When you come to India for ~2 weeks you’ll usually go through a short bit of culture shock. First you think it’s interesting. This is mostly because you’ve arrived very late at night and a lot of the city is sleeping. The next morning things are happy because you’re staying at one of the finest hotels in the world. Later that day you enter the city and it’s all down hill. You’ve gone from one of the finest hotels in the world to seeing some of the poorest people in the world. You just don’t know how to react. The traffic, the pollution, the fear of what you can and can’t eat. In my case my body just sort of shut down. We called it a day around 1:00PM and went back to the safe haven that is the hotel. This will be your low point of the trip, over the next few days you’ll become accustomed to these things and you’ll enjoy your trip. I’ve learned that this isn’t culture shock; when you actually -live- in India you get culture shock.
(more…)
July 22nd, 2007
Bob
I went through the thousands of pictures I took while in Ukraine and edited down to 42 photos. I put lengthy captions on each and turned it into a little web-based slideshow. The captions will be in the bottom left corner and they’re probably worth reading so that you know what you’re looking at.
Slideshow of pictures from Ukraine
July 5th, 2007
Bob
It’s been a long time since my last post. We travelled back to California, visited with some folks and then moved out to India. I went straight in to an interviewing frenzy and Heather worked on a bazillion logistical issues dealing with getting moved into our new place. But, she pulled it all off in record time. We’re living in our new place now and have met a bunch of our neighbors. The neighborhood is great, our house huge, pictures to come. Unfortunately we don’t have an internet connection yet and that’s the primary reason for no posts recently.
None of that is very wacky though.
The flight we take goes from SFO to FRAnkfurt to Bangalore (BLR). It lands at 11:55PM, India time. At this point you’ve been traveling for nearly 24 hours and are fairly well exhausted. BLR, an international airport, has two baggage carousels. These aren’t carousels like at SFO or any other airport I’ve ever flown to. They’re not big in the least. The length is maybe 20 yards and the width no more than 10. A 747, the big huge airplane we fly in on, is capable of delivering over 400 passengers. Imagine 1.5 checked bags per person (we had 5 total) that’s 600 bags that need to fit in an area that is only 60 yards long. Right. It’s a mess. Hundreds of people running around with luggage carts whacking you in the backs of your ankles all crowding around the luggage carousel hoping to catch a glimpse of a bag that looks like theirs so that they can ram you one more time before pushing you aside and reaching in just to realize, oh, that’s right, my bag is a different color.
A white-guy standing next to me (yes, white guys stand out) was kind of freaking out with the mess of people, luggage carts and his apparently missing bag. I asked him if he’d ever been to Bangalore before. He said no. I welcomed him to the city and told him to get used to it. It’s Bangalore in a nutshell: Millions of people all taking the shortest possible path to what they want with complete disregard for what the guy next to him is doing. Wait in line here and you’ll spend your whole life waiting.
June 25th, 2007
Bob
We’ve been back in California for the past ~3 weeks. We were kept tremendously busy by a wedding, a graduation, work and a bunch of great friends to see. Last night it kind of hit me as I was brushing my teeth; I told Heather: “Only 2 more nights.” She replied back “What did you get us into?”
We fly on Tuesday afternoon and arrive on the gateway between Wednesday night and Thursday morning. Hopefully within just a few days we get all of our things together and slide from the service apartment into our new house.
June 11th, 2007
Bob
The capital of україн (Ukraine) is київ (Kyiv). Like львів (L’viv), київ has both a Ukrainian spelling and a Russian spelling. київ is Ukrainian, кїев (Kiev) is Russian (For those of you not paying attention in earlier postings, львів is львов in Russian and that sometimes becomes Lvov and Lwow in transliterations). This weekend I also learned another difference in the languages. Juice is сік in Ukrainian and сок in Russian. Aren’t you glad that you too know this? I thought so. The word for beer in Ukrainian is пиво. If you’re learning to read cyrillic, like me, this is pronounced sort of like “pee-vo.” This is apparently the Russian pronunciation. Don’t do that. It’s pronounced with a slight “ey” in the “ee.” So try “pey-vo”. But it’s more pee than pey. This picture is of a church. I don’t know what it’s name is but I do know where it is: it’s on the long street that has all of the little tents to buy tourist stuff at. One of you lucky readers may even get a gift that I bought on this very street. Most won’t 
.
(more…)
May 16th, 2007
Bob
Last Wednesday was a holiday in Ukraine. On the calendar it says “Victory Day” and this apparently has something to do with WWII. I’m no historian, I’m just a stereotypical stupid American that knows absolutely nothing about the history or values of other countries. Anyway. In doing a bit of research about Shashlyk this evening I’ve discovered it is actually a food; a food that we ate LOTS of on this very day. It’s basically just lamb kebabs. But the marinade and seasoning and extra helping of fat make it AWEsome. Anyway. The guys from Lohika cooked up a storm and fed Heather and I like king and queen.
(more…)
May 16th, 2007
Bob
It has happened. We’ve been here long enough. We went to Kyiv (київ) last weekend, the capital of Ukraine. We took the overnight train (sleeper car) on the way there and the express on the way back. When we got home I was thinking about what funny things happened on that trip and none came to mind. I thought about it some more and came to the conclusion that there was absolutely nothing normal about that trip; I have just grown immune to the former-oddities of Ukraine.
This morning we lost hot water again. The water pressure has been tapering off over the last week, indicating with near certainty that the water filter is clogged. This morning it was cold shower or no shower. I opted to clean the filter myself. I turned off the water main, pulled the filter, cleaned the sand and chunks of rust out of it and put it all back together. Nice hot shower.
Though I didn’t learn nearly as much of the language as I wanted to I think I can safely say that I’ve assimilated into this country as far as I need to. It was -a lot- of fun. I’ve got a few more things to write about and pictures to share before I officially declare us departed from Ukraine. We fly home in 6 days on Tuesday, May 22.
May 16th, 2007
Bob
This morning a wonderful thing happened: Sashko from L’viv Offroad messaged me and asked me if I wanted to go 4 wheeling. You bet I wanted to go. Ever since seeing their photo gallery I wanted to head out to the trails with them. The picture here was taken from the truck as we sped along one of the trails.
(more…)
May 5th, 2007
Bob
Here’s a picture of a flower I took while we were eating lunch here at the Park Hotel Residency. The blue in the background is the fancy pool they have here; it’s long and skinny, looks pretty but overall isn’t useful for anything other than swimming laps. I’m not sure what type of flower this is.
(more…)
April 24th, 2007
Bob
Today we spent our second entire day here in India. The first day was mostly a blur, today slightly more memorable. I don’t have any wacky stories to talk about today. This country (or at least this city) is so wacky I’m mostly speechless. The driving is insane and I can’t believe we haven’t seen an accident yet. There are cows almost everywhere, just like you’ve heard. Today we even saw a pair of camels! My Ukrainian pals were sure that Monkeys and Snakes ruled the city but I have yet to see any. My eyes are open
(more…)
April 19th, 2007
Bob
Next Posts
Previous Posts
