On the road again!

. . . Air-road. Cloud-road. Am not driving to India, is the point.

I'm in Bangalore now, but I'm going to create tension and suspense by forcing you to read all the dreary details of my journey, starting in Calgary. Well, I suppose you could skip this. But that wouldn't be nice, since I'm taking all this time to type it . . . (Did the guilt work?)

Calgary has not changed it's airport since back when I moved there. I was greeted by the same 900-year-old woman wearing a cowboy hat who greeted me then. Really. 900.

Anyway, I had plenty of time to kill, so I wrote a little 'starting out' note. Here 'tis:


"After a tearful goodbye at the security counter –I used to roll my eyes at people who cried in airports; but now I see airports are clearly designed to cause this - I’m waiting at the gate for my flight to board. I have window seats for all three legs of my journey! So, for those of you who are details oriented…. I will get to Calgary at 10:00am local time, hang about for three hours, fly to Frankfurt (9 hour flight), wander Frankfurt for six hours, then another quick 9 hours to Bangalore. Where I will no doubt arrive bright eyed and weird. Really. Who doesn’t get weird after 30 hours? Plus I am expecting a tiny culture shock at the Bangalore airport.
I think I actually remembered everything . . . probably not; I’ll keep you all updated. I’m sure you’re riveted by this detail. My quest for this week (aside from arriving safely, not calling everyone by the wrong name at work, and other various IBM-related nightmares) is to find out whether everyone in Bangalore still calls it Bangalore? - Or have they switched to the much prettier Bengaluru, a change which my guide book tells me went through in 2006? Has Lonely Planet lied to me? So far no one but me has used the work Bengaluru and I’m starting to think I hallucinated it.
Time to go. More from Frankfurt!"

Well, I lied. I did not write more from Frankfurt. Frankfurt airport is a largely uninteresting place unless you want to buy a huge quantity of expensive perfume, or have the job of stabbing holes in the ceiling with a large stick. There are people doing this. Why? I don't know. They didn't speak English and all I can do in German is introduce myself and count to a hundred. Nevertheless - ceiling hole poker. Backup career? I think so!
On to India!

My flight partner to India was an IBM'er. The person on the other side of the aisle was an IBM'er. I believe that most of business class worked for Big Blue. So - my seat partner slept most of the way and I ate wonderful Indian food and watched Will Smith movies . . . I am going to be such a spoiled brat! At the end of the flight, he and I chatted for a while and he insisted on accompanying me through the airport. Apparently his wife, who is American, has had some problems. Anyway, I brought two laptops into India and so, I was supposed to pay duty on them and stand in a special (read: LONG) lineup in the Bangalore airport. But, because of my new friend the fellow IBM person, there was a rapid-fire exchange at the customs lineup, some shouting, and then we were allowed through with what I'm learning is the Indian phrase for "Please proceed ahead". (It's "Go! Go!")

I never did pay the duty fee or stand in any lineup. I have both my laptops and have just now wiped the stupid expression off my face.

A man waited for me at the exit with a sign reading 'The Taj Hotel Group welcomes GWEN HILL!' The air was hot and muggy but did not, contrary to everything I've heard, smell terrible. The car was air conditioned to the point of, say, northern Manitoba in the winter, and the driver played ("For you, madam!") an English radio station featuring an odd mix of old Blondie and Madonna hits and a lot of Coldplay. In between the radio announcer told funny facts - did you know that it is illegal to import lollipops into Washington? Could somebody research that please? I don't care enough to look it up, but I don't think I believe it. The ride to the hotel was fine, not crazy, but I did notice that there seems to be no purpose behind the lanes painted on the road. It's like it was just introduced, and nobody particularly cares to use them, you know? And the car had no fully-working seatbelts (Either the strap-bit worked, OR the bit you plug into. Not both. Do those things have actual names?)

Wouldn't have been so fascinating if not for the following sign:

Enough said.

The Taj is a gorgeous hotel. If I'm ever awake during daylight hours, I will take a photo of the view from my room. In the meantime, this is my room:



This next one is for a particular person in Victoria, to keep her from mailing me toilet paper. You know who you are.



The balcony there looks out over the pool and garden, which everyone said would be noisy, but the only time I heard anything was when I had the door open. Even then, not that bad! There are four restaurants, only one of which serves Indian food so it's the only one I've been to. It is nice to know that there are other options, in case I get sick of Indian food, which I can't imagine right now - but it could happen.

That's about all . . . I went to the office today, which looks much like all other offices in the world, and sat in on the training rooms while my coworkers in Ontario bravely trained seven people over the phone. It actually seems to be going pretty well - I will take notes tomorrow, choose who I'm training for what role, and start my training on Monday. Wish me luck.

Oh, my quest. Right. I've asked everyone I met about the Bangalore/luru thing.
Here is the general consensus, let's say, out of ten. Highly scientific survey.
2 people had no idea what I was talking about
1 person said, yes, it is Bengaluru now
7 people scoffed and said, yes, sure, they changed it but no one cares

So. Lonely Planet did not lie to me, and that's all that matters. I think I'll call it Bengaluru, because I like saying it. And that's all the reason a girl needs.

530 am here now, so I'm off to try and sleep.

Love to everyone,

Gwen