The Office

Day 2 Continued…

 

Day one at the office…we spent from 9:30am-6:30pm there.  The building is HUGE and modern looking and not even close to finished!  When we walked in today there was a doorish sized hole in the wall by our office which opened into a giant warehouse sized room that was just cement and cement pillars- left for lunch and the opening was closed! Lol it was kind of bizarre/funny.  All over there is tons of construction but so many of the buildings are not really being worked on.  Everywhere there are these partially finished buildings- it’s really weird.  Apparently a lot of it is due to the economic slump, even though India has not been affected to the level the US has, it’s still had quite an impact.

We were basically worthless at work today- found out the different projects that we could work on and then decided on who would take which project.  I’m pretty excited for the possibility of going to a verrrry rural village about 16hrs from us for a field trip…I mean field work.  We’re all crossing our fingers that this will work out!  The rest of the day was spent surfing the web…like I said, worthless.  Oh there is also a pretty good cafeteria in the building- we had a good lunch- standard vegetarian Indian food, for about the equivalent of $1!

The office itself is ok…pretty secure room- you have to swipe an access card twice to get in and out…and well if you are us, this means you have to have other people let you in and out because you don’t have a card!  It’s basically a big room with long tables w/clear glass dividers (not cubicles like in the US).  There were also lots of power outages- at one point, we had about 3 in a 30min period!  Thank God for Lappy and running off of battery- lots of people in the office are on desktops, which means no power, no computer!  The building has it’s own backup power but its such a HUGE building that it takes a bit to kick in- quite exciting!  Our innkeeper Revan is also the tea guru at work…yes that is his job- he makes tea…pretty sweet set up if I’ve ever heard of one! …housing, a super chill job and a salary- what more could you want!? 

After work we went to the mall across the hwy from work- BEST DECISION EVER!!! Lol  It’s pretty bad that after 2days I was SO excited to see Baskin Robbins, Kennucky Fried Chicken and Mc Donalds!!!  I immediately went and got an ice cream cone at BR, for just over $1…I’m really starting to like this place!lol  I think it was a happy discovery simply for the fact of knowing where food is, since there is nowhere by our apt that serves food!  Getting to the mall was quite the adventure that I was not willing to do ever again …until I saw food!lol  So, we played Frogger like normal but the highlight of this trip was walking through an underpass that is pretty much one lane except for of course there are cars going through it in each direction- and well not just cars but all the different types of rickshaws too.  We came with in cm of traffic…pretty exciting…Sorry Mom, I’m going to do it again for the sake of shopping and food (trust me you would do it too!)!  Oh and this place has a movie theater too…with American movies too!!!  So no worries Ryan on waiting for Transformers- hopefully it will be coming here soon!;)  We had Mc Donald’s for dinner!  They really don’t serve any beef- thanks for letting me eat that burger in your car Ry bc I really won’t be eating beef for 2mo lol  Being as in China the only burger I ever got at Mc Donald’s was a Big Mac since that’s pretty much the best thing ever when in search of something familiar, I got the Chicken Maharaja Mac- India’s answer to the Mac…gotta keep with tradition right?  It was surprisingly really good!  Think curry chicken patties on a big mac…without the big mac sauce stuff and a curry sauce instead.  And if it wasn’t for Sadie, I probably wouldn’t be writing this in a happy healthy state…I totally forgot to say no ice and was happily drinking my ice cold Coke until Sadie pointed out the amazing ice that would have made me amazingly ill…so I stuck to the warm Pepsi I had in my bag lol  (See Mom it could be worse lol)

Tonight, we also discovered why the fridge isn’t always very frigid- it’s on the same timer as our air conditioner which means it’s only on for a few hrs at a time then off for a few more…it alllll makes sense now!  Thank God there’s nothing perishable in there! 

We also learned that we got super lucky and are here experiencing record breaking heat!!!  It’s just like home in the middle of August!!!  It’s 9:30pm, 98.6F with 36% humidity…quite lovely!  Monsoon season should already be upon us here but apparently, thank you el nino, it hasn’t come yet but should be here in the next 7-10 days.  I never realized how much India depends on the monsoons for EVERYTHING.  If the rain doesn’t come we will have no hydro-electricity meaning more power outages, no crops, no anything.  Many people in the religious communities here have been praying for the rain…their prayers should be answered soon. 

K time to end this madness.  Love you all!

 

L