Hyderabad weekend

Thanks to a no-show from my prospective interviewee, I have 12 minutes to kill. Normally, I'll welcome 12 free minutes with open arms, but this time I'm a little bummed as this was supposed to be my 1st interview here in Hyderabad, and I was looking forward to getting started with that. It's a great opportunity to help and give input in the growth of our team and make sure we're still hiring good quality people. Interviewing should be interesting...I wonder what kind of interviewer I'll be? Mean, scary, and intimidating, most likely.

Down to 9 minutes now after that introduction paragraphs. Better get moving. Let's talk about this past weekend.

This Past Weekend:

This past weekend I stayed in Hyderabad, for some much appreciated and needed SLEEPING IN. Got to catch up on those zzzzz's, and sometimes a weekend of no agenda whatsoever is just what the doctor ordered. Let's see, what happened...

Friday: I don't remember if I did anything Friday night. I think I didn't. Hmm...maybe we watched the final episode of Lost: Season 2 Friday night. That would make for a good Friday night activity, but something tells me we had already done that. My memory is hazy. Maybe I've been kidnapped and poisoned by THE OTHERS! Let's hope not. Those others are up to no good. (Or are they? I wish they'd just try to talk to them sometimes in this silly show. Nobody talks to anybody anymore!) Anyways, regardless, I don't think I did much Friday night. On a positive note, Friday after work -- I DID figure out Christmas holiday travel plans with Selin! Unfortunately it's very far and very expensive to travel back home for the holidays, so instead I'm doing the next best thing and going to Thailand! Selin and I booked our airfare Friday night, we're really excited. Hyderabad-Bangkok round trip direct flight, ~$200, which was a steal considering it's listed at $1,000 something from the Thai Air actual website. (We got it thru a travel agency, Carlson Wagonlit, that Goog works with). From Bangkok we'll take connecting flights to island paradise Phuket and the cultural city/jungle wonderland city of Chiang Mai. We'll be spending Christmas day on the white sand beaches of Phuket. Anybody want to come join? Truth is though no amount of sand can match being home for the holidays, and I'll really miss everybody. It makes me sad to not be there with you all. Before my time here is up, please do make an effort to come visit if it's possible -- once you're here in Hyderabad, we'll take good care of ya!

Saturday I slept in until noon. Then one of our drivers, Niranjan, come over, and we drove to a paved and relatively untrafficked road close by. I took my skateboard, and had a grand ol' time riding it around on that street. There's a little hill, so I'd have Niranjan pull me up the hill (slowly, of course) with me holding on the the car and riding on the skateboard, and then I'd ride down on my own, and repeat the process. This was fun in and of itself, but what really made it a unique experience was the expressions on people's faces as they watched me cruise by...I'll tell you Indians really get a kick out of that skateboard, and the spectacle of a big crazy white person riding by on it. It's completely foreign to them. Whenever I rolled by pretty much everything going on on the side of that street (construction workers, security guards, people walking by) came to a standstill so everyone could stare and gawk at the alien foreigner rolling by on a piece of wood with wheels. One other thing to point out, people here aren't shy about staring. As any girl will tell you (especially white blonde ones), people here STARE like nobody's business. It's just a different culture, it's not considered rude like it is in the US. They see something interesting, by golly they're gonna look at it for as long as they darn well please. Next time I go skateboarding I'll have to take my camera, to catch some of this in action. (That'll be an even more interesting sight, big crazy white man rolling by on board with wheels holding a camera).

Niranjan was amazed at my skateboarding skill, which was fun. As anyone who actually knows or has seen skateboarding would be quick to point out, I suck at skateboarding, all I can do is ride it in a relatively straight line at relatively low speeds. I started telling Niranjan about people who will do tricks on the board, jump it up in the air, slide down railings, make it flip and spin...but I think that went a little beyond his comprehension level of what is humanly possible. It actually amazes me as well, those people are insane. So oh well -- no worries -- Niranjan can continue to be amazed by me just rolling down a hill, that's cool with me. :) I've been trying for a while to get him to try standing on it, but so far he's resisted...but maybe one day he'll give it a try. First time standing on a skateboard is a pretty scary moment, I suppose...if I can convince him to do it, I'll have to make sure to hold on to him, wouldn't want him to fall off.

(My 12 minutes ran out 6 minutes ago. Let this be a lesson: don't blog at work. I wasn't able to finish at work, so am wrapping things up now from home, before bedtime.)

Saturday night Selin and I met up with a coworker/friend here, Neel, and went out to dinner at a restaurant called 'Little Italy', which is known as the best italian joint in town. Worth pointing out that it is a VEG place (vegetarian), but still it was pretty good. They had some mushroom appetizers that were outstanding. For my meal I had a pizza (some combination of onions and pineapple and some other stuff) that was OK, but really needed some sausage or at least canadian bacon on it to round it out. The desserts were quite fantastic as well. Neel's friend also came and joined us about halfway thru. Nice guy. After dinner we all went to another friend of Neel's place for a wedding party -- it had been going on all night but we just swang by to stop in and say hello. Pretty fancy occasion, Neel and his friend (who are both from the US, but Indian, and have family and friends all over India) hang out with some of Hyderabad's high society. Was fun to see that and meet a few other people and hang out with them that evening. Entertaining company. Carried over from the Brits, Indians love their scotch, so we were drinking Johnnie Walker Black Label -- which I understand is pretty expensive scotch? (Not that I know anything about scotch). We got invited to the actual wedding ceremony which was happening at the Taj on Sunday night (fanciest hotel in town), but had to decline as we already had plans for Sunday, and also Neel and his friend couldn't make it, so we wouldn't have known anybody. Note that in the Indian wedding culture, that really would have made no difference -- hundreds if not thousands of people are invited to weddings -- but still, we might have just felt slightly out of place. We'll make it to an Indian wedding before time is up here, that's for sure. (although at the Taj? That might not happen again) :)

I woke up Sunday morning, again around noon, although this morning accompanied by a little bit of a headache. Black Label may be smooth...but it still gives you a hangover. Nothing some good breakfast couldn't cure though -- hit up the Taj Sunday buffet for some delicious food (and an aspirin), and I was good to go.

At 4:30 I went and played basketball at an outdoor court a coworker had tipped me off to, where people meet on Sunday for a pick-up game. Sure enough around 4:40 some locals started showing up, and we wound up playing 4 on 4. Decent game, the guys were OK skilled, but you can tell there's not much in the form of organized basketball out here: shots were being chucked up from everywhere. Surprisingly, a large enough percentage of those chucks went in, a few guys were real bombers, but still...leaves a little to be desired. But what can you expect, after all it's a pick-up streetball game. In India. At least Indians don't spend 10 minutes arguing about every foul call. (or maybe they do -- some of em were getting pretty heated, talking in Telugu. I have no idea what they were saying.) All the same, it was fun to play, and I'll definitely go back there the next Sunday I find myself in Hyderabad if I can. Nice guys, like pretty much everybody in this country -- so accepting of me, it's great. One final interesting note about Indian pickup basketball...they played games to SIXTY! haha, no joke, 60 points, 2's and 3's. How and where and why they came up with the idea of games to sixty I do not know, but they did.

They also throw the ball in from out of bounds (sideline) after every made basket. For a minute I said "you guys want to play like we play in America" and we were checking it at the top of the key, but some more guys showed up and we quickly reverted back to their familiar out of bounds throw ins. It's their country, I can adapt. :)

After basketball, I changed in the car, took a towel and Purel shower (adapting), and went straight to the IMAX movie theater with Selin to watch Superman. Our driver Niranjan came with us and watched the movie too, first time he'd seen an english movie, also first time in the IMAX theater -- first time for us too. The screen was enormous. If the movie hadn't have been 5 hours long (at least it seemed like it) it woulda been awesome! As is, still well worth the 100 rupee (that's about $2) price of admission. And cool to have Niranjan come along.

Well, there's a fun-filled action-packed weekend in Hyderabad for ya! 12 minutes turned into 30, but really it coulda been 60, I'm having a lot of fun over here and experiencing a lot of fun things. Tough to keep up with it all, but I'm doing my best. :)

Miss you all back home, hope everyone is doing well...Goodnight!

And OH - one last thing:


YOSHI AIR ATTACK 2006 PLAYOFFS:

3 WINS ZERO LOSSES


Yep we won all three of our playoff matches. Well, really only two as we had a first round bye in one league, but we managed to pull out an upset win in the Beaver Den and held off Matt Taylor's #8 seed SA-LJ duo in the other. Semi-Finals here we come!