Scavenger Hunt

This Saturday I took part in a 20-team scavenger hunt. I have to say it was very well organized and unbelievable fun. We raced all over Bangalore searching for random objects, performing crazy tasks, and collecting clues from things like hard-to-find road signs. Pictures here are of me hugging a goat, and Christine getting a piggy-back ride from a stranger (she was still wet from jumping in a pool). I regret to say that we came in second place by 10 points (on a 2,000+ point scale). But we weren't upset about losing because it was such a great experience.

Taco-riffic

Although they're open-faced for the moment (coming out of the microwave), these are about to be folded into three tacos. That's right; I can eat Mexican food at home now - with an Indian twist. They're actually ground mutton (that's a sheep, not a goat) and mainly flavored with chili powder. Shredded cheese isn't made in Bangalore, but I found a dutch grocery store that sells imported shredded swiss for $6 per bag. The end product is, surprisingly enough, delicious.

Poker night

I used to host poker nights at my place back when Ryan and Getzel lived in Atlanta. And I hosted a few impromptu games this past summer. But my chances to play have been slim for a couple years, even though I love the game. I'm excited to say that I may have found a regular poker game in India.

And I played very well, coming in fourth. I bet wisely on my last hand, going all in with a pair of 2's against King-9, but Victor caught a flush on the last card. We drank Chimay beer all night which was delicious - it only arrived in Bangalore last month, and can only be bought from a single Dutch grocery store.

And I ate lamb brains. Yes, that's right - I ate brains. It wasn't necessarily on purpose. It was sitting out in the kitchen, and it looked like cheese! But it's done. I'll just put that on a list with other weird foods that I've eaten - alligator, snake, ostrich jerky, a warthog meatball sub, shark fin, and chicken ovaries. PS - don't eat brains, the texture is gross.

Happy Pongal!

Another interesting holiday took the office by storm; this one celebrates a good harvest and is called Pongal. In the lobby, people were creating a painting. They sketched an outline with chalk, then were adding color by rubbing it with what looked like sand.

A second, important part of the holiday was handing out sugar cane. I was given a piece of what appears to be a stick. Apparently you can peel the outer edges and chew the inside, and it'll be very sweet. I couldn't figure it out for the life of me - and nobody could show me how to do it, either. So I stashed my sugar cane in a drawer. The people in the picture below are some of the people I work with - especially Venkat, on the right, who works in accounting.

Brunch, and the tragedy of cooks

Brunch is as much of a to-do here as it is in Atlanta. I suppose it's probably a tradition that was brought over by the British. Most of the expats meet up on Sundays for a rotation through the big hotels in the area. Sometimes I don't go because of cost - it runs $30 - $50. But it's probably worth it. We end up with all you can eat and all you can drink for about four hours. I like that it's a very social event. I wish all meals could be as much of an event as Sunday brunch!

When I came back to Bangalore my apartment was covered in a layer of dirt. It's not a clean city. And my maid/cook Vijaya didn't show up that day - or the next day, or the next. So I assumed that she flew the coop, and I made other arrangements. My doorman knew a girl working nearby and set me up with Roopa, my new cook.

On Saturday Roopa showed up for work - and so did Vijaya! Apparently she had been trying to come, and the doorman had turned her away. I pretty much believed her, but I let her go. Then Vijaya's eyes got teary, and she explained that her husband was also recently out of work. But I didn't feel like I could go back on what I'd said. Roopa is also excellent in her own right - better than Vijaya, and she speaks English.

Roopa is clearly an upgrade. But I feel like I should've shown more loyalty to Vijaya, and I feel terrible about her situation.

Athens Day 3

Day 3 involved a lot of sites around Athens. The Tower of the Winds. An old neighborhood with colorful, winding alleys. The archaeological museum with its gold jewelry and pottery. The temple of Zeus. A Byzantine church from the 11th century. Syntagma Square lit up at night with a carousel. I'll leave you with two pictures for the day. One is graffiti: it's nasty and ubiquitous in Athens (I suspect they clean it up for tourist season), but some of it made me smile. The other is a typical street in Greece, just so you can get a feel for it. By the way - it had significantly warmed up by this point, so I was enjoying myself more and walking around.

Day 4 in Athens involved more walking around and seeing old stuff, and some shopping. It was good old stuff, but I feel like I'm beginning to drag on a little about Athens. So my next post will be about Bangalore. I'm back!

Athens Day 2

On Day 2 in Athens I knew I'd be jet-lagged, so I signed up for a 1-day tour. And I was off to Argolis. Our first stop was the theater at Epidaurus. It's a technical marvel for its acoustics. It can seat 15,000 people, but if you strike a match or whisper at the center of the stage, you can hear it as clear as day all the way in the 55th row. I had read about this, but hearing people test it out, I was still shocked that it works.
Stop #2 was Agamemnon's Palace in Mycenae. That name probably rings a bell - he was the king of Greece during the Trojan War, and he's mentioned in the Iliad and the Odyssey. The palace is largely in ruins, but the fact that it still exists from 1,600 B.C. is amazing. It's also surprising how accessible everything is in Greece - the sites aren't behind barricades, you can just walk around them. Although I suppose it's hard to do much harm, since everything is stone. The walls around the palace are massive.

The last stop of the day was the Treasury of Atreus, aka Agamemnon's tomb. This pic is from the inside looking out. I was pretty sure Indiana Jones was going to jump out from the shadows and crack his whip. The entrance was especially impressive. It turns out that the top stone is a single slab that weighs 120 tons, and literally nobody can figure out how it got there. The technology to move or create something that heavy didn't exist in 1,600 B.C. Stonehenge (earlier and ending aroud the same time) stones weighed 4 tons. The stones in the Egyptian pyramids weigh 2 tons.