The B's -- Week 5

This was the first week that I really felt like things geled...and the funny thing was that I wasn't even in Hyderabad.  I was in Bangalore this week for work meetings and our leadership team's offsite.  Bangalore is an amazing city and it felt very much like "home" for some reason. It was also a really energizing week work wise for me, which felt great.

This week's blog, which I titled "The B's", is going to primarily be a picture blog.

Birthday -
Happy Birthday to my baby sis -- Natalie...hope you had a great bday and good first week back to the adult world ;-).  Love ya!

Bangalore -
Bangalore is known as the "Garden City" in India and there was definitely lots of green, considering it's a population of 8 million people!

 This was the view from my hotel...and that stadium is a cricket staidum.

 The view from the top of the hotel--give you an idea for how close things are together.

Bikes & Buses -
I mentioned in my 1st blog how amazed I was, and still am, at how folks get around here in India.  Not so much the means of transportation, but the sheer volume on the street and so blatently obvious safety issues...

 This is how women ride--I keep thinking their dress (Sari) is going to get caught in the wheel.

It's tough to see inside the bus, but let's just say that none of these folks would complain about a New York subway being crowded.

I always think about transporting a whole room on the front of a motorcycle!

Yeah, looks real safe...and love how the dad is wearing the helmet.

 So it doesn't start w/ a "B", but this is a very popular form of transportation in India--it's called an auto rickshaw (in Thailand a Tuk-tuk)

THE BELL -

Those of you who know me well enough, you know that Taco Bell is my favorite restaurant (I know--sad) and prior to moving to India, one of my requirements on where I lived was that there was a Taco Bell within 5 miles of my place.  And places I was considering to live that were within walking distance to a TB earned bonus points.  Well, I was worried that I would go into withdrawl coming over to India, but you can imagine how happy I was when I heard that there are actually a couple Taco Bells in Bangalore, which may have had some influence into why I loved the city so much. It was by far the coolest Taco Bell I've ever been to--the interior and and style was all very modern and unique.

I took two of my co-workers (Mamta & Zubin) to Taco Bell for dinner one night. I was a little worried it wouldn't live up to all the hype I had given it, but they were both very happy...I still couldn't believe that Mamta had never eaten at a TB!

 The menu wasn't too different, but instead of beef, they had ground chicken--you couldn't tell the difference...probably because they don't really use real meat anyway.

I did try to talk them into opening a Taco Bell in Hyderabad and even offered to be a regular.

Deep-ak Thoughts by Keith -

- There's a saying "Home is where the heart is."  Well, I'd add on to that and amend the saying-- "Home is where the heart is...and where there's a Taco Bell close by."

- One man's bike is another man's moving van.

- Helmets for kids?? They're resiliant and have hard heads!