.  From that point, women are allowed to enter freely and men must survive a check from one of those security wands.  Again, cell phones and whatever else are still in pockets, so the wand alarm would go off each time I walked in the hotel; however, I was never asked to empty my pockets and was allowed free entry to the hotel.

On the bright side, at least they make you walk through the metal detector.  I can remember five years ago walking into the Maurya Sheraton in Delhi, seeing metal detectors, and testing the guards by walking around the detector with absolutely no consequence.  This doesn't seem like that big of a deal....except that Hugo Chavez was staying in the hotel at the time.

Other than hotel safety, you'll be relieved to know the future apartment has a similar setup, so don't worry about us.  As a quick tip when you come visit, just look Western and act like you know what you're doing and you should be fine.

Bar Tricks
While physical safety is of primary concern, it was reassuring to see that workplace safety ranks high as well.  We ventured to Ambience Mall for one of Gurgaon's two microbrews for lunch one day (the beer was better than expected, even better (surprisingly) than Kingfisher, the king of good times).  There was a promotional banner hanging high above the bar that needed to come down.  I wasn't sure how they had originally hung the thing; however, we quickly learned how it was coming down when four men emerged with a 12 - 15 foot step ladder though there was nothing to lean the thing against.  Three of the guys stood in the middle of the bar holding the thing vertical and, sure enough, the fourth slowly started climbing the rungs....while the other three supported the base.

He ascended to the top rung (something I wouldn't even do with a stable base) and began yanking on the banner.  When yanking failed to extract the banner, he was forced to descend and took some sort of tool back up with him to help.  Eventually he was successful and the banner came down.  The most surprising part of this sequence was that Lindsay and I seemed to be the only two people transfixed and the only two people that found this somewhat less than safe.

The Crowne Plaza
The Crowne Plaza Gurgaon is a very nice hotel; however, it's very much a business hotel.  In fact, it's quite possible that the only room in the hotel with more than one resident was our's.  Every morning we'd go to the buffet breakfast at G Cafe, which was included with the room, and they'd ask me for my room number.  After I'd reply "4021", they'd ask Lindsay the same question.  She'd reply, "the same", and the hostess (the same each day) always seemed a little skeptical.  At any rate, it took a while for the staff to buy our story and a good six or seven days for them to stop offering us separate checks.

Apparently, poker and gambling has experienced the same growth explosion in India as in the United States.  While waiting for a friend for lunch one day in the lobby, Lindsay and I quite innocently pulled out a deck of cards to pass the time playing gin rummy.  We played one hand and then noticed a member of the staff looking nervously at us.  Lindsay then saw a hostess give that member a nod or a look and he immediately approached us and said, "sir, no cards in open spaces, it's gambling".  Reluctantly, even though there was no money or chips to be seen, we decided it best to sit quietly.  Quite the different cultural experience from a place like Ireland where gambling in the open isn't just accepted, it's basically encouraged.

Ohio State / Michigan
I posted this on Facebook, but approximately two hours before kickoff, we were headed to Delhi for dinner at Olive, one of our favorite restaurants.  At the tollbooth to Delhi on Mehrauli Road, I was suprised to see a guy wearing an Ohio State sweatshirt.  I can say with 99% certainty that he had no idea he was wearing the sweatshirt for a team about to engage in its fiercest and most traditional rivalry.  I can say with 100% certainty that he had no idea that a certain coach from West Virginia has basically killed one side of that rivalry and turned the ferocity of that rivalry down a notch or two.

Northern Spice
My new team at work went out for a team lunch at a traditional northern Indian kebab restuarant.  As usual, the food was phenomenal and plentiful; however, we nearly didn't eat as our table of nine didn't seem to be the waiter's priority.  After ordering (a complex order consisting of "8 non-veg and 1 veg lunch served family style at the table) we thought we were in the clear.  As the minutes passed we began to grow a little impatient.  The waiter came back fifteen or so minutes later and, with a move straight out of "Groundhog's Day", asked if he could take our order.  Awesome.  Everyone at the table immediately asked the waiter to send over his manager.  Not surprisingly, his manager wasn't set to arrive for another two or three hours.

If you've been to India, you've undoubtedly taken part in the ritual of filling out a survey card for service at a hotel or restaurant.  This may have been the first time I haven't seen it offered though that didn't keep one of the more assertive of the bunch to ask for a survey card.  Somewhat surprisingly, they weren't out of cards and she was actually given one.  In our first bit of teambuilding, we jointly redefined the scale and filled out the card.  As we got up from the table, one team member gave the card to the waiter and we could see him reading it as we left the restuarant.  Suffice to say, that card didn't find its way into the waiter's employment record.

The Bucket List
If this trip did nothing else, it made this whole "we're moving to India" thing very, very real.  While we're both extremely excited for the adventure we have in front of us, but the fact that we're moving half way around the world in under 40 days is just a bit more apparent today than it was only a couple of weeks ago.  There are still of lot of logistics to care for; doctor's appointments, tax briefings, and determining which personal items stay and which go to name a few.  In addition, it's tough to find the right balance between spending time with family and friends and striking the right balance between talking about the experience and going about our day to day lives.  That being said, if you come across me between now and January 7th, you absolutely have the right to say, "stop talking about India, you idiot, I know you're going, I know you're excited about it, but let's get to the important stuff --- how do you like the Hawks' chances in the _____ Bowl?" (Note, while I absolutely want the Hawks in the Fiesta, there's something cathartic about the possibility of watching them take down yet another SEC team for 3 hours on New Year's Day....even though Boise State would be a tougher test than the #3 team in the SEC).