More Pictures

I can't believe it's been so long since my last post. I have no idea where the time has gone. I can't believe how long it's been since I was in India. It seem like forever ago. Oh well. I still have pictures to share, so here we go...

I guess everywhere had Harry Potter fever
I'm sure I mentioned the food. This is the desert bar for brunch at the Taj Residency

This was the buffet for breakfast every morning at the Taj Gateway
Only the driver needs a helmet, I guess, not the other three on the bike....

Can you guess the name of this place????


As you know I like to go to aquariums wherever I visit...

I would be remiss if I did not include a picture of a cow...

Finally, pictures of monkeys...

Not sure if they were weeding or cutting the grass...

Check out the guy in red, I guess sales were not what he was hoping for...

Mysore - The Sights

The main reason to go to Mysore, was to see the palace there. While not the Taj Majal (what is?), it was relatively close and supposed to be nice. It was OK. The grounds and palace are huge, but I was disappointed by the upkeep. They need to spend some money on this place before it falls down. There was peeling paint everywhere. You can't take pictures inside, so you have to check your camera at the gates.

The other interesting thing was you needed to remove your shoes to enter. I guess this is done so that all the shoes do not wear down the floors, some of which were beautifully tiled. But what cracked me up is that the cleaning people were using these grass brooms to beat, and I mean beat, the dust off the furniture and statues there. I can't believe that does not do more damage than people walking around in shoes.

The Palace

I got to ride an elephant

Luggage Found

On Saturday, 7 days after I returned home, I had a glimmer of hope that my luggage might be returned. The Continental website indicated my luggage was rebooked on the Virgin flight I originally took, just a week later. I was pretty excited. I had already begun the process of listing the contents of my suitcase. Do you know how difficult it is to recreate, 6 days worth of clothes? They wanted make, model, color, size, where and when purchased...this was not a fun process...I know I buy most of my stuff at Kohls, but recreating this was gonna be a pain. My clothes were nothing compared to figuring out how much my camera power cord, UBS cable, plus cell phone and iPod cables...what a night mare. Luckily, I only wasted about an hour of my life doing that before I got the good news. Of course, with all good news, must come some bad news. Of course my bag didn't make that flight. It did make the flight on Sunday and my bag was schedule for delivery sometime Monday. Originally when I filed my claim I indicated the bag could be delivered at any time, if I were not home they could leave it on the front porch. The morning passed, noon passed, it was almost 3pm and I was getting mad. You'd think since my bag was 8 days late, they would try and deliver it 1st thing in the morning. I contacted my friends at Continental:

"They started to deliver at 8:30 and should be done in 6 hours", the nice lady told me.

"It's been 6 1/2 hours", I observed.

"Good point," she replied. "Let me check"

"They tell me they have delivered all of the bags. Are you sure it's not on your porch?

Now, our front porch is nice, but not by any means big. I would k now if my suitcase were sitting on it.

"Have you been home all day, have you checked around your house", she asked?

"No", I replied. "They are supposed to deliver to the porch."

So I walk around the house and there it is, by the backdoor, off the garage. What an idiot! (not me, the delivery person. How would I know it is there!

The good news is that all my belongings appear to be there. Rose and Sean both really like their gifts, even though 8 days late

But what to do now? I should be compensated in some way. Anyone out there ever been though this? Please let me know what I should do.

Welcome Home

I know there are more India stories to be told, however....

To make a long story short, Saturday had to have been one of the longest, worst days of my life. I was travelling for 30 hours starting at 3 AM Bangalore time. I woke up with a stomach ache and intestinal issues. I tried to be real careful while I was there, I ate vegetarian to avoid under cooked meats, I brushed my teeth with bottled water, but still I got nabbed. Not sure how, but that is all water under the bridge. I hardly ate on the flights and slept very little. By the time I got to Newark, I was exhausted. In order to get through customs you need to pick up your luggage. I'm standing by the baggage carousel, when I think I hear my name being called with some others. I figure since the plane was late and I was short on time to get to my flight to CLE that they were going to expedite my movement through Customs. WRONG!

I was informed that my suitcase did not make the flight to NJ and I needed to put in a claim when I got to CLE. I was kinda upset, but also too tired to really care at that time.

Well, 4 days later I still don't have my bag. They did call yesterday to see if there was anything inside the bag that might stand out. I mentioned my Hawaiian shirt, "Good" she said, "that is different". I also told her that in every pocket and inside the bag was my name and contact information, "Good", she said. Not sure I feel better, but she seemed happy.

In regards to the illness, it only took me till Wednesday to feel better, between the sickness, the exhaustion and the jet lag, I was slammed.

The good news is that it was great to get home. Rose, Sean and Charlie were all very happy to see me. Sean and Rose made me a welcome home poster, with flowers and a card. It was great to come home to them. I'd show you a picture of it, but my camera power cord and USB cable are all in my luggage....

It was great doing some relaxing Sunday and Monday, and getting settled in. I worked from home Tuesday/Wednesday to re-acclimate myself. Today it's off to the office for the first time. If I don't get my luggage soon, I'll need to do some shopping as most of my work clothes are in my luggage....

TGIF - "I'm Going Home"

While I have enjoyed my trip, both on a personal and professional level, I'm glad today is my last full day in India. I have spent time with friends, eaten some great food, seen some awesome sights and met really nice people, but I'm ready to go home.

To quote Chris Daughtry:

I'm going home, back to the place where I belong,

and where your love has always been enough for me......

...But these places and these faces are getting old, so I'm going home.

Well I'm going home.

I miss my family. I know my being away for extended periods is not easy for Rose or Sean. Being able to talk to them on a regular basis and sharing stories with them via this blog have helped, but I'm looking forward to spending face to face time with them (and even Charlie) on Sunday.

I still have many stories and pictures to post in the upcoming days, so please check back for updates...

I know I should be working......

Good news for all my co-workers is that things have been going very well on the support side. The team has done a great job on the e-mails and chats that have come their way, which is allowing me this time to quickly post this JIT entry. Ash and I met at 6:00 am this morning (after working to 10:30 pm) to be on-site for the AU shift, as we start the first day of phone support. It was a nice drive in as most people are still sleeping. As we were waiting for the elevator, Ash mentioned that the "lift operator" may be asleep. First let me tell you that the elevators for our five floor building have attendants that push the buttons for you. The funny thing (or sad, depends on your point of view) is that we've stopped at the wrong floor, gone in the wrong direction or just plain stood still more than once with the help of our experts. So right on cue, the doors open and there he is, sitting on his stool, fast asleep. Of course I don't have my camera ready. Ash pushes the "3" button himself and we proceed to our floor (correctly, nice job Ash!). All this without our friend waking up.

After getting settled and making sure things are going well with the team, we head back to the elevators to get some coffee. We wait 5 minutes and the door opens to a full car of empty water bottles. We decide to take the stairs. The door is locked at our exit point, so we go down one more level to the parking garage and head for an alternative escape route. When we finally get to the coffee shop, the security guard is sleeping and the barista is sleeping. We wake him up to get our coffee and proceed back to the elevators. This time it opens immediately, no attendant in sight and we proceed back to the office without any issues.

Mysore - "Will you please go away!!!!!"

One of the attractions in Mysore is the market there.

It was so cool walking around looking at the wares the vendors were selling. There were spices,

powdered dyes,

flowers for special occasions,

and fruits and vegetables.

While the atmosphere was just as expected, vendors calling out to buy their stuff, I had one man follow me around for 10 minutes trying to sell me these cheap looking and sounding wooden flutes. The best part was he was showing me how each one worked. He would not go away, I tried being nice, not so nice and rude. Nothing worked. Finally, Cheryl said to ignore him. The fact that I was responding to him meant I was interested. Well even ignoring him did not work. It wasn't until we left the market and walked to our car that he finally gave up. Persistent little bugger!

Mysore - The Trip to Mysore

Cheryl suggested a trip to Mysore to get out of Bangalore and see some more of the country. The Taj Majal was out because it required a flight and overnight stay. Too much time required for a two week visit. Mysore is not close, 3 hours each way, but doable in one day. Fellow expats, Monica and Emma decided to join us. At 6:45 am with pillows, bread basket and bottled water packed we headed out. The good new about leaving so early was that traffic was pretty light. The bad news was that our driver was one of those people that drive right up to lights, traffic back-ups, road blocks and speed bumps (Right don't get me started!) at full speed, then slams on the breaks at the last minute. So we are on the Bangalore-Mysore road cruising at 100 kph (about 62 mph) when we come up to the first roadblock. The police set up these barriers so that all the traffic has to wind around the barriers going from full speed, two lanes to no speed one lane. It's crazy! The we are at full speed again and come up to a speed bump. I assume that these are in place because we were approaching populated areas, but who knows. I couldn't count how many roadblocks and speed bumps we hit on out trip. But for each one it was the same, wait to the last minute and slam on the brakes. The scenery was interesting. There were sugarcane fields being harvested and rice paddies being planted. That was surprising to me, I think of that mainly in Asia. Who knew?

Bangalore Sights

Friday afternoon Cheryl and I took in some of the Bangalore sightseeing hotspots. First stop was the Vidhana Soudha , the seat of Karnataka's (the state in which Bangalore resides) legislative assembly.

Accross the street is the High Court Of Karnataka. It is a very impressive red building.


Finally, we ventured to the Bull Temple. This was the entry to temple.


And the Bull Shrine.

Of course in our travels, were the omnipresent street cows. I case you did not know, here in India, cows are sacred. The Subway in our building has an Italian Sub with lamb pepperoni, but I digress. The cows are allowed to roam the city streets as they please, sometimes they are tied up, sometimes they lay down in the middle of the road, and sometimes they act civilized and use the sidewalks.

Change in Format

For the first part of my blog, I attempted to keep the posts in chronological order. This was to try and keep some sort of timeline for people reading the blog, plus it forced me to be more organized. Unfortunately, it did not allow me to be spontaneous and talk about something that just happened, because it might be "out of order." You can ask Rose, I like things in order. If we go somewhere there must be a plan: Walk aisles in sequence at a flea market, stay on one side of the row at an art show. I'll admit it is a bit much, some might call it something else, but it keeps me organized.
So having said that, going forward it will probably still be in order, but hopefully a bit more free flowing...
For example, it's currently Tuesday, and in my next post I will talk about Friday.
See that was not so hard.
Little Tidbit of Info: Dress code in the office is business casual, just like back in Cleveland. The only difference is that we can wear sandals. As you can see.

I promise not to pull a "Simon" and wear them to the US office and say, "Oh, it's OK they do it in....." (Apologies to most of you as this is an inside joke)

Some Photo's For a Friday

While I have been busy putting my experience into words, I have failed to show pictures of Bangalore. This is probably what everyone wants anyway, so here are some photos for your viewing pleasure.

Cheryl insisted we go for a tuk tuk ride on our way to sightseeing/shopping. Note how close the car is to us.

This is a view of the shopping area near MG (Mahatma Gandhi) Road and Commercial Street.

100 Rupee ($2.50) fine if you really need to go. It is not uncommon to see gentleman relieving themselves on the side of the road. Watch your step.

In the foodcourt of the building we are in. Makes sense to me!

View from my hotel window. Lots of activy on the roof. Not sure if you can see the hanging clothes. Also note the rebar on the roof line. Not sure if they forgot to finish the building , or if they are lightning rods.

Bangalore Power Outages

In case you don't know, there is an issue in Bangalore with power outages. I found it interesting that during the course of the day and during training I have been conducting, the people here don't blink when the power goes out. I find it annoying, but I've only been here a couple of days. The good news is that they are really an annoyance as the phones, pc's, etc. are on UPS, so it only effects the lights, and it is usually for a couple of minutes. The list to the right is my way of keeping track of how often it happens. Just because.

The Training Sessions

I had first of two of the 2-hr sessions with US/UK team Tuesday. It went really well. The team was very interactive and asked great questions. I have been very impressed with the team. They seem really excited about eRoom and have done really well on the test e-mails we provided them to look at. Day Two (Wednesday) of the training allowed me to show more of the detailed functionality of the tool. I was showing them some real live examples of databases that had been setup. One of them was for the London Deployment Meeting Gill sponsored in January. The database captured details about all attendees, including a picture of the person. Since they have never met these people we spent some time going through the attendees photos. It was very interesting hearing their comments about the pictures and the people they have come to know over the phone! Thursday starts the session for the Australian team. We go live covering help desk support on Monday. I feel confident they will do well. I'll let you know.

Dinner at Jamavars

Tuesday Night Cheryl and I had dinner at Jamavar in the Leela Palace Bangalore Hotel. The hotel was amazing and Jamavar was in a great setting. We sat outside because the weather was so nice. The service and the food were excellent. We had a spread of many different types of southern and northern Indian food to try. When we had finished desert, our server asked us if we would like a tour of the kitchen (it was a pretty slow night). We of course said yes! The chef's showed us how to make the traditional nan and roti breads.

Even though full from dinner, we accepted the chef's offer to taste the roti bread he made for us. It was awesome, so fresh.

My only complaint of the evening would be the size of the bats flying around at night, they are huge. Apparently they have 4 foot wingspans and eat fruit. They are known as flying foxes. I'm glad they like fruit and not people.

The Body

Ash and I were catching up with each each other after I arrived in the office. As we were talking, I was looking out the window at our surrounding and noticed a group of people milling about the railroad tracks that run along side the building. There appeared to be some official looking people (OK, the uniforms gave them away) checking out the tracks. That is when I noticed the BODY! Lovely, my first day in the office I get to see a dead guy. One of the official looking people was pulling up the body's shirt and moving it's leg around. By the time they were ready to remove him to a more peaceful resting place, there was quite a crowd gathered both by the tracks and by the office windows looking out. Just another day in the office!

"Good Morning Mr. Fay"

One thing I have noticed here is that customer service is king. Everyone is very friendly, they pay attention to details and appear to have a great work ethic. Monday morning on the way to breakfast, three different hotel staff members greeted me with "Good morning, Mr. Fay." Not bad for having been there for 24 hrs, most of which I was either sleeping or out of the building.

One of the nice things about the hotel is the free buffet breakfast. Being my first day in the office, I wanted to make sure I was well nourished. The food was excellent. I now have a new favorite for breakfast: Masala Dosa. They also have cereal, which is my normal breakfast when home, but as they say, when in Bangalore.....

Traffic in India is not very organized. (Click the arrow to view)





As you can see, travelling can be quite hazardous. To be honest, my experience it that it is worse than what the video shows. There are certainly no red light traffic camera's like in Cleveland, and from what i can tell, no true "rules of the road" other than every man, women, child, dog and cow for themselves!


The office is new and in an area that is currently under development. The facility is still under construction and the team has been here for less than a year. The team seemed very excited to meet me. The Australian team was working when I arrived. As the UK and US teams arrived throughout the day, it was apparent they were very excited that I had made the long visit to train them in their new responsibilities. It was great meeting them in person, much easier than previous introductions via video conference. Seeing a person's expressions face to face, not being impeded by technology shortcomings, makes it so much easier to exchange ideas and information in person.

Bernie's Leaving Do

About a week before leaving for India, Cheryl asked me if I wanted to join her and some of her "India" friends for a "leaving do" for her friend Bernie. (See picture of Bernie and Cheryl to the left) Since I didn't have any other plans 8,779 miles away from home, I said, "Sure!" Bernie and all of her friends made me feel very welcome. Many of them work in our office as coaches, and other are expats working for other global organizations. We all met at Olive Beach for brunch. They had reserved the rooftop of the restaurant, which was great as it was sunny and 75. The buffet was awesome, and the Indian Champagne, Sula was perfect (especially since they were serving Foster's instead of Kingfisher, what's up with that?) I was very impressed with the bonds this group has developed with each other. It can't be easy to be away from friends, family and co-workers for such long periods of time. But having friends like these, certainly seems to make it easier.

Good Morning Bangalore!

The Airport
I've been in big airports, and I've been in small airports, but I've never travelled via a 1940's airport until now. This airport is a throwback to a different time. There were no delays or lines like the newer airports, not totally unexpected for 4:30 in the morning, but everything was just old. The baggage carousel was more like a series of conveyor belts pieced together, and worker had to continually keep adjusting the bags to keep the flow going. It was reminiscent of a scene in Casablanca. I changed some left over Pounds into Rupees and I was ready to go. I met Ash and his wife outside of baggage claim. Ash works out of the London office and is currently working with Cheryl with the Bangalore Team. They walked me to my driver and I was off.
I was surprised at all the activity at this time of the morning; cars, trucks, tuk tuks, bikes and pedestrians. I didn't see any cows in the road, but there seemed to be an excessive amount of beeping of the car horn by both my driver, and the ones around us.
My Neighbors/The Construction
After checking in, calling home and taking a quick shower, I hear this crying coming from the room next door. It's 6:00 AM and there is a baby crying next to me. OMG!!! I need to sleep!!! Luckily, the nightstand has ear plugs (interesting) and I get to sleep. At 9:00 AM I am awoken once more, this time, by a low rumble and banging noise. Damn! I know they are doing construction in the hotel, but really, they can't be doing it on a Sunday morning? Wrong! They are! I try to go back to sleep, but between the (really) loud crying next door, the jackhammers and the hammering going on, and the increasing volume of the honking outside, it pretty useless to try any longer.

London to Bangalore

I know, boring title...
The flight to Bangalore was pretty uneventful, but very long. The service was excellent, food was very good, but the seating was interesting. On BA you get you own little pod to stay in (check out this link). I had a window seat, so it was very private. But it was difficult getting in and out of my personal space. The good news is that the seats lay all the way flat to create a bed, the bad news is I don't sleep too well on planes. Sure, they give you those ear plugs and mask, but there was too much going on. I did watch one Indian film on the way. I never did figure out the name of it, but it was entertaining. I'd read about "Bollywood", but had never seen one of the films. It was pretty good. I'm not a big fan of sub titles, but it was pretty easy to follow. Also, it had plenty of singing and dancing to keep me entertained.

Friends reruns and the flight information map were my entertainment during most of the trip. The most amazing thing to me were how many lights were visible on the ground over Iraq. I thought I'd look out and not see anything.

London Heathrow - What is this line?????

Stuart gets me to Heathrow with no further issues. We get to departures and there is a sea of humanity. There are lines with hundreds of people in them, snaking into tents in front of the terminal. My initial thought was that something bad happened. No one seemed to know why were were in line (a line that was not moving). I noticed some people by-passing the line, walking right past security officers and not coming back. After 15 minutes of standing in the sun, already tired from my trip, watching other enter the terminal, I thought, "What the heck, I'm in Business Class, I don't have to wait in lines!" So I strolled into the terminal, walked up to the BA Club World counter, and within 5 minutes, was on my way. The people I was standing with are probably still in line....
The rest of my Heathrow experience was great. The BA lounge, while crowded, had good snacks and the India v. England cricket match on the big screen TV's. Not sure exactly what the rules of cricket are, but fun to watch to pass the time.

London Gatwick - Where's my luggage, where's the ATM and more traffic woes....

So other than a 45 minute delay, my Continental flight was pretty uneventful. Flying business class is good, you get to use the club lounge before the flight and they let you board first. Then they wine and dine you till its time to get your 3 hrs of sleep. Not a bad deal. Immigration and customs are a breeze at Gatwick so I call Stuart (my driver for the Gatwick to Heathrow journey) to let him know I'm getting my luggage. Things are looking up! Then I wait 30 minutes for my luggage...so much for that "Business First" priority tag on my suitcase. Stuart is patiently waiting for me, and I ask him to wait for me so I can get some cash to pay him...the nearest 2 ATMs are down for service...I finally find a working ATM and we head off for Heathrow. Things are going well, traffic is light until we hit a slow down on the M25. We crawl for miles and miles. I didn't keep track of how long we were in traffic...but it was way too long. Luckily, I have a 5 hr layover....

Harry Potter, Late Car Service and Delayed Fights

OK, so you might be having difficulty figuring out what the 1st part has to do with the others in the title, but let me explain...

So Friday is the big Hudson Harry Potter extravaganza. As you can see, Harry and his crew managed to make it to my house before my ride picked me up to get to the airport. This extravaganza event creates quite the crowd in Hudson, add Friday night traffic to the mix and inevitably that means that my ride will be late...30 minutes to be exact...for those of you that know me, I was not happy...not the best way to start 24 hours of travel...the good news, if there can be good news, is that on the way to Hopkins, my cell phone rings..."It's Continental Airlines with a travel alert..." The flight is going to be late...well, at least I won't miss it....

Time for me to blog

So....many of my co-workers who have travelled have created blogs to document their experiences. I figured why not me? I can do this. It will give me the opportunity to share my stories, pictures and experiences with you. Hopefully not too boring, and hopefully we will all learn something. So what can you look forward to? Not sure, time will tell.

My next post will focus on the beginnings of my trip to Bangalore. Hope you enjoy my story.
John