New friends and Bangalore at night

So it's been a busy few days at work and after work so I haven't had the energy to write much.

Vineet made it into the office on Thursday and we spent most of the day installing the lab. We decided to go out for lunch so I hopped on the back of his motorcycle (2-wheeler as they call them here) and off we went through the craziness of Bangalore roads. We ate at this pretty small local joint and I had some Paneer Kofta and something else that I can't remember the name of...it was really good though.

Shortly after we got back Tijo (one of the consultants) and Sachin (one of the Project Managers) came down to my desk because of an installation issue at HSBC and wanted to see if I had any input. I helped them out for a while. At the end of the day they invited me out for drinks and dinner. We walked down about 1/4 mile from the office (past another cow in the street) to a small local place called the Windsor Pub. It was pretty much like any neighborhood bar...Son of a Preacher Man was playing on the stereo. They dropped me off at the hotel after that and after checking some e-mail I went to bed.

I really have to stop checking e-mail when I get back to the hotel at night, it makes for really long days. It just happens to be the time when everyone in Nashville gets to work.

Neither Shrujal or Vineet were in the office today so I spent the entire day getting working on the lab installation. For those of you at Aspect I finally got APO installed and almost working....damn dataloads! Tijo and Sachin invited me out after work and we went to a roof top lounge on the other side of the city. I can't remember the name of it but it was on the 6th floor and had some velvet couches, and dance floor, and really bad music (Bryan Adams anyone?) We had some rum and cokes and some baby corn chili and watched some of the India vs. Sri Lanka World cup Cricket match. That reminds me...how many people in the US actually know the Cricket world cup is going on?? Also, you know what the biggest news story since I've been here is...the Pakistani Cricket coach being murdered right after they lost...has that even made the news, even once over there?

Anyway, after that we decided to try going to a club. We got over to MG road and Bangalore Central and walked up to this place called Hilt...this is where I found out the most interesting thing about Bangalore night life. The clubs won't let "stags" (single men) in on weekend nights, unless you know someone or pay an insane cover. By insane cover I mean 800 rs. a person. Instead of translating that into dollars let me just say that dinner and drinks for the 3 of us cost under 400 rs.

Not willing to pay the cover we headed out to dinner at a southern indian restaurant and had "meals". It's an all you can eat mixture of Rice with 5 different dishes. Honestly, this is the first meal that I didn't really enjoy, I think it was due to being so tired (it was about 10:30pm when we sat down) and trying to eat with my hands. I have no problems when there's bread to help grab things, but I wasn't getting the hang of balling up the rice and getting to to my mouth...most of it ended up back on the plate each time.

Well, tomorrow is Saturday and I know Vineet was talking about going out when he was done with work. I also got offers from Tijo, Sachin, and Nirupesh (team lead for ePro) to hang out so I doubt I'll be bored. Hopefully I'll get some good pictures to share tomorrow!

Time to go to bed....I'm really tired...