First 2 Days

There is so much to tell.

Tues, October 27th -Thursday early am

Thanks to my little bro for dropping us off at the airport. I miss you every day Brian. Charles only misses you like once every other day, maybe every 3. You know.

Our flights were fine, though 27 hours in transit is physically and mentally taxing, particularly when you’re making a life changing move. SUPERVALU only sent Charles business class and we had to pay for my flights on our own (had we been married, or if I were a dude, it would have been on the company's dime, much like my individual health insurance, which is another story altogether.) so I flew coach. Charles insisted that I take business class for the second big leg of the trip, from Paris to Bangalore. I was being stubborn and wanted to sit in back "with the chickens and goats" the whole time, reasoning that I wouldn't miss or begrudge him business class if I didn't know what I was missing. I just thought that if one of us had to sit in back, it may as well be me. I'm pretty decent at being a martyr. The thing about Charles is, he's kind. He said the whole way from Chicago to Paris he was worried that I was miserable. I must say, business class is the way to go for a 10 hour flight. I wonder how many trips to India I have to make to get the upgrade the whole way? Is it more than 2? Oh yeah, and I finally got to see X-Men Wolverine.

In the Bangalore airport they had this thermal monitor that showed everyone's temp as they walked through to screen for H1N1. It was pretty awesome. Indian customs and immigration was a breeze. Every last piece of our luggage arrived on time and one of Charles' new coworkers, Suneeta, picked us up from the airport with our driver for the next year, Deepak. At this point in the journey it gets fuzzy because I remember getting into the car, arriving at the hotel, looking at Charles and saying "What have we done?" and falling asleep, but little else. Special thanks to Jenny for suggesting the iTunes White Noise. It's awesome.

Thursday, October 29th

Now we enter the world of Jet Lag. It's a bitch. Charles and I thought we wouldn't have any trouble at all. You know, pop a couple of Ambien, turn on the white noise, and we'd be out. NOT HOW IT WORKS. I woke up Thursday morning at the 5:30 am call to prayer (after going to bed at 3) and could not fall back asleep. Add to that the constant honking going on outside (I'll explain more later) and the pack of wild dogs barking, and I could not go back asleep. We tried to do like all the books suggest and just pick up with the new time zone, but it was rough. That day we were pretty useless. We played a game of magical rooms; changing our room 3 times over the course of the afternoon. The first was way too tiny for 2 people for a month, the second was great but next to a room they were remodeling using some loud tools, and finally into our current posh digs. We're in an executive suite now and will be for the next month while we finalize an apartment. Beyond moving all of our belongings three times, Thursday was a day of naps. At one point we did the kind of thing where you know you're sleeping and someone just rang the doorbell, but you physically cannot move. You can hear and you can think, but you can't move. That day we also experienced our first annoyance with Indian hotels; the employees will NOT leave you alone. Someone is checking on you all the frickin' time. Today alone I've invited three workers into the room to clean, or bring in our daily fruit, or new bottles of water, or just to see if I'm OK and if my lunch was good. They check on you a lot.

The two highlights from Thursday include our experience exchanging money, and our Indian Date Night One Year Anniversary Extravaganza.

Easy math, there are 50 Rupee to the American dollar. When we exchanged $300 we got such a fat stack of bills that Charles made every young rapper's dream come true. He actually looked at me, looked at the bed, and said he was "gonna' make it RAIN!" I don't know when I've laughed harder.

Charles and I had our first date October 29th of last year, so we had Indian Date Night One Year Anniversary Extravaganza. It was lovely. We were too tired to call Deepak and choose a restaurant in the city so we ate at one of the hotel restaurants. It was honestly the coolest thing. They had tables set up next to the pool under a canopy with candles all over, the pool bubbled in the background, there was a soft breeze, and these huge dragonflies skimmed the pool. We had a very decent bottle of Indian wine, a great dinner, and got to listen to three Hindu guys sing. We decided before we left the US that we should try and stick to a veg diet the first month or so while our insides adjust, so we had these delicious grilled soft white Indian cheese and tomato things, and a mushroom and onion dish with yogurt sauce, and my favorite; garlic naan. The servers are super nice and they were shocked that two Americans didn't order meat. Our server decided he had to bring us some green chicken curry, lest we perish. It was awesome. And there, ladies and gentlemen, goes our vegetarian existence. It lasted one day. Our server sent a bottle of wine to the room (where room service sent up a “boy” to open it. This dude was 40 years old), and that is how we slept for 8 hours straight. Finally.