Zurich!!!

I am safely in Zurich. BUT, I don`t know how much I will share, because I am typing on a Swiss keyboard which has the keys z and y reversed, I am getting used to it, but that`ll explain the typos, not to mention none of the punctuation is where it is supposed to be.

Spent my last hour in Mumbai running errands with Stella. One of which was going to the gym to give them a farewell car. We got the biggest goodbye ever, complete with lots of picturetaking... those boys will really miss us! I then got back to the hostel and the car was an hour early, but that`s okay, I was happy to get to the airport early, since I didn`t know what I would face.

Got out of Mumbai, not without a lot of traffic and chaos though. As I sat in traffic and tried to take in the sights one last time... still not sure I have comprehended any of the images I have seen although I know they are burned into my mind at the same time... and enjoyed riding next to a rickshaw whose passenger was a goat... yes a goat. It was a great as I turned to look out the window and was practically nose to nose (yes, I will not miss India traffic) with a goat.

I checked in... my bags were slightly overweight, but they didn`t comment, thank goodness... the only complaint I`ll probably get is from Dad when he loads them into his car, it took two men to carry my suitcase down from my hostel room. The guy at the checkin counter then asked to weigh my carryon... oops... didn`t think they`d weigh that! Mine was 15 kg (about 33 lbs)... about 5 kg over the max. I made up a great story about how I called Swiss and they said it was okay... and was able to successful play the last "But I am a white foreign women" card and the guy was like "Oh okay then!" Whew!

Waited in the lounge in Mumbai for a while, reading my book then moved to security and the gate where there was a MASSIVE horde of people trying to shove in the gate at once. At this point.. I had to carry my rollon bag... good thing I`ve been working out. But the reason I had to carry it, is it is literally falling apart at the seams! The handle bar gets jammed, and I have to manually release it by digging my hand into the bottom of the suitcase and releasing it. So I fashioned a way to prevent the handle from retracting completely by tying electrical ties around the base of it so it stops the handle bar on the way down... yes, ghetto. But when I was waiting in the horde of people, I used my suitcase as a seat, and wound up pushing the handle bar back in despite my ingenious invention! So I had to haul my suitcase, with my "purse" (aka overstuffed laptop bag) over my shoulder and my finger intwined in my beltlooops to hold my pants up... yep my pants fall down to below my hips and I do not have a belt... guess that`s what happens when you go to India, lose weight from not eating, and then try to wear your jeans for the first time in 5 months. So... I was a sight to behold.

Sat down on the plane, got served dinner shortly after take off and promptly slept until breakfast. So nice to eat some good food and get some rest. I arrived in Zurich a few minutes early and had to haul my suitcase... stupid handlebar, until I got to security. Fortuntely they wanted to open my bag to investigate further.. and I say fortunately because that meant when I was repacking it, I could release the handlebar... and this made life much easier. I went up to the lounge only to learn I had to use a different lounge for outbound U.S. Airways... so back out through security to terminal A, where I sit now, waiting for about four hours when I can go back over to E, get my boarding pass printed and anxiously await my final leg of my journey to HOME!

I felt a burst of cold air when deplaning though, and I am not sure I am ready for the cold... but it is nice to see Christmas decorations!!

I am within hours of home... maybe 15 or so, and I can not wait.

Catch you on the other side of the ocean!

The moment we've all been waiting for...

Lassssssssssssssssst day in India!

I head to the airport in just about 4 hours, and I am excited beyond words! I slept horribly last night, figures, and wound up getting less than 4 hours of sleep... this changed my morning plans and I decided to forego the the gym and instead get some final things packed up since I had an appointment to get henna at 10 am, and would be unable to do anything for hours afterwards as my hands were drying. The henna looks great, I hope it lasts until the Open House on Sunday!

So I am fully packed and ready to go, sitting around anxiously for the car I hired to come pick me up! My suitcases may be a bit heavy... so keep your fingers crossed they aren't over the weight limit, the result of too much shopping I fear.

I am making my rounds today to say goodbye to the local community. I think they were overjoyed to have four foreigners living in the neighborhood... for perhaps the first time. As much as I complain about India, and let's be honest, it's been pretty rough at times, at most times, but as much as I complain, there are some things I am going to miss, and some friendly people that I will miss seeing. I was afraid the big tough trainers at the gym were going to cry when I told them goodbye yesterday! We keep telling our local merchants goodbye because we are leaving... they say, oh, another trip? When do you get back? And we have to tell them... no, we're going for good this time.

We gave the nice day guard and our maid a nice tip and some chocolates today, and I have never seen two people more grateful. We probably didn't give much more than the equivalent of $3.00, but you would've thought we gave them all our riches.

Now I have just a few more hours sitting in this barren hostel room waiting to start my long journey home. I will fly into Zurich, have a 7-hour layover, and arrive back in the States tomorrow (Thursday) evening. It can't come soon enough!!

I can not wait to see everyone and swap stories and pictures of all the adventures in our lives.

Will write from Zurich when I finally reach non-Indian land!!!

Watch out for that cow!

Yes... I think India is trying to kick me out.

I almost got attacked by a cow today... no lie. I was minding my own business, walking down the street... when a cow comes charging down the sidewalk from the opposite direction... but I jumped out of the way in time and flattened myself against the wall, although it was enough to give me a little bit of fright while at the same time make me laugh a little... where else can you almost get attacked by a cow on the sidewalk of a major urban metropolis.

My day was spent at the gym (where I had to shower because our shower is still not working.. "tomorrow"), and then working on a case study on JetBlue which will be the basis for our HR Exam tomorrow. I went out for a final round of shopping, picking up some Indian sweets for the Open House and two pieces of Sari fabric to be used for eventual decoration in my future house.

Then I sat around and waited for copies of the HR ppt notes from our professor, and have spent the evening researching JetBlue.

I'm feeling pretty good about my HR Exam... and then tomorrow it'll be one exam done and just two to go. I also think I'm going to start packing tomorrow night. I keep talking about packing, but haven't started yet because I am trying to push it off as much as possible so I have a carrot dangling... not to mention once I pack, I'll be ready to book outta here.

You're not making this easy on me...

I was enjoying a relaxing evening in front of the TV. My day was as frustrating as anything, and I am quickly losing my patience for the ineffectiveness and inefficiencies of the Indian system. After a few deep breaths... and a hard stint at the gym, I felt a bit better....

That was until I looked down at the floor and realized that our room was flooding... yes... flooding. All of my things were in a thin layer of water... the shower being the culprit... and water marks were rising on our mold-filled walls.

I went down to get the guard's attention who was busy on the telephone. Finally with the assistance of one of the other girls to translate we learned it was a plumbing problem that would be addressed tomorrow (Enchalla... remind you of Dubai?) and the water had been turned off... but what about the swimming pool forming in our room and our muddy footprints from walking through it?

So they called someone to clean... a skinny little cleaning boy from school came over with a small pocket and an even smaller dirty rag... and started soaking up the water, one drenched rag-full at a time... I'm pretty sure he's going to be here all night and still won't get the job nearly done... I think maybe I just won't watch, it'll be better that way. That or we'll turn the AC on full blast and have ourselves a lovely skating pond.

This is ABSURD. I am so beyond pissed I am eerily calm. Luckily I have less than a week left in this room and therefore the new colonies of mold that will form because of this won't further adversely affect my health.

But really now! India give me a break!!! I leave in 145 hours.

ONE WEEK!

One week from now... I will be sitting in my room, getting my henna tattoos done... and doing last minute packing so that I can head to the airport that evening.

I just have to make it through one more week... a piece of cake, right? I can do it, right?

I sure hope so...

Last Week...

I am in the midst of my last full week in India!! In fact, a week from tomorrow I will be piling up in a car with all my suitcases and heading to my last adventure with chaos: the international departures terminal of Bombay Int'l Airport. The chaos probably won't even bother me... I'll just walk with my eyes focused on the goal: home.

So far my week started out well... my IT Perspectives Viva (oral exam) was canceled due to our professor being ill. Although based on how committed and reliable he is to our class (or NOT)... chances are we won't have to make it up... which is a shame because that means our entire grade will be decided upon one presentation we gave a few weeks ago that he tore all the groups apart on. Oh well.

We had a guest lecturer on leadership from Prudential today. The highlight of the rather un-informative talk was a 10-minute movie clip... because it was so nice to watch a movie not on my laptop, tethered to head phones.

We had our last Finance class and celebrating December birthdays with a cake... then I hit the gym for about an hour.

Tomorrow we have free so I plan on heading down to Colaba to complete all my Christmas/souvenir shopping so that I can... PACK :-) Tomorrow night is also the Ugly Betty Season One Finale, so Stella and I have a pizza party planned (to also celebrate One Week 'Til We Leave night).

For now... I'm exhausted and can only think about delicious food I'm awaiting when I arrive home... but I'll put those thoughts aside, choke down one of my last protein bars and hopefully get some sleep.

Thanks to all of you who have sent cards... but hold your cards now. Because I leave in... let's here it again, almost a week... cards sent now will most likely not make it to India in time... and I do not trust any forwarding system they may have!! So you can give me your cards in person... in... one more time... about a week!!! :-)

My second to last trip leaving Bombay behind (the last being of course heading West and never looking back)

We went on an overnight "field trip" to Nasik (or Nashik depending on which spelling you believe) for corporate visits. We left Thursday evening at around 5:30... aka 6 pm and hit the road... if you can call it a road.

The road to Nasik is a glorified compacted dirt road, where they don't bother to paint a middle line, knowing it will continuously be abused. The road is narrowed and filled with "Goods Carriers" attempting to pass each other to be one truck-length ahead to their destination. The bus was severely lacking... mainly in shock absorbers, so the trip was loooong and bumpy!

We made two quick pit stops... one that took much longer than anticipated, but it was nice because I saw a nice patch of green grass... I'm not sure how green it actually was on its own standing though because it was heavily lit with green tinted lights... tricky.

I listened to my iPod for a majority of the time, and also got two hours into a book on tape I am listening to thanks to the free download from iTunes. It's Brad Meltzer's "The Millionaires" and it's pretty good... although I don't know how keen I am on books on tape, but it was free. It's weird because I am usually a fast reader, especially with a suspenseful read... so there were quite a few times I wanted the narrator to read a bit faster!!

We finally arrived to the Mahindra Guest House at... I don't even remember... midnight? It was actually really decent accommodations, we had double occupancy rooms in adjoining villas. I would've much preferred those accommodations for the last four and a half months rather than the prison-like cockroach infested digs I currently hang my hat in! I roomed with Mitika which was a nice change of pace, and we sat up for a while with the boys playing Rummy, and then wound up eating a midnight snack (they had some traditional Indian dishes... I had a few nibbles of Nan). I didn't sleep well though, surprise surprise, and wound up not really falling asleep soundly for the night until about 5 am... makes for a rough 9 am wake-up.

We had a 9:30 am sharp departure (aka 10 pm) and headed for the Mahindra Mahindra automobile manufacturing plant. We are never able to go straight to our destination... as is typical Indian custom, we stop and ask for directions at least 5 times per desired destination. India needs to invest some stock in GoogleMaps!

Our visit at Mahindra Mahindra was pretty cool... among the products they manufacture is the Scorpio SUV, a Bolero SUV, and the Logan through a Joint Venture with Renault. We had a quick Q&A session and then toured through the entire factory... I've never had to dodge so many new cars while walking through the factory. It was really neat though because they have 4.2 kilometers of conveyor belts that take the cars from the "press shop" to "painting" "assembling" and then final assembly. I've never seen a car made... so it was pretty nifty and a good behind the scenes look. That is the nice thing about the Mumbai-trek versus the Paris-trek of this program, we get to go on a plethora of corporate visits, and while they become repetitive and exhausting... we have gained insight into an incredible amount of industries and been able to see how a lot of everyday items are produced.

After Mahindra, we stopped for lunch at a rest stop... that had more flies hovering around our table than anyone should have to experience!!! I ordered my food first... Butter Nan to be safe... and it came last of the 15 that ordered. Gotta love Indian efficiency.

We left the restaurant and hit the road for Sula's winery. We had a tour of the winery... which pretty much just involved walking through the room where they "age" their fine wine for a whopping 5-11 months... that's some fine wine they're making. Ha. After seeing the vineyards... and their manufacturing facilities... and the fact that many of the silo-like structures the wine was stored in were partially opened and they allowed us to walk around freely and stick our faces in them... I skipped the tasting haha. I'm glad I did too... because rumor is, it was pretty bad wine.

So instead I sat out in the terrace (Nasik actually has semi-clean air) and enjoyed the view with Bhuvan and Mitika who also did not partake in the tasting. After much waiting, everyone was finally ready to go and loaded up on the bus. It was an even longer bus ride back and I wasn't very successful in napping. We stopped for a quick dinner... that lasted more than an hour... and then Mark convinced me to let him borrow a DVD... only if I could watch a movie with him though. We watched the first part of "The Devil Wears Prada" and as much as everyone else poked fun at him in the bus for watching it... we had to put English subtitles on so everyone in the surrounding seats could keep up without the benefit of sound.

We finally made it back to the hostel at ... 1 or so. And I made it to sleep at ... who knows... but it was late.

Not quite sure the 12-14 hours or so of travel time within the 30 hours we were away from Bombay made the trip worth it. But, it's the last time I leave Bombay until a week from this Wednesday when I head to the airport... FINALLY :-) :-) :-) :-)

Now it's just a matter of surviving a few last days with final projects and exams... and surviving on the last few protein bars, no sleep, and an itchy rash (which I am convinced is my body being allergic to India)... ahh, gotta love character building.

My Life in Two Blocks

Welcome to my life in Matunga...

The orange dot is my gym... the blue dot is my school.. the purple dot (in between the two big nice buildings) is my hostel :-)

Yep... my life in Mumbai... confined to two city blocks.

A Charlie Brown Christmas...

Mom was kind enough to bring me a little Christmas tree in October so I could have some festive spirit in my room for December..

I "put up" the tree yesterday atop my TV, with a tree skirt made from scarves given to me at a Sikh Temple I visited in New Delhi and filled with ornaments made with origami... you'll notice there are cranes, a dog, a house, a boat, a jumping frog, an oversized star and at the base some Christmas socks courtesy of a great friend and an origami pig...

It's a very Charlie Brown Christmas

I leave THIS month!

We travel the world to find what we need... and then return home to find it.

I haven't updated in a couple days, but there's good reason... I haven't done anything of note since my latest television appearance! The professors have finally realized they probably need to give us a few assignments so they can give us a justifiable grade so that has been the focus of this week... and I fear the remainder of my time in India. Luckily, the assignments are pretty easy so I still have to put in minimal effort (I promise I'll try harder once my other physiological needs are taken care of).

Actually an interesting thought just popped in my mind, completely different from where I was originally intended to go with this post. We were studying motivation theories in HR, and they always fascinate me. So we started with, of course, Maslow's Hierarchy of Needs but then it evolved to Herzberg's Two Factory Theory of Hygiene versus Motivation Factors... and how you can't even begun to have motivation until hygiene needs are taken care of. Hygiene needs include physiological, security, and social needs (in the broadest sense of these words... as in, you need clothing, a clean work environment, shelter, and some human interaction). So actually, looking back on HR motivation strategies I can see why I've had little to no motivation for school work this semester: my basic needs aren't fulfilled. I'm hungry, tired, uncomfortable, dirty, etc. Well I feel better about my lack of motivation now... and feel sure that once I return home and have my basic needs met, I will once again return to my original state of an ambitious and motivated student.

But anywho. What I've been up to this week? A lot of time in my room, as usual. I downloaded Josh Groban and Michael Buble Christmas music to get myself into the festive season. I also gave in and downloaded 4 Lifetime Holiday movies... yes, go ahead, you can laugh at me. But it's those cheesy movies that my Mom and I love to snuggle up and watch that make the Christmas season special! I've already watched 2... so much for spacing them out to last the rest of the time while I'm here!

Wednesday I had the day off, and played catch up with work... and by playing catch up... I mean sat around, wrote a few postcards (well only two, I'll send more next week) and studied for a Finance Quiz (which was unsettling hard). Wednesday night was Ugly Betty night, as usual... and we're going to luck out because this is Season One which ends right before we leave... so now I guess I'll either have to give it up, or quick catch up on Season Two in the States.

Thursday we had HR in the morning, and then a quick lunch break before a Finance Quiz. Our speaker (who has canceled on us numerous times before) once again canceled, so we had the afternoon free which was nice.

Friday we had Strategic Management, and then the rest of the day off.

Yesterday (Saturday- HAPPY BIRTHDAY DAY :-)) I also had class, boo, for three hours. But it was delayed by a few hours which was nice because it gave me time to complete my case study for the class.

Today (Sunday) I woke up relatively early (I haven't been sleeping well at all! I blame my rash which makes me up in the middle of the night itchy.. I used an ice pack to no avail last night to try to soothe it... showering has become more than painful almost bringing me to tears because it stings so badly, I threatened to not shower for the rest of the time here... but decided that was probably a bad choice) but laid in bed for a long time (I don't blame myself... I was held captive)... so long that I decided to take a nap, which only lasted a few minutes before I decided I should really start my day.

I've been to the gym everyday during the week, and it's nice because it is the one thing during the day that breaks up my routine of sitting and laying... I really am going to miss my gym, it's such a nice release! I'm going to try and keep it up when I return home, but we'll see how long that lasts. But it's nice because all the trainers know me, and are very upset that I'm leaving soon (I like my gym... but not enough to stay in India).

I have a relatively busy week with a presentation in IT Perspectives tomorrow, well.. a free day Tuesday (that will be filled with work), a management case study due Wednesday, a happy hour Wednesday night with a representative from Temple, a paper due in Finance on Thursday, and then Thursday night (after a double header of class) we have a 6 hour drive to Nasik to stay the night so we can visit Mahindra (automobile factory) and Sulla Winery on Friday. We drive back to Mumbai Friday night... after a wine tasting... on bad Indian roads. That's going to be a pleasant bus ride... I'll bring my iPod and sit in the front haha.

Well! I can say I'll be home this month!! I leave for the airport in 17 days... I can do it :-)

Very much looking forward to seeing everyone!!!!!!!