Departure

This will be my last post before I leave India; it almost certainly won't be my last post to this blog. I haven't told every story I intend to tell from this trip, and there are other stories that aren't finished yet. In particular, over the last two days I've done a lot of walking and picture taking of the parts of Bangalore I spent a lot of time in that I'll want to post when I have time.

Tonight, I turned in my Microsoft-issued cell phone and had dinner at New Shanti Sagar. It broke my heart when Brownie/Dennis/Goldie, the Microsoft dog with at least as many names as working legs (the poor thing apparently injured his right front paw) followed me most of the way to Bashyam Circle, and I had to tell him to go back. This is a hard thing to tell a dog, both practically and emotionally.

Lufthansa 755 to Frankfurt, Germany (ETA, 8 AM Local)
Lufthansa 444 to Atlanta, Georgia (ETA, 2:30 PM Local)
Drive to Pittsburgh (ETA, Wednesday PM)

Arrival

In airport time a day and a half has passed, but during the process of that I went 9 and a half hours into the future (I adopted this term for flying east from Nels) so that it's really been just over a day.

I had a croissant at McDonald's in Frankfurt because it was 9 AM. Then I went ahead and switched to India time on my laptop, which made it 1:30 PM. I contemplated eating lunch...

The plane ride was uneventful, unless you count me sticking out like a sore thumb, which has happened frequently enough in my life that I actually don't consider it eventful. I thought of Thomas Friedman watching a Bollywood production in which the hero kind of seemed, to me anyway, like a Ken Lay style brilliant businessman slash scumbag; he was redeemed/redeemable only because it was more the government than the middle-class shareholders that were ultimately screwed over. The government was played by a judicial panel of white guys that spoke middling Hindi.

Upon arrival, I managed through the zoo of the airport (it took me 45 minutes to get my bag - customs took about 15 minutes...) and found Suresh, who had a sign with my name (correctly spelled) and who got me to my apartment.

Now I'm going to take a malaria pill, a Benadryl or two, and pass out for a few hours.

Introduction

At the request of a number of friends and especially family members, I decided to try to keep an online journal during my 12+ weeks in India; I think it is more convenient than emailing lots of people, in any case. As a warning, this whole journal it is likely to go away after the summer is over, I am not sure I approve of leaving dead journals floating around everywhere.

I'm writing this on a laptop flying from Hartsfield Airport in Atlanta to Charlotte, North Carolina. I walked the entire length of Hartsfield today - I had time, so I took the moving walkways from the atrium to Terminal D, and then took the moving walkways from Terminal D to Terminal E to get a smoothie because the food selection in Terminal D is a little lacking. From Charlotte I will fly to Frankfurt, Germany, and from there I will fly directly to the Bangalore airport, where I was instructed to walk outside the airport and look for someone holding my name, "possibly slightly misspelled." I am to introduce myself to this person; he (I presume he) will take me to the Microsoft-provided housing I will have for the summer.