Where's the beef????

Tonight we were invited out for dinner by Julie and Mark to try Millers 46, a steak place downtown. By the time the guys got home from work it was well after 7pm before we hit the road. We arrived at Millers at 8:30 (crazy trafic, per the usual)... and paraded our entourage up the stairs. Let me just say, WOW! True beef steaks served on sizzling plates... Here in Bangalore, there are so many "westerners", that places are popping up all over which cater to the tastes of all of us. It was packed, on a random Tuesday night at this late hour!!

Bella and Taylor decided what to order...
Julie could not hide her enthusiasm...



Bella had a great time with Taylor and Andrew...

Andrew did not break any of these glasses...

Andrew finishes up his T-Bone steak and flashed the $100 bill his Dad gave him for being good at the table. (~$2.25 US !!)

Have you ever heard of a sizzling brownie???

We just arrived home after dinner... the kids collapsed into bed, exhausted... it is after midnight! A great time was had by all!

Wii

We have made a firm decision on our villa (finally!)... it is a great villa here in Palm Meadows... the only drawback is that it will not be available until August 25th (at the earliest!). Sooooooo, we will be living the "Suite Life of Pat and Cyndi" until then. In light of this development, we decided to plunge in and hook up the Wii here in the hotel for the kids. It was a big hit...

One of the nice things of this hotel living is that the kids' restaurant table manners have greatly improved. They don't give kids plastic cups with lids and straws in India (anywhere!!) So they have gotten used to drinking from crystal and carting china dishes from the buffet!

Another fun weekend...

On Saturday, we had dinner plans with a co-worker of Pat's, Vikas, and his family. They live in an apartment nearby. Taylor, Lauren and I had appointments for pedicures and manicures at 3:30, so I was hoping we wouldn't be running late for a 4:45 departure.

We made it out just in time ($30 US including tip for all 3 of us to have hands and feet done!!) and arrived at Vikas' right at 5:30. Vikas has a 9 year old girl and a 6 year old boy, which was perfect for Taylor and Andrew. It was so nice to be out of the hotel and in a home for a bit! Vikas and his wife said they were nervous to host us, because they had never cooked for people who were not Indian and they did not know what we might like. They cooked several customary Indian dishes and ordered Domino's Pizza as a "backup"! The food was all very good!! They were excited to offer us a "new" drink in India.... Bacardi Breezers - they were disappointed to hear that we've had Breezers in the US for a decade. We had a nice visit and departed at about 10pm.

On Sunday we had plans to visit our friends Vim and Dev who moved out of Palm Meadows last week and into their villa in Prestige Ozone, nearby. Dev took a transfer here from her position with GM in Detroit. She and Vim's parents are both from India. They have 2 kids, Mira (8) and Millens (6) who will be attending Indus with Taylor and Andrew. We spent the afternoon at Ozone... Andrew got right into a game of cricket in the courtyard and Taylor was excited to ride a bicycle again... Lauren wandered about in the lazy river and was thrilled to have cookies and milk on the porch! You can see Pat in the background of the last photo here, playing in a pickup volleyball game, too!

We had planned to have food delivered from a Little Italy, but at the last moment decided to cram into our car (their driver has Sundays off) and just eat there instead. 10 of us, plus the driver... it was comical. Thankfully there are no seat belt laws in India! The dinner was unreal! An authentic Italian eatery in Bangalore... who would ever think it. I think it is the first time since we left the states that I have actually felt full. Pat can barely wear his clothes already... he has lost 15 pounds on the India "diet"!! Andrew has gained at least 5 lbs, the food has not affected him in the least!!!

We had such a nice visit with the Patels, they will be great friends for us here.

?

Hmmmm...

So it’s been a few days since I’ve blogged. I was a little bit unsure of exactly what information to leak out regarding the recent events here in Bangalore and across India. I did not know how many of you actually read as far as the world news in the paper and there’s really no reason for alarm.
Bangalore has historically been a very peaceful city. The last time a random act of violence occurred here it was in 2005 and it was on a small scale. There has always been tension between the vast majority of Hindu population and the tiny minority of Muslims. Every so often, the natives here say, these tensions flare up and small battles occur.
On Friday afternoon, we had the entire family in downtown Bangalore, at the FRO (Foreign Registration Office) so we could be processed through immigration as foreign residents on a work visa here in India. The FRO is located inside the Bangalore police commissioners barracks. It is in an extremely congested area of downtown. It took us about an hour to travel a 3 kilometer stretch (sorry, about a mile and a half)! Once we reached the FRO, we were greeted by an “assistant” who handled all of our paperwork and passports and basically ushered us through the process. I watched as a half a dozen officers stood around a patrol car (it was a perfectly maintained classic car of some kind)… they were just sipping coffee and every few minutes they would pull out their handkerchiefs and polish the car a little bit… this went on for the entire time we waited. I was thinking, wow, it’s a good there is no serious crime here in Bangalore!

Once we finished the registration, we phoned our driver to come and pick us up. Generally, our driver parks super close to where he drops us off and is there in moments when we call him. However, there is no parking allowed on Infantry Road, in front of the barracks, so he had to loop around in the terrible traffic. We stood there, on the sidewalk, for about 10 minutes as traffic whizzed by. This was the first time since we’ve arrived, that we have been “standing around” on the streets. I felt completely safe there with the kids… even among the chaos. We headed back to Whitefield at 1:15pm and when we arrived at the hotel we heard the news that 7 bombs had been detonated downtown between 1:30 and 2:00. One woman was killed, standing at a bus stop with her husband and many others seriously injured. One explosion was just a few blocks from where we had stood just 15 minutes prior. It really all clicked in right at that moment how far from home we really are. On Saturday an 8th bomb was found, just outside of the Forum Mall, where the McDonalds video here on my blog was taken, and was successfully de-activated by the bomb squad.
The violence has spread further north and on Saturday night in Ahmadabad, there were 16 more explosions, killing 45 and injuring hundreds. A Muslim group has claimed responsibility for the attacks.

The buzz among to the ex-pat community here is loud... the security here in Palm Meadows has been stepped up and everyone is more alert. It is a similar feeling as we had in the U.S. after 9/11. But for the most part, life went right back to normal within hours. The locals have shrugged it all off as "just trying to shake things up" and refuse to have their feathers ruffled! In fact, on Friday night as Pat and I were glued to the local news, we got a phone call from Vikas, one of Pat's co-workers, inviting us to come by Saturday night for dinner with his family. Just a normal weekend!

Indus International School

Well, today was the big day. Our first trip to the kids' new school. We were a little nervous about making it to our appointment this morning because there is a taxi strike here! Thank goodness there are renegade drivers who are willing to ignore the strike and drive anyway! The roads were much less crowded with lots of the cabs off of them, but faster driving is actually much more scary! The driving in Bangalore will be an entirely separate blog. Suffice it to say, there are absolutely NO defensive drivers in all of the city.

We arrived safely at Indus and were greeted at the gates by a number of security personnel behind huge black iron gates.

At the reception desk, there is a big fish bowl, which the kids loved... then, while we waited for Jasmine to meet us, they served us fresh fruit juice in the lobby.

We met with Jasmine, the marketing manager for Indus. She is a lovely woman, who was born and raised in Bangalore. She gave us a brief overview of the school and then we went for a tour of the campus .

Some of the highlights... We found out that each student gets their own laptop! Taylor is wondering if she can play Webkinz in class.


Also, that their day involves lots of eating, which Andrew was very interested in. The entire schools gathers for breakfast each day at 8am... students and all staff eat breakfast together. Then at 10:15 am, they all gather out in the huge courtyard at the center of all the halls and have a cookie and juice break for 15 minutes. Lunch is served at intervals by grade around noon (no bag lunch allowed, everyone eats what is served!) and then at 3:15pm. the entire school gathers once again for sandwiches and drinks. We're talking about feeding 900+ students 3 times a day, WOW!! Here's a shot of the dining hall...

Another great thing is that the school supplies absolutely everything for the kids... they just need a backpack, swimsuit and a pair of sneakers. Also, they don't have "gym class"... instead, each student takes swimming (mandatory) and then chooses a sport, a hobby and an instrument. Then they are pulled from class at the time of their chosen interest. They can choose basketball, tennis, horseback riding etc...

We also found out that Lauren qualifies to attend the pre-k program there starting in December (they start them in school at 42 months of age!) She would ride the bus with Taylor and Andrew and have a full day there. She would love that. We can decide about that when the time comes.

The tour was great, and school starts on August 11th!

Next we were on to Commercial Street, where they had to get "measured" for their uniforms. Commercial Street in Bangalore reminds me of Chinatown in NYC. It is so crowded, you can barely walk. It is a crazy shopping mecca. Thankfully, our driver dropped us very close to the "alley" we needed to go down to get to "Neha Uniforms"...

It was an interesting business, really... people are just right there, some hand embroidering and sewing sequins by hand to the raw silks. Others sewing away at rows of machines. I cannot imagine how hot it must get in these buildings in the summer. Whew. This shot is of a guy (sitting)... applying sequin detailing to a beautiful white silk, while the other 2 men work at the sewing machine to make the sari.

We left Neha Uniforms and realized none of us had eat all day and it was 2:30 already! We hopped in the car and headed for lunch... A sight for sore eyes - (Bengaluru is the new name for Bangalore... it is actually the original name, from long ago, but is now back in style to say)

We headed in for genuine BURGERS! They import their beef from Australia and it is one great burger! The kids had milkshakes, potato skins and onion rings. The real McCoys. This Hard Rock Cafe just opened in January. It is a great place. Taylor wants to have her birthday party here in the spring. Why not?

We did not arrive back in Palm Meadows until about 5:00 and Pat had a conference call to take, so we headed out to the pool for a few hours.

2 of Taylor's new best buds are from California. Easy to remember their names... Taylor (7) and Lauren (9)... if that's not crazy enough, they are both Taylor Nicole! After swimming, Taylor grabbed her DS and the "Snakes" and Ladders game and headed to their room for dinner! Pat and Andrew headed out with the basketball to dribble down to the store and pick up some snacks for the room.

Another action packed day in India!

McDonalds in India

A trip to the Forum Mall... we needed an adapter for our Ipod and there is an Apple Store here. Low and behold, a McDonalds! We had to give it a shot... other than the lack of beef... it was a great McDonalds. It was packed with college kids, who were asking us many questions about the American colleges at which they are planning to attend graduate school.

Just a nice Saturday...

I thought I'd just post a quick blog of our day today, from morning until night... I think it really says a lot...

Andrew ate a triple decker PB&J in bed at 9 am...

Pat and I sat out on the balcony and read the paper, while the kids watched Tom and Jerry (on every morning 9-10:30 here !!)... The gardeners were out for their daily lawn maintenance. Check out the "broom" and hand mowers as well as the method that the women use to carry heavy items on their heads (you see this all over the city... it's amazing, really).

We ordered some tea... Andrew has taken to the daily tea time, are you surprised?

Then we called our driver and headed over to see a villa that's for rent. The kids are praying we rent this one, because the neighbors have 2 nice dogs AND there is a "cool snail sort of looking bug" on the outside wall that they want to get their hands on.
After the villa tour, we had the driver take us to the Oasis Center, on the Inner Ring Road, about a 25 minute drive. My friend Judy, from Australia, had just gone there and said it is, "the business" which I have learned means it is really, really, really great. When I first met her, she offered me a cookie (she called a biscuit) and said I, "must eat it, it is brilliant!"... and she was right. Well, about the Oasis Center, I must say, she was right again! It is 2 million square feet of heaven. Even in the US, this place would be considered top notch. The entire ground floor is brand name mania. Clothes, cosmetics, jewelry... you name it. The second floor is all home goods, kids clothes and toys.... think Marshalls Home Goods super sized! The kids had fun just looking at the toys there. We picked up some board games (it was hard to resist "Snakes and Ladders" - the India version of Chutes and Ladders!!!)
As you watch this video...listen to the music that is playing in the mall.







The third floor is a grocery store sent from heaven. Fresh produce and meats, tons of imported goods and even a great liquor store. Oh, and Haagen Dazs. too!



The top floor has an arcade for the kids, with ride on toys and games as well as a terrific food court. It is Indian, Chinese and Thai food... but there's a great Gloria Jeans Coffee shop and a Cold Stone Ice Cream!



After dinner, we decided to head home. We called the driver, Hirash, to meet us out front. When we walked out the doors, he ran to us and grabbed all of our bags and loaded them in the car. Then he picked up Lauren and loaded her in the car too. I love Bangalore!!

The Bangalore Climate

When you think, India, you think HOT! Right? Well, a well kept secret, is that here in Bangalore the weather is perfect nearly all year long. It is winter here on this side of the globe, and the temperatures average a high of 80F and a low of 70F. At an elevation here of about 3,000 feet, there is no humidity and the monsoon season rains (this is the monsoon season from July-October) do not cause flooding like in the coastal areas of India. This is actually an extremely dry monsoon season, and we have only seen rain once in this first week we've been here. The rains generally come for an hour or 2 in the evening during monsoon season.

Locals say that the weather is spectacular all year and won't start getting hot until the summer (April). Even in the summer we're only talking about 90F. So another Bangalore gem... the climate!

House Hunting

OK, so now it's time to find a place to call home for the year. We really like it here in Palm Meadows, so we'd like to stay here if we can. There is another similar community just a mile or so away called Prestige Ozone, where many of the expats settle as well. It is a similar set up to Palm Meadows, with the Clubhouse, restaurant etc... It is only about half the size, so there is much less traffic there, which is one plus.
The housing market is crazy here... a modest villa can run $7000 US per month!! We have looked at many places and hopefully will be able to settle on one soon.

Life here in Palm Meadows

Life here in Palm Meadows is pretty much picture perfect! The hotel is immaculate. The service is superb. They do make a good effort to provide American food choices, especially for the kids . They have chicken nuggets (chicken breast pieces with corn flake breading!), pasta with red sauce, grilled cheese and even hot dogs (served sliced up on a sub roll with lettuce, tomato and cucumbers!!!). Then it's mostly Indian and Asian food (very, very good here...not anything like our version of Chinese food in the U.S.)!!

I'd say that about 90 percent of the people I meet at the clubhouse are expats like us (expatriates are citizens of one country working on a work visa in another country). There is a huge influx right now of expats from Shell Oil... They are opening stations all over here. About half are US citizens and the other half a mix of Germany, UK, Singapore, Canada, Thailand, Italy just to name a few. Nearly everyone speaks English ( I feel so inept knowing only the one language... but at least I've got English nearly mastered), but you can imagine the sound of all the accents mixed together.

All the "new" expats are staying in the hotel, as we are, and searching for a house. The others already live here, in the community. Many have already been here for a year or two and still have a year or two left to go. Nearly everyone has kids the age of ours. These kids are all so used to meeting new people and making new friends, that it almost seems like we are all related. Within the first 15 minutes at the pool, a mom was offering Andrew a handful of Pringles and Taylor was with another family who ordered her a lunch with their lunch order. I think Lauren wishes she had some fake I.D., because she is acting like she is 12 years old...care taking for all the other toddlers (sound like someone else we know?). Taylor and Andrew are starting tennis lessons here next week. The get 36 hours of instruction per month for $40 US... yes, I am serious. Lauren will start swim class here as well. A few photos of the kids here at Palm Meadows...

First time out of Palm Meadows

Well, our first trip out of Palm Meadows was for a 7:30pm dinner reservation at The Park Hotel on the MG road in Bangalore. The culture here in Bangalore is for a much later evening. Most restaurants don't even open for dinner until 7pm!! The average work day here is 9 or 10 am until 7 or 8 pm. The kids here are up until at least 11 at night!! This is an adjustment for us, but at least they sleep in late. Let's see what happens when school starts and the bus picks them up at 7:20 am!!


Anyway, we drove out of the hotel gates at sunset and headed on the 8 mile (that's about 45 minutes with traffic!) journey through the streets of Bangalore. It hard to describe the scene, but I will try...


The "traffic" is sort of organized chaos... on all roads, there is in equal mix of motorcycles, mopeds, auto rickshaws, cars (mostly all vans and SUVs), animals and people!! The traffic is at least 4 wide at all times, and everyone just darts in and out randomly. The streets are lined with shoulder to shoulder people, just going about their business of shopping and socializing. I did not see any people not of Indian descent at all on this drive. It's a buzz of beeping horns and at first glance it does seem like insanity. My Mom would not fare well here! Once we reached the MG Road (Mahatma Gandhi Road ) I was surprised to see the large number of brand new establishments around the city here. We pulled up in front of the 5 star Park Hotel and went in to i-t ALIA for dinner. The service here in India is unparalleled. The kids are treated like Princes and Princesses, really. Andrew was served a cranberry /strawberry frozen drink in a big cosmopolitan sugar rimmed glass and promptly spilled the entire thing all over their chic lime green upholstered bench seat (surprise!!). "No problem, sir... no problem at all, sir" The food was perfect, especially the dessert (see photo) and I had a double espresso which was the first coffee I'd had since Dubai (this will need to be a seperate blog subject!). The entire meal, including Australian wine, apps, lobster dinners and dessert, came to under $200 US for the 5 of us including gratuity!! We exited the restauant, our driver pulled right around for us and loaded Lauren into the car and off we went. Back to the hotel. Our first outing was a hit!

Right before the Safari in Dubai

Here is a quick video clip from Dubai right before we embarked on the adventure of a lifetime...harrowing really as I described below...but after surviving...a great memory.

As you can see from the video, this is the meeting spot for all of the vehicles that provide the Desert Safari tour. At one point in the video you can hear and see our driver Gul letting a significant amount of air out of our tires to avoid a flat. I am also including some still photos provided by the tour company of our actual vehicles. We also purchased the video file but unfortunately, the video file was not loaded properly...we are trying to get another copy. By the way if you intend on calling Dubai from India, you always dial 0 971 4 and then the number :-)

City in the Desert

It's hard to believe but just 10 minutes outside of Dubai, UAE, its desert as far as the eye can see...unreal. Miles of giant sand dunes with camels walking off in the distance..quite surreal! Take a quick peek.

We are here in Bangalore!!!

I can't believe we have been gone from the U.S. for only 7 days ... it seems like forever (in a good way!). Sadly, this is my first chance to update this blog since we flew out. It has been a whirlwind... I will try to recap it the best I can in this posting...

On Monday, 7/7, we flew out of JFK to Dubai. I highly encourage you all to google Dubai and check it out. Dubai is in the Arab Emerite (Arabia, basically). The flight was 15 hours direct... we flew out at 11:15 pm ET, so Lauren was asleep before we even began to taxi down the runway. We flew business class on Emerites Airline, which was LUXURY. The seats relined to a full bed at the touch of a button. We each had a 17 inch flat screen at our seats with movies, TV, music, video games and even internet service!! The kids slept all night and Andrew ate until they cried, "Uncle"... They gave Lauren an entire box of Godiva chocolates!. I'd give them an A+ for the plane ride. The plane was completely full, and we were they only people with kids on the entire flight!


When we landed in Dubai, we instantly stood out... standing in line at immigration I glanced around and realized we were pretty much the only non-Arabian family in the airport. I was surprised to see how the kids were completely unfazed by the entire Arabian "scene". Although we do see a variety of nationalities in the U.S., the sight of an airport full of Arabians, in full garb, I thought might intrigue them. But it did not at all! I think they might have thought they were in Epcot Center, and all these people were just dressed up performers.


On the ride to the hotel, I was enamoured by the ridiculous oppulance of the city of Dubai. It was like nothing I could have imagined, really. If you can dream it, they have the money to build it.


A picture inside the Mall in Dubai...


We got a good night's sleep and got set for a full day on Wednesday.
On Wednesday, we got up and headed over to the Mall of Emerites, where they have an indoor ski area!! It was a relief from the 110 degree heat outside. They suited us all up with snow gear and we hit the hills! The kids tubed and luged for about 2 hours. It was a blast!




Then we headed back to catch our car for the desert safari.

The safari tour was terrific. Our driver, Gul, was from Pakistan. He was a great guy and gave us tons of info on Dubai. He is pictured here in the blog letting the air out of our tires before the sand dune "bashing".



Had we known how harrowing the tour would be, we never would have taken 3 kids (especially poor Lauren, who was scared to death but gutted it out) on it. It was a poor parental decision, but now that we are all safe, we are glad we did it!! The desert tour was awesome. They basically take you out in a caravan of Land Cruisers, through the desert and out to an Arabian "camp" where you get to see a camel farm, ride a camel, get henna tattoos, smoke the "sheesha", watch the sun set over the desert dunes and have an Arabic barbeque. Taylor and Lauren especially liked the belly dancer. They were happy to get up and wiggle their bellies in front of the whole crowd!











The following day, things really heated up... it was 117 degrees with 90 percent humidity!! We went to an indoor (air conditioned) marketplace... snacked on some of the local fare and window shopped mostly. We stepped outside briefly a few times and it was so hot that my camera would not even function!!










This city of Dubai is growing so fast... there is construction going on everywhere. One interesting thing to see is that each member of a construction "team" wears identical coveralls. They ride to and from their jobsites on the same bus in an organized fashion. And they are always busy. They work at an amazing pace... I never once saw a guy standing around! Another interesting fact is that they do not have an underground sewage system. So all of the waste water from the entire city needs to be drained and trucked to the waste water plant. There is always a crazy long line of tankers full of sewage sitting on the shoulder of the highway waiting to unload. It is a bizarre sight in this all so sparkling city... but I guess just a sign of how rapidly this city has grown in the past 5 years.

Then it was on to India!! The flight was just a short hop of 4 hours. We arrived in Bangalore at 3:15am local time, and checked into our hotel at 5:00 a.m. We barely got to sleep before the sun rose on Friday!
I woke the kids up at 1:30 pm and we headed out to the pool. By 1:35, Taylor's heat seeking missle had already landed a friend, Mira, 8 yrs old. Her brother, Millens, followed soon behind...they swam off and I never saw them again until Pat arrived from work at 6:30pm! I spent the afternoon meeting many ex-pat spouses, some new comers and many who have been here for 1, 2 and even 3 years!

That is it through day 1 in India. I promise to update tomorrow with addtional photos and video!!