Yes! We are now in India!

Disney World Wannabe???

2008-04-09T17:44:00.000+05:30

Just down the road from us is India's equivalent to Disney World.

Even though it's probably only 10 to 15 minutes from my house, I haven't been to Dizzee World...nor do I have any plans to go in the near future. For some reason, I'm not thinking that a safe, fun day at an amusement park and the country India should go in the same sentence together. Not only haven't I been, but I haven't heard of any of the foreigners with kids that I know here having went either. It's just scary looking...like an accident waiting to happen. Very, very scary. I value my life a little too much.

Nothing to Report

2008-04-08T12:45:00.001+05:30

Yeah, I know I haven't posted anything in a few days. Honestly, I don't have anything to tell. OK, well there is always something to tell when you live in India, so I guess I'm just not feeling creative enough to come up with anything terribly exciting. Life is pretty boring around here right now.

The dog and kitten went home last night. I enjoyed my time with them. Every morning, Millie and I walked down to the beach. While we were only gone for 20 or 25 minutes, I would be drenched in sweat by the time we got back. It's really hot here. During the day, Millie slept, and the kitten played, played, and played some more. I forgot just how active kittens can be. Also, I have been outside at night more in the last week than I have the entire time I have lived in India. Let's just say, I don't like India at night...too many geckos and toads.

Well, this is my 150th blog post. Sorry it isn't a more exciting one. I'll have to work on coming up with a good one for tomorrow. Until then, hope everyone has a great day!

A Zoo-perific Day

2008-04-04T15:09:00.000+05:30

I have been dying to go to the zoo here in Chennai. I first heard about it from my driver. He said it was a very large and nice zoo. Yeah right, this is India...how nice could it be??? However, I have heard since from a couple of other people that the zoo is actually nice for Indian standards. Since Beth needed a photo of an elephant for her brother-in-law, it finally gave me a good excuse to go check the zoo out.

We decided to go to the Arignar Anna Zoological Park (the zoo's official name) last Friday. I wanted to be there right when it opened to avoid the heat of the day. I figured it would be like all of the other zoos that I have ever been to...a lot of walking and HOT! Well we left the house a little later than what I wanted and arrived at the zoo at about 8:57 am. The information that I had found had said that the zoo opened at 8 am. Well when we arrived, we found that it didn't open until 9 am. Boy am I ever glad that we didn't get there at 8 am!

The first thing that impressed me about the zoo was that it had the same admission price for locals and foreigners. The price was 15 rupees per person...or 38 cents. However, we did have to pay a camera fee of 25 rupees per camera. So the grand total for the 3 of us to go to the zoo including our cameras was 120 rupees or $3. What a bargain.

The second thing that impressed me about the zoo was the treatment of the animals. When I visited the zoo in Beijing, I was very saddened by the accommodations for the animals. They were kept in small concrete enclosures. I had heard the zoo wasn't very nice, but the lure of seeing panda bears was too much for me, and so I had to go. I would never go back to the Beijing zoo, and I definitely would not recommend it to anyone. I expected the same thing of the zoo here. However, I was pleasantly surprised to find that the animals in the Chennai zoo are kept in open environments that would be similar to their natural habitats. Since we went to the zoo to see the elephants, we were somewhat disappointed that we couldn't see them up close (hence the reason why the photo of the elephant posted earlier isn't a better picture). The elephants were in an environment that made them look like we were seeing them on a safari. Their exhibit was huge and knowing that they had room to rome and do their own thing more than made up for our selfishness of not being able to see them better.

The final thing that impressed me about the Chennai zoo was how clean it was. Things here in India generally just are not so. Compared to exhibits that would be found in the U.S., yes the zoo was dirty...but for Indian standards, it was very well kept. There were pop bottles and such in different exhibits. However, I imagine this is because the local Indian people threw them in the exhibits to try to get the animals to move. They just don't know any better. While we were walking through the crocodile and alligator section though, there was a zookeeper who was jumping in the different exhibits picking up the trash.

So, besides seeing an elephant, I wanted Diane and Beth to be able to say that they saw a King Cobra snake while they were here in India. I felt seeing one at the zoo would be better than seeing one in our yard!

The best story of the day at the zoo happened while we were in the snake house. In the rat snake exhibit, there was a lady in cleaning it. Rat snakes aren't poisonous, and obviously she doesn't mind snakes as they were just crawling over her feet and such. It was giving us the creeps, but better her than us! All of sudden she takes off for the door, which is at the back of the exhibit. One of the rat snakes had climbed out the door and went down the steps. She just picked it up and flipped it back into the exhibit! By this point, we were pretty much ready to run for the door! However, they wanted to show us the King Cobras. So the same lady went into their exhibit and started moving them around...only this time she was using a long stick with a hook on it instead of her hands! As you can tell from the above photo, she was very successful in pissing them off so they flared up. I don't know how much she gets paid (and knowing India, it isn't much), but she needs to be making a whole lot more than she is!

Can you guess what animal this is? No, it isn't a giant potato floating in water. It's a hippopotamus. The hippos weren't too interested in being photogenic. It was hot, so they were keeping cool by keeping their heads under water. I honestly didn't think they were alive...that is until I went up to lean over to take this photo and he (or maybe it was a she) flicked his tail in the water. I jumped about a mile, and somehow managed not to drop my camera in the water. OK, so I didn't really come close to dropping my camera, but it did scare me!

I have no clue what kind of birds these are, but for some reason, this photo reminds me of Arnold Schwarzenegger and Danny DeVito from the movie Twins.

This had to be the funniest sign/photo of the day. We have no clue what an "Indian White" is, but we thought it would be funny to have Beth be one. Only afterwards, we realized that I should have been the one to stand by the sign.

Probably the biggest attraction of the day though had to have been the three of us. There were easily at least 2000 local school kids visiting the zoo, and they were more excited to see us foreigners then to see any of the animals. I have to say though they were all very well behaved. Being that the zoo is extremely large, we didn't end up seeing the kids for the majority of the day.

After walking around for over two hours, we were exhausted. Even though the zoo is shaded, it was still hot. We probably only got a third to halfway through all of the exhibits. We were going to go on the lion safari at the zoo. However, by the time we found the ticket booth, we were ready to go and didn't feel like waiting another 30 plus minutes for the next safari. Also, by this time, we all had to go to the bathroom and were getting hungry. Even though the zoo is nice by India standards, I didn't want to push my luck with using the bathrooms or trying the food.

I will make another trip back to the zoo someday. Next time though, I will definitely buy tickets to ride the tram around the park. We would have done that this time...only the tram tickets are bought at the same place as the lion safari tickets, and we didn't find this until the end of the day.

No Fooling

2008-04-01T17:02:00.000+05:30

Since today is April 1, or April Fool's Day, I thought I would provide a riddle for everyone. However, this is not an April Fool's Day joke.

Q. How do you make Diane stop talking?

A. Put her in a car in India.

OK, so this is probably only funny to those of you who know my aunt Diane. For those of who you don't know her, let's just say she talks a lot. It's sort of a family trait.

Anyway, I'm dead serious with this. She was pretty silent the whole week she was here whenever she was in the car. Riding in the car here in Chennai is definitely a sensory overload. Here are some more photos of typical views out the windows of the car (in additional to some of the ones already posted last week).

The above two photos are typical to the average amount of traffic here in Chennai. While there are white paint markings on the roads to tell you where to drive, I have yet to see anyone follow these. A road that should only be 4 lanes wide (two on each side) is almost always 5 to 6 wide...and that's only on one side! I think if someone were to try to follow the road markings, they would 1) cause an accident and/or 2) get a ticket for following the law. Seriously, the white paint on the roads is just really a waste of good white paint.

The above four photos were taken along Marina Beach. Marina Beach is in the heart of Chennai and is one of the world's longest beaches. I wish I was playing an April Fool's Day joke with everyone by showing these photos, but I'm not. This is serious. Pretty sad photos, aren't they? Notice the person sleeping in the last photo in front of the grass hut. Unfortunately, it is a common sight day or night to see people sleeping where ever they want. I don't know if they are homeless or just migrant workers in the city working or what. It's a good reality check by seeing these people to make me appreciate my comfortable bed even more. I'm very thankful to have what I have.

Immigration and Registration

2008-03-31T13:03:00.001+05:30

This morning I had to go down to the Immigration office here in Chennai to register my presence here in India. You are probably asking "haven't you lived in India for almost 10 months? Why are you just down registering that you live there?" Well, these are the questions that I was asking.

Well this story really starts way back in June when we moved here. S and I headed down to the Immigration office to register. This must be done within 14 days of arriving in India. There is a company that helps us with this process as there are a lot of forms and paperwork involved. Since S is here on an employment visa, this is a very important step that he has to complete in order to get his employment card here. It also has something to do with making sure that the appropriate income taxes are paid on his working here (yes, believe it or not, the U.S. is not the only country where income taxes are paid).

When we arrived at the office in June, S was able to register without any problems. It was a completely different story for me though. All of the appropriate paperwork was completed and ready for me to register. However, the immigration officers took one look at my passport and wouldn't let me register. On my India visa in my passport, there is a special endorsement that says "REGISTRATION NOT REQUIRED, IF CONTINUOUS STAY ON A SINGLE VISIT DOES NOT EXCEED 180 DAYS." They told me to come back in December if I hadn't left the country. Well I have never bothered to go back as I left India in July, September, October, November, December, and February. I have never ever came close to staying here for 180 consecutive days.

I thought it was a little weird that I didn't have to register because everyone else I know (spouses who aren't working) had to register. I was the only one anyone had ever heard of who didn't have to register. We checked into this further through S's office, and it was confirmed that I was OK with not registering. Also, I figured if there was a problem with this that I would find out on one of my many exits or entrances through immigration at the airport. Nothing has ever been said there so I haven't really thought much about it lately.

However, now S and I are in the process of renewing our India visas. We were only given a one year visa, and even though we didn't move here until the middle of June, our visa was issued at the beginning of May. It actually is much harder to get a visa renewal than it is to get an initial visa. From what I have been told, we will be given a 3 month renewal visa. During those 3 months, we have to do more paperwork, and I think they check to make sure the income taxes have been paid. After this, we will then be given another visa that will be valid for 9 months. At that point, we will be good for about 3 months at which point the process starts all over again.

Anyway, during this process of renewing S's employment visa (his is much more important than mine as I am really just added on to his paperwork as being the spouse), it was determined that I would now finally have to register with immigration in order for S to get another visa. So, I went down to the office this morning. A representative from the company who is helping us with this mess met me there with all of the paperwork. First, I had to stand in one line so it could be determined what the next line would be that I would stand in. The guy in the first line didn't understand why I was registering. My representative had to explain to him what was going on. I was then given a number and told to go into another room and wait at a certain counter for my number to be called. When I went into this room, my number was already up, so I didn't have to end up waiting at all. However, then because my representative couldn't come into the room with me, I had to explain why I was wanting to register. Finally the guy behind the counter understood enough to go ask another guy about me. It was finally determined that yes I would be allowed to register. However, of course, it couldn't be quite that simple. One of the required forms wasn't in the packet of paperwork. Luckily, it was just a copy of a page out of my passport. My representative ran outside and to another building to get a copy made for me. Finally, after standing in line again, I was good to go. Now, I just have to go back on Wednesday to pick up the registration forms. Hopefully everything will go smoothly on that day.

The worse part of this whole experience is that the Immigration office isn't air conditioned. So for anyone reading this who will have to partake in this activity, just be prepared for a hot room full of a bunch of sweaty, smelly people. Not fun, not fun at all.

Goodbye Visitors, Hello New Visitors

2008-03-30T17:55:00.000+05:30

Well I successfully dropped Diane and Beth off at the airport last night. They had a 4 am flight out of Chennai and should be landing in Chicago on Sunday afternoon around 3:30 pm or so. There is a little concern with them flying back as they are flying on British Airways through London. Heathrow airport in London has just opened a new terminal specifically for British Airways flights. There have been all sorts of stories coming out of London about how disorganized this new terminal is. Flights have been cancelled, bags have been lost, and it just sounds like there is general chaos in this new Terminal #5. When Diane and Beth left, they were actually scheduled to fly into and out of Terminal #4, so we are crossing our fingers that none of this changes.

It was great having Beth and Diane here. I think they really enjoyed the trip, and it sounds like they both would be willing to come back for another visit. We would definitely welcome another visit from them, or from anyone else for that matter. Thanks again to the both of them for giving up their spring break to spend it in India. Not a typical spring break, but definitely an unforgettable one for them.

I no more than had dropped them off at the airport, came home for a few hours of sleep, and woke up to greet new visitors who will be staying for the next 8 days.

Millie the dog and Cleo the kitten will be staying with us while their owners are on vacation. While I'm jealous that I'm not on vacation as well, I'm really looking forward to having a little bit of activity in the house again. Going from three pets to none sure makes things quieter around our home. These two sure look innocent enough in this photo, don't they???

The Final Guest Blog by Beth

2008-03-29T20:11:00.006+05:30

First off, I would like to thank Sharmishtha for the comment to my last blog and explaining why overseas visitors are charged more for admissions to things.

Next on my list is to share a picture of an elephant. Before I came over, my brother-in-law requested a picture of an elephant. While I have been here, I have learned many different things. One of the things I have learned is that this is really an Asian elephant because of its small ears and not just because we are in India. (African elephants have the bigger ears.)

There were a couple more pictures I would have liked to taken, but did not get my camera out quick enough. I was not able to get a good picture of the trash under the sign about keeping the town clean. I also did not get a picture of the sign for cows crossing the road or a picture of the five cows crossing a major road here.

However, here are some random pictures that I was able to get. This is a picture of a four passenger vehicle. It is hard to see, but there is a girl in front of the guy (she was sleeping and thus her head is laying forward).

This is a sign to pay one rupee to use the bathroom. We saw a couple places like this. It was also different for me to pay an extra fee at some places to use my camera.

I don't think Julie's driver reads this, but I also want to thank him for taking us to all the places we went this week. I also appreciate him picking us up and taking us to the airport during the middle of the night.

Since I have thanked a couple people in this blog, I should also thank our hosts for the week. I am not sure they have officially invited us back yet, but my mom said she would come back. I would also come back.

I am sure on the long flight home I will think of more things I should written here. However, I should go get ready to leave. I will need to put on my warmer clothes of jeans and a long sleeve shirt to head back to the Illinois weather. I am hoping the weather is warmer now than when we left. However, I know it will be a shock because it will not be 85 to 95 degrees.

Guest Blog #2 by Beth

2008-03-27T18:44:00.000+05:30

I have made it to Thursday night here. I would have to say now I have experienced many different things in India. One of those things is that things often break here and it may take a while to fix. It is 6:00 pm here and the plumber has not been yet. I am guessing we may see him tomorrow at the earliest since it will be getting dark soon.

India is not the cleanest place I have been. So it did not bother me too much to go out today without being able to shower. I think this is why I find some humor in this sign.

Maybe in my next guest blog I will post a picture of the trash all over below this sign and across the street.

The next thing that I have noticed here besides the trash is the amount of motorbikes. I see more Honda motorbikes here in one day than I have seen in my life time in the U.S. Here is a picture of a very small portion of the amount we see everyday.

Here is my guess of the ways people get around here :

by car - 1%

by walking - 10%

by bus - 15%

by rickshaw - 25%

by motorbike - 49%

Here motor bikes are as good as cars. You can even carry "laptop" computers. This is a picture of one of the three we have seen since I have been here. The other two were the PC and this one is the monitor.

In the U.S., usually it does not matter where you are from for the cost of admissions for something. Here Overseas visitors are required to pay more...like yesterday when we were at Dakshina Chitra.

One of the things we did yesterday at Dakshina Chitra was watch a folk dance. Here is a picture of the peacock putting a lei over my mom's head during the folk dance.

I have not looked too hard, but yesterday was the first day I have seen chain restaurants here that we have in the U.S. We had a snack when we were at the mall at Subway. Then we ate at Pizza Hut last night. The total for the four of us to eat supper last night was 509 rupees. This is equal to about $12.75. This was for two medium pizzas, eight slices of garlic bread, and two liters of bottled water.

A Busy Day

2008-03-26T21:09:00.003+05:30

After an easy day yesterday, today was a very busy day of sightseeing and shopping with my cousin and aunt. We only got home a little bit ago, and being that I'm really tired, I will work on posting some more photos of our outings tomorrow.

Tomorrow will probably be a slow day as we won't be going anywhere too quickly. We came home tonight to find out that a pipe to the hot water tank has burst. So, now we don't have any hot water, and thus showering will be extremely cold...maybe we should go out for a nice long walk to be hot and sweaty so the cold shower will feel good. Right now, we are all pretty smelly after being out all day today, and honestly we could probably just go out tomorrow without showering and no one would even notice. However, I don't think that is going to happen. American standards on b.o. are a little higher than Indian standards. Hopefully, the plumber will show up first thing in the morning to fix the pipe. Hopefully, but probably not. I'm not holding my breath. Actually, I'm not holding high hopes that it will be fixed by the end of the day tomorrow just knowing how these types of things go here in India. Oh well, at least this shows Diane and Beth some of the normal frustrations of living here...wouldn't want them to go back to the U.S. and tell everyone that life here is smooth as butter!

So, anyway, I'm off to bed now. More updates tomorrow.

A "Rock"y Day in India

2008-03-25T19:22:00.000+05:30

On Monday, I took Beth and Diane sightseeing to Mahabalipuram (also known as Mamallapuram). This town is located about 25 minutes south of our house. It is a nice drive down to it as there isn't much traffic. This town is known for it's rock carvings. I'm not big into history, so the historical monuments don't interest me for their background and meaning. However, just the thought that the carvings and such are hundreds of years old boggles my mind. There isn't anything in the U.S. that even comes close to being this old.

The first stop in Mahabalipuram was the Shore Temple. Above is a photo of me and Diane standing in front of one of the carved temples. This temple has seen better days as it is showing it's age due to being weathered by the wind, rain, and sea. Of course, it does date back to the 7th century...I guess when I'm that old I'll probably be looking a little rough also!

Next stop on our tour was the lighthouse. Here is a photo of India that actually shows the beauty of the country. Doesn't everyone want to come see for themselves??? However, the real reason for stopping at the lighthouse was to see the monkeys.

The monkey population was a little disappointing as we only saw 3 or 4 monkeys. Last time I was here, I saw probably close to 15 to 20 monkeys. This little guy was very entertaining to watch. He kept trying to balance on the handrail, but then he would start to fall and have to grab on.

After the lighthouse stop, it was time for lunch. We went to a beach resort and ate lunch along the ocean. Beth and Diane commented that it felt like they were back in Hawaii...they were lucky enough to have went there a few years ago. After a nice relaxing lunch, it was time for more sightseeing.

The Five Rathas was the next place we visited. Once again, this place has a bunch of history and each of the carvings represents a Hindu god's chariot (or something like that). There are two very cool things about this place however. The first being that all of the carvings you can see in the above photo are made out of one piece of rock or stone. It must have been one very large rock to begin with! The second thing that amazes me about this place is that all of these carvings were buried under sand until about 200 years ago when they were uncovered by the British. These monuments also date to the 7th century. So my questions are when, how, and why were they buried in sand? Also, how come they remained buried for so long?

Here is Beth standing by the life sized carved elephant. Unless we end up going to the zoo, it will probably be the only elephant that she sees while in India (sorry Robb).

Our final stop of the day was at Krishna's Butter Ball. Essentially all it is is a large rock that looks like it should be rolling down the hill but for some reason doesn't. I was telling Diane and Beth that this is about as exciting as India gets. They travel about 10,000 miles to see a large rock! However, then we were talking that it is really no different than traveling to see Mt. Rushmore, which is also just a large rock. So, now this is known as the Mt. Rushmore of India.

Beth and I did have fun trying to roll the rock on to the Indians sitting in the shade under it. I'm in the white shirt and Beth is in the pink shirt. Personally, I think they are a little stupid to be sitting under it...if I tried that, knowing my luck, it would be about the time that the rock decided that it wanted to finally roll down the hill, and I would be a pancake!

Even though Mamallapuram isn't overly exciting, we made the best of it and had a great time. By the end of the day, we were hot, sun burnt, and tired! This was my 4th trip there, and I'm sure I'll probably make at least 4 more before I leave Chennai. Every time I go though, I see sometime new or learn something else that I didn't know before. Maybe I'll be a history buff by the time we move...maybe, but probably not.

Easter in India

2008-03-24T17:02:00.000+05:30

Saturday night we got ready to go to bed and realized that we didn't have any fresh carrots for the Easter bunny. Therefore, we decided to leave him a can of carrots instead. However, we forgot to leave him a can opener, and thus, he got mad and didn't leave us anything! Oh, and by the way, for those of you who don't already know this, the Easter bunny comes up through the sewer pipes...or at least that is what my dad has always told me.

Here is the group of us in our yard. There is me, S, my cousin Beth, and my aunt Diane. Aren't we a good looking group??? We were going to have an Easter egg hunt in the yard...but then thought we might find more than just eggs...geckos, snakes, bugs, rats, lizards, frogs, etc...if we went searching too much through our bushes, so we opted not to have the egg hunt.

We gave our driver the day off for Easter. Normally, we give him Sundays off anyways, but he was willing to work since my family was visiting. However, he is Christian, and we felt that it was important for him to go to church with his family for Easter. Besides, we were easily able to entertain ourselves around the house. After an Easter lunch of chicken casserole, green bean casserole, and canned pears, we played some games. Then we decided to walk to the beach.

This photo of Diane and Beth almost makes the India beach look pleasant. Almost, but not quite!

This is a photo of a couple of the fishermen "walking" their boat down the beach. At first, we thought that they were putting the boat in the water to go out fishing. However, they were just moving the boat down the beach. The guy in front (in the white colored shirt) is pulling the boat with a rope while the guy near the boat is poking it with a stick to keep it out in the water.

On our way home from the beach, some cows had shown up on our road to eat the trash. The resort next to us had some big parties over the weekend, and I guess they have never heard of garbage bags as all of the cups and plates were just dumped in a pile on the side of the road. That is our house in the background, and you can see that our road is a little muddy (and quite bumpy) from all of the rain we have been receiving.

Here is a photo of me standing in front of our gate with one of our security guards. Not a great photo of me, but it's a good picture of our house.

This is a photo of our new neighbors. This "house" was built in about two hours a few weeks ago. It is built up against the backside of our wall. I haven't actually seen anyone in it yet, but I'm guessing someone will be moving in soon. We also have a similar type house on the property on the backside of our house. A very stark contrast to our house.

Anyway, that was our exciting Easter day in India. It was good to spend it with some family members. Now, I'm looking for some more family members to come spend 4th of July with us...any volunteers???

Guest blogging by Beth

2008-03-23T08:17:00.003+05:30

For those of you who are frequent blog readers you may have heard J talking about her aunt and cousin coming. We are here. J told me I could be a guest blogger, so I am going to share my experience and thoughts so far.

Mom and I arrived here very early Saturday morning. J was very easy to spot at the airport. (I believe she was the only blond I saw.) We then met her driver. He is very nice. It took us about 45 minutes to go from the airport to J's house. I believe we arrived here at around 3 am. J then let us sleep to around 10 am yesterday. We ate breakfast and headed out to see some of Chennai.

I was glad J's driver was with us when a little boy started knocking on our window trying to sell me a puppet. As he went around to the other side, I then had a beggar knocking on the window. The other thing we saw yesterday was about three or four groups of people colored in purple. Yesterday was Holi, a holiday celebrated here. They throw paint on each other.

We ate lunch out at Little Italy. We also went to a hotel for S to get his haircut, the linen store, a grocery store, and one other store.

When we returned last night, I was able to see my first gecko here. It was a little one. I have not seen any Asia elephants yet. (My brother-in-law wants a picture of one.)

Today is Easter here. J's driver is off today for the holiday and does not usually work on Sundays. We are going to eat lunch and then walk to the beach. I believe J said it is about 3 or 4 blocks from here.

I may see if J will let me guest blog again later this week.

Off to the Airport

2008-03-22T00:18:00.003+05:30

So, it's finally time to leave for the airport to pick up the world travelers. I did end up getting a few hours of sleep. However, I'm still glad that it isn't my job to drive at this hour of the night. Hopefully, my driver was able to get some rest as well...however, I doubt he got much as he told me that he was going to church being that it was Good Friday. Luckily for him, S isn't going to work tomorrow, and the rest of us won't be venturing out of the house at too early of a day either. Well time to go...and by the way, it's still pouring rain.

Rain, Rain Go Away

2008-03-21T16:47:00.000+05:30

It poured rain this morning. So much so that it rained in through our kitchen air conditioner. Raining in through odd places is actually very common here in India. We also get water running down the walls in at least four different places. We are lucky though as some people have water come in through the electrical box and outlets.

Anyway, it let up raining for a few hours, but then got really muggy. It has now been pouring rain again for a couple of hours. All of this rain (it rained for 4 days straight last week while I was gone) is very unusual for this time of the year. I asked my driver about it, and he said that there is a cyclone that is causing all of this rain.

With it being rainy, my friend and I decided that it would be a good day to play Scrabble (I won't even rub it in to her that I beat her by A LOT). I was entertaining her while her kids had friends over as there was no school today due to it being Good Friday. The kids did end up swimming for a little bit. Anyway, spending time at her house was a good way to kill a few hours today.

Now, I'm just waiting for it to be time to go to the airport. Let's see only about 8 more hours to wait. My aunt and cousin have left London (or at least I'm assuming they are on the flight), but the flight is running about 30 minutes late. Ugh...let's just make a long day a little bit longer!

Well, I'm off to go see if we have water coming into the house in any other weird spots. This is India, so probably so!

Patiently Waiting

2008-03-21T08:15:00.000+05:30

Today is going to be a very long day. My aunt and cousin arrive very, very late tonight...or maybe it would be more accurate to say very, very early tomorrow morning. Anyway, they are on their way. My cousin left a phone message that they were on the plane and getting ready to take off. I have checked their flight status, and it looks like they left a few minutes late...nothing that will affect the time they arrive here. They have to stop in London to change planes.

So, my long day of patiently waiting begins. What shall I do? I was going to run to the grocery store for a few items. However, S needs the car, so that is out. That's OK though. It just means that my cousin and aunt can go to the store with me tomorrow. They can see where I shop and what selection I have...or more accurately, what little selection I have. I was also going to go to my friend's house to go swimming today. However, it's been pouring rain off and on all night long, so I'm not sure much swimming is going to be taking place today. We'll see though...here in Chennai it can be pouring rain one minute and the next minute it can be clear blue skies...so there is always hope that it will turn out to be a nice day.

It looks like I will have to go to Plan B for what to do today. I guess I could always be productive and get caught up on some paperwork. Yeah right...I seriously doubt that is going to happen. I could always do some scrapbooking. Maybe, maybe not...just depends on what mood I'm in. Probably the best bet on how I'll spend my day is surfing the internet for awhile, finishing up some laundry, baking some muffins, and reading a good book. I'll have to find a good no-brainer book to read...you know, the type that you don't have to think real hard about while reading, but yet the book catches and keeps your attention, and before you know it, a couple of hours have passed and the pages are starting to blur. Also, I should probably take a nap.

Anyway, I guess I'll go find something to do...and I'll be patiently waiting...even if this means twiddling my thumbs all day long.

Happy St. Patrick's Day!

2008-03-17T07:54:00.000+05:30

In honor of St. Patrick's Day, I'm writing this post in green text color. Of course, I'm not sure how it is going to show up on the blue background on my blog...probably will just look black.

Nothing too exciting going on here. I spent Sunday cleaning out the freezer. It is done, but I still have to work on the fridge side some more. However, at least the fridge side doesn't have a colony of "sesame seeds" living in it. Those stupid little bugs crawled into every little space and crevice that there is in the freezer. The stupid things don't come off very easily either. I had to use a toothpick to flick them off of the shelves before I could run them through the dishwasher. There are a couple of the bugs that I just couldn't get to...and were still attached after the run through the dishwasher. S told me that I would just have to let it go and live with the fact that they are in my freezer. I guess I will, but still...yuck!

My brother did call me with a good suggestion on how to clean the freezer without gagging. He told me to put Vick's VapoRub in my nose. He has had to pick up a few dead bodies that were past ripe, and this is what they use to keep from smelling the odor (he's a part time EMT). Sure enough, the trick worked. Of course, it says right on the jar of Vick's to not put into your nostrils. Heck, it worked, and I'm still alive without any side effects of having it in my nose. So if you ever need to go near a refrigerator or freezer that has went out (or a dead body), stick some Vick's VapoRub up your nose first.

Today, besides working on the fridge, I need to pick up the rest of the house. My aunt and cousin get in very late Friday night/Saturday morning, so I have to get ready for their visit. Yesterday, I also got the Easter decorations out. Now, I need to figure out what to do for Easter dinner. I was going to make chicken, but my stomach is still turning at the mention of the word chicken. In fact, when I was in the grocery store this weekend, I almost lost it when walking past the freezer with the frozen chicken in it. The sad thing is that chicken is our main meat here, so I need to find a way to quickly get over this experience.

Well, I guess I should go look to see if any leprechauns left any pots of gold around my house. This is very possible with the messy state that it is in right now. I could be rich and not even know it! So, Happy St. Patty's Day to everyone! Don't forget to wear your green!

P.S. Happy Birthday to TB!

Those Aren't Sesame Seeds

2008-03-15T08:42:00.000+05:30

Disclaimer: If you have a weak stomach or are eating while reading this, you probably had better not read any further.

Do you ever get a feeling? Well I had a feeling before I left for the U.S. that one of these times when we are gone that one of our fridges is going to go out, and that we would return to a gigantic mess. I just didn't know that it was going to be this time.

It's only 7 am, but I'm already done eating for the day. I'm not sure I can even stomach the possibility of thinking of eating anything today. After procrastinating all of yesterday, I decided that I had better tackle the task of cleaning out the fridge before S gets home tonight.

Yesterday, I had briefly (like for less than two seconds) opened the fridge and the freezer to see what I was going to be dealing with. I removed two containers from the freezer of what once was chili. Being that it is just S and I, there is always too much food, and thus we eat a lot of leftovers. Chili is just one of those things that makes a huge batch, so I always freeze individual containers of it. So, I pulled out the containers of the food-formerly-known-as-Julie's-chili. Yeah, let's just say that chili that has been frozen, then thawed in the freezer, then left to sit for who knows how many days in an 80 plus degree room, and then refrozen is just plain disgusting! It had a good case of mold growing on it...and I'm pretty sure that frozen mold tastes no better than normal mold.

So, after disposing of the two things of chili yesterday (I was able to salvage the Tupperware containers), I decided that the cleaning of the fridge and freezer would have to wait. Just the stench alone from briefly opening the fridge/freezer lasted throughout the day. Of course on the positive side, I don't think geckos like the smell of rotten food!

So, this morning I got up early and decided that I had no choice but to tackle the mess. Well the containers of chili were in a drawer in the freezer that also contained packages of chicken breasts and a bag of frozen shrimp. Let's just say that I'm darn glad that I kept these items in the drawer and not on a regular shelf. I probably just saved myself hours of scrubbing out the freezer...although I'm sure that I'll still use a considerable amount of bleach in it. Also, I have absolutely no desire whatsoever to eat chicken or seafood any time in the near future. I generally don't have a weak stomach (probably one of the reasons why living in India doesn't bother me), but this morning I came real close on more than one occasion to losing my breakfast. I have three candles burning in the kitchen, and I still have to hold my breath any time I go near this room.

Anyway, so yesterday when I was dumping the containers of chili, I noticed sesame seeds on the outside of the containers. I didn't really think twice about this as I have sesame crackers in the freezer, and it's possible that some seeds may be floating around in the freezer. This morning while further cleaning out the freezer, I realized that those weren't sesame seeds. Nope, those were bugs! They are all over the inside of the freezer. Of course, now that the freezer is back working, the bugs are frozen (and hopefully dead), but talk about GROSS!

What I'm trying to figure out now is whether or not I can salvage crackers, cereal, chips, sugar, flour, brown sugar, etc. that I had stored in my freezer. I pulled the crackers out of the box, and they look OK. Now, I'm just hoping that the plastic they are sealed in is strong enough to have kept the crackers from absorbing the rotten chicken/shrimp smell. I haven't gotten to the flour and sugar yet. I have a feeling that those will have to go in the garbage.

So, the freezer is about half cleaned out. I haven't even started to tackle the fridge side yet. Does ketchup, mustard, jelly, hot sauce, etc. go bad if it is refrigerated, then gets hot, and then is cooled again? I did notice that S has moved one of the bottles of ketchup to the other fridge, so he must have been using it. I guess when he gets home tonight I'll have to ask him if it tastes OK and if he has got sick at all. I'm thinking that I should be able to salvage my chocolate chips and butterscotch chips.

So, why did the refrigerator go out? We have been having major power problems here for a couple of months now. Supposedly, the electrical lines are being fixed, and every week I hear that they will be fixed in one week. In the meantime, the voltage coming into the house is high (or so I've been told), and even with the whole house stabilizer, which is suppose to help keep appliances from getting fried, the power issues have been wreaking havoc in our house. Breakers keep tripping and certain items won't work at different times. Even though we don't pay for the generator fuel, it just isn't feasible to have a generator running 24/7 for days on end. So, we deal with the electrical issues...and the problems created. We have to...this is what we signed up for when we moved here.

Anyway, I guess I should make another run at the cleaning. This is probably going to be an entire weekend project as I'm pretty sure that I won't be able to handle doing the entire thing at once. However, I do need to keep moving on it as I need to make a list of items that I need to replace. Then I can go to the grocery store here to see what I can find, and then I can still have time to beg my cousin and aunt into bringing whatever else I need with them when they come at the end of next week.

So goes my exciting weekend in India! I'm hoping that everyone else is having a much better (and less smelly) time than I am.

Home Sweet Home in India

2008-03-14T07:02:00.000+05:30

Well I have made it back to Chennai. No problems with the flights. Maybe it's just me, but it really doesn't seem to take over a day of travel to go between the U.S. and India. I really don't mind it as much as the trip between Beijing and Chicago...that 13 plus hour direct flights was just a killer. Plus, I don't know if it is due to the stop in Germany to switch flights or the timing of the flights, but I don't get jet lag like I did when I was living in China. In fact, I didn't have any jet lag when I arrived in Florida a couple of weeks ago. It's still a little early to tell about the return back to India. I'm sure I'll have it some...only time will tell over the next few days.

Well my welcome back to India is of course in typical India style. Besides S being gone on another business trip, I have been welcomed home by ants, a dryer that isn't working (S claims that it was working yesterday afternoon, so I need to figure out what the problem is), and a bunch of mold and stink in the refrigerator. S had returned home last week to find that the main fridge had stopped working. He managed to get the repair people out to fix it, but he didn't have time to clean it out. Let's just say raunchy is an understatement for the status that it is in right now. So, that will be one of my "fun" tasks for the day.

Anyway, I'm off to shower now. I was too tired to take one last night when I got in...so maybe that smell is me and not the fridge? No, I'm pretty sure it's the fridge!

OK, OK...

2008-03-11T21:48:00.000+05:30

I've heard enough of "when are you going to post a new blog." This one is dedicated to those of you who have been waiting patiently for me to write something.

Something.

There I wrote something. Now, being the mean person that I am, I could just post this blog and be done with it. However, I'll be nice and write some more.

I'm packing up and getting ready to go back to India tomorrow. I'm ready. One of the reasons why I haven't posted anything since I have been in Illinois is that there really wasn't anything exciting to report. I've been shopping (buying lots of peanut butter M&Ms for a certain friend of mine who will remain nameless), eating, meeting up with family and friends. Although the trip has been short...and once again I didn't get everything done on my list that I wanted to...I truly am ready to return to my home. I miss S...I miss my bed...I miss warmer weather...plus I need to get ready for my aunt and cousin who will be arriving at the end of next week for their visit. Sure, I'll miss everything that I'm leaving behind in the U.S., but I've also found that every time in the last 1 1/2 years that I have returned to the U.S. that I miss less and less every time I leave. Of course, I still miss my family, friends, and pets. But the little things in life that were once somewhat important to me have slowly been becoming less and less important as time goes by. Other things that were once not of significance in my life have inched their way up the priority list. I guess it is a good thing that my list has flexibility to it. If not, I'm sure the last year and a half would have seemed like an eternity...instead, time has flown by. This week marks the 9 month anniversary of us living in India and the 18 month anniversary of us being out of the U.S. I guess time truly does fly when you are having fun! So, here's to another 1 1/2 years...I hope the next 18 months will be just as grand as the past 18 months have been!

Illinois or Bust

2008-03-05T11:07:00.000+05:30

Well, I am currently sitting in the airport in Fort Myers, Florida, waiting for my flight to Atlanta, Georgia. I was pleasantly surprised to find that there is free wireless internet here. In Atlanta, I will have about a 3 hour layover before heading on to Illinois. I'm not sure why I'm heading to Illinois since there is snow on the ground there, and the weather has been beautiful here in Florida after the initial couple days of cold.

My week here in Florida has been very relaxing and enjoyable...even if I had to spend it with my parents and their crazy friends! The 50s party at their park on Friday was a lot of fun...even if I was the youngest person there by at least 20 years.

On Monday, my dad and I along with another guy went down to the Florida Everglades fishing. We caught around 90 fish in about 4 hours, so it was definitely worth the drive down there. They even made me use live crickets as bait. Talk about GROSS! Normally, they fish on Lake Okeechobee, but the lake has been dry the last couple of years on the end that they stay at. So, not as much fishing as normal since they have to trailer the boats around to get water access.

Yesterday, my mom and I went shopping with another lady. I didn't buy much, but just had a good time wondering around a nice, clean environment...and somehow, all of my money seemed to get spent! I'm actually waiting until I get to Illinois to do my major shopping as I don't want to drag stuff around any more than necessary.

Well almost time to board. Will post more if there is free internet in Atlanta.

Welcome to Sunny, COLD, Florida!

2008-02-29T06:44:00.000+05:30

I always thought that southern Florida was a lot like Chennai...sunny and hot all of the time. I honestly thought that I wouldn't get a break from the hot temps of India until I reached Illinois next week. Not the case though. It has been COLD here in Florida!

A cold front went through dropping the temperature down quite a bit here. Yesterday morning, it was 38 degrees when I got up (that's Fahrenheit and not Celsius). This morning it is 44 degrees. During the day, it has only been heating up into the 60's. Nice! Real nice! Especially considering that Chennai never gets cold fronts that come through...or at least not in the 9 months that I have been there. This weather is definitely welcome in my book!

So, what have I been doing since I have been here? On Wednesday, I got my computer fixed. Yippee! Then my mom and I went to Super Walmart. I thought I had died and gone to heaven. Yesterday, Mom took me to the "arcade." It's actually a very small mini casino that has video slot machines. Every play costs 8 cents. Not going to go broke playing there...of course, also not going to become a millionaire either. However, my mom's friend did win $70 while we were there yesterday. I, on the other hand, lost $1. However, since they have free pop and snacks, I think I probably came out ahead in the end. Overall, a pretty fun way to spend an afternoon when it's cold outside.

So, today is leap day...February 29. How is everyone planning on spending their extra 24 hours? Well, we are having a party! OK, well the party would have taken place anyway regardless of the day as it is the annual block party at the RV park that my parents stay at. Since my mom is on the planning committee, I'll be helping to decorate and set up for the party. This year's theme...the 50's. Somehow, even on short notice of my arrival, one of the ladies here has come up with a poodle skirt for me to wear today. Stay tuned...depending on just how crazy I look, I may post the embarrassing photos of me in the outfit on here in a few days.

So, basically, just hanging out in Florida doing nothing. Pretty sweet! Planning on going fishing over the weekend when it heats up a little bit here. Probably do some more shopping...and maybe another trip to the arcade to see if I can win my dollar back!

Made It to Florida

2008-02-27T17:46:00.003+05:30

Just wanted to let everyone know that I made it to Florida safely...about a 36 hour trip! I'll write more later when I'm somewhat functioning normally.

And The Oscar Goes To...

2008-02-25T09:33:00.000+05:30

This morning while folding laundry and starting to pack, I decided to see if the Oscars were on TV here. I sort of figured they would be as most of the major award shows in the U.S. are shown here. Plus, Indians love movies!

Well, I couldn't exactly get into watching the Oscars as I haven't heard of any of the movies nominated for the awards. Being out of the U.S., I'm not exposed to all of the movie trailers, interviews with the movie stars, etc. I didn't even recognize the names of most of the actors and actresses up for the awards either.

So, now I'm adding to my list of things to do when I'm in the U.S. is to watch a current movie. Any suggestions on a good movie to rent or to see in the theater???

Do You Believe Everything You Read on the Internet?

2008-02-24T21:05:00.001+05:30

There's this vicious rumor going around on the internet that I'm headed back to the U.S. this week. Now, who would have started such a rumor???

OK, OK...so it was me. I started the rumor about myself. And yes, the rumor is true. I'm headed to the U.S. this week. Don't worry, nothing is wrong. This is strictly a pleasure trip for me. It will involve a lot of rest, eating, shopping, and basically whatever else I want to do.

S got home last night from his latest business trip. Well, guess what? He is headed back out this week for another one, and then he will be home for maybe a day before going on another one that will involve numerous different countries and him being gone something like 8 days. In total, he basically won't be here for about 15 days. Since our trip to Thailand and Singapore had to be cancelled, he knew that I was a little bummed about having to be home alone so much while he is busy traveling right now. Therefore, he gave me the option to go back to the U.S. if I wanted.

This all came about Friday evening. I had absolutely no thoughts prior to that of even thinking about a trip to the U.S. any time soon. However, I found a great price on air tickets if I could leave Monday night. Not a lot of notice, but hey sometimes the best trips are the ones not planned in advance.

So, I will be headed to Florida for a week to visit my parents who are wintering there. Then I will be in Illinois for a week to visit my in-laws, my grandparents, my brother, other family, and friends. I will then fly back to Chennai and still have about a week and a half to get ready for my aunt and cousin's visit.

One thing that I have to get done while I am in the U.S. is get my computer fixed. The screen on it started to go out this week. After spending two hours with tech support, it was determined that I need a new screen. Luckily, my computer is still under warranty until June 2, so they will replace the screen for free. The only catch...I have to be in the U.S. in order for them to send a technician to switch the screen for me. So, now it should work out that I can have this done while I am in Florida.

So, that's pretty much the story on why I'm headed to the U.S. so quickly. I hope to get to see everyone when I'm there, but honestly, I doubt that this happens. I'll be in and out so quickly when I'm in Illinois and with such short notice, it just won't be possible to see everyone. However, if you would like to see me, feel free to e-mail me, and I'll see what I can do about arranging a time to meet up with you. Since S won't be with me, I won't have to work around his schedule, which should leave me to pretty much plan things how I want.

Anyway, I guess I should go as I leave my house in about 25 hours, and I haven't even started to pack yet...pretty unusual for me as I'm normally packed to go somewhere days in advance. I hope I don't forget something...oh well, I guess if I do, at least I'll have Walmart, Target, Kohl's, and everywhere else to shop at. Maybe, I'll have to intentionally forget to pack some items!

The Million Dollar Question

2008-02-23T16:29:00.001+05:30

When am I going to be back in the U.S.?

The million dollar answer: Tuesday.

Got Ketchup?

2008-02-21T09:01:00.000+05:30

I do. No thanks to my darling brother that is. He sent me a 7 lb 2 oz jug of ketchup in my food shipment.

He told me that he wanted to make sure that I didn't run out. Yeah, I don't think that is going to happen for a day or two!

The funny thing is that I almost went and bought ketchup this week. We are getting critically low, and I couldn't remember if I had ketchup coming in my food shipment or not. I pulled out my list and saw it was on there, so I held off on buying some here. When I was going through my food boxes, I came across a little bottle that my brother had bought for me. I remember thinking that this wasn't going to last too long, and that I should have bought a bottle here. I opened a couple of other boxes and found this monster. I think my brother got me pretty good! Just wait...he has one coming!

For those of you who don't know me, I eat ketchup on pretty much everything...and only Heinz ketchup. That other imitation stuff I can choke down if I have to, but Heinz is by far the superior ketchup in my book. This bottle should definitely last us awhile. Luckily the expiration date isn't until 2009, so I shouldn't have to worry about it going bad. Nothing worse than old nasty tasting ketchup.

Besides that, nothing terribly exciting in our food shipment this time...no ants, no dog food mixed in with cereal, no moldy cans of tomato soup. My rolls of paper towels are no longer in the shape of a roll.

I'm pretty sure whoever packs the food shipment into the boxes has no brain. They put things that can easily be crushed...i.e. paper towels, kleenex, chips, etc...into the same box with really heavy items...i.e. bottles of liquid laundry detergent, cases of pop, canned goods, etc.

I really appreciate the fact that my tissues are already crumpled up for me prior to usage. It saves me the hassle of doing it myself. I'm just waiting for one of these times the liquid laundry soap to leak all over the paper products. I guess if that happens the paper is there to absorb the mess. Really, would it be too much to ask to pack similar items together? Oh wait, these are probably the same people who worked as baggers at the grocery store and were trained to put bread and eggs on the bottom of the grocery bags.

Anyway, time to sign off...I have to go look up some recipes that use ketchup...

A Boring Tuesday Night

2008-02-19T22:42:00.000+05:30

Nothing too exciting going on here in Chennai on a Tuesday night. Don't know if that is good or if that is bad. S left tonight to go on his business trip. He was supposed to leave tomorrow night, but as is the case with his job, things changed, and he had to fly out tonight. He'll be gone the rest of the week.

Well so far this week, I have got 1 3/4 of my 3 problems in the house resolved. The display screen on our elliptical exercise machine went haywire over the weekend. Since we bought it here in September, it is still under warranty. The company sent a technician out right away, which in and of itself is a truly amazing thing to happen here in India. The thing that really impressed me though is that he was actually forward thinking and brought a replacement computer board for the display screen with him. He anticipated that this was more than likely the problem. This sort of thing just doesn't happen here all that often, so I really appreciated this company's great customer service. (Now, I don't have any good excuses not to work out!)

The normal sequence of events here is that the repairperson (actually it's normally two or three people) would come and look at the problem (probably after not showing up when they were originally suppose to). Then there is always a big conversation about the problem between them and either my driver or security guard. Often times after that, there is then a phone call placed back to someone at their company to discuss the problem. After all of the talking, it never fails that the problem cannot be resolved at this time. Either someone else is needed or a part is needed or something. Then there is normally another phone call to our landlord to explain the situation to him, and then the phone is handed over to me to speak to our landlord (lucky for me that we have an awesome landlord who speaks great English) who will explain everything to me. It can never be easy here with this type of stuff.

This was such the case with the air conditioner that is broke in our kitchen. To make a long story short, two guys showed up today at noon. Basically the above scenario took place with our head security guard involved. Numerous trips in and out of the house to look at the unit part in the house and the compressor part that is on the outside of the house to determine what the problem was. After one hour of this, our head guard handed me a cell phone and of course it was the landlord. The part needed for the A/C is not available for 2 or 3 days (which in India time probably means at least a week). At least I wasn't told that I was making the problem up. This happened to me with these same A/C people on the same A/C unit about a month ago. Of course the problem is worse now, but I fully know that there was an issue a month ago, but that they just wouldn't listen to me (big disadvantage being female here). So this is why I said that half of the problem is fixed. Now I just have to wait for them to show back up with the replacement part...hopefully before it gets really HOT here!

The other quarter of a problem that has been resolved is with our satellite TV. One of the receivers won't pick up a signal. Well I guess the landlord has talked to the satellite company, and now I have to call the help line because they think it can be resolved over the phone. Ugh! I'm dreading this call! It's one thing to be in the U.S. and call a help line knowing that you are probably getting a call center that is in India. At least these people have been trained (somewhat) to deal with Americans. I think it is going to be a whole other story calling a help line in India and reaching a call center here that is trained to deal with Indians and not Americans. I think I'll put this off until tomorrow. Wish me luck.

Besides that, it is pretty boring around here. I'm honestly just killing time writing this blog. At 11 pm on Tuesday nights, House is on TV. Thankfully since one of our satellite receivers is still working, I can watch. S and I are addicted to House. We never watched this program in the U.S. or in China, but when we were moving from China, one of my friends recommended that I get Season One to watch. Well I was instantly hooked. S on the other hand wasn't until we got back from IL this January and started watching the DVD set because there was nothing else on. We have now watched all of the episodes of Season One at least two if not three times. I have also been able to catch most of the episodes of Season Two and Season Three on TV here. I believe the U.S. is in Season Four...and probably getting ready for new episodes now that the writers' strike is over with.

So anyway, I torture myself every Tuesday night staying up until the new episode of House that I haven't seen is on at 11 pm. Then it seems that every Wednesday morning I have to be out of the house early for some reason. That's when I feel the full effects of getting old and not being able to stay up until midnight. Wait, whom am I kidding? I've never been able to stay up until midnight! I'm totally a morning person and a person who likes her 8 plus hours of sleep every night. With S gone, I should be able to sleep in in the morning. Yeah right! Who am I kidding again? Although I like my sleep, I'm also one who has never had to set an alarm clock to wake up. I wake up pretty much the same time every morning. Here in India, that time is between 6:15 and 6:30 every single morning. Yeah, yeah, I know...what the heck am I doing getting up that early when I don't have a job, and I don't have any kids? It's called the sun comes up too darn early here. I guess because of Chennai being located so close to the equator, there is pretty much 12 to 13 hours of daylight here year round. The sun pretty much comes up at 6 am and sets at 6 pm every single day here.

Well enough of my ramblings for one night. By the time I spell check, proofread, and post this, it will be 11 pm. So good night everyone!

Elvis the Gecko

2008-02-18T18:15:00.000+05:30

OK, this is a really long post about geckos...or in fact a really long post about one gecko that keeps reappearing in our house.

Remember the Legend of Grandpa Gecko? Well, you should since it was only a couple of posts back that I was telling his story. Remember that I was telling about Elvis the Gecko in that post? I was harassing MR about this gecko in my house and whether or not it was Grandpa Gecko. I had taken a photo of him and e-mailed it to her, and when she denied that it was Grandpa, I named the gecko Elvis. Well Elvis had successfully been escorted out of our house via the dining room sliding door that night with the assistance of S and the broom.

Well, you are not going to believe it...because I honestly don't believe it myself...but Elvis the Gecko is still around...and I have proof that it is the same gecko.

This story really begins on Thursday night, which was also Valentine's Day. I had been out all day and had picked up S at the office on the way home from work. As soon as we walked into the house, I spotted a gecko on the wall. While S went to find the broom, I was able to get a photo of the gecko, which at that point I named Cupid the Gecko. Only later would I determine that this was in fact Elvis the Gecko. (OK, OK...you know life in India is dull when I start naming the geckos!)

Anyway, here is the photo of Cupid the Gecko (who really is Elvis) that I took that night. Please forgive the quality of the photo as I had to blow it up in order to prove my point that it is Elvis. I also flipped the photo so he is facing down as I wanted all of the photos pointing in the same direction. After I took the photo that night, S escorted Cupid out the front door. I was then looking at the photo and noticed that Cupid only has 3 feet, which I think you can clearly see in the above photo. I was telling my parents, my brother, and my cousin about the 3 footed gecko that we had in our house (not 3 feet in length as my brother thought!). (OK, once again, life is a little boring so nothing better to tell my family then about our geckos). I have been trying to figure out how a gecko ends up with only 3 feet...did the 4th foot get amputated, was the gecko born deformed, will geckos drop a foot like they'll drop a tail if in danger, was it in a fight with another gecko??? Hmmm, if only geckos could talk!

So, fast forward a couple of days to Sunday (yesterday), and I was sitting at the dining table in the middle of the afternoon when this gecko comes scurrying out from behind the curtains. As S is upstairs and I don't want to lose sight of the gecko, I call S on his cell phone to come downstairs to help me get this thing out of the house. Well the stupid gecko refused to go out the sliding glass door, so after awhile, we just gave up. This morning, I spotted it again and once again, it eluded being corralled out the house, so we once again gave up.

Well, I was then talking to my cousin on the phone about what I should name this gecko. We decided to name it after our friend, Carrie, since she really liked the name of the other gecko, Elvis. So, I got off of the phone and decided to see if I could find the gecko and get a photo of it for Carrie, since I figured she would want to see her namesake.

While taking this photo this morning, I noticed that this was the same 3 footed gecko from Thursday night. It's kind of hard to tell in this photo, but definitely missing a foot plus the markings on the side of an upside down V are the same. So, I thought that this gecko was in fact Cupid and couldn't be named Carrie. Then I started wondering how the heck this guy got back into the house. He was ushered out the front door on Thursday night, but yet reappeared a couple of days later in the dining room. The logical thought would be that he was let back in by the maid, since she does clean the front porch and leaves the door cracked while doing so. However, she didn't work on Friday, Saturday, or Sunday, so that possibility is out. I guess it is possible that he came scurrying back in when either S or I were coming in or out, but I think that is highly unlikely as we go in and out pretty quickly, and I think we would have noticed a gecko getting in. So, the best answer to this question is that the stupid gecko (actually pretty smart, but I like to call geckos stupid) went out under the front porch door (there is a big enough gap for this and thus the reason why the front porch is called the gecko room because it has a gazillion geckos in it at any point in time) and around the side of the house and somehow got back in the house at sliding glass doors of the dining room.

Anyway, this story gets even weirder when later today I determined that this gecko is in fact Elvis the Gecko that I first spotted in our house on Wednesday, February 6...a full 8 days before Cupid on Valentine's Day. Remember how I said I had taken a photo of that gecko...well here is the photo blown up from that date.

Notice anything familiar about this guy? Any distinguishing markings...maybe having a foot missing and an upside down V?

So basically to sum it up Elvis the Gecko is Cupid the Gecko is Carrie the Gecko...the same gecko! First spotted in house on February 6 and ushered out dining room sliding door. Next spotted in house on February 14 and ushered out front wooden door. Last spotted in house on February 17 and still at large in house. I'm thinking maybe it would just be easier to leave Elvis in the house as I have a feeling that wasting any more time or energy getting him out will be for nothing as he'll just reappear again in a few days. Maybe his name should instead be Houdini the Gecko!

Back to Normal

2008-02-18T10:02:00.001+05:30

Life for me is pretty much back to normal...or at least as normal as one's life can be when living in India. All of my visitors have left Chennai. Only 33 days until my cousin and aunt arrive for their visit. I think I'll be recuperated by then. It was great being able to show people around Chennai. However, after 3 weeks of it, I am tired. A LOT of time in the car...and for those of you who have never experienced traffic in India (even if only riding and not driving), you won't appreciate just how tiring this can be. So, I think I'll be staying home for a few days.

Originally, S and I were to leave last night for our trip to Bangkok and then on to Singapore. However, the trip had to be cancelled as S has to go on a different business trip later this week. This is the eighth week of the year and will be his sixth business trip. Ugh! I hope this doesn't last all year long. If so, it will be a really long year.

So, this week I am committed to catching up on a bunch of paperwork...taxes, expenses...you know, all the fun things in life! Also, I'm behind in birthday cards and gifts, so I need to send out a bunch of belated ones. Let's see, this week will also bring another food shipment. I'm curious to see what surprises my brother stuck into it. Also, S is suppose to be arranging to have everything that is broke in our house fixed, so I'm sure I'll spend a lot of time waiting for repairmen to not show up on time.

Since, things are slowing down a bit here, I should be able to do some regular blog posts again. I have some photos of my outings with my visitors to post...and of course, more gecko stories to tell.

So, I guess I should stop procrastinating and do something productive...

The Legend of Grandpa Gecko

2008-02-10T21:43:00.000+05:30

What is a legend? Well according to dictionary.com, the definition of a legend is a nonhistorical or unverifiable story handed down by tradition from earlier times and popularly accepted as historical.

Well when MR was staying with me a couple of weeks ago, the story of Grandpa Gecko began. One night, MR and I were surfing the net at my kitchen table when she went to the bathroom that is attached to our guest bedroom. She came back from the bathroom looking like she had seen a ghost. Nope, she just "supposedly" saw a huge gecko in the bathroom. The story goes that it was a greenish color and went scurrying up the wall and out an opening above the exhaust fan. Well, I got out the good old lizard repellent and sprayed it all around the exhaust fan. Of course, I really have no clue whether or not this stuff actually works, but I think it made MR feel better. She claims that she slept that night with the lights on and her eyes open! She named the gecko Grandpa.

So, the legend of Grandpa Gecko began. She told everyone we ran into the rest of the time she was here about Grandpa. I was harassing her pretty hard about the gecko...that was of course until I saw a large gecko scurry up the wall by the staircase a few nights later. I told her that it was Grandma Gecko looking for Grandpa. Then a few nights later I saw a large gecko by the large sliding glass window in our dining room. I didn't want the gecko to leave the window so I sat staring and watching it to make sure it didn't go anywhere. I got a photo of it and e-mailed it to MR, but she said it wasn't green enough to be Grandpa. So, I named that gecko Elvis. When S got home over an hour later, Elvis left the building (with the assistance of S and the broom).

When MR left a few days ago, I gave her a green paper gecko so that she would always remember Grandpa Gecko. Her husband and I had a good laugh at her...she was also laughing. Little did I know that the last laugh would be on me.

Tonight, S and I were watching a movie in the bedroom. I got up to go in the bathroom to brush my teeth. I opened the bathroom door, which we always keep shut, went in, and flipped on the light. I turned around to shut the door, and there was a large gecko on the door frame. I'm not exactly sure what I said (plus I probably couldn't repeat it in my blog even if I did remember) but S knew something was wrong. I told him to go get the broom. Well while he took an eternity to go downstairs to get the broom, I was able to get a good look at this gecko. I'm sure it was definitely Grandpa Gecko.

The gecko was on the door frame at about the height of my head. I had to have come within an inch of it when I walked through the door. Plus how I didn't touch it when I turned the light on, I have no clue. Every night when I get up to go to the bathroom, I always turn the light on to make sure there aren't any geckos in the bathroom. The window in this bathroom has a huge opening in it, and I have been expecting every night for months now to see a gecko in the bathroom. Nothing though until tonight. This gecko was definitely greenish in color and even looked old. The thing that really freaked me out though is that it kept sticking it's tongue out at me and turning it's head. It was almost like it was taunting me and saying "na, na, boo, boo, you can't catch me." It finally started to go around the door frame and thus out of the bathroom into the bedroom. Yikes! I kept looking around the bathroom for something to nudge it back in, but I came up with nothing. Finally, just as this was happening, S got his slow behind back with the broom and was able to corral it back into the bathroom. I opened the window, and S was able to get it out. I ran and got the lizard repellent. I think I used half the can on the window!

I can no longer harass MR about Grandpa Gecko as I have came face to face with him. Lost a few years off of my life doing so, but I guess that's what I get for living in a lizard infested part of the world...and so goes the legend of Grandpa Gecko.

A Hot, Long, Tiring Week

2008-02-10T17:42:00.000+05:30

...just when you have probably gave up hope of me ever posting again...

The daily temperatures here in Chennai are slowly starting to creep back up. January was a great month here, temperature wise. The daily highs were in the upper 70s/lower 80s every day...of course, this was without the humidity. It doesn't get much better than that here. However, the last week or so, the temperatures have been inching up a few degrees with it now being around 83 to 85 every day (once again, without the humidity...as it really feels about 10 degrees warmer than this). Of course, I can't really complain about the weather here...we could be back in Illinois suffering through the horrible winter conditions there.

If I'm going out and about during the day, I normally wear capris. Shorts just aren't really an acceptable thing for women to wear here. In fact, capris to some degree are pushing the "dress code" of Chennai when you see that the women here wear clothing that doesn't show any leg skin whatsoever. However, all the foreign women here do get by without problems with wearing capris or knee length skirts. Being that I'm not really a skirt person unless I'm dressing up for some reason, I wear capris outside of our house.

Well with the lower quarter of my legs being down right not pleasant or just plain ugly from all of the mosquito bites, I have been wearing jeans all week. Luckily all of the activities that I have been doing with my guests have pretty much been indoors this week with the exception of one day that was completely outside (boy did I pretty much overheat on that day). However, the problem with me wearing jeans is that none of my jeans fit. In the last 1 1/2 years, I have probably lost about 15 pounds. I have already gone down one size for sure and probably could easily fit into the next size smaller if I really wanted to. Since my need for jeans and dress pants is pretty much zero in Chennai, I haven't thought that it would be wise to invest any money into these items since I have lost the weight. So, this means that I have been wearing around clothing all week that hasn't fit...big and baggy! I pretty much was constantly pulling up my pants...I guess I should be thankful that I have fat hips and thus my pants didn't fall completely down!

My legs are finally starting to show the signs of healing. Calamine lotion didn't help at all with the itching. However, I found that I had some aloe vera gel that somewhat worked to stop the itching. Finally though, the best thing I found in my massive supply of medicine that I stocked up on before leaving the U.S. was some leftover prescription antibiotic skin ointment. I have a couple of functions in a few days that I will need to dress up for, and I'm hoping my legs will be healed enough that I can wear a skirt (as one of the events is outdoors, I will be sure to wear bug repellent this time). The other thing with having a million mosquito bites on my legs is that I haven't been able to shave them in a week now. Getting a little bit hairy!

Well my first friend has now returned to Beijing. We had a great couple of weeks together. Lots of laughs and good times. My other friend has been here for a few days now. However, she has gone for the weekend to Delhi to meet some other friends. She'll be back on Monday night, and I will be busy the rest of the week with her. In the meantime though, I am flat out exhausted from being out of the house every day for at least two weeks now. I have declared that I'm not leaving the house at all this weekend...and so far I have been very successful with this goal!

Ants

2008-02-05T20:53:00.000+05:30

Haven't had any ants in the kitchen for a few days now. (Knock on wood).

However, ants have taken up residence in my computer. Maybe I should stop eating while surfing the internet?????

Remind Me to Use OFF

2008-02-04T13:50:00.000+05:30

This is what happens in India when you are outside at dusk and forget to use insect repellent.

Last night, S and I were sitting outside for about an hour chatting with some friends waiting for our dinner table to be ready. I didn't even realize that I was getting ate alive and didn't notice the million bug bites on my legs until we got home a few hours later. The bites have only started to itch in the last few hours. I'm trying not to scratch my legs, but with this many bites, it really is hard to avoid.

I'm not sure what these bites are from. Thankfully, I don't have any bites on my arms or face. They are only on my lower legs, ankles, and feet. Anyway, I think I have learnt my lesson and will now be carrying OFF wipes in my purse at all times.

Super Bowl Monday

2008-02-04T07:14:00.000+05:30

Yes, we do get to see the Super Bowl here in India. One of our sports channels is carrying it. Of course, with the time change, the game started around 5 am today (Monday). So, no Super Bowl parties here. I actually did turn the TV on right before the kickoff. However, I slept pretty much throughout the first half. I did wake up in time to see the halftime show, and now I am watching the second half while eating my Super Bowl snack...a bowl of cereal.

The weird/strange thing with the Super Bowl here is that it is majorly tape delayed. How do I know this? There are pretty much NO commercials whatsoever. I didn't expect to see the cool U.S. commercials, but I thought at least there would be some Indian commercials on. Nope! None of that. The only commercials they have shown are a couple that are advertising the other shows on this TV channel. Total, the commercials are only about 30 seconds long. Also, every time there is a commercial break in the U.S., doesn't necessarily mean that there is even this short commercial break here. So, this game is really going by quickly. Really though, how exciting is the Super Bowl without the commercials???

So, who am I rooting for? Well, like S would say, I'm just rooting for a good game. However, if I don't say, GO PATS, our family in Boston may disown us!

Trash Cans

2008-02-03T08:26:00.000+05:30

Yes, India does have a few actual trash and garbage cans. Here are samples of the types of cans commonly found around Chennai:

I'm not sure I've actually ever seen what I would consider to be a "normal" looking garbage can. There is definitely a LARGE need for a lot more garbage cans around Chennai. There is trash everywhere you look. In the last week, there have been reports that people are going to start getting fined for throwing trash on the streets. Yeah right! What are they going to do, ticket every single person in Chennai?

Flip Flop Heaven

2008-01-31T09:11:00.000+05:30

When flip flops die, they go to heaven at the beaches of Chennai.

A Busy Week of Shopping

2008-01-29T19:25:00.000+05:30

Yes, I am still alive. Just been very busy. Had visitors in Friday night and Saturday. New visitors came in then Saturday night, so we met them for dinner on Sunday. Yesterday, I picked up the wife, MR, and she is now staying with me at our house. S left for his business trip last night and her husband will be working 15 hour days. Since the hotel they are at is at least an hour drive from our house and then another hour to go shopping anywhere, it only made logically sense for her to move in with me. It'll save me a lot of time in the car.

MR and I have spent the last two days out shopping. Then in the afternoons we come back to the house and surf the internet. It is so nice having wireless internet, so we can both sit at the kitchen table, surf away, and still be able to talk.

The plans for the rest of the week: Wednesday--shopping, Thursday--shopping, and Friday--shopping. Today, I didn't buy anything, and MR got a couple of things, but it is still fun to just go out looking. However, after only going to a couple of places, we are pretty much wore out by mid afternoon. India just sort of does that to your body.

Don't worry...MR is getting to do other stuff besides shop. The car ride alone is her entertainment. Her first impressions of India: "WOW." Next week, when there are more visitors coming in, we are planning on going to the actual tourist spots. There are a few around Chennai, but seriously, just riding in the car is enough if you don't have the time to go anywhere else.

Cows at the Beach

2008-01-25T11:25:00.000+05:30

The cows like to hang out at the beach sunbathing and catching some rays! Well, OK, maybe not, but cows can be seen at the beach here eating trash. Once again, I'm pretty sure this is another "only in India" thing.

Home Alone

2008-01-23T21:34:00.000+05:30

This is the third week in a row that S has had to travel within India for work. He has been gone either two or three days each time. Next week, he leaves to go to China for a week. Then I think he is planning a trip to Indonesia in February. Then he has a trip to Thailand and Singapore later in February, which I will be going with him on.

So, what does this equate for me...a lot of time home "alone." I use the word "alone" loosely as there are still the security guards, the driver, the gardener, and the maid around every day. Having no kids and no pets though, it really is pretty quiet around here when S is gone.

A common question that I have received recently is how do I cope with S gone so much? Honestly, it really hasn't been a problem. I manage pretty well by myself, and I can easily entertain myself. We have been in India now long enough that staying by myself doesn't bother me (remember that I caught the rat when S was gone). Now, if S would have left me this much right after moving into the house, I probably would have been freaking out a little more. However, now, it's not a problem at all. I can watch what I want on TV, I can read, I can eat supper whenever I want, I can go to bed when I want, I can get up when I want...anyway, you get the point, I can do as I please (wait, don't I anyways even when S is here???)

Today was the first day that I have been out of the house since last Thursday. Yep, that's 5 days in the house without leaving. OK, that's a small lie...I did leave yesterday to go to the grocery store, but that was a quick trip since I forgot the grocery store that I like near us is closed on Tuesdays. The other grocery store by us is really bad...doesn't carry milk, eggs, the good bread I like, etc...so the the only thing I bought was bananas.

So, why haven't I been out of the house for 5 days? Friday, the car needed serviced after S was dropped off at work. For some reason, this process, which can be done in 15 minutes at Jiffy Lube in the U.S., takes all day here. Oh yeah, that's right, the reason being is that this is India! I guess I should be thankful that it only takes one day here and not two or three! Saturday, S went to work for part of the day. By the time he got home, we decided that we didn't want to go anywhere. On Sundays, we never go anywhere. Monday, S had to go to the factory, which is too far away for our driver to come back while S is working. Yesterday, besides the grocery store being closed, I had planned on doing a few other errands, but S had called and needed the car in the afternoon for some of his own work related errands.

Today, I finally thought I would be able to go out thinking S wasn't going to the airport until tonight. Nope, he had to go midday, plus he had to run errands beforehand. Well, being that I was on the verge of some major cabin fever (which I never thought would be possible in hot India), my friend came and rescued me. We went to lunch and did some shopping. One of the places we went shopping at was a Tupperware store. Yes, in India, real Tupperware at about half the price of the U.S. We inquired about having a Tupperware party, but I don't think that is a concept here. Then we went to pick her kids up at the American School. I've been to the school a couple of times before, and let's just say that it is the social hub for ex-pats in Chennai. We were there for probably 1 1/2 hours talking to other women. By the time we left, my friend had determined that I was going to eat supper at their house since S is out of town. I just got home about an hour ago (just in time to watch American Idol) after being gone over 8 hours today. It was a great day out with my friend!

So, what does tomorrow bring? I'm going to another friend's house to play mahjong. We play once a week. I really look forward to this as it assures that I have at least one social event on my calendar each week. However, my friend just announced last week that she is moving within a month, so now we have to find a new place to play mahjong. I hope we can as we have just finally built up a group to play. I would offer to host, but I live too far out for people to travel. It's much easier for me to travel into town instead of a lot of people traveling out to my house.

After mahjong tomorrow, I'm going to another friend's house for supper. Somehow when I was at the school today, I sort of invited myself. It started as a joke from me, but my friend ended up insisting that I come tomorrow night since S will still be gone. I'm looking forward to it.

S gets back Friday evening, and we have a work related dinner to attend that night. Saturday morning, he has to work, but then Saturday afternoon, I think we are going to be taking a couple of his co-workers who are in town out to some of the tourist sites. Then on Saturday night, the first of my Beijing friends arrives with her husband for two weeks. Her husband will be working, and her and I will be trying to stay out of trouble during the day. With this friend, that may be a challenge! I'm sure we'll have a good time talking, laughing, eating, and shopping. I'm really looking forward to her coming since S will be gone next week. Her being here will keep me entertained and hopefully will help the days go quickly while S is in China. Then a few days before she leaves, another Beijing friend is coming in with her husband for a few days, so then I will be entertaining her.

While I am disappointed that S is going back to China without me, I am going on the trip to Thailand and Singapore with him in February. Since I haven't been to either of these places before, I am really excited to be able to go along. I think the day after my friends leave, S and I will be leaving on this 10 day trip. It is actually mainly a business trip for S, but he will have a couple of days in Singapore that we will be able to do some stuff together.

Busy times are definitely ahead for me. I guess this is the reason why I didn't really mind being in the house for 5 days straight. At this point, I won't be in the house for 2 days straight until probably March. Time flies when you are having fun!

Monkeying Around in India

2008-01-21T16:42:00.000+05:30

India has monkeys. Some parts of India, such as New Delhi, have a lot of monkeys...like tens of thousands of them wandering around the city. I have never seen a monkey in Chennai although S said that he saw some one night on his way home from work. Also, S sees monkeys whenever he goes out to his company's manufacturing plant. I guess they just hang around in the rafters. He said that they did a monkey round up and relocated around 75 monkeys out of the plant. This I guess was done on a Monday, and when S went to the factory a few days later, he couldn't even tell they had taken any away. So there are definitely monkeys here...I guess we just live on the wrong side of the town to see any on a regular basis.

I guess there was a report of monkeys breaking into homes and stealing cell phones and Cokes in some city in India. I don't know if there is any truth to this, but I guess anything is possible.

Anyway, I finally saw my first monkeys here when we were down in Mamallapuram.

This guy doesn't exactly look too friendly. Don't worry...I didn't get too close.

I'm thinking only in India would you find a monkey and a goat eating out of the same trash pile.

For whatever reason, this lady was trying her hardest to get the baby monkeys to come to her. Um, yeah, maybe not the brightest idea in the world...monkeys do have teeth and can carry rabies.

For Christmas, my mom and dad got us our very own pet monkey. Here he is hanging out with our cat, Shelby, in Illinois. Isn't he cute??? Anyway, he's the best type of monkey to have around...doesn't eat much, doesn't make a mess, and since he is a Cubs rally monkey, we are hoping that he will bring luck to the Cubs this year.

Anyway, with the bananas in our yard continuing to grow, I really hope that they don't attract any monkeys to our property. While it would sort of be cool to look outside and see a real live monkey in my yard, I prefer to not have any around. I have enough critter problems the way it is!

We Felt Like Movie Stars!

2008-01-18T16:40:00.000+05:30

Since life is a little boring around here right now, I don't have anything exciting to blog about. So, I thought I would go back to some old things that I meant to blog about and never got around to.

Back in November, S and I did a little sightseeing at Mamallapuram. It was the day after Diwali, S had the day off, and since we just got the new car, we decided to go for a ride. Being that I had never been south of our house, I just told our driver to go in that direction. We didn't have intentions of going to Mamallapuram...it just sort of happened that's where we ended up. We stopped at a few of the tourist spots, but since we weren't expecting to be outside, we didn't have any sunscreen or bottled water, so we didn't stay long. I'm looking forward to a trip back to Mamallapuram in the next few weeks when we have some visitors in town.

Anyway, at one of the tourist stops, a couple of schoolgirls approached us and wanted to have their photo taken with us. Well the two girls turned into a whole mob of schoolchildren from Kerala (another part of India). We couldn't even walk because there were so many of them around us. They shook our hands, asked us where we were from, touched our hair, and crowded around for photos. I was sort of disappointed that they didn't ask for our autographs...maybe next time.

Can you figure out which one I am?

We truly almost felt like we were famous. Nope, just obvious foreigners! This same sort of thing happened to us quite a bit when we lived in Beijing and went to any of the tourist spots. Normally though, it was just a couple of people asking for a photo. Being white and living in Asia, we pretty much stick out like a sore thumb. There is no way to blend in with the crowds. People stare at us all of the time. Does this bother me? Nope. If I let little things like people staring at me get to me, I would have went crazy in the first month of moving to Asia. Of course, it has been said that we must be crazy to first live in China and now live in India. Maybe so...but if this is the case, then I'll be the first to stand up and admit it.

"I AM CRAZY. I HAVE LIVED IN CHINA. NOW, I LIVE IN INDIA."

Enough said.

My New Favorite Website

2008-01-16T15:28:00.000+05:30

www.stuffonmycat.com

Love it! Makes me smile! Makes me laugh!

I've submitted some photos, so now I'm waiting to see if my cats will become instant internet superstars. We shall know in about 4 to 6 weeks.

The Return of American Idol!

2008-01-16T06:51:00.000+05:30

Yes, only about 13 hours until American Idol starts here. For those of you in the U.S., you probably are watching it while I am writing this. Well we aren't so lucky here, so we have to wait a few more hours than you.

Last year when I was in Beijing at this time, watching American Idol was like following a cult. EVERYONE watched it. Even if you never watched the show in the U.S., you watched in Beijing. One reason is that it was the only decent thing on TV to watch all week. Everything else was at least 2 or 3 seasons old (the same thing here). The second reason being is that even if you didn't want to watch it, you watched it because that was what everyone else was doing. You didn't dare plan a dinner or outing on American Idol nights...not to mention even considering to call anyone during the hour it was on. If you did, they wouldn't answer anyway. Therefore, it was just easier to watch it, and then you would know what everyone was talking about when they mentioned Sanjaya, Blake, and Jordin.

The week that my good friend finally got engaged was also the same week that Sanjaya finally got voted off of the show. When I found out she was going to get married, my comment was something along the lines of "best news I've heard since Sanjaya was booted off of Idol." Since she watched the show, she also found my comment humorous.

So, anyway, don't be calling me between 8pm and 9pm my time on Wednesday nights (8:30am to 9:30am Wednesday mornings CST), because I won't answer. I'll be watching TV...the one hour per week that will be worth watching. Hmm, I think I need to check because it may be on more than one night per week...so there may be a couple times every week that you won't be allowed to bother me!

We Have Bananas!

2008-01-14T18:25:00.001+05:30

When we moved into our house, I told S there were banana trees behind our house. He told me that I was nuts, and that I didn't know anything about tropical plants. Of course, he also tried to tell me that the tree in our neighbor's yard was a mango tree when it is in fact a coconut tree...S didn't know that coconuts can also be orange in color. Well we got back from our trip to Illinois to find bananas growing on our "non" banana trees. Since S is addicted to bananas almost as much as he is addicted to diet Pepsi, how cool is it to be growing our own bananas?

Now, if I could only figure out a way to make our own diet Pepsi...

Safety in India

2008-01-12T10:02:00.000+05:30

HA, HA, HA, HA, HA!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! I really crack myself up at times! The words "safety" and "India" should never be used in the same sentence. NEVER! I don't know for sure, but I'm guessing that in the local Indian languages there is not a translation for the word "safety."

For those of you who don't know me, I worked for 7 1/2 years in the Environmental Health and Safety office at a major university in central Illinois. While my background isn't in this field, and by all means I don't consider myself anything close to being an expert in this field, I did learn a few things while working in this office. Enough to know that Asia is a safety person's worse nightmare! This means that since living in China for 9 months and now in India for 7 months, I pretty much have to mentally block out the fact that I know anything at all about safety. Safety just isn't a concept here that has been accepted...not even close to being practiced at all.

While I was in Illinois last month, I had the opportunity to visit with some of my former co-workers from my EHS working days. I was telling them a few of things that I see here on a regular basis, and that they couldn't even fathom all of the safety violations that they would see in just one block here. One of my former co-workers (and still a good friend) actually retired at the end of December, and now I'm trying to talk her into visiting me here.

Colleen and I at her retirement party. By the way Colleen, I'm still waiting on my prize for traveling the longest distance to attend your party!

Anyway, on returning back to our house from our trip, I found that one of our bathroom doors wouldn't open. To make a long story short, someone from the lock company finally came out this week to look at the bathroom door handle. After banging on the handle with a hammer and jiggling the door for about 2o minutes, and it still not opening, he finally determined the handle was broke and would have to be replaced. Duh! I could have told him that! Replacing the door handle turned into a major ordeal just to get the old handle off of the door. He finally had to pull out his electric drill. I was quite impressed that he had one as power tools here in India aren't that common. Then he went to plug it in, and I just about died when I saw what he was doing. I was dying to take some photos, but I didn't want to explain why I wanted photos of him changing the door handle. Luckily for me, his drill bit broke, and he had to go get another one. Perfect time for me to take photos.

Here's a photo of the door, and the drill plugged in. Look closely at the drill setup. Do you see anything wrong with this picture? In case you can't see it very well, here are some close up photos.

Hmmm...like I said, I'm no expert in safety, but I'm pretty sure that this isn't a good safe setup. My door got fixed though, and no one was electrocuted in the process, so I guess that's all that matters. Another successful day of life in India.

Dog Food

2008-01-10T16:47:00.000+05:30

So, I have been pondering a question in my head for quite awhile now. Since, I haven't came up with a right or wrong answer yet...of course, I haven't really researched it much...I thought I would pose it to my blog readers.

The question:

What do the pets of vegetarians eat?

Honestly, I never thought of this until one day I was in a grocery store here, and they had vegetarian dog treats. I bought a package and took them back to my dog and my brother's dog who seemed to like them OK. However, in looking through the different bags of dog food, I didn't see any without some sort of meat ingredient included.

Anyway, I had sort of forgot that I was trying to figure out the answer to this question until today. I was in a different grocery store here and was looking through the freezer cases (which by the way, any local corner convenience store in the U.S. carrys more frozen foods than any of the grocery stores here). Well, in the freezer, there were frozen packages that were labeled "Minced Meat Dog Food" with a large photo of a dog's head on it. This was in the freezer right next to the chicken sausages, salmon sausages (first time I'd seen those also), and mutton cubes. So, the next obvious question is: is this food for dogs or food for humans that is dog meat?

I haven't heard of "dog" being a meat of choice for human consumption here in India. In China, dog is a delicacy, and one of our friends did have it once...not by his choice...but he did try it just to be polite.

Anyway, I didn't pick up and inspect the frozen package today. Maybe next time I'm in the store I will. Either way, I don't think I'll be purchasing any any time real soon. However, maybe some of my friends here with dogs would be willing to buy some and cook it up...just don't invite us over for dinner that night!

Christmas at My Grandparents' House

2008-01-09T16:45:00.000+05:30

Christmas at my grandparents' house every year is very informal. We snack on appetizers all day long and then order pizza for dinner. After eating for awhile, we have a grab gift exchange, and then we go back to eating. In between eating and opening gifts, I did get a chance to catch up with my grandma, grandpa, aunts, uncles, and cousins and to see how big my cousins' kids had grown in 6 months.

Talk about torture...for both the kids and the adults. Getting the kids to sit still and not having anyone crying to get a Christmas photo is nearly impossible. All the kids (and some of the bigger kids) want to do is open the gifts. However, we started the tradition of the Christmas photo a number of years ago, and it is now fun to look at the old photos to see how much the kids have grown over the years. So, now the older kids know that this is not optional, and they must sit still for at least a couple of minutes. The kids range in age from the oldest being 12 1/2 to the two youngest being 1 1/2...let's just say that it isn't quiet at all at my grandparents' house on Christmas.

Here's a photo of my grandparents. (Special note to Grandma & Grandpa: I bet you never thought you would be seeing a photo of yourself on the internet for the whole world to see!) In typical fashion, Grandma has to hold Grandpa's drink while he and Jaidin open a gift and my aunt watches.

This is a photo of my cousins' girls, Katie and Piper, dressed in the Indian outfits that I brought them. They are both 1 1/2 years old with Piper being older by about 2 weeks. (Special note to Becky: How does Katie like seeing the photo of herself?) Aren't they cute?

Christmas at my grandparents' house was fun as always. Looking forward to next year!

Snow, Sleet, Freezing Rain, Rain, Snow...

2008-01-08T17:22:00.000+05:30

This was pretty much the weather pattern the entire time we were in Illinois...plus obviously, it was COLD!!! Last December, we had great weather with none of the above, but this year was a completely different story. I guess we couldn't luck out two years in a row.

Not driving much in over a year combined with the bad weather was not a good thing for us. We slid off of our parents' ice covered driveway into the ditch. S wasn't happy because he had to cancel a whole day of meetings. Of course, this had to happen on the day that my dad and brother were gone out of town working. Luckily, our neighbors came by, and we were able to push our vehicle out of the ditch. One other time, we were backing out of the garage and hit our parents' truck. This wasn't really weather related except for the fact that we were looking for the piles of snow and other obstacles that are always around my parents' house. No damage to the truck, but our Envoy needs a new bumper. Let's see, I also filled the car up with gas and drove about 30 miles with the gas cap off. Oh well, at least we didn't go off and not pay for our gas this time...that happened to us in May when we were back in Illinois. All of our car incidents were minor, but given the number we had in the few days we were back, I hope that when we do eventually move back to the U.S. (and have to start driving again) that it isn't in the middle of winter!

So, here are some winter related photos from our trip:

My brother plowing the driveway out. Does the truck have any tires???

The dogs like to play king of the snow pile. Before it started to melt, the snow pile was so high that they could barely make it to the top.

My brother's chocolate Lab, Riley, and my yellow Lab, Libby, actually sat still in the snow for about 2 seconds in order for me to snap this photo. They love playing in the snow!

S's first time on a snowmobile! Don't ask me how he grew up in central Illinois and has never been on a snowmobile before...he's such a city boy!

So, what do you do when you are snowed and iced in out in the middle of nowhere in central Illinois? Strip off wallpaper! My mom wanted the wallpaper off of her kitchen walls. Didn't have to say that twice as S hates wallpaper, so off it came. It actually wasn't too bad off a job with three of us working on it (plus our helper...our cat, Tobie). Tip for those of you who have never stripped wallpaper before...liquid fabric softener mixed with water. Just spritz it on the glued paper backing of the wallpaper, and it scrapes right off.

Anyway, the weather here in Chennai has been much better than the weather in Illinois. It has been getting into the low 80s every day, and even with the humidity making it feel like it is in the 90s, it is actually tolerable outside. Now, if it would only stay like this the rest of the year, I may never want to leave! I don't think we'll be so lucky, but one can only hope.

Lobster = Wine

2008-01-07T18:45:00.000+05:30

When S and I lived in Beijing, we made it a point to make friends outside of the people that S worked with. No offense to his co-workers, but sometimes it is just nice to have dinner when the talk isn't all about S's company...plus it is nice to meet people who aren't from central Illinois or have never lived in central Illinois...one of my favorite things about being an ISE is meeting people from all over the world. Some of these non-company friends are now friends for life.

On Saturday night, S and I went out to eat with some new non-company friends that I had randomly met. This couple is American and have lived in Chennai for about a year now. However, they haven't met a lot of people due to their work and travel schedule. S and I are very lucky to be overseas with a large multi national company. We have a great benefits package plus there are other American ISEs here with our company. This means that we already have a built in network of people to meet. I can't imagine being the only American ISEs in an area for a company. However, this happens quite a bit for other people. While initially it was somewhat difficult for me to meet non-company people here...people with kids I feel have it a little easier because you can more easily meet people at the school or through play groups...I have slowly been building up a network of non-company friends here. Now it is time for S to start meeting the husbands. He hates the idea initially, but he always ends up having a good time when we get together with these couples.

So, back to Saturday night (and to why Lobster = Wine)...we met up with this couple at a restaurant we had never been to before. It was an Italian restaurant set outdoors. Another very nice evening sitting outdoors...a definite advantage to living in Chennai in the winter! We had a great time sitting, talking, drinking wine, and eating our food. Soon though, it was time for the evening to come to an end.

We ask for our bill. When it comes, one of the items listed is lobster. Well no one in our group had had lobster. Luckily...before we started complaining that our bill was wrong...our new friends knew at this restaurant that lobster was the code word for wine. Huh? Why not just list wine as being wine? Well, Chennai is located in the state of Tamil Nadu in India, and Tamil Nadu is a dry state.

Yep, that's right...in a country where one could probably use a drink more often at the end of the day than in other places...alcohol is hard to come by. You can't buy it in stores...legally that is. A lot of stores that are frequented by foreigners will sell you alcohol, but it's not on the shelves...you have to ask for it. A friend of mine buys her wine from a local person who comes to her house with the wine in black garbage bags. I have heard of people driving down to Pondicherry...about a 3 hour drive one way to the next state...to get beer and booze. The problem with this is that foreigners can't buy it in large quantities...so we would have to have our driver get it. Plus, I guess if the shopkeepers see the driver loading the alcohol into a vehicle with foreigners in it or a car with Tamil Nadu license plates, they will write down the license plate number and call ahead to the checkpoint at the state border. At the checkpoint, I guess cars with foreigners are almost always checked for alcohol making it nearly impossible to smuggle any into Tamil Nadu.

So how do S and I cope with living in a dry state? Well, we are only social drinkers. We have never drank at home unless we are having someone over for dinner. If we go out to eat and are by ourselves, we very rarely will have a drink...we just stick to water and diet Pepsi. So, really this isn't a huge issue for us. Also, here in Chennai, it is legal for a restaurant to serve alcohol if they are attached to a large hotel. Of course, then there is a large tax on top of the price of the alcohol.

So, the next time you are out and get a bill with lobster on it when you haven't had lobster to eat, only become concerned if you are eating anywhere but in Chennai, India...lobster is slang for wine here.

What's New in Chennai?

2008-01-03T16:05:00.000+05:30

Not too much, but I'll give an update to those of you who care about our boring lives. Sorry about how long of post this is...you might want to grab a drink and a snack before reading any further.

Let me first flash back to before we left for the U.S.

Yes, we did receive our food shipment about 5 hours before we were to leave for the airport. Luckily I was all packed and ready to go...and luckily the delivery people were notified by a few different people to get our food to us ASAP. I guess originally we were scheduled to have our stuff delivered last...ugh, that would have been a nightmare. Since the delivery people weren't planning on bringing our food to us so soon, they had to unload about half the truck to get to our boxes.

I started sorting through the boxes to check for bugs...no ants this time, but instead we had two boxes with mold in them. The culprits:

Yep, that's a can of tomato soup and a can of mandarin oranges. One box also had a freshly smashed cup of applesauce in it. While I worked on putting away the food, S had the fun task of washing gunk and mold off the two boxes of canned goods.

In the end, I got all of the food put away. Having just received the shipment, it did make it hard shopping for food while I was in the U.S. Our next shipment goes out the first week of February. I kept thinking that I didn't need anything because I have X number of it in my pantry already. However, then I had to think that I will be using the stuff up. It really is hard to buy food in December that won't be consumed until March, April, and May. Since my mom is in Florida for the winter, I'll probably end up ordering some more food online right before the shipment goes out...or talk my brother into picking some stuff up for me. Anyway for now, we are good.

A photo of S's pop supply for the quarter. The sad thing is that not only will all of this be consumed before the next shipment arrives but also that what you can't see is the other stash of pop we have on the other side of the room that also will probably be consumed.

Critter update: we returned to our house in Chennai to find a dead rat in one of our rat boxes. So, that's rat number two. We also found a dead frog in our gecko room (sun porch) plus I saw another frog (or maybe it was a toad...never could quite figure out the difference between them) in the same room last night. Our driver told me that while we were gone there was one snake in the yard. So that makes snake number 6 (but who's counting?). I've only seen one gecko so far, and it was in the gecko room. None in the house, which is a good thing. However, we do have a gazillion ants in the house. I've been feeding them Terro that I brought back with me, but so far I'm not sure it is doing anything but attracting more ants.

I've been working (very slowly) at getting the house organized and cleaned. We took down the Christmas decorations, and I've unpacked our suitcases. I've got most of the laundry caught up. S did some cleaning in the house, but there is still a lot to do. Now, I'm working on putting away everything out of our suitcases and getting the regular decorations back out. Plus trying to get fixed everything that broke while we were away. We came back to two A/Cs being broken, and the door handle on the bathroom broken. Only in India would these things break when we were away and not being used. We completely turned off all of the A/Cs before we left. Plus, the bathroom door that won't open is on a bathroom that we don't even use. How then did it get broke?

S and I went out for the first time ever on New Year's Eve. We had a great time at GRT Temple Bay (it's a beach resort) in Mamallapuram, which is about a 30 minute drive from our house. The party was outside, and it was a beautiful night. This made me realize why we don't go out in Illinois for New Year's Eve...who wants to travel around in the cold???

A photo of me, S, our friend JC, and his friend who is visiting Chennai. We had a great time with unlimited food and drinks, entertainment, and of course fireworks at midnight. The best part of the night...having a built in designated driver. I don't think the combination of alcohol, jet lag, and India driving would have been a good thing for us to attempt. Of course not getting home until 1:30am didn't help much with the jet lag. We did get some sleep, and then we were able to watch the ball drop in New York live as our CNN channel was covering it, and it was 10:30am our time.

So what exciting will be happening with us in 2008? Well the first few months will bring traveling and visitors. S will be making a trip to Beijing at the end of the month. Normally, I would be figuring out a way to go along, but one of my Beijing friends will actually be coming to Chennai at this time while her husband does some work here. She'll be in town for 2 weeks and is coming to see me and India. Right before she leaves, another friend from Beijing will be coming also for 2 weeks. They will overlap for a few days, so for over 3 weeks, I will be busy with them. I'm very excited to have them coming to see me, and I'm looking forward to showing them "Incredible India."

S will also be making a trip to Singapore in February, and it sounds like hopefully I'll be able to go along with him. I've been in the Singapore airport quite a few times, but never seen the country. I've heard that the shopping is great, the food is great, and that it is very clean. I can't wait to see it for myself.

Then in March, my cousin and my aunt are coming to visit us. I'm very excited about this! My cousin really wanted to come to Beijing, but it just didn't work out before we moved. Then she said she wanted to come see us here. Since she works for a school district, she was going to come in the summer when she is off of work. I suggested that she come over her spring break because it should be cooler than the summer months will be. Not wanting to make the trip alone, she somehow talked her mom, my aunt, into coming with her. My aunt also works for a school district and just so happens to have the same spring break as my cousin. She told me that India wasn't really on her list of places to ever go to (and honestly I don't really blame her or anyone else who doesn't have the desire to come here). However, she thought about it and decided that if I could live here, then she could come survive here for a week visit. Plus, she said that if she were in my shoes and lived in India that she would want people to come see her. Very true! So, I'm really looking forward to their visit!

Besides this, our company has 4 or 5 new families moving to Chennai this month and next. It'll be good to meet some more people and to be able to help them out in anyway that I can. S and I will also be starting to plan our vacations for the year. Right now, we don't know if or when we will be making another trip back to the U.S. before Christmas. I'll keep everyone posted on that issue. We are planning to probably go to Hong Kong & Macau maybe in April. I just found out that good friends of ours will be in Thailand in August for a week, so maybe we'll make a trip there to meet up with them. Plus I would like to make it back to Beijing sometime this summer...probably not for the Olympics...and I would like to go back to Europe again...just haven't decided which country yet. Hopefully, we'll also be able to travel around India...have to make sure that I make it to the Taj Mahal while I'm living here.

2008 is definitely shaping up to be another busy year for us. I have decided that I'm way to busy to try to keep our house in order, and thus I am finally hiring a maid. We are definitely in the minority among foreigners by not having a maid. I can't think of anyone else that I know here that doesn't have at least one maid working for them. It's almost like taboo and unheard of not to have someone working in the house for us...I'm sure our driver and security guards have had conversations about why we don't have a maid. I've said all along that I would get one if I happened to hear of one looking for a job. Well that's just what has happened. A friend of mine had to move across town, and her new home is too far for her maid to travel to daily. Since her maid only works a few hours each day and lives close to me, it should work out well. Plus I feel good about hiring someone who comes highly recommended from someone I know. I think she is starting next week, so I'll let you guys know how it is going.

Well, congratulations if you have read all the way to end of this very long post. For now, I think I've pretty much covered everything that I can think of. Tomorrow I'll try to do a post about our trip to Illinois. In the meantime, have a great day!

New Year's Resolutions

2008-01-03T10:39:00.000+05:30

Here is my list of resolutions for 2008. Pretty much the same list that I've had the last few years.

1. Read more books.

2. Scrapbook more.

3. Exercise more.

4. Blog more (a new one for 2008).

5. Travel more.

6. Be better about remembering birthdays and anniversaries on time.

7. Learn more about the culture of India.

Not a terribly exciting list. My resolutions are more of goals than resolutions. I keep it pretty simple in order to actually accomplish these goals. Any improvement on the previous year is considered a success in my book. I don't understand why people make resolutions that they are just going to break in the first week. "Don't eat chocolate." Yeah right, like you are never going to eat chocolate again in your life. How about instead "eat less chocolate" or "only eat chocolate once per week."

Also, I feel that my resolutions can be added to at any point during the year. If you want to improve on something in your life, why wait until January 1 to start? If say for example I think of something that I want to do or improve in my life on November 21st, do I have to wait until January 1st to begin? No, just start whenever you think about it. I think most of us know the areas in our lives that need improvement, and I think it is silly to wait until a specific date to begin. Just do it now!

All of my above resolutions are pretty vague...I think I used the word "more" in about every one of them. However, in my head, I have quantified most of the resolutions. But once again, if I actually put in writing exactly how many books per month I would like to read, then it's just setting myself up for failure...and who wants that? Not me.

So, how did I come out on my resolutions for 2007? Well like I said, most of them are listed above. I have just renewed them for 2008. Overall, I would say that I did pretty good with my resolutions. At different points during the year, I was better with certain ones then with other ones. For example while living in Beijing, I was really good with the exercise one. However, moving to India that one sort of became a lot harder to do. No more built in gym where I lived, and no more nice sidewalks with places to walk to. However, on the other hand, after moving to India, my resolutions to read more and scrapbook more picked up. These things pretty much didn't happen at all while living in China. Average everything out for the year though, and I think I came out pretty good in the end.

So, good luck to everyone who made resolutions for 2008. I wish you well with achieving your goals. I have a feeling that 2008 will be another great year!

100th Blog Post

2008-01-02T11:32:00.000+05:30

One hundred blogs posted on the internet.
One hundred blogs posted.
Take the time to read one blog.
Ninety nine more blogs on the internet.

(sing to the theme of 100 bottles of beer on the wall).

Last Day of 2007!

2007-12-31T18:55:00.000+05:30

Happy New Year's Eve! 2007 was a very long (yet it seemed to fly by) but great year for S and I. I won't bore you with the details of what we did...if you really want to know just read some of my early posts plus you guys know everything "exciting" that has happened since I started this blog.

I must say that S and I have survived 6 1/2 months of living in India. The 6 month mark passed on December 14 while we were in the U.S. I thought of writing a blog on that day, but really the 6 1/2 month mark is more important to me. Why?

It was after living in China for 6 1/2 months that S asked if I wanted to move to India (another 2 1/2 months after that is when we moved). He did go to work today, but I don't think he will be "popping" the question to me tonight...although it is New Year's Eve, so who knows.

Seriously though, S and I have full intentions of staying in India through 2008. We are looking forward to another busy year with 2008, and we just hope that it turns out as well as 2007 has.

Well, for the first time in our lives, S and I are actually going out for New Year's Eve. Normally, we are just stay-at-home and watch-movies-and-TV type of people...often falling asleep well before midnight. In fact, if we would stay awake until the ball dropped in New York at 11 pm our time, I considered that a good New Year's Eve. However, this year, we are headed to one of the beach resorts with a friend of ours to ring in the New Year.

Definitely had to have a couple of naps today or there would be no way...with jet lag and all...that I could make it to midnight. Last year in Beijing after just arriving back from the U.S., I think S and I were both sound asleep by 8:30 pm. Speaking of sleeping...I guess I should go wake S up from his nap so that we can leave.

Goodbye 2007!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Internet Phone

2007-12-31T14:24:00.000+05:30

When we were getting ready to move to China last year, someone suggested that we get an internet phone. Being that I don't really keep up on the latest in technology unless it directly effects me, I really had no clue that such a thing existed.

Over a year later...and let's just say that if I could only take one item with me to a deserted island, it would be my internet phone (assuming of course that the island was equipped with DSL internet). For less than $40 per month, we are able to call for unlimited minutes any U.S. telephone number. We also were able to get telephone numbers that are local numbers for our parents to call, which means they don't even have to call long distance to get us. All of this works via the internet. The calls are so clear that many people don't even believe that we are not in the U.S. The internet phone has to be the best thing since sliced bread!

There have been a few problems with the phone...the main one being is that we have to have internet working for it to work. This time last year when we returned to Beijing following our trip to the U.S. for Christmas, the internet was down for a few weeks following an earthquake in the ocean that caused problems with some fiber optic lines. Also when we moved to Chennai this summer, we didn't have the phone working for over two months until our high speed internet was hooked up in our house. Since this time, it has been a big pain in our house as we only have one internet hook up. This means we weren't able to leave the phone hooked up at the same time as the computer. To disconnect the computer to connect the phone was a 10 to 15 minute wait for the phone to boot up. That's OK it worked the first time, but often times the phone would have to be reset after being unplugged...another 10 to 15 minutes. Very frustrating if I just wanted to make a quick phone call.

Well all of our problems have finally been solved...my brother got us a wireless router for Christmas. Now the phone is hooked up all the time, my computer is on line all of the time, plus S can use his work computer...all at the same time. As soon as baseball season starts again in a couple of months, we'll get our other computer hooked up solely to be able to listen to the games on the internet. Plus now, we can be surfing the net while watching TV. Life is grand!

So anyway, for those of you who know our internet phone number, feel free to call at any time. We look forward to talking to everyone. Don't forget that we are currently 11 1/2 hours ahead of Illinois time...but don't worry, if you call and we are asleep there is no way we can hear the phone ring in the bedroom...sound doesn't carry well through concrete walls! If you don't have our phone number, just send me an e-mail, and I'll be more than happy to pass it on to you.

If you don't have time to call me...that's OK too...e-mail and blog comments are always welcome as well!

Hello, Hello, HELLO? Can you hear me now???

Back in Chennai

2007-12-30T15:49:00.000+05:30

S and I arrived back to our home in Chennai at 1:30am Sunday morning safe and sound. We were lucky to make it out of O'hare airport in Chicago on Friday as scheduled. Chicago was receiving snow and most flights were either cancelled or delayed. After the concerns about getting off on time were gone, our trip back home was pretty uneventful.

It is great to be back at our own house. Sleeping in my own bed again is like heaven! We had a great time in Illinois, but it was extremely busy. This was our third trip back to Illinois since moving overseas and by far it was the busiest of all of the trips. The weather was very uncooperative at times. My body was instantly thawed out as soon as I stepped out of the airport here in Chennai. It was about 75 degrees and very muggy when we got home. Our house stunk after being shut up for over 3 weeks. It is also extremely dirty!

Well, this is all I'm going to write for now as I'm sure that being tired and writing this is not the best combo. I'm not really thinking clearly enough to write a very productive blog. I'm trying to get my days and nights straight again. More later on our trip to Illinois and what's new in Chennai. Just wanted to let everyone know that we are back home.

Merry Christmas!

2007-12-22T07:11:00.000+05:30

OK, OK...I have taken enough grief from everyone about when another blog would be posted. Honestly, I thought I would have had a lot of time to blog while being in the U.S. The reality has been that this has by far been the busiest and most hectic trip back to the U.S. we have had since moving overseas. The weather hasn't been cooperating too well, which has messed up some of our plans for seeing some people while we are here. My apologies to these people...you know who you are. Unfortunately, I haven't figured out how to control mother nature!

Overall though, our trip to the U.S. has went well. We have been having a lot of fun seeing people, playing with our pets, eating, shopping...and soon to be opening some Christmas gifts! However, I am almost physically 100% exhausted (not to mention almost 100% frozen cold). It has been a long two and half weeks. I am almost ready to go back to India. A few more things to do in the next few days, but come the end of next week, and I'll be ready to get back on that plane to go back to my "home."

Anyway, I hope that all of my family and friends around the world have a very Merry Christmas! If you are traveling at all, be safe. S and I have already had our fair share of minor mishaps while traveling...more on this in a future post. Let's just say for now that not driving much ourselves over the past year plus combined with bad weather is not necessarily the best combination in the world for us. We are in one piece uninjured, but our car will need to go to the body shop when we leave the U.S.!

Well, I had hoped to make it to 100 posts for 2007, but since this is only the 96th one, and there are only about 10 days left in 2007, I'm not sure if I'll be making it or not. I haven't set a goal yet for 2008 on the number of blogs that I will write...maybe that will be part of my New Year's resolutions. It's not that I don't have anything to say...it's just making the time to sit down and write that is the challenge the most of the time.

So, Merry Christmas to everyone! Looking forward to a great 2008!

Yes! We are now in the U.S.!

2007-12-07T05:38:00.000+05:30

S and I safely arrived at my parents' house in Illinois on Wednesday afternoon. We had a somewhat interesting trip from Chennai.

We arrived at the Chennai airport on Tuesday night to a traffic jam. The international part of the airport is very small and fairly easy to navigate. Normally it only takes around 30 seconds from the time you turn off of the road until reach the front door. Well on Tuesday night, it took about 20 to 30 minutes. At first, our driver thought they were doing bomb checks, which made logically sense since there have been some bombings in the northern parts of India. Well come to find out, this wasn't the case. All traffic was being routed through the crowded parking lot since the main road right next to the terminal was full of people...all Muslims. What was going on with all of the people???

Well we finally figured out that some of the Muslims were going to Jeddah. Jeddah is in Saudi Arabia and is the gateway to Mecca, which is Islam's holiest city. Muslims are required to make the pilgrimage to Mecca at least once in their lifetime. So, the only logical conclusion we could draw from all of the people was that there was a group of Muslims from Chennai making this pilgrimage and that since this is such a big occasion in their lives that all of their families and friends turn out to see them off. This equates to a big mess at the airport for us!

Anyway, we had a good flight to Frankfurt, Germany. The second strange thing happened to us as we were getting off of the plane. There were about 5 policeman checking passports of all of the passengers. For those of you who have never traveled internationally, this is not the norm. Well when we got to them and they saw our U.S. passports, they just waved us by. Obviously they must have been looking for someone in particular. We didn't stick around to see what happened.

After that, we had to switch terminals to catch our connecting flight to Chicago. Well for some reason, this lady...who didn't speak one word of English and who we are pretty sure had never flown before...latched on to me as she was completely confused and lost to what to do. She was headed to Los Angeles, and we finally got her through security and to her gate. We are pretty sure she spoke Russian or something like that. I guess I just wanted to help her because if my parents were in the same situation, I would hope someone would help them out as well.

We were a little concerned that our flight from Frankfurt to Chicago would be delayed due to a snow storm in Chicago. However, we ended up leaving on time and actually arriving early to Chicago. Luckily my parents had been checking our flight status on the internet and saw that we were due to arrive early, so they had left early to come get us. We were welcomed to Chicago by cold weather and snow on the ground. Definitely a change from warm Chennai.

Overall, the trip from our house to my parents' house was long, but not near as bad as what I expected. Have the flight broken up into two equal segments of 9 hours each is definitely better than the direct 13 1/2 hour flight between Beijing and Chicago.

My brother greeted me at my parents' house by throwing a snowball at me in the house and saying "Welcome to Illinois." Don't worry...he has a payback coming.

We went and got our first rabies shot on Wednesday night. No foaming at the mouth, chasing cars, or drinking out of toilets...yet!

Jet lag has been much easier this trip than when we traveled between China and the U.S. Wednesday night, we went to bed at about 7:30. I woke up at 1:30 in the morning, but stayed in bed and managed to fall back to sleep from about 4 to 6. S woke up at about 2:30 and stayed up all day...this is actually not that different than what he normally does, so he was OK later in the day. Last night, we went to bed at about 9:15, and I woke up at a little after 4 this morning. I would have preferred another hour or two of sleep, but compared with waking up at 1 or 2 in the morning for numerous nights coming from Beijing, I'll take sleeping until 4. Plus getting up at 4, when S is still sleeping, has the advantage that I actually can use the internet. My parents' only have dial up internet. Luckily, they have two phone lines as S pretty much has the one line tied up the entire time we are here as he dials in to do work on his computer. I have to beg him to log off so I can use the internet. Since the other phone line is for my parents' business, we can't use it for the internet.

Yesterday, we stopped in to see my grandparents. Then we went to S's parents' house. It was S's mom's birthday, so we took her, his step-father, and his aunt out for lunch.

Today, I have to go get my hair done. I have this thing with not letting anyone in China or India touch my hair. I have heard of too many bad experiences...such as D who had like 12 people watch her get her hair cut in Sri Lanka and L who had a 4 hour hair cut in Chennai. No thank you...I'll just wait until I'm in the U.S.

After I'm done with that, S and I are planning to head out to start some shopping and then we have a Christmas party tonight. This weekend brings another Christmas party, a nephew's wrestling tournament, and another nephew's band concert...oh and of course, more shopping!

So, anyway, it feels good to be back in IL...even if it is the middle of winter here. We lucked out last year by not having any bad weather the entire time we were here. This year, we aren't going to be as lucky, but that's OK as I have missed the snow. The cold weather...now that's a different story...but I guess I can't have the snow without the cold weather. Plus I can survive for 3 weeks until I go back to sunny, warm Chennai!

It's T-Day!

2007-12-04T10:20:00.000+05:30

Yep, today is travel day...well actually most of the travel will occur on Wednesday, but since we will be leaving our house tonight, I have designated today as T-Day.

I think I'm pretty much ready to go. S and I packed the suitcases on Sunday. Yesterday, I worked on my mom's scrapbook all day. I had one page to finish this morning, and I got it done first thing. I wasn't too worried about getting the book finished as I could have finished it in Illinois at my friend's house if I had to. However, it does feel great to not have to worry about it now.

Today, I have been just picking up the house and doing some last minute things. This afternoon I'm going to go play Mahjong like I normally do every Tuesday afternoon. This will be a good way to kill some time waiting for it to be time to go to the airport.

We will be leaving the house at 10:30 tonight for the 30 hour trip to my parents' house. Hopefully, there won't be any bad weather in Chicago that will delay us coming in. After a long trip like this, the last thing anyone wants is to make the trip any longer than necessary. Unfortunately, this has happened to quite a few people, and it isn't fun. The first time S and I went to Beijing last summer, we were delayed 9 hours in Chicago, and this was after our 5 hour layover from the flight from Peoria...then to make matters worse, we find out after the fact that we could have been in the lounge the entire time because we were flying business class. We didn't know this since we had never flown business class before.

In other news, there will more than likely be a dejavu moment here later today. Remember our first food shipment didn't arrive until the night before our trip to Dubai. Well guess what? Our second food shipment is due to arrive today. It once again was delayed a couple of weeks and should have been here a long time ago. Anyway, I have a feeling it is going to show up about a couple of hours before we are set to walk out the door. This means that I need to be 100% ready to go so that if it does show up late, I can take care of it and not be stressing about finishing getting ready to leave as well.

A couple of people have asked if I will continue to write this blog while I am in the U.S. The answer to this question is yes, I'm planning on it if I have time. I don't think anything horribly exciting will be taking place while we are in Illinois, but I do have some old posts from things that we have done here in India that I haven't got around to writing yet.

So to all of my friends here in India, China, and wherever, I wish you safe travels if you are going somewhere for the holidays. If not traveling, enjoy a peaceful holiday season. For my friends and family in Illinois, I will see you guys really soon. Looking forward to spending the holidays in the U.S.

Happy Holidays!
Julie

Sod Harvest

2007-12-02T14:48:00.000+05:30

Right in front of our house is a sod farm. The last couple of weeks has been harvest time at the sod farm. I thought maybe everyone would like to see a couple of photos of the harvesting process.

These photos were taken off of the balcony of our house. There are about 8 to 10 ladies working to carry the pieces of sod to a truck out on the road. I had been asked what the women wear when they are doing "labor" type jobs. Well they wear the typical Indian sari, which is one long piece of fabric that is wrapped to look like a dress...there is a small blouse worn underneath of it.

The women carry the sod on the top of their heads to the truck waiting on the road. Women carrying things on their head is a very common sight here. They carry buckets of water, bricks, sticks, baskets of fruit, and pretty much anything heavy...I don't think I have seen a wheelbarrow since I moved here.

This is actually the second sod harvest that has taken place since we moved into our house on August 1. As soon as they are done with the rolling of the sod, they will then work the ground completely by hand, and then squat and plant the sod seed by hand. Then over the course of the next couple of months the sod is watered every day by hand...no sprinklers...and they weed the sod by hand...no pesticides sprayed to kill the weeds here. A few months from now, the sod will be ready for harvest again.

Germany Trip, Part 3

2007-12-01T15:15:00.000+05:30

Just a couple of more stories about our trip to Germany that I wanted to share.

The first one being about the freak shower head accident. Thanksgiving morning I was showering in our hotel bathroom. I had been in the shower for probably 10 minutes or so and was getting ready to get out. The shower head somehow fell and hit me between the shoulder blades. I don't know if it broke and fell and hit me...if it fell, hit me, and then broke...or if it fell, hit me, and then broke when it hit the bathtub. Anyway, the funny part of this being is that S hadn't showered yet. So, when he went to shower, he had only the hose to use...just imagine showering with a garden hose! Anyway, the hotel fixed it, but we went from a nice big shower head to a little bitty shower head. Over the course of the trip, everyone had this story changed all around...the favorite one being that I was swinging around the shower head like a monkey. Seriously though, I wasn't even near the thing when it fell. All I know is that it hit me and that it hurt!

The other story actually happened when we got back to India. We landed at about midnight here in Chennai. By the time we got through immigration, got our luggage, and got back to our house, it was 1:45 in the morning. However, we couldn't exactly make it to our house. Up around the corner from our house, there was a large truck blocking the road. I'm not sure if it was stuck or broke down. They told our driver that it would be moved in 10 minutes...which in India time could equate to maybe being moved in the next couple of hours. There was absolutely no way to get around it...brick walls on both sides and it is the only way to get to our house. So, we decided to walk.

Now let's just say that I don't like walking in India during the day...much less at night down a narrow dirt road without any street lights at 2 am. Our driver did walk with us, and luckily it was somewhat clear with the moon being pretty full...however, I hope to never have to repeat this experience again in my life! We made it safely to our house. Then I had to wait up for our driver to get through with the car so that we could get our luggage. Normally, I would have said forget the luggage until morning, but since S was leaving in a few hours to go back to the airport to fly out on a business trip, we needed the suitcases. It only took about 45 minutes for the truck to move, and I was finally in bed at around 3 am. I told S that I should have stayed up the rest of the night and slept during the day...then I would have been over jet lag before going to the U.S. However, I decided since I had a bunch of stuff to do during the day this week that this wouldn't be a good idea. So, jet lag awaits me in a few days.

Germany Trip, Part 2

2007-11-30T22:13:00.000+05:30

A couple of things I was looking forward to during our trip to Germany was a visit to a castle and shopping at the Christmas markets.

Well we were able to walk around one castle, but unfortunately it wasn't open on the day we were there. I guess I was expecting the castle to look like the ones in the fairy tales. Since, this was my first time to see a castle, I was little surprised to see castle ruins instead of a castle that a king and queen would have lived in. Nonetheless, the walk around the castle was nice and relaxing. No one around but us...if the castle would have been in China or India, there would no doubt have been a gazillion other people.

This a photo of the Konigstein Castle ruins. The thing that always amazes me about the old structures that I have now seen in China, India, Germany, etc. is that there is nothing this old in the U.S. Nothing that even comes close to matching the age of these places. There is a lot of history to a place like this.

On Friday, the traditional biggest shopping day of the year in the U.S., we went to a Christmas market in Koblenz. It was just a small market, and we didn't end up buying much. However, we did have a blast eating at all of the food stalls. Plus, the drive to Koblenz was very peaceful...part of the way we were driving through the beautiful countryside of Germany, and the rest of the time, we were on the interstate. If I didn't know better, we could have been anywhere in the U.S. Traffic in Germany is definitely along the same lines of traffic in Illinois. S and I decided not to rent a car while we were in Germany. Having not driven much in the previous year and coming from riding in India's traffic, we didn't feel that it would be safe for us to try to drive in unfamiliar territory. Nonetheless, under different circumstances, I would definitely have no problems driving myself around in Germany.

Another thing that amazed S and I were the stands at the Christmas market. You are probably looking at this photo saying to yourself...what's so special about it? Well, S and I are use to seeing every day permanent stands here in Chennai that look like the Big Bad Wolf could blow over with barely a huff. These temporary stands that are only put up for a month or so looked so nice and sturdy...not to mention the time and effort that went into decorating the outside of them.

We were about a week early for the big Christmas markets to be open. We went into Frankfurt on Saturday and walked around. There were a ton of little stands that were being prepared for the opening of the Christmas market this weekend. Don't know if you can see clearly in the above photo, but even with the Christmas markets not yet open, there were a ton of people out. I can only imagine what it is like this weekend with the opening of the markets. Keeping track of our group of 10 in this crowd was not always the easiest...especially since we looked like everyone else. At least when we are touring places in Asia, if we get separated from each other, we are much easier to spot being the minority "white" people.

I can't remember what exactly these building are...I want to say city offices but could be wrong about that...anyway, I just think they are very cool looking German architecture.

This is one of my favorite photos from our trip of our friends' son, Adam. He's almost 3 years old and couldn't quite figure out why the sign was on the ground. He even tried to put it back upright!

At the end of our walking tour of Frankfurt, it was time to stop for some frankfurters and beer at a German restaurant. Can't go to Germany and not have beer and frankfurters! Somehow with all of the bread, Thanksgiving dinner, bratwursts, frankfurters, and other food I ate during our trip, I managed not to gain any weight. Probably because my body needed the extra calories to keep my metabolism going so I wouldn't freeze to death! I just hope the same holds true for the 3 weeks I'm in Illinois. Normally I gain weight when we return to Illinois, but I'm hoping that my body will just burn up the extra calories to keep me warm. I guess I need to do a pre-Illinois weigh in this weekend, so I will know in a few weeks time whether or not this theory is true.

OK, I'll do one more post on our Germany trip in the next few days. You have to bare with my minimal postings the last few days. Since returning from Germany, I've pretty much been going non stop preparing for our trip next week to Illinois. Of course, I can't complain too much to S...he tells me I have it sssoooooooo rough since he has worked about 80 hours this week, and it's only Friday. Plus he has to work tomorrow. OK, I guess he wins!

Germany Trip, Part 1

2007-11-29T17:53:00.000+05:30

I absolutely LOVED Germany! We had a great time, and once again, we were wishing that we had a few more days to spend there. Of course, S's job intervened, and we had to come home so that he could leave again on a business trip. Next year, I'm definitely planning our vacations well in advance so that S can block the time off on his calendar in order for us to stay longer at these places.

We arrived in Frankfurt early on Wednesday morning after a very long overnight flight from Chennai. Leaving at 2 am from Chennai for a 9 plus hour flight is not my idea of a good time. In fact, we had so much fun doing this, that we have decided that we'll do the exact same thing next week when we fly from Chennai to Frankfurt to catch our flight to Chicago. Fun, fun.

Anyway, after arriving, we took a taxi ride to our hotel and arrived there at about 8:30am. It was a little weird that at this time it was just barely getting light outside. It was even more strange for us that it was completely dark by 4:30 in the afternoon. Here in Chennai the sun comes up around 6 am, and it doesn't get completely dark until 6pm. So, we checked into our hotel, showered, and rested before heading out to try to find our friends' house.

We ended up walking around the small town our friends live in quite a bit during the time we were there. Even though it was a little chilly and misty most of the time, it was great to be able to walk in a nice, clean environment without any trash, stray dogs, cows, men urinating, etc. In fact, one of my favorite quotes of the week came from S when he said something along the lines of "look, what a novice concept, dogs on leashes." Not having been in Europe before, I didn't realize that dogs are allowed pretty much anywhere. I was a little shocked when we walked into a bakery on the first day, and there was a dog in there.

Speaking of bakeries, it's probably a good thing I don't live in Germany because of all of the bakeries. About every 3rd store is a bakery, and boy did we eat a lot of bread while we were there. We had a pretty traditional Thanksgiving dinner with turkey, mashed potatoes, cranberries, green beans, and dressing. Unfortunately canned pumpkin wasn't to be found, so we actually ended up with no dessert on Thanksgiving. Hard times, I'm telling you! It was great being able to spend time with our friends from Beijing and their relatives. Everyone just made S and I feel like part of the family.

Living overseas and away from our blood relatives, we miss out on a lot of holidays. However, some of the people we have met in Beijing and now here in Chennai have become not only very dear friends but also like family members to S and I. This was the second year now that we have spent Thanksgiving with this couple. We are already joking about where we are going to meet for Thanksgiving next year!

Anyway, more on our Germany trip in the next post...

EXTRA, EXTRA! READ ALL ABOUT IT...

2007-11-27T22:41:00.000+05:30

CRITTER APPREHENDED!

Last week before leaving for Germany, I finally had our driver take me to buy a couple of rat boxes. He had been telling us about these boxes, but I thought that I could catch the "mouse" using my mouse trap or sticky traps. Well after having the thing make me mad last week...read previous posts if you haven't already done so...I decided it was finally time to get the rat box.

Anyway, I am now the proud owner of two of these wonderful looking boxes. Only 30 rupees a piece (less than a $1 each). Quite the deal! OK, didn't really matter what they looked like to me as long as they worked. So, our driver says that we have to bait with coconut. Huh? Whatever...once again as long as it works. Anyway, he baits the traps with a piece of coconut and dried fish...let's just say our house has a wonderful smell to it now! Anyway, the concept of the box is that the rat goes in and when it eats the bait off of the hook that the lid will spring shut. I'm not thinking this contraption is going to work...after all since I'm convinced we have a little mouse, I'm thinking the mouse can then escape through the metal bars on the top and the back of the trap.

So, the traps are set, and we go to Germany (by the way, I promise to have a post about our trip soon). We come back to find that all of the coconut and fish gone, but the traps haven't been tripped. Ugh! At this point, I'm pretty much ready to give up and put a bowl of food out for the critter and just adopt it as my pet. Actually, I was thinking more along the lines of getting the poison that someone offered me and going that route. Anyway, today our driver asks about the rat box. When I tell him all of the bait is gone, but no rat...he calls it "brilliant." Quite a big word for our driver to be saying. But yes, I have to agree the thing has now avoided 3 different types of traps and probably has an IQ level that could be considered brilliant.

Well our driver insists on baiting and setting the traps again. Fine, whatever...if it makes him happy...I really don't care any more. I have more important things to worry about...like going to the U.S. next week. So, tonight I am talking on the phone all night when I finally decide time to fold some laundry and go to bed.

I walk back to the laundry room and see the lid to the box closed. Not really worried...since I'm pretty sure the thing is a mouse and could have tripped the trap and climbed out. Since S is still gone, I decide I have no choice but to look in the box to see if anything is in there. The problem being is that the box is sort of under an open counter, and there is no way for me to see in it without moving it. Now keep in mind, I am not a person who freaks out at the sight of a mouse or rat...just really prefer to see them when they are dead. So, I put on big snow/ski gloves and get the baseball bat and squat down to shove the box around so I can see in the back side (I'm pretty sure that I was quite the sight, but hey whatever works). I turn it, and sure enough nothing. Well, being that it is sort of dark, I decide that I had better get the flashlight to look in the box before I go moving the box anymore. Well with the flashlight, sure enough, there is a critter in the box...and in my opinion, it is definitely a rat! OK, I am now breathing deeply. I go outside to get our security guards, and after saying rat about 10 times and pointing to the house, they finally figure out what is going on (keep in mind that our security guards speak pretty much no English and that our driver does the translation for us and he has gone home for the day). Maybe next time I should jump up and down and scream, and they would get the picture quicker.

Anyway, the rat has now been disposed of. When our security guard brought the box back in (after all I'm pretty sure we only had one critter, but just in case, the trap has been reset), he said that the rat was big. Well, heck yeah, the thing has only been eating apples, cat food, coconut, and dried fish. If I were on Survivor, I would probably have roasted it to eat!

So, the critter has been caught. In the haste to get it out, I didn't get a photo of it. S probably won't believe me that we caught it since he wasn't here. Plus, I figure that no one reading this blog wants to see a photo of a rat. You'll just have to trust me on this one!

So, the latest count...

snakes, 5
rats, 1
geckos, countless

Boy, isn't life in India fun???!!!

In Station

2007-11-26T09:38:00.001+05:30

S and I are back "in station." That's what they say here if you are in town...out of town, you are "out of station." Anyway, we arrived back in Chennai and to our house very late last night from our trip to Germany. S had to turn right around and leave for a business trip today...so back to the airport for him...I guess that means he is "out of station" again. I on the other hand am on my way back to bed...where I hope to be "stationary" for a few hours. So, more later...

Critter Update Part 2

2007-11-19T18:25:00.000+05:30

This is an update to my blog post from earlier today. So, if you haven't read the earlier post, you might want to read that one first.

So, I am back in the office working away. I have an empty cup that needs to go into the dishwasher. It is now dark in the house, so as I walk into the kitchen and flip on the light into the wet kitchen/laundry area, I swear I see something move on the floor by the dryer. Am I seeing things? Is this "critter" getting the best of me? So, I decide to leave a couple of sticky traps with crackers on them, plus I set my one mouse trap from the U.S. with a cracker (for some reason I don't use the traditional peanut butter...once again not thinking). I turn off all of the lights and go back into the office, which by the way is clear on the other side of the house. Not 5 minutes goes by, and I hear the mouse trap trip. Critter finally caught!

Couldn't be so lucky. The darn little thing got the cracker and tripped the trap but got away. So, now the thing has successfully got off of a sticky trap and avoided a traditional mouse trap. I swear I have a critter with super powers. SUPER CRITTER! Anyway, now the mouse trap is set with peanut butter. This is an all out battle. Full fledged war. Julie vs. Critter. So far, Julie-0, critter-2.

P.S. By the way, there is more styrofoam coming out of the A/C unit. So, now I don't know if I have a critter living there and one living in the guest bedroom, or if it is one in the same critter. The plot thickens...

Critter Update

2007-11-19T10:53:00.000+05:30

I am finishing up the packing for our trip to Germany today. Being that the temperatures in Germany will be in the 30s and 40s and the temperatures here in Chennai still get well into the 80s every day, winter clothing is a must. Besides sweaters and jeans, we will definitely need coats, hats, gloves, etc. We'll be walking around outside quite a bit as I plan to walk from the hotel to our friends' house at least one way every day. According to the map I pull up on the internet, it will be about a 1.5 mile walk. Why walk in the cold? Well we decided it would not be the best idea in the world to rent a car while we are there. Being that we haven't really drove ourselves much in the last year, and being that we ride around in the India traffic, we didn't feel that it would be safe for us to try to navigate ourselves around unfamiliar territory in a foreign country. Plus, I am really missing walking...we walked everywhere in Beijing. At the time, I thought walking in Beijing was somewhat hazardous, but in hindsight and compared with walking here in Chennai, Beijing was quite a nice place to walk around. So, anyway, I figure we can just bundle up in Germany and get some exercise in every day...probably will need it after what promises to be a good Thanksgiving feast.

Anyway, this brings me up to the critter update...I needed to dig out our winter coats, etc. Being that our house doesn't have a lot of storage in it, when I was unpacking, I just put all of our winter gear into a cardboard box and shoved it in the corner in our spare bedroom...not like we were going to need it any time soon here in Chennai. On top of this box was another box with our winter boots in it and a basket with clothes that need to be donated to charity. So, I move the basket and smaller box to get to the big box full of coats. I open the box and right away know that our critter (right now I'm still thinking that we have a single critter and not multiple critters) has been living in this box...let's us say there are bathroom remnants every where in the box.

So, I'll be the first to admit that at times I don't really think about things before I do them. No, I didn't go digging through the box...back to that in a minute. Nope, I was storing 4 bags of cat food right next to this box. When we moved here, we had thought we would get a kitten (now, we probably won't, but that's a whole other long story), so I had my mom put some cat food into our food shipment. Now, what was I thinking just leaving the cat food sitting out??? This is India...you just don't do stuff like that! So, sure enough, on the side of one of the bags is a dime sized hole. Let's just say that by the number of droppings in this box, cat food must be full of fiber!

What to do? What to do? I really needed to get the hats and gloves out of this box (and now I have to wash them). Now, I'm not scared of mice at all. However, I didn't really want to go digging through the box by myself, because I really didn't want to have it come flying out at me and end up who knows where in the house. I have doubts of whether or not I would be able to trap and kill the thing myself. Plus, what if it is the bigger version of a mouse? Don't even want to really think about this, but who knows? So, time to call in Krishnan, our driver.

We definitely don't ever have any excitement around our house. We are very boring people. No kids. No pets. Don't entertain very often. Nothing exciting ever really happens around here...with the exception of the occasional snake in the yard, our guards must be bored out of their minds most days.

So I get Krishnan to tell him what the situation is. He comes running with the head security guard...you would have thought there was a fire as quickly as they came running! They carry the box out of the house, down the driveway, and outside the gates to the dirt road next to our property. By this time, the other two security guards plus the gardener have arrived from their various posts around the house. Excitement, excitement!

What did we find in the box? Nothing but a bunch of droppings. They pulled all of the coats, hats, and gloves out, and no critter was found. Major let down! However, the stinking little varmint has chewed a hole in the sleeve of my good long black dress coat plus numerous holes in hats and gloves. Ughh! It must now die!

So, now my sticky traps are set up in a different room. I'm more than determined now to catch this beast! I will win! It has been a long battle, but in the end, I will be victorious! Plus, if I don't catch the critter soon, we are going to have big problems with another food shipment set to arrive any day now. Not so concerned about my food, but once again we are storing food for a family moving here in January. I'm afraid if the thing isn't caught before we leave for the U.S. in two weeks, we will find a major mess when we return.

I'm off to wash the winter clothes and to bait my sticky traps...this time with cat food! Plus, I guess I need to find a container to house the 3 bags of uneaten cat food. Oh well, they are probably full of bugs by now anyways.

Happy Birthday Bud!

2007-11-18T13:32:00.000+05:30

Happy Birthday to you,
Happy Birthday to you,
Happy Birthday dear Bud,
Happy Birthday to you!

So, I was going to call and wish my brother a happy birthday when it was 12:01 am in the U.S. on his birthday, but then I figured I didn't want to make him mad at me since Christmas is coming up pretty quickly. Instead, he just gets a public birthday greeting!

It has been a pretty low key weekend here. I dug out our winter clothes yesterday in preparation for our trip to Germany this week. I am so excited that I'm going to be able to wear something other than summer clothes. Right now, I'm hating all of my shorts, capris, T-shirts, and short sleeved shirts. Of course, it was bound to happen when I have been wearing them all for 6 months. Clothes shopping here in Chennai really isn't great if you are looking for good quality, reasonably priced, Western style clothing...so I've been wearing the same things over and over and over again for months now. I'm ready for some jeans and sweaters weather!

So, besides taking this opportunity to wish my brother a happy birthday, I'll also say Happy Thanksgiving to everyone! As I finish up some last minute packing and shopping this week, I'm not sure if I'll get around to writing any more posts. Therefore, if traveling this week, please be careful. My mom was concerned that we are flying on the busiest week/weekend of holiday travel...then I reminded her that Thanksgiving is only an American holiday and that traveling from India to Germany should be like traveling between these two countries on any other day. Also, eat until your hearts content (or your pants won't fit) on turkey, potatoes, dressing, green bean casserole, cranberries, pumpkin pie, and whatever else you can stuff in. I know S and I are looking forward to eating good in Germany (and probably drinking good as well). We'll be thinking about all of our family and friends back in the U.S. (and all over the world for that matter)...just a few more days until we'll see a lot of you in Illinois!

When Nature Calls...

2007-11-16T14:15:00.000+05:30

Yes, this post is about going to the bathroom. Why? Well, I have had a request for more photos of the inside of our house. So, you are getting photos of our bathrooms. Plus, this is proof for my former co-workers at ISU that Western style toilets do exist in India, and that I don't go in a hole in the ground! The main reason though is that unfortunately what I am about to write about going to the bathroom is what I deal with on a daily basis living in India. Since this blog is about my life in India, there are certain times when unfortunately the topic isn't going to be the most pleasant to discuss.

If you don't want to be grossed out, you may want to skip reading the next few paragraphs. Just skip ahead until you see photos. While living in Beijing, we would occasionally see men urinating along side the roads. Not very often...and when we did it was normally taxi drivers parked under the overpasses that were going. However, in the 9 months that I lived in China, I did on two different occasions see people going "number two." Yes, gross. Now here in India, seeing men urinating along side the roads is a way of life. It is not an occasional thing. Every time I leave my house, it is guaranteed that I will see this happening. Normally, I see this numerous times while I'm out. While I haven't actually ever counted how many men urinating I see in one day, I'm guessing the average is at least 5 to 10 per day. Haven't seen any of the other yet, but I'm sure it's only a matter of time. Anyway, men urinating in the streets...not a shock to me anymore...just the way of life here in India.

As far as public bathrooms go...in China, we based restaurants, shopping malls, etc on whether or not they had a Western style toilet. Most of the time we could find one...normally it would be the handicap toilet. However, I did use the squatters on many occasions. I figured when you have to go, you have to go. The thing that got me was the brand new, very nice shopping malls that had gross bathrooms. The really sad thing about this is that often times these bathrooms had full time attendants. Now, here in India, the public bathroom situation is not near as good as China. For one, there aren't near as many. I guess probably because there aren't the big buildings like Beijing had. Most of the stores are individual...and probably if I really went looking down alleys and back streets, I probably could find bathrooms. I'll pass though. Here in India, when you have to go, you hold it! Honestly, if I know I'm going to be out all day long, I plan my day to make sure that I stop at places where there is a decent bathroom...normally the big hotels. Besides at the airport, I haven't had to use a squatter here. Oh, I know they exist...just goes back to the fact that I'm not going to go unless I'm at home or in a hotel.

Also, I should probably mention for those of you who don't know, that the left hand in India is the one used for bathroom functions. Therefore, when dining or eating Indian food, one should only use their right hand to eat...no utensils are used.

So, what about the bathrooms in our house? We have 4 bathrooms...all with Western toilets. Being that there is only the two of us, we really only end up using two of the bathrooms...saves me from having to clean all of them all of the time.

This is a photo of the bathroom off of our master bedroom. S calls it the prison bathroom.

These photos are of the bathroom off of our office. It is actually the nicest bathroom and the one we use to shower. It's kind of hard to take decent photos of such a small area, but I'll try to explain what you are looking at. Right past the toilet, there is a drop (hard to tell in the photo because the tile is the same). This is so the water doesn't run all over the bathroom from the shower. Adjustable shower rods don't exist in India, so we don't have a shower curtain. At first this bothered me, but now we are just use to it. I actually have really grown to like this concept, and if ever we build a house, I would live to have this design in one of our bathrooms. The bathroom is L-shaped. So around the corner from the toilet (see second photo) is the sky light area. This is the area that was originally completely open to the outside before we made the landlord put plexi-glass over the opening, or we wouldn't take the house. I guess when it rained the water would have just run down the walls to the rocks (there is a drain in the rocks). You can see the framing that divides the rocks from the shower to once again keep the water in the shower area.

So, there you have it. A post on bathrooms. I'll try to come up with something a little bit better for my next post.

The Verdict Is In...

2007-11-15T14:57:00.000+05:30

So, the A/C people decided to show up today. They do think that a rat was living in our A/C unit. However, they don't think it has been in there recently. They went outside to look and told me that there are no holes for the rat to get in...that everything has been sealed off. So, they think it was in there and chewed up the styrofoam before the sealing. What is coming out of the A/C is just the remnants of the rat chewing the styrofoam before the sealing.

So, do I believe their verdict? NO! Their theory doesn't explain why the styrofoam only came falling out at night (when the A/C was turned off). It doesn't explain why the styrofoam only comes out every now and then. However, instead of arguing with them, it's just much easier to agree with what they say. They cleaned out all of the lose styrofoam that was still in the A/C unit. The guy also took a photo of the chewed up styrofoam. So, now if any more falls out, we will know for sure that something has been back in there.

If their theory is correct, then this means that the apple eater came in the house some other way. I don't see where this could have occurred since our house is actually pretty secure. I guess it's possible, but I tend to like to believe my A/C theory more. I don't believe that the critter has been in the house recently. I still think it comes in through this A/C unit every now and then. Also, I don't think it is a rat, but just a mouse. I think a rat would have gone through our trash. So, we shall wait and see what happens. Heck, I may even put some apples back out in the bowl!

Cold Spell

2007-11-15T07:18:00.000+05:30

Chennai is having a cold spell. It's about 7:15 in the morning, and it's 69.7 degrees outside. Brrr.... I may have to wear a sweatshirt today! Definitely the coldest it has been since we moved here 5 months ago.

Killing Spiders

2007-11-14T07:52:00.000+05:30

On average I kill one to two spiders a day in my house. I have no clue what kind of spiders they are. I find them all over the house...on the walls, on the floors, on the bathroom sink, on the side of the kitchen cabinets, etc. There is no pattern as to where I will find a spider on any given day. They are small...probably about size of a dime or slightly smaller. However, they are quick. The most effective method in killing them...whacking them with a magazine. For some reason, the bug spray I have doesn't seem to work well on them. So, I find the squishing and smashing method to work much better.

So, here are my thoughts as I killed my daily spider this morning (this one was on the floor at the base of our staircase). If I kill one to two spiders a day, and we are going to be gone to the U.S. for 20 plus days, does that mean we will come back to around 20 to 40 spiders all over the house???

Just my thoughts...

Another McDonald's Story

2007-11-14T06:29:00.000+05:30

I have previously posted about how in different countries the menus at the McDonald's are slightly different. You can always get your basic cheeseburger, Big Mac, or french fries that pretty much taste the same no matter where you are in the world. However, I have mentioned how I have now had green curd, pineapple/taro, date, and banana pies and a green bean curd sundae at the various McDonald's around Asia. None of which you would get at a McDonald's in the U.S.

Well, here's another new one. You won't find this at any U.S. McDonald's. Fireworks with your meal! Another blog I read is written by a woman who has been living here in Chennai for quite awhile. She travels quite a bit around India, Asia, Africa, etc. Her latest travels took her to Hyderabad, India. While there recently, she got a free box of firecrackers with her meal purchase. Seriously! To read her blog, India Ink, just click on the blue words. She even has a photo of her meal and "prize." Only in India....

Happy Belated Diwali

2007-11-12T16:15:00.000+05:30

Thursday was Diwali. What is Diwali (also known as Deepawali)? Basically, it boils down to being the India version of Christmas (plus throwing in some July 4th activities). It is by far the largest festival celebrated by India and is known as the Festival of Lights. Traditionally, it is a Hindu religious holiday, but like Christmas is to most Americans, it is celebrated by most Indians regardless of their religion.

I was really looking forward to this holiday here in India. I really enjoyed celebrating Chinese New Year when we lived in Beijing. Even though S was off of work on Thursday and Friday, and we could have went away for the weekend, we chose to stay in Chennai. We were invited to our friends' home for a cookout and to light "crackers." The first few times I heard the word cracker here, I thought they were referring to something you eat. Nope, cracker is a term used here for fireworks. Almost overnight, cracker stands popped up on every block selling fireworks of every shape and size to people. Like China, local people here in India love to light off fireworks.

Anyway, unfortunately, we were not able to go to our friends' house as S forgot it was Diwali and scheduled a very important conference call. The call was set at a time that if we went to the cookout we would have been there for a short time before coming back home. By the time the call was over with, it wasn't worth going. I was really mad at S for ruining the holiday for us. Then, I found out that a local Indian had to go to the office to call in for the call. Let's just say S got an earful from me about not being sensitive enough to the local customs here. How would he like it if he has to go to the office on Christmas Day for a call? (OK, bad example as S probably wouldn't care.)

So, what did we do to celebrate Diwali at our house? Not much. Watched TV. Oh, and handed out money left and right. It is customary (and pretty much expected) to give all staff money for Diwali. For us, this meant giving money to our 6 security guards and to our driver. Even though we don't pay for these people ourselves, we were still expected to give money. I was actually OK with this as these 7 people work very hard for us and only earn about $100 per month. What I didn't particularly care for was that we were also expected to give money to the gardener, the garbage collector, and the electrical people (the ones who come to fix our electricity when it has been off for a long time...happens about once per week that they have to come out and at that time we also have to give them a tip). Does anyone in the U.S. give money to their garbagemen or electrical people at Christmas?

We were able to see a few fireworks from our house. Not many though. I was honestly expecting more, but I think we live to far away from the city that we weren't able to see the majority of them.

Anyway, I am making a commitment that next year, I will be harping on S from day to night for a month before Diwali to not schedule any meetings or calls. I really feel it is important to participate and learn about the culture we are living in. We don't have to totally embrace and agree with everything here, but at least if we try to learn just a little bit, it will help us to understand a little more the way of life here. In the meantime, there are some more major festivals and holidays coming up here in January. Maybe these I will be able to celebrate a little more.

Slithering Snake

2007-11-11T08:33:00.000+05:30

Friday afternoon, our doorbell rings. It's our driver telling me that just now the security guards have caught a snake by the guard house. He said it was a green snake. Would I like to see it? Well, of course, I want to see it. S wanted no part in viewing it.

On the left is Ramu, one of our head security guards, and on the right is Moorthy, who obviously had no problem holding onto the snake. By the way, at the time of these photos, the snake is still alive.

While the snake isn't very big in diameter, it probably was about 4 feet long. It doesn't look very big, mean, and vicious in this photo. But hey, a snake is a snake as far as I'm concerned. They told me that this snake was "no poison." Also, I was told how they were going to kill the snake, but I won't share those details in case I have any snake lovers reading my blog.

Well after seeing the snake, I had to run inside and get out my reptile and amphibian reference book to see if I could figure out what type of snake we had. It was actually pretty easy to identify as there aren't that many long slim green colored snakes that live in India. It was a long-nosed whipsnake. My book says that whipsnakes found in Asia have the best vision of any snakes. The main reason for this is because they eat lizards and thus have to be able to see them camouflaged in vegetation. Great...now that we have one less whipsnake around our property we'll probably gain a million more geckos! Can't win for trying here! The other thing my reference book tells me about this type of snake is that it is mildly venomous (even though our driver and guards told me it wasn't). Further research tells me that a bite from this snake will just cause swelling for a few days, but not death. Trust me, I'm not going to volunteer to see whether or not this is true.

So, this slithering snake was number 4 for us. Four down...who knows how many more to come?

O' Christmas Tree, O' Christmas Tree

2007-11-10T19:32:00.000+05:30

Yep, that's right. We put up our Christmas tree and decorations today. It was now or never. We have less than a month in India before heading to Illinois for most of December. Next weekend, we will be packing for our trip to Germany over Thanksgiving. The following weekend, we will be in Germany. The weekend after that, we will be packing for the trip to IL. Then we are in Illinois. So, we either put the tree up this weekend, or it wouldn't go up at all.

This was the first year that we have ever had a 360 degree tree. Normally we have to shove it in a corner somewhere. Not in this house. It went right in center square. We were able to put lights and ornaments all the way around it. Of course, no electrical plugs in center square, so we had to run a 15 foot drop cord across the floor. But hey, we can live with that.

Was it weird putting up our Christmas stuff on November10...before Veteran's Day and before Thanksgiving? A little bit. It felt even weirder putting the stuff up when the outside temperature was 85 degrees here today (in the shade). We were wearing shorts and T-shirts. Now, I realize that parts of the U.S. (and other place that celebrate Christmas) are warm in December...but not where I'm from. Illinois is cold at Christmas! Last year, being my first out of Illinois for Christmas, Beijing was just as cold. Not Chennai, India, though! It's still hot here!

Just a few more days until I can freeze my behind off in Germany. The current daily highs in Frankfurt...mid to high 30s. The current daily highs in Chennai...mid to high 80s. I think I need to be finding where I stuck all of my sweaters and sweatshirts. Brrr....

Time Change

2007-11-10T16:42:00.000+05:30

OK, I am only a week behind with this post, but better late than never. India does not change time. Yes, we are sticking on the weird 1/2 hour thing. Why? I don't know. This is India...don't ask questions.

Anyway, now we are 11 1/2 hours ahead of Illinois time. I have finally figured out how to update my clocks on the right hand side of this blog. It should all be accurate now.

I hope everyone has adjusted to the time change without major problems. You think one hour is bad...I'd take it over the 11 1/2 hour change I have coming in a few weeks when we travel back to the U.S. Talk about messing a body up. I can hardly wait (sarcasm)!

Ant Fact

2007-11-09T13:29:00.000+05:30

Here is a little known fact about ants. They can survive a 50 minute wash cycle in the washing machine. Unless you want to try this out yourself, you'll just have to believe me on this one.

Just store this totally useless bit of trivia in the back of your head...you never know when it may come up in a game of Trivia Pursuit or maybe you'll be on Jeopardy some day. Maybe I should start my own TV show...Julie's India Believe It or Not.

So I Waited...

2007-11-07T19:19:00.000+05:30

...all day on pins and needles for the people to show up to service our A/C units. Couldn't hardly wait to see what is in our one unit that I believe our apple critter resides in. So, what was found? What is the mystery creature? Is it a gecko, a mouse, a rat, a chipmunk, a mongoose...what is it?

Well the suspense continues, because the people never showed up. Suppose to be here at 11 am...of course being India, I figured if they were here by 2pm, I would be lucky. But, no...never showed up at all.

Oh well, so goes life in India. Just another day.

It's Going to be One of Those Days...

2007-11-07T06:54:00.000+05:30

I can just feel it!

Not even 7 am yet, and I have already had the pudding scared out of me by a gecko. Went to put my cereal bowl in the sink, and the stupid thing was on my counter. Since our counters are black and this gecko was dark brown, I didn't see it until I almost set my cereal bowl on it and it moved. Luckily, I didn't drop my Longaberger bowl. That would not have been good! Then I spent 10 minutes chasing it around my counters before I finally got it out the window. I'm sure the security guards (who can see everything in the kitchen because we don't have any curtains in this room) think I have lost it as I was dancing around the kitchen chasing the thing in my PJs. Now, I need to disinfect all of my counters to get rid of the gecko germs. Gross!

Next up, they are coming to service our A/Cs. I can't wait to see what they find when they open the unit that I believe our apple critter has been living in for two months. Maybe we'll get a clue about what it is. Hee, hee...this should be fun. I'll have my camera handy in case something interesting comes flying out when they open the A/C. Knowing our luck, nothing will be found!

Stay tuned...

Our Car & Driver

2007-11-06T18:33:00.000+05:30

Never say never. I said that I would never have a mini van. I don't like them, and I'm sorry but I don't want to look like a soccer mom. Now for people with kids, I'm sure a mini van is the best thing since sliced bread.

Well, we moved to Beijing last year and what do we end up with? A mini van! Since our company was paying for our car and the driver to take us around, we only had a couple of options and couldn't be picky. We had the option between a car or a mini van. Now most of you are thinking for just S and I that a car would have been fine. Nope! You forget that we had a driver, so there was always an extra person in the vehicle. That didn't leave room for many other people. Therefore, we took the mini van, and more than once, we had it completely full of people or suitcases. I ended up being able to tolerate the mini van...plus it probably helped that it was a Buick, and I have owned a whole lot of Buick cars.

I grew up with a father who would only own Chevrolet and GM cars and trucks. Ford was a four letter word in our house. Ford stood for Fix Or Repair Daily and Found On Road Dead. I said that I would never have a Ford. So, guess what? We move to India and end up with a Ford!

Up until today, we have had a Toyota SUV. While it was new, I haven't liked it from the start. It wasn't comfortable to ride in...and with India traffic, you really want to be comfortable in your vehicle. Also, it didn't have automatic locks, which is a must have here for a number of reasons. After our driver left my bag unattended in our car with the doors unlocked...and my bag contained my laptop computer...I about had a cow. Well, low and behold, a couple of weeks later, our Toyota had automatic locks installed.

Anyway, I asked S what other options we had for vehicles besides the Toyota. I knew I wanted an SUV if at all possible. Riding in a car here almost makes me car sick. I don't feel well at all when I get out. Plus, with monsoon season bringing flooding roads plus living on a dirt road, I felt that a SUV would be a better option for us. Well, S came home and told me that the only other option besides the Toyota SUV would be a Ford SUV. I had actually been in my friend's Ford and had found it to be much nicer than the Toyota. Automatic locks, cup holders, back seat A/C controls. Since I didn't have a option to get a Chevy (still don't know why as I have seen Chevy SUVs here), I decided the Ford would be the way to go.

Well, S brought me home the brochure to pick out what color we wanted (big deal for me because in Beijing we only had two color choices...silver or dark blue). So, we decided that we wanted our Ford to be mystic wine colored (in other words, purple). This all occurred back in July, and our Ford was to take a few weeks to reach us. Well it is now November 6, and we are finally getting it today. I guess the big problem was that the new Ford model hadn't been approved yet, and there weren't any old models left. Typically India.

So, this is a photo of our driver, Krishnan, with our new Ford Endeavor. He was like a kid in a candy shop today. All excited. Showing off the new car to all of the security guards. Plus, I'm sure all of the other drivers know that we got a new Ford. I had to go out today, and I could tell he was all nervous driving it. We went slow, and on more than one occasion, I saw him flinch when a motorbike got too close to us. Of course, this is India...it's only a matter of time before it gets scraped and scratched up (a topic for a whole other future blog post).

So, what's it like having a driver? Well, they pretty much become like a family member. In fact, I think I have liked our drivers better than I like some of our family members (won't mention any names here). When our first driver in Beijing had a serious heart attack, S and I were devastated. He ended up being OK, but then we had to hire another driver, who we ended up liking as well. As far as Krishnan goes, he is a good driver...but more important here, he speaks good English...not necessarily an easy thing to find with drivers here. He seems to be pretty happy driving for us. He is even looking to move closer to us, so he doesn't have such a long commute to work every day. To me that says something, given that he only makes around $100 per month (plus whatever extra S and I give him) and has a wife and 2 young sons to support. I think by driving for us he knows that he will be making this amount every month...before us, he would only do airport runs and temporary assignments...not guaranteed to have someone to drive for every day, which means he wouldn't get paid or earn any tips if he didn't work.

So, anyway, we have a Ford. Fix Or Repair Daily. Actually, Ford should become India's national motto...there is always something broke here every day (another future blog post), Fix Or Repair Daily just seems to fit...as does having a Ford SUV.

Mail Update

2007-11-05T15:20:00.000+05:30

We have received mail! Yippee!

We received a card from S's mother and a card from S's aunt today. I didn't know either of these were coming. The letters that I know are coming still haven't arrived. The thing is is that these two letters are postmarked October 27 in the U.S. This means, it only took them 10 days to reach us. Not to bad. I think the only way we received them so quickly is that I had sent my driver to the post office to mail some letters for me, and he knows that I have been waiting on mail. So, he intercepted these before the "15- 20" day period that it would have taken to deliver them directly to our house. I think the other letters that I know should be coming must have already left the local post office, and thus who knows where they are and if and when they will ever show up at our house???

Gosh, and people complain about the U.S. postal system. It works pretty efficiently compared to the "system" used here.

So, Beth & Carrie...still waiting on the postcards. Patiently waiting. Very patient. Remaining calm. They will show up. Breath deeply. Breath slowly. Be patient...OK, enough of that. If they don't show up soon, I may go postal!

Rabies

2007-11-04T12:57:00.000+05:30

Most Americans only know about rabies because they have to get their dogs and cats rabies shots every year. In the U.S., rabies shots are required for dogs plus you have to register that your dog has received this shot (or at least in Illinois you have to).

After we moved to China last year, I was at a couple of different presentations where doctors were speaking. These doctors were strongly encouraging and recommending that people living in China also be vaccinated against rabies. I didn't even know that this was possible. The only thing I remember ever hearing about people getting rabies shots were after they were bitten by an animal, and it was unclear whether the animal had received it's annual rabies shots. I think the thing I always heard was that then the person would have to receive shots into their stomach after the bite.

In China, the government has implemented not only the one child per couple policy, but it has also implemented the one dog per household policy. The point of this is that if only one dog was owned then the owners would be able to afford the rabies shot for the dog.

Now, I lived in Beijing for 9 months. During this time, I don't ever recall seeing a stray dog. There would occasionally be a dog off of a leash. I am sure that in more rural areas of China there are plenty of stray dogs. The report I could easily find on the internet reported that there were over 2500 cases of human rabies in China in 2004. Anyway, I started having the thought that maybe S and I should get the human rabies vaccine. Some of our friends did the series of 3 shots in Beijing. I decided to see if we could get it back in the U.S. I checked when we were there in May and found out that the easiest place to get the set of shots is through the local public health department.

Well, now I am living in India. There are stray dogs everywhere here. Hundreds, thousands of them in Chennai alone. The few times that S and I have went out walking to the beach, we probably have encountered around 20 to 30 stray dogs each time. The dogs pretty much stay away from us. Nevertheless, I have already determined that we were going to get the rabies shots when we were in Illinois in December. The shots are very expensive. Even through the public health department, which only charges $10 to administer each shot, the shots are around $175 each. Multiply this times six (3 for me, 3 for S), and the cost is over $1000. I need to check with our insurance company to see if we can get this covered. Either way, we are going through with the shots. We will be in the U.S. just enough days to be able to receive all three shots.

Now after receiving these shots, we are not totally protected from rabies if a dog bites us. We would still have to go receive medical treatment of two additional shots. However, without these pre-exposure shots, if we were to be bit, we would have to receive 5 shots. I think after living here in India for almost 5 months now, I will feel a little better having had the pre-exposure shots.

Yesterday, our company had a panel of doctors from the big hospitals and clinics here in Chennai talk to us ISEs. I honestly thought the entire morning felt like I was sitting through health class again. Most of the topics covered were about things that we already know about (plus a lot of the details and facts about health they provided were not the same as what we have been taught in the U.S.). I wish they would have covered topics more relevant to us being foreigners in this country. Anyway, I had hoped the topic of rabies would be brought up. It was. They told us if we were bitten to wash the bite area with soap and water and to seek medical treatment to receive the 5 shots. I asked about pre-exposure shots for humans. The answer I received was that they only recommend these shots for veterinarians and zookeepers. The general public is not at a high risk of rabies exposure like these people are. Hello? Have you been outside? Have you seen the stray dogs everywhere?

So, this morning, I decide to do a little more research into whether or not we should receive the rabies vaccination. I visit the Center for Disease Control website. Sure enough, we fall into the category of "infrequent" risk category. Basically what this means is that we are at a greater risk than the general population for being exposed to rabies. The general population falls into the "rare" risk category. Because we are spending a lot of time in India, we are bumped up to the "infrequent" category (this is in my opinion on the way I read the information). For this category we fall into, it is recommended that we receive pre-exposure immunizations for rabies. Please note that small children in India are at an even higher risk of being exposed to rabies, because they often times will go up to dogs unknowingly, be bitten, and not report the bite to their parents.

Anyway, I decide to also do a little research on just how many human rabies cases are in India every year. From the few different websites I checked out, I gather that there are between 20,000 to 30,000 cases of human rabies every year in India. This actually may be a low number because I guess India does not require that cases be reported. Another website I read estimated that 1 person in India dies every 30 minutes due to rabies. No one really knows what the exact number are here. The one constant fact I did find though was that India by far has the most cases of human rabies than any other country. No other country even comes close to the numbers India reports.

So, what are we going to do? S and I are definitely going forward with getting the rabies shots when we are in the U.S. It'll give me a little piece of mind knowing we have had these shots when we are out and about with the stray dogs everywhere here.

Happy Hallogiving and Happy Thanksoween!

2007-11-02T14:51:00.000+05:30

Last year, we were not able to put up any Halloween or Thanksgiving decorations as our sea shipment didn't make it to Beijing until the week before Thanksgiving. By the time we unpacked everything, we decided just to put up a few of the Christmas decorations.

This year, we decided to put up both the Halloween and Thanksgiving decorations at the same time. Why? Because we want to put up our Christmas tree early. With us going back to the U.S. the first week of December, it wouldn't really be worth putting up the tree for a couple of days if we waited until after Thanksgiving. Plus, we are going to be in Germany for Thanksgiving, so by the time we get back, I will be in full pack and get ready to go to the U.S. mode...and won't have time to decorate the house. Therefore, we have jack-o-lanterns and ghosts mixed with turkeys and pilgrims scattered around our house. They have actually been out for over a month now. They will be coming down next week.

S has next Thursday and Friday off of work as it is Diwali here in India (more on that later...but basically Diwali is the Hindu equivalent to Christmas). Therefore, over the four day weekend (since we have decided to stay in town and not go anywhere), we will put up the Christmas tree and decorate the house in snowmen (I'm sure it will be weird putting up snowmen when the average temperature right now here is still in the 80s). This way, we will be able to enjoy our own decorations before heading to my parents' house in December (plus maybe it will put me in the Christmas shopping mood). By the time we get back to Chennai at the end of December, I'm sure we'll be tired of Christmas, and it will all come down.

So, Happy Hallogiving...or maybe it's Happy Thanksoween?! And don't forget...only 7 1/2 weeks until Christmas...do you have your shopping done?

Back Up and Running!

2007-11-01T17:29:00.000+05:30

Finally, we have internet again! Nine days later and all that was wrong was a blown fuse. Go figure...this is India!

Now that I have internet again, I have 9 days of e-mails, blog readings, newspaper stories, etc to catch up on. Last week, the World Series was half over with before I even knew it had started. S and I thought it didn't start until the weekend, so by the time we found out, we were only able to catch the last 2 games. Go Red Sox! I bet I have some happy nephews in Massachusetts celebrating this week. Who knows what else I have missed by not having internet access.

Also, with internet again, I really need to get our hotel room booked for our trip to Germany in a few weeks. Not to mention, I still have move expenses to submit. Plus, I need to check to see if we received our tax return and if S got paid in October. So, I guess my Friday will consist of being on the internet all day. Tonight, I need to plug our internet phone in and call my mom, my brother, and my cousin for sure.

Internet. Life is good!

Still Alive...

2007-10-31T16:30:00.001+05:30

Yes, I am still alive...so is the apple eating critter (for now, I'm going to pass on the offer of poison as I really want to know what this creature is, and I'm afraid if I use poison then I will never know for sure).

Talk about major body withdrawal...it is now Wednesday afternoon, and I haven't been on the internet since Friday afternoon. Yikes! I may go into convulsions at any moment now. The internet still isn't fixed at the house. I came to S's office building on Monday to check e-mail, but the free wireless wasn't working either. On the bright side, not having internet at the house is causing me to have a lot of time to work on my mom's scrapbook...I may actually get it done for Christmas.

Anyway, besides the internet still being broken and the apple eating critter still at large (I'm baiting the sticky traps with almonds tonight, since the apple chunks I used last night didn't seem to work), not too much else is going on here. We did have a cyclone over the weekend, which caused it to rain nonstop for about 24 hours. I kid you not, it didn't stop raining once all day Sunday. Luckily, we did not have the water issues that a lot of my friends had...including water coming in through the A/C units, windows, walls, electrical outlets, fuse boxes...plus causing a swimming pool to collapse among other things I'm sure I'm forgetting to mention. I'm thinking since none of these things happened to us, we are pretty darn lucky.

Well, Happy Halloween to everyone. Hope everyone has a safe and sane Halloween. Eat a Snickers bar or two for me. Don't forget to send me photos of your kids dressed up.

When I Grow Up...

2007-10-26T17:25:00.001+05:30

I want to work for pest control in India. So, in my previous post, I have already told how "great" pest control is here in India. This story only gets better.

Still unable to catch the apple eating critter (luckily, it doesn't seem to have found any of our other food and only seems to like apples...knock on wood)...S had arranged for pest control to come out on Tuesday. Well, in typical India fashion, they showed up on Friday afternoon. About time, because I now refuse to go into our kitchen after dark by myself. Therefore, we have been eating cereal every night for dinner all week long. This is kind of silly on my part as I'm pretty sure whatever we have living in our house has been there for quite awhile...and up until the apple incident, I have been in the kitchen every night and haven't seen the critter. I just don't want to meet the creature face to face without a back up. (Note to D...I think maybe I have been reading too many Plum and Kinsey books lately).

Anyway, back to pest control...S was told that pest control would come with some "traps" to catch our critter. Well, guess what these "traps" are? They are the exact same sticky traps that I have been trying all week to catch the critter with. Ughh...if I would have known that the guy would just show up with 4 sticky traps, I could have saved him the trip. Not only are we trying to catch something that can clearly get off of the traps, but the pest control guy didn't even "bait" the traps. He just set them in places where the creature may be running along. Like I'm confident this is going to work.

Anyway, if I get really bored living here in India, I'm going to work in pest control...I can definitely handle placing sticky traps in houses.

In the meantime, I'm not buying any more apples...or if I do, they are going straight to the fridge.

Apple Eating Critter Story

2007-10-26T17:04:00.000+05:30

Once upon a time…Yep this is how the apple eating critter story should start. S and I have been in denial for weeks now that something has been living in our air conditioner in our wet kitchen (just off the main kitchen and would traditionally be used by a maid to prep meals and clean up afterwards). How did we know something was living in our A/C?

It may be hard to tell from these photos what exactly you are looking at. This is the bottom of the A/C unit. The unit is installed directly into the wall near the ceiling. Somehow it is connected to the outside, but I’m not a technical person to tell you how this all works. All I know is that I have a remote control that turns the unit on and off and that I can adjust the temperature with. We have 7 of these units in our house (central A/C doesn’t exist here, but these units seem to work fairly well…of course, we haven’t been in the house during the DAMN HOT season yet). Anyway, the little chunks of stuff that you see are bits and pieces of I believe styrofoam. These little chunks have been falling out of the bottom of this one A/C now for probably around 6 weeks or so.

At first, we thought maybe ants or something like that was living in the A/C. The A/C works just fine, and besides the styrofoam, there weren’t any signs of anything wrong with the A/C…such as a critter living in it. Every few days or so, I would clean up the styrofoam. I think even for a week or so, nothing at all came out.

Well over the weekend, as more styrofoam was on the counter, I thought I should investigate the outside of the house to see if I could see anything. Well on the side of the house, I found a large wasps nest. Well after waking up Sunday night thinking that wasps were flying around the house, I decided that something needed to be done. So S had pest control come out on Monday.

Now, let me tell you about pest control. The guy came in and started applying cock roach bait to my cabinet hinges…hmm, we don’t have a cock roach problem (knock on wood). Then I had to point out every spot I wanted him to spray. I don’t know what kind of spray he was using, but I’m sure it had to be at least 99.9% gasoline…or at least, it smelt that way. I know I lost a few hundred brain cells sniffing it (not good, when I don’t have a lot of brain cells to begin with…after all, I’m the one living in India, and you have to be a few brain cells short to be able to handle life here). Then to top it off, pest control fogged our yard for mosquitoes while it was raining. I’m not an expert on pest control, but I’m pretty sure when it’s raining is not the time to be fogging the yard.

Anyway, this brings us up to Tuesday morning when I found the apple. I was pretty sure S hadn’t ate it as we don’t eat the skins of fruits when we are in Asia…much safer to peel all fruits and vegetables or to cook them. I called S to just make sure…I was right he hadn’t touched the apple. Now, I must tell you that the entire time we have lived in our house, we have always had fruit sitting in a bowl on our counter. Ants don’t touch it, and up until now we haven’t had a problem.

Well it is not a good thing to find a half eaten apple…especially since I’m pretty sure geckos don’t have teeth…or at least not teeth that would leave the very clear cut marks that were on this apple. Pretty much leaves only a few things…either a mouse, a rat, a squirrel, a raccoon, or a chipmunk.

I’m not scared of mice…and I am pretty sure this is a mouse. S thinks it is a rat. Anyway, I was determined to catch this apple eating critter. So, in our house, I have one mouse trap that was accidentally shipped instead of going into storage…plus I have a couple of sticky traps (hoping to catch geckos, but no luck so far). Anyway, I bait the traps with chunks of the apple. Plus I leave the remainder of the apple in the same bowl as the night before.

Well, we wake up Wednesday morning to find that whatever we have has in fact got caught in one of the sticky traps. Unfortunately, whatever it is has also managed to somehow free itself from the sticky trap. Not good as these traps are pretty sticky (I know since I stuck my finger in one by accident and had a hard time getting it off). Therefore, my guess of this being a little bitty mouse goes out the window. Whatever it is was big enough to get itself off of the trap (the trap was upside down on the floor). Plus, there is a footprint in the sticky trap. Unfortunately, I never was a hunter or animal tracker, so I have no clue what kind of creature the footprint belongs to.

Time for Plan B…call in pest control again...and let's hope this "once upon a time" story has a happy ending.

Still Don't Know...

2007-10-24T14:04:00.000+05:30

what has been eating my apple. There is a big long story to go along with the apple photo. I will post the whole story soon, and hopefully it will have a happy ending for us and a sad ending for the creature.

P.S. Currently, our internet isn't working at our house, so if you don't hear from me for a few days, don't worry...I'm sure the apple eating creature is strictly a vegetarian and doesn't eat meat.

I'm Pretty Sure I Don't Want to Know...

2007-10-23T09:44:00.001+05:30

...what has been eating my apple.

It wasn't me, and it wasn't S.

Snail Mail

2007-10-22T19:21:00.001+05:30

E-mail and internet are great. Instant communication. I really can't imagine living overseas without today's technology. However, receiving actual mail is also nice. I know, I know...most of you probably only get junk mail and bills. However, when you don't even get that, you miss it. You really do. We receive our mail from our U.S. address once per month. It is shipped priority to S at his office. It's mail week here...S should be bringing it home to me any day now. Normally all that is in it are bills and an occasional card or letter from someone. However, I still look forward to receiving it each and every month.

I had heard that receiving mail at a residence address in India was very unreliable (after all, my friend here received her birthday package from her mother 3 months after her birthday). I didn't quite believe it since so far I haven't had any issues sending letters to the U.S. from here. The letters have been getting to the U.S. in about 7 to 10 days, and the cost is cheaper than mailing a letter within the U.S. I believe the cost of a stamp in the U.S. is now up to 41 cents. To send a letter to me here in India would cost I think around 90 cents or so. So, it's quite a deal for me to be able to send a letter to the U.S. from here for 15 rupees (about 38 cents).

Anyway, a few weeks ago I was talking to my cousin and our friend on the telephone. Somehow we got on the topic of mail and how I only get mail once per month since no one ever sends anything to me at my India address. Well they decided to send me a postcard. Ever since then, they have been bugging me about whether or not I have received this postcard...I can hardly wait to see what is on the postcard or written on the postcard...knowing them, it is hard telling what it will be.

Since it has now been a few weeks, I finally decided I had better check to see if mail is actually delivered to our house (after all this is India, so you should never assume anything). So, I talk to my driver...after explaining about 3 times what I was wondering about (he speaks great simple English, but trying to explain that I was expecting a letter from the U.S. and why it hadn't been delivered yet was a little more complicated for him). Anyway, he told me that he would check on the mail delivery. Well, he got back to me that when a letter is delivered to the local post office, it will then be delivered to our house...but get this...it will take 15 to 20 days to be delivered to us! Not to mention that in India whenever someone gives you a time frame, you normally have to double or triple it to get a more accurate estimate. So, 15 to 20 days may actually mean more like 30 to 60 days. Yikes, talk about snail mail!

So, yes Carrie and Beth, I think your postcard is still coming. You will be the first to know when it arrives. To everyone else, forget sending me a Christmas card here...I doubt if you even mailed it out today that it would arrive for Christmas. You might want to consider mailing my birthday card though since my birthday is in May...it might actually get to me on time!

A photo of a snail that I saw in Malaysia. Just thought it would be appropriate to add to the end of the snail mail blog post.

I HATE ANTS!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

2007-10-22T15:53:00.001+05:30

I HATE ANTS, I HATE ANTS, I HATE ANTS, I HATE ANTS, I HATE ANTS, I HATE ANTS, I HATE ANTS, I HATE ANTS, I HATE ANTS!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

OK, now that everyone clearly knows where I stand with the ant population, I feel a little bit better.

Hate is such a strong word. I really don't like using this word very much.

The definition of hate according to dictionary.com is to dislike intensely or passionately; feel extreme aversion for or extreme hostility toward; detest. Yeah, I would say that pretty much fits how I feel about ants.

As of last week, we had ants in our kitchen, in center square, in one bathroom, and in the master bedroom. One of my friends brought me her stash of ant bait to try out. I think I may have went a little overboard, as I put one of every kind of ant bait that she had out. I figured that the ants would have to like at least one of the "flavors" of the ant baits. It's now been a few days and the ants are gone in every room except the kitchen. Of course, like S pointed out to me...how do I know which of the ant baits is the one that made the ants disappear since I used like 5 different kinds? Good point, but as of right now, I don't care as long as they are gone.

I swear the ants must have our kitchen wired with a camera, so that they know the instant a crumb is dropped on the counter or floor. They're also not stupid enough to fall for the ant bait when they know if they just wait something better will be coming along shortly. Our countertops and floors are just the right color that they hide dirt and crumbs well. This would be great in the U.S., but here I'm not too fond of them when I can't see a crumb until I see the million ants it has attracted.

Anyway, my frustration with the ants continues. One of these days I'm just going to snap with the ants and go postal on them. Oh wait, how can I go more postal than taking bug spray and bleach to them? Maybe I should seriously consider getting an anteater as a pet. Maybe I should try ant voodoo.

Ugh, in the meantime, I'm going back into the battle zone. Now, I'm going to try sprinkling crushed red pepper flakes around...someone told me this may work to keep them away. I'll try anything. If you don't hear from me in a few days, don't worry as I'm pretty sure I weigh too much for the ants to carry me too far!

P.S. Did I mention in this post that I HATE ANTS?????

Have Tickets, Will Travel

2007-10-19T13:28:00.000+05:30

S and I now officially have our air tickets booked to return to central Illinois in December. We will be traveling the first week of December to Illinois and will be returning to India before the end of the year. If you would like to know our exact travel dates, please e-mail me, and I will be happy to share them with you. I will now be taking bookings from people who wish to see us while we are back in Illinois. Right now our calendar is pretty open and flexible, but I have a feeling that will start to change fairly quickly. So, since I know everyone wants to see our smiling faces while we are in Illinois, send me an e-mail, so I can schedule you in.

Hope to see everyone soon!.

Happy 108th Birthday Olive Riley

2007-10-18T15:29:00.000+05:30

Who is Olive Riley? She is an Australian lady who at 108 years of age is believed to be the world's oldest person to blog. Yep, that's right, she writes a blog just like the one you are reading right now (actually she tells it to someone else who types for her). I think this is absolutely amazing for a couple of reasons. First, just how many 108 year olds are out there? Just to make it to this age is in and of itself incredible. Then, to be able to still think and function at this age is amazing. Some days I find it hard to function and think at my age...I can only imagine how I'll be if I ever make it to be 108 years old.

But to blog at 108? I don't think there are words to describe just how truly amazing and incredible this really is. Will I still be blogging if I reach 108? I doubt it. Probably by this time, there will be some other great craze going on. Did Olive ever imagine 20, 30, 40, 50, 60, 70, or 80 years ago that she would be telling stories that anyone in the world could read almost instantly? Blogging is the modern age diary...OK, diary may be stretching it a bit as I don't know too many people who make their diaries public. However, just think that years from now, I'll be able to pull up my blog and read what I've been writing and thinking in 2007. I'm sure I'll probably be thinking "what was I thinking when I wrote that?".

Anyway, kudos to everyone...even a 108 year old Australian lady...who writes blogs, keeps diaries, writes down their life stories, scrapbooks, etc...we truly are documenting the way life is now for future generations to reflect upon. Kinda of scary isn't it?

Anyway, Olive Riley's blog can be found by clicking on the following blue words: Olive Riley

And by the way, Happy Birthday Olive! I wish you many many more.

Diet Pepsi Update

2007-10-17T14:18:00.000+05:30

With our diet Pepsi supply now getting critically low and another food shipment not due to arrive for probably another month, we decided to ask our driver to try to find us some diet Pepsi bottles.

This was a big step for me. Let me explain.

In Beijing, our driver did one thing for us...drive. When we weren't in the car, he was free to do whatever he wanted...sleep, eat...or the very popular activity of playing cards with the other drivers. We didn't really care what he did as long as he was there to pick us up when we were ready to go someplace.

I was surprised to learn that the drivers here in Chennai do much more than just drive. They fix things, clean things, run errands, and pretty much anything else you can think of for them to do. Now, if I wouldn't have lived in China prior to moving to India, this probably wouldn't have seemed so strange or weird to me. But it is. As far as I'm concerned, our driver is hired to drive for us. Period.

It is very easy to spoil oneself when living overseas...especially in Asia. Labor is very cheap. You can hire a housekeeper, maid, nanny, cook, pool person, etc for about $100 to $200 per month. When S and I originally moved to Chennai, we had thought we would hire a housekeeper. However, after the 6 week apartment experience, we have since decided that our privacy is a lot more valuable to us then having someone do everything for us. Plus, someday we will have to move back to the U.S., and I'll have to go back to doing everything for myself anyways...you can't even get your house cleaned once for $100 in the U.S. Now, please realize that we are in the minority here as far as not hiring a housekeeper. However, just being the two of us, not having kids or pets (just ask my mom how much my cats shed), it's really not all that hard to keep the house clean.

It has been a very slow process for me to accept that our driver will do more for us here than just drive. He has done a couple of big projects at our house with the help of one of our security guards...they were both compensated extra by us for doing what they did. Besides this, the only thing I have had our driver do is go to the post office for me.

However, with the frustrations of not being able to get any diet Pepsi bottles on my own, I decided it was finally time to turn this task over to our driver. So as we left for Malaysia, we gave him enough money to buy two cases of bottles. When we got back Sunday night, he told us that bottles were not available, but that we could get cans. Nope, not yet ready to pay $15 per case for cans.

Well on Monday, our driver took S to work and never came back to the house all day long. I wasn't too concerned as I had told S that I wasn't going anywhere. Well S came home Monday night to tell me that our driver had spent all day Monday looking for diet Pepsi bottles and finally had found them at the 15th store he went to. It makes me think that he didn't try to hard while we were gone to find the bottles. And, 15 stores...at what point do you just give up? Oh well, at least now, we have 2 cases of bottles. I'll probably make a point to try to get a couple more cases while it can still be found. This store told our driver that there should be no problem getting the bottles in the future. Yeah right, heard that story before.

Slowly but surely I will probably accept the fact that our driver can be trusted with money to do things for us. In India, sometimes it's just a whole lot easier to have someone else do things for you. Actually, most of the time it's easier.

Malaysia Top Ten

2007-10-15T15:15:00.000+05:30

I apologize in advance that this post is pretty long and includes a bunch of photos.

S and I returned home late Sunday night from our quick trip to Penang, Malaysia. We had a great time! The only thing that could have made this trip better was staying a few more days. There were a lot of activities, tours, and shopping we weren't able to do because of the short time we were gone. However, we did try to make the best of our time.

With this, I present the Top 10 Things We Did in Penang, Malaysia: (this list is really in no particular order)

1. Enjoyed the View from Our Hotel Room

We had an awesome and amazing view from our hotel room. We got a corner suite on the top floor (8th) of the hotel. The room was really nice with 2 bathrooms, 3 balconies, 2 fridges, etc., but the view just made the room. We overlooked the hotel gardens, pools, ocean, and the hills of Penang.

We had a couple of pretty powerful down pours of rain. It was relaxing to just sit on the balcony and read while it rained.

Really the photos don't do justice to the view that we had.

2. Walked on the Beach and Watched People Para sailing

The beach wasn't actually as nice as I was hoping it would be. However, compare it to the beaches of Chennai, and it was a dream! There were a lot of water and beach activities available to do...jet skis, horseback riding on the beach, and riding ATVs on the beach were some of the more popular things to do. However, by far, the most popular activity was to go para sailing.

Continuously all day long, we would see people being pulled behind ski boats attached to a parachute. Often times, we would see 3 or 4 para sailers on the ocean at a time. While walking along the beach, we enjoyed stopping to watch the people take off or land. A couple of times we had to scurry out of the way of people who were having a hard time coming down on the beach in the appropriate spot. The best example of this had us running almost at a dead speed up the beach shore towards the grass (of course running dead speed in sand isn't really all that fast). When we were safely out of the way, we turned around to see two ladies (two people could para sail together at the same time) in complete black Muslim dress land on the beach by completely falling on their behinds (normally you would land by touching down on your feet). It was a pretty funny sight.

I kept trying to talk S into para sailing...I told him that there are people out there who would pay money to see video of this, but he wouldn't fall for it. Maybe next time.

3. Drank Root Beer

I was so excited to find A&W Root Beer at a grocery store in Penang. Normally, I only drink diet pop, but when you haven't had something in 6 months, you really don't care what form it comes in. Remember from my food postings, root beer is on the list of items that we cannot have shipped in our food shipments.

This is a photo of the can that I smuggled back into India. OK, actually, I just put it in my suitcase, and I'm saving it for a rainy day (or maybe I could auction it off to the other expats in Chennai as I'm betting I know a few who would pay highly for this can). Besides root beer, diet Coke and diet Pepsi were easily found in both cans and bottles. Also, alcohol was easily obtained. S was so happy to be able to drink his favorite beer from China called Tsingtao.

4. Ate Another Unusual Pie Flavor from McDonald's

The local flavor of Malaysia...Banana! It by far was the most tasty of any of the weird flavors I have been eating lately. You just have to like hot bananas, and this flavor is for you.

I haven't had an apple pie from McDonald's for a really long time, but I think if I had a choice between what I remember the apple tasting like and the banana, I would choose the banana.

5. Ate a Very Unusual Sundae Flavor at McDonald's

Any guesses on what flavor it was? How about I tell you about eating it before I tell you what flavor it was...I like to keep everyone in suspense.

While S and I were in town shopping one day, we passed a McDonald's, and they had a big advertisement for this sundae. We just knew we had to try one. So we actually ate lunch at the McDonald's...I had the old standby of a cheeseburger while S had what they called a chicken foldover. Anyway, for dessert, we ordered the banana pie and this sundae. The sundae ended up not being as bad as what we thought it would be. The texture of the topping was a little strange, and the taste wasn't all that bad...but it wasn't all that great either! I think next go around, we'll just stick to a chocolate or strawberry sundae.

So, what was the flavor? I think I'll make you read to the end of this blog before giving it to you. No cheating by skipping ahead to the bottom.

6. Ate an Awesome Seafood Buffet Dinner Two Nights

On both Friday and Saturday nights, the buffet restaurant at our hotel specializes in seafood. As dinner was included in our room package, we ate this buffet all 3 nights we stayed. Now, normally we probably wouldn't have ate on the seafood nights because the price is really high compared to the other nights, but being that it was included, S and I were definitely not going to miss out on some good seafood. Not only was it good, it was GREAT! We were able to get lobster tails and shrimp cooked to order among about anything else seafood that you could think of. We were stuffed both nights...it was great!

Sorry, no photos of the buffet...we were too busy eating to worry about pictures.

7. Went to Penang Butterfly Farm

One of the days, we took a half day tour around Penang Island. The island is fairly small, but surprisingly there are a lot of things to see and do on the island. We didn't get to go to Monkey Beach or to the National Park, but we did get to stop at the Penang Butterfly Farm on our tour. S wasn't exactly thrilled to be going to see some butterflies, but I think he had a good time as there were enough other critters to look at as well.

Besides butterflies, we saw scorpions, lizards, beetles, tarantulas, ducks, fish, and other types of bugs.

8. Had a Few Days of No Spiders, Geckos, or Ants

Surprisingly, we didn't really see any wildlife in Penang. The only animals we saw were the ones at the butterfly farm plus a local house we stopped at had a pet monkey on a chain. Oh yeah, there was also the snake temple. There is a Chinese temple on Penang island that is known for the viper snakes that hang out there. We stopped as part of the tour and sure enough in the temple there are vipers on top of picture frames (supposedly they have been de-fanged) and elsewhere in the temple. We also went to a little snake farm behind the temple. I think they had about every type of snake that there is.

Anyway, I really thought that there would be geckos and lizards in Penang. There probably are somewhere, but they definitely weren't seen around our resort. Anyway, while we were at the grocery store, I happened to find a product that I just couldn't resist buying to bring back and try out.

Yep, that's right...it's lizard repellent! Who would have ever thought that such a thing exists? Don't worry gecko lovers...it's non-toxic and won't kill the geckos...it's just suppose to keep them away. The can says it is made in Singapore...let's just say if this stuff works, a trip to Singapore or Malaysia to pick up a few cases of this stuff may be in order...especially since we had to deal with a gecko first thing this morning crawling up the side of S's favorite chair...luckily for now, the gecko escaped, but if S finds it, it may be a goner.

9. Enjoyed Watching Some Awesome Sunsets

Remember how I said that I wasn't too impressed with the sunset in the desert in Dubai. Well, the sunsets in Malaysia made up for it.

Beautiful! Need I say more?

10. FREE INTERNET!

No surprise $500 internet bill when we checked out. In fact, high speed broadband internet (that actually worked with S's computer) was free with the type of room we had. In lower grade rooms, the internet cost $30 per day (about the going rate in hotels these days).

Overall, S and I had a great time at the Shangri-La's Rasa Sayang Resort & Spa in Penang, Malaysia. I would definitely recommend it to anyone looking for a place to stay in Penang. We are hoping to go back to Malaysia again next year. This time though we are looking at going to the eastern part of Malaysia on the Borneo island to the state of Sabah. The trip will involve a lot of activity, so I will have to plan well in advance...can't wait until the last minute and book everything a week in advance like I did for this trip. However, with only a week to figure everything out, our trip went very smoothly, and I won't be as worried in the future about booking things at the last minute.

OK, give up on what the sundae flavor was? It was...................................ready for this...........................................seaweed flavored!

OK, just joking, it wasn't seaweed flavored, but it actually was a green bean curd sundae! Goes along with the green bean curd pie I had at the McDonald's in China. I'm Lovin' It!

TV Shows

2007-10-09T10:45:00.000+05:30

One of the most popular questions I get asked is what do we watch on TV?

Well, let me take a step back for a minute. For those of you who don't know S and I very well, we had 7 TVs in our house in the U.S. Yes, that's seven television sets for the two of us. In one room, we had two sets sitting next to each other in order to be able to watch TV and play video games at the same time. We also had 2 VCRs and a DVD/VCR combo. By far, the most valued item we owned though had to be our TiVo.

With TiVo, we were able to have it set to automatically record all of the TV shows we watched every week. I can't remember for sure, but I think we had around 30 shows that TiVo recorded for us. Everything from sitcoms to reality shows to cooking shows to dramas were on the list of things S and I watched. In all honesty, we were addicted to TV. Yes, my name is Julie, and I'm a TV addict. Surprisingly, the one thing we really didn't watch much of was movies...probably because we spent all of our time catching up on our weekly TV shows.

And then we moved to China. Talk about going cold turkey with the TV. In Beijing, we received probably around 10 English channels. These including the movie channels HBO, MAX, and Star Movies that all showed movies from the 80s. They only showed about one new movie per month...don't worry though, it you missed it the first time, they replayed it every other day. We also received ESPN, Star Sports, and one other sports channel. Pretty much useless to us as all they ever seemed to be showing was soccer. Even the Super Bowl was dubbed over into Chinese...nothing more annoying than trying to watch something and the sound is coming out in two languages. We also received Hallmark, AXN, and Star World. I think we received a couple of news channels, but they were out of Hong Kong or Australia, so we didn't really watch them much.

Anyway, we ended up watching Star World and AXN the most. On Star World, they showed a bunch of American sitcoms. Great! Except the problem was that they were at least a season behind, and we had already seen the shows. We ended up watching Desperate Housewives just because we had never watched it in the U.S., and so it was new to us. By far the most popular thing to watch though was American Idol. Star World showed it about a half day after it was on in the U.S. At least it was the current season. The only problem was is that if you didn't want to know what had happened, you had to stay off the internet that day, or it would be spoilt for you. Everyone was just happy to have something decent to watch...you didn't dare call anyone or plan any events during the time Idol was on. A friend of ours even threw a big party for the last episode of Idol.

Now, it is very popular in the American expat community to download TV shows off of iTunes. However, we never got into that when we moved to Beijing. Probably because at the time, we didn't own any iPods. Once you miss a season of a show, you find that you really don't care anymore about it. When we went back to Illinois last December after being in Beijing for a few months, we were so excited to be able to watch TV. Well, we didn't end up watching near as much as we thought we would...we found that the shows we normally watched, we had no clue what was going on with them since we had missed so many episodes.

So, now we are living in India. What are the TV channels like here? A little better than Beijing, but still not as good as the U.S. We now get Discovery, Animal Planet, ZeeCafe (shows a lot of sitcoms), Travel & Living (one of our favorite new channels), plus we still get some of the same channels we got in Beijing. Oh yeah, we also get around 5 channels that are dedicated to showing cricket. Also, there is PoGo that shows Bean (British show), Bean animated cartoon, and the Bean movies. I think they should just rename it the Bean channel.

In the U.S., one of the shows that I watched religiously every season was Survivor. Well, imagine my disappointment when I find out that this season is in China. My mom offers to tape all of the shows, and I can just have a marathon Survivor viewing when I'm back in Illinois in December. Well, the other night when I get up to go to the bathroom, the TV is on ZeeCafe, and as I am falling back asleep, I hear the Survivor theme song. Am I dreaming? I'm now wide awake...there is a Survivor commercial on. They are advertising Survivor China and how it is going to be shown on ZeeCafe starting on Sunday night. I'm so excited!

So, on Sunday night, I tune in, and sure enough, it's actually the first episode of Survivor China being shown! So, now every Sunday night, I will be ending my weekend on a great note by watching Survivor. I just can't be having any conversations with my mom about what's going on with the show as I think 3 episodes have already been shown in the U.S. I also can't be checking out the Survivor website, but hey, I can sacrifice these things in order to actually have something to watch...it's either that or cricket. Hmmm....hard decision.

P.S. I will also not except any Survivor spoiler e-mails from anyone!

Tax Time

2007-10-08T13:03:00.000+05:30

By now, I'm guessing that probably 99% or so of the people reading this (I'm referring to Americans) have filed their 2006 income taxes a long time ago. I'm sure you either got out the pocketbook to write a big old fat check to the government, or if you received a refund, it probably has long been spent.

Well, S and I don't fall into either one of these groups. We haven't filed our 2006 taxes yet. Our company hires a well known tax company to take care of this for us. Yippee, I don't have to worry about this headache anymore...right? Wrong! It's even worse.

Now being that we moved to China in September last year, we didn't live in China enough days in 2006 to have to file a tax return with them. Since we didn't sell our house until 2007, our 2006 taxes should for the most part be similar to our 2005 taxes. Of course, you have to factor in our income is higher because of the "bonus" money we get for living overseas (but I'm no longer working, so it should be offset some). Plus, certain other items that are paid to us are taxable, but they are grossed up, so that ultimately in the end our taxes supposedly won't be affected. Or, so I understand. I honestly don't know. I was a Finance major in college, but this degree didn't involve me taking any tax classes.

Anyway, back to our taxes. Way back when all normal U.S. citizens were making sure to meet the April 15 tax deadline, our company was filing an extension on us. They automatically do this for all employees living overseas. However, we have to go online to a website and fill out a bunch of information. For example, we have to document every day of the year to reflect which country S is in on each day and what he is doing in that country (working, vacation, holiday). This is a big pain in the behind, especially when you don't do it for months at a time.

Beyond this, we have to go through and enter all of our tax information on to this website...basically I did the exact same thing as I have done previous years with H&R Block online...the only difference is that in those years, my taxes were done when I completely everything. Not so with this...I got done entering everything, and that was all I heard for months...no clue if we owed money or if we were getting a refund.

Now when we moved last year, we were told to submit copies of our 2004 and 2005 tax returns to our company. We actually didn't find this out until after all of our stuff had been boxed up. Then our shipment didn't arrive to Beijing until about 2 weeks before we were going back to Illinois for the holidays, and the last thing I was worried about was copying tax returns. So, I didn't actually get around to doing this until I think the end of January of this year. Then at the end of April, I did the stuff on the website, and when we were back in Illinois in May, I faxed some tax forms and mailed some tax paperwork to the tax company.

Great! I'm all done...now I just have to sit and wait until the tax company decides to get around to our taxes. As I'm pretty sure that our taxes are cut and dry easy, I figured that we would hear back on them around June/July time frame. As a precaution, I e-mailed the tax company at the end of May asking them if they had all of the documents they needed as we were moving from China to India and all of our stuff would be in shipment for a few months. I receive an e-mail back that they have everything they needed to do our taxes.

So, we don't hear anything at all on our taxes for a couple of months. Then at the end of July, S receives an e-mail that they need copies of our 2005 taxes. He sends them an e-mail back to check our file that this has already been sent in, and that at the end of May, it was verified that you had everything you needed. Well we don't hear anymore on this, so we're assuming that everything is OK.

Well, just last week, I ask S if he has heard anything on our taxes. Almost on cue, he receives an e-mail that they need copies of our 2005 taxes before they can proceed with our 2006 taxes. Ugh, talk about frustrating. We just went through this 2 months ago and had asked them to check our records for the paperwork. If the paperwork hadn't beeen found, why did they wait another 2 months to tell us?

Now, I'm not very happy about this. Sometime between the end of May (when they verified they had everything) until the end of July, our confidential tax paperwork has been lost. I'm ranting and raving about the whole situation while this time I scan all of our 2005 taxes and e-mail them off to the tax company (no longer copying anything). S isn't very happy either. How come it is taking months between communications with this provider?

Anyway, come to find out, I had copied our records for '04 and '05 and sent these to our company as requested. This is completely different than sending them to the tax company. Of course, no one bothered to tell us that both places needed the records. I had just remembered that I had done the copies...I hadn't remembered who I had sent them to until I went back and checked my records. I never dreamt that our company and the tax company who our company hired wouldn't be sharing information.

So, finally our taxes are done. Something that normally I would have taken a couple of hours to do in February has now been drug out to October. At least, we are getting a refund. You can't even imagine how mad I would have been after all of this if they would have told me I owed money!

We have already verified that we don't have to do anything with China for 2007 taxes (we didn't live there enough days). So, I can cross them off of my list. All I have to worry about for next year is the U.S. and India. Of course, I have already found out that because India taxes don't go on a calendar year as the U.S. does, there is a whole separate set of paperwork that has to be processed...in other words, we will have to do some of the same stuff twice...i.e. the calendar of where S is every day of the year.

Fun, fun...I can hardly wait. Now, I remember why I wasn't an accountant.

Feeling Old

2007-10-07T09:19:00.000+05:30

I had a milestone birthday this year. You know, one of those birthdays that ends in a big old fat zero. It didn't really make me feel old. When S turned this same age, we went to Vegas. So, I thought when I hit the same age, we would go to an equally as fun place. Nope, we just went to Illinois. We were in the middle of our move from China to India and had to return to Illinois to get our visas for India. I didn't really have a lot of time to think about my birthday as the next day we were flying back to Beijing...plus at the time, I was really sick with a parasite and had to actually go to the doctor on my birthday. Talk about a fun way to celebrate.

So basically, my birthday came and went, and I really didn't give it much thought. No big parties, a few gifts, a cake I think (don't honestly remember because I was so sick I wasn't really eating much, but I'm guessing my mom made some type of dessert for me), and that was about it. Really, just another day.

This all occurred almost 6 months ago. However, today, I'm feeling old. Why the 6 month delay? OK, honestly it has nothing to do with my milestone birthday. It has to do with the fact that S and mine's oldest nephew is turning 16 today. Yikes! How did he get to be so old and grown up so fast? When S and I started dating, he was like maybe 2 or 3, and now he's turning 16!

A couple of weeks ago, my good friends' daughter turned 16. However, I've only known her for about 6 or 7 years, so even though it seems weird that she is driving now, it didn't make me feel old. Our nephew turning 16 though is a totally different story. Where has the time went? S and I aren't old enough to have a 16 year old nephew! But, we do.

Heck, I remember the day I turned 16. I had waited for it my entire life. I could finally legally drive. Before that, I had been driving for years...since I think I was like 6 years old...on the farm. I've always loved driving and never minded the long commutes that I had from where we lived to where I worked. There is nothing like having the freedom to hop in the car and go wherever you want whenever you want.

This I miss. For a year now, S and I haven't had this freedom. We are at the liberty of our driver. In Beijing, it wasn't as bad as here, because we could go out at any point and catch a taxi if we really wanted to go somewhere. Also, we could walk to a lot of places. Here in India though, it's a totally different story. No taxis and besides the beach, no place really to walk to. It's just one of the things we gave up in order to live overseas in China and India. We deal with it, but at times like today when our nephew can jump in a car and go wherever, and we can't, it really makes me miss my car and our SUV.

But, they'll be waiting for us come December, and we'll put a couple of thousand of miles on driving around Illinois for a few weeks. That will have to do until the next time we are in the U.S. In the meantime, I'm here in India feeling old, but hoping that our nephew has a great birthday and enjoys the freedom of having his driver's license.

Upcoming Blog Posts...

2007-10-06T20:59:00.000+05:30

I'm still here. Just have not been in the mood the last few days to write out any blog posts. However, stay tuned for upcoming posts about: (will appear in no particular order)

Traffic Dangers
Taxes
Public Service Announcements
TV viewing

And, really anything else that comes to mind.

Now, I'm off to bed as the plan is to get up at 3:30am to listen to the Cubs game.

P.S. They have been mowing our yard again...today was day #3 of the process and still not done.

Diet Pepsi Crisis #2

2007-10-03T18:56:00.000+05:30

If you have been reading my blog from the beginning, you will know that S has an addiction to diet Pepsi, which isn't necessarily a good thing when it is hard to come by and very expensive here in Chennai.

After we moved to our house in August, I went in search of where to buy diet Pepsi bottles close to us. The place near the apartment where I was buying them was just now too far away to shop. Well I went to the first grocery store near us and they told me no that they didn't have them, but that they would have them next time I came in. Well, I have been back to this store countless times and have never seen diet Pepsi bottles ever.

So, I went to a second grocery store near us, same response as first store...except this time I talked to the manager and gave him my telephone number to call me after he spoke to the supplier. Well, it's been two months, and I'm still waiting on that phone call.

By this point, I've given up hope that we are going to be able to find diet Pepsi bottles near us. A couple of days later I go to a 3rd grocery store near us called Nuts & Spices. I'm checking out and wasn't even going to ask about the bottles, but I thought at this point I don't have anything to lose, so I ask. Well the guy tells me that in this part of Chennai they don't have diet Pepsi bottles. I ask him if he can PLEASE call the supplier, because I will take a large quantity (by this point I'm pretty much begging)...like 10 cases. Well he takes down my number, and I leave honestly thinking there is no way I'll ever get a phone call back. Well 20 minutes later, my phone rings and it's Nuts & Spices telling me that they will have 10 cases of diet Pepsi bottles for me the next day. Great!

The next day comes, and I receive a phone call at about 1pm that my diet Pepsi is in and when could I come get it. So, I go pick it up. Well the guy assures me that the next time I need bottles to just let them know, and in one day, they can get for me. No worries. I take the diet Pepsi home, and at this point, we haven't received our food shipment, so I have more than enough room to store 240 bottles of diet Pepsi. The next couple of times I'm in this store, the guy asks me if I need any more diet Pepsi. I tell him no, but that I will let him know when I need some.

Well, the week before we left for Dubai, it is time to get more diet Pepsi. I stop by Nuts & Spices, but the guy I have been working with is not there (still haven't seen him, so I'm not sure what happened to the guy). So, I explain my situation to the new guy. He tells me that he will call the supplier and will let me know.

Well an hour later, I receive a phone call from the new guy...no diet Pepsi for 5 days. OK, fine...we are going to Dubai anyway, so I will worry about it when we get back (which by the way, in Dubai, diet Pepsi and diet Coke are both readily available in all shapes and sizes at reasonable prices...as a souvenir, we even brought back diet Pepsi in glass bottles). Well in the meantime, our food shipment comes, and I have some diet Pepsi in it, so I don't really worry about getting the bottles here. However, I do know that there isn't near enough to get S through to the next food shipment.

So, on Saturday, I stop by Nuts & Spices to inquire about the diet Pepsi bottles. He remembers me and even opens his notebook to show me that he has my name card taped into it. He says that he will call the supplier the next day to find out about the bottles. Well the next day is Sunday, and then Monday and Tuesday were holidays around here...and of course, no phone call back.

So, this afternoon I call Nuts & Spices to see what is going on. Well the guy puts me on hold forever, and I'm pretty sure that he is calling the supplier on the other line. Anyway, he comes back on the phone line and tells me that the diet Pepsi bottles will be available in 5 days, and that he will call me when it is in (like I haven't heard this story before). I ask him how many boxes will he get for me...and he says 20! Yikes, where am I going to store 20 boxes...or 480 bottles of diet Pepsi at???

Anyway, at this point, I'm not too concerned about the storage issue, because I'm pretty confident that I won't hear back from the guy. However, I will call him on Monday to follow up...and in the small chance that he does come up with 20 cases, I will take it and find room for it...after all, who knows when I'll be able to get it again? Unless S decides to kick this habit, I'm not willing to start paying $15 per case for diet Pepsi cans here...they definitely don't pay us enough for that price.

And, so goes life in India. A round and a round we go on the frustration wheel of life. The diet Pepsi saga to be continued....