Is this real life?!?
I'm skipping the days we spent at Kabini for now. I'll add them later, promise. Anyway, here's another update:
Today started off with our first laundry experience in India - we folded our clothes and dropped them off with the office to be washed, ironed, and returned to us. It was a little scary to leave such a large chunk of my clothes with a stranger, but I’m trusting the system. After dropping off laundry and having a fantastic breakfast (yogurt and cereal - I love having a kitchen and groceries - I got to Skype with Mom and Dad for an hour or so. I’m so excited to have internet! The whole morning was pretty relaxing, just getting ready, eating breakfast, and a brief meeting with the leaders, then we left for our company visit.
We traveled to Electronic City and visited the WIPRO campus. WIPRO (formerly Western India Products, Ltd), is the second largest outsourcing company in the world. To me, that conjured images of several call centers stocked with people answering tech support and product inquiry calls. Wrong. They do so much more than that.
When we first got there, we were greeted with bouquets of gerbera daises (so sweet), and ushered upstairs to a really nice conference room. After brief introductions, we walked to a dining room full of tables set with WIPRO china (a really nice touch) and a lovely smelling buffet lunch. Turns out it wasn’t just lovely smelling, the lunch was FANTASTIC - they had chicken parmigian! We all really enjoyed it. I normally don’t crave familiar American food this much when I’m abroad, but something about this trip has really made me miss it. I think it’s cause we’re starting to feel like Indian cuisine is a bit repetitive and homogeneous. I’m sure if you’ve grown up here, the dishes probably seem quite different, but being from the States where we have so many different genres of food (Italian, Chinese, Mexican, Thai), we’re all feeling a bit “food bored.”
Following lunch, we returned to the conference room and started our series of meetings. We learned a lot about who WIPRO is and what they do - they have four main divisions: IT, Personal & Home Care, etc. Then we had a tour of the training facility (THAT was IMPRESSIVE) and a few more meetings. Everyone seemed fairly engaged, asking questions and making comments. I think we all really enjoyed it. Up next was dinner and free time.
So, remember how I mentioned earlier that we were all kinda craving American food? Well, that was reflected in our dinner choice tonight - Pizza Hut. We walked from the apartments to the restaurant down the street. Honestly, walking was about as stressful as driving feels. I was sure I was going to trip on one of the holes or steps or random rocks or tree roots or broken patches. I’m not the most graceful person, so it’s bound to happen at some point, I’d just prefer it NOT happen on a concrete sidewalk near a super busy street full of Indian traffic. We made it safely, despite one of the access covers nearly flipping over underneath my feet, and the second we walked into the restaurant, stress vanished. It smelled like home.
Now, it’s important to note that Indian Pizza Hut is NOT like American Pizza Hut. First, a majority of the menu is vegetarian (which one would expect given that one of the main religions here doesn’t eat beef and the other doesn’t eat pork), and so a good number of the entrees are much more interesting than our standard American fare. We’ve noticed this at several of the “American” chains we’ve visited. Remember my paneer wrap from McDonald’s? It makes sense once you’re here, but I never would have considered the implications of opening a traditionally American restaurant in a culture that has such restricted diets. I
If you’ve ever cooked for a vegetarian, you understand. It’s not that you just don’t use meat, you don’t use ANY animal products - oils, lards, certain extracts, occasionally eggs, milk, and cheese. It’s tricky. You can’t just change a recipe to remove the obvious meat, sometimes you have to completely redesign it. For example, apple pie sounds safe and vegetarian, right? Nope. Quite often crust has lard in it, so you have to find a new recipe. And with companies that sell food, a redesign of a recipe is not a simple undertaking. You have to do through a whole new gambit of testing, approvals, measurements, more testing, etc. Entering this market given that so much of the menu would have to be recreated is not as simple as I would have thought.
A bonus to the challenge? It resulted in a much more creative, very interesting menu. We ended up choosing from the Tuscany offerings - I had a pizza with gouda cheese, basil, mushrooms, bell pepper, baby corn and balsamic vinaigrette dressing. It was fantastic.
After dinner, we headed back to the apartments. We had found out earlier that we would have to move apartments - apparently they have to do some work on the one that we were in, so they were moving us to another building. Originally, they had said that we had until 11 to move (which was good seeing as we weren’t packed and wanted to get dinner). When we got back, however, we were being rushed to get out as quickly as possible - frustrating. So, we quickly grabbed our stuff and shuffled out. Then came what we were sure was either a practical joke or a nightmare.
The new apartment is on the seventh floor of the building. Sounds nice, but consider the fact that it’s really hot here and heat does what? That’s right, rises. So, the lower apartments are the more desirable. It’s okay, we were gonna give the apartment the benefit of the doubt - perhaps it was more like a penthouse. NOPE! It’s awful. We moved from a lovely apartment with a nice living room, two nice bedrooms, a great kitchen and internet, so a tiny, hot, three bedroom apartment with scary couches, minimal lighting, no refrigerator/coffee maker/supplies, and NO INTERNET. We didn’t even have a modem. Oh and the phone didn’t work. AND he forgot to give us a key. I wanted to cry. I almost did. Is this real life? Surely not.
We all kinda stared around, dazed. I couldn’t stay. I picked up our leftovers, yogurt, juice and milk and walked over to Kevin’s to see if we could store our stuff there. Then I stayed put for a little while, trying to get on the internet to let people know what was going on (and cancel all of my Skype dates), but that didn’t go well. Thanks for understanding, people at home. I stayed for a little bit longer to collect myself then headed back to our place.
Once there, it turns out that they had found us a “refrigerator” (i.e. a small coldish 1.5 x 1.5 box), so at least we can store provisions. Still no internet, but we’ll survive, right? They’ll supposedly bring us a modem in the morning, but I’m not crossing my fingers. I’m trying to stay positive. I am in India, after all. I need to focus on the big picture. I think it’s just that I’m missing home and I was so excited to talk to them and now I feel like that opportunity has been ripped away from me. Add to that the fact that as we were moving out, we were rushed cause someone needed to move in. Turns out that “’working on the apartment” was a lame cover for “we have someone we like better that want the room.” *sigh* This will be okay, right? I’m going to bed. I can’t think about this anymore.
Today started off with our first laundry experience in India - we folded our clothes and dropped them off with the office to be washed, ironed, and returned to us. It was a little scary to leave such a large chunk of my clothes with a stranger, but I’m trusting the system. After dropping off laundry and having a fantastic breakfast (yogurt and cereal - I love having a kitchen and groceries - I got to Skype with Mom and Dad for an hour or so. I’m so excited to have internet! The whole morning was pretty relaxing, just getting ready, eating breakfast, and a brief meeting with the leaders, then we left for our company visit.
We traveled to Electronic City and visited the WIPRO campus. WIPRO (formerly Western India Products, Ltd), is the second largest outsourcing company in the world. To me, that conjured images of several call centers stocked with people answering tech support and product inquiry calls. Wrong. They do so much more than that.
When we first got there, we were greeted with bouquets of gerbera daises (so sweet), and ushered upstairs to a really nice conference room. After brief introductions, we walked to a dining room full of tables set with WIPRO china (a really nice touch) and a lovely smelling buffet lunch. Turns out it wasn’t just lovely smelling, the lunch was FANTASTIC - they had chicken parmigian! We all really enjoyed it. I normally don’t crave familiar American food this much when I’m abroad, but something about this trip has really made me miss it. I think it’s cause we’re starting to feel like Indian cuisine is a bit repetitive and homogeneous. I’m sure if you’ve grown up here, the dishes probably seem quite different, but being from the States where we have so many different genres of food (Italian, Chinese, Mexican, Thai), we’re all feeling a bit “food bored.”
Following lunch, we returned to the conference room and started our series of meetings. We learned a lot about who WIPRO is and what they do - they have four main divisions: IT, Personal & Home Care, etc. Then we had a tour of the training facility (THAT was IMPRESSIVE) and a few more meetings. Everyone seemed fairly engaged, asking questions and making comments. I think we all really enjoyed it. Up next was dinner and free time.
So, remember how I mentioned earlier that we were all kinda craving American food? Well, that was reflected in our dinner choice tonight - Pizza Hut. We walked from the apartments to the restaurant down the street. Honestly, walking was about as stressful as driving feels. I was sure I was going to trip on one of the holes or steps or random rocks or tree roots or broken patches. I’m not the most graceful person, so it’s bound to happen at some point, I’d just prefer it NOT happen on a concrete sidewalk near a super busy street full of Indian traffic. We made it safely, despite one of the access covers nearly flipping over underneath my feet, and the second we walked into the restaurant, stress vanished. It smelled like home.
Now, it’s important to note that Indian Pizza Hut is NOT like American Pizza Hut. First, a majority of the menu is vegetarian (which one would expect given that one of the main religions here doesn’t eat beef and the other doesn’t eat pork), and so a good number of the entrees are much more interesting than our standard American fare. We’ve noticed this at several of the “American” chains we’ve visited. Remember my paneer wrap from McDonald’s? It makes sense once you’re here, but I never would have considered the implications of opening a traditionally American restaurant in a culture that has such restricted diets. I
If you’ve ever cooked for a vegetarian, you understand. It’s not that you just don’t use meat, you don’t use ANY animal products - oils, lards, certain extracts, occasionally eggs, milk, and cheese. It’s tricky. You can’t just change a recipe to remove the obvious meat, sometimes you have to completely redesign it. For example, apple pie sounds safe and vegetarian, right? Nope. Quite often crust has lard in it, so you have to find a new recipe. And with companies that sell food, a redesign of a recipe is not a simple undertaking. You have to do through a whole new gambit of testing, approvals, measurements, more testing, etc. Entering this market given that so much of the menu would have to be recreated is not as simple as I would have thought.
A bonus to the challenge? It resulted in a much more creative, very interesting menu. We ended up choosing from the Tuscany offerings - I had a pizza with gouda cheese, basil, mushrooms, bell pepper, baby corn and balsamic vinaigrette dressing. It was fantastic.
After dinner, we headed back to the apartments. We had found out earlier that we would have to move apartments - apparently they have to do some work on the one that we were in, so they were moving us to another building. Originally, they had said that we had until 11 to move (which was good seeing as we weren’t packed and wanted to get dinner). When we got back, however, we were being rushed to get out as quickly as possible - frustrating. So, we quickly grabbed our stuff and shuffled out. Then came what we were sure was either a practical joke or a nightmare.
The new apartment is on the seventh floor of the building. Sounds nice, but consider the fact that it’s really hot here and heat does what? That’s right, rises. So, the lower apartments are the more desirable. It’s okay, we were gonna give the apartment the benefit of the doubt - perhaps it was more like a penthouse. NOPE! It’s awful. We moved from a lovely apartment with a nice living room, two nice bedrooms, a great kitchen and internet, so a tiny, hot, three bedroom apartment with scary couches, minimal lighting, no refrigerator/coffee maker/supplies, and NO INTERNET. We didn’t even have a modem. Oh and the phone didn’t work. AND he forgot to give us a key. I wanted to cry. I almost did. Is this real life? Surely not.
We all kinda stared around, dazed. I couldn’t stay. I picked up our leftovers, yogurt, juice and milk and walked over to Kevin’s to see if we could store our stuff there. Then I stayed put for a little while, trying to get on the internet to let people know what was going on (and cancel all of my Skype dates), but that didn’t go well. Thanks for understanding, people at home. I stayed for a little bit longer to collect myself then headed back to our place.
Once there, it turns out that they had found us a “refrigerator” (i.e. a small coldish 1.5 x 1.5 box), so at least we can store provisions. Still no internet, but we’ll survive, right? They’ll supposedly bring us a modem in the morning, but I’m not crossing my fingers. I’m trying to stay positive. I am in India, after all. I need to focus on the big picture. I think it’s just that I’m missing home and I was so excited to talk to them and now I feel like that opportunity has been ripped away from me. Add to that the fact that as we were moving out, we were rushed cause someone needed to move in. Turns out that “’working on the apartment” was a lame cover for “we have someone we like better that want the room.” *sigh* This will be okay, right? I’m going to bed. I can’t think about this anymore.
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