More Hampi vacation pictures and story of the crazy monkey

So I got my hands on some more pictures from my vacation to Hampi that I thought were interesting enough to share. I also finally have pictures to accompany the story of our hilarious encounter with the crazy biting monkey!

Here's our Qualis breaking down in some tiny village:

Some more of the really intricate carvings at one of the temples we visited. I have so many pictures of cool shit like this. They're all awesome, but once you've seen one you've seen 'em all:

Sunflower plantation with mountains in the background:

A more accurate depiction of the roads we encountered for most of our trip:

Just a cool picture of a temple in Hampi with the landscape in the background:

I mentioned in my last entry about the Hampi vacation a bit about a hike that we took up to this temple on the top of a mountain. The climb was pretty excitining, here's a picture looking down at Winnie and Josh:

Once we were up there we hung around for awhile to enjoy the incredible view, here's a reminder (you can see our car on the road below):

We had all placed the bags we were carrying in one of the rooms in this temple while we climbed to the roof to enjoy the view. Matt put his bag on this ledge (Keep this in mind):

We found a family of monkeys that had climbed up the mountain to play with us. They were brave little monkeys and had no problem getting close to us for photo opps. Here's one of Matt and I with our favorite monkey (above Matt's shoulder):

The monkey scurried away and we went back to enjoying the view. A little while later the clouds were starting to gather and we decided it would be a good idea to get off the top of this mountain before the rains came in condsidering our trek down, so we collected our bags to head off the mountatin. We returned to where Matt had placed his bag, the one on the ledge, to find the monkey (the very one in the photo) had unzippedup Matt's bag and taken out MY wallet, as well as Matt's contact solution case. The monkey took one look at us and immediately knew he was in deep shit. We stared at eachother for a few moments before Mr. Monkey took Matt's glasses case out of the bag and backed away till he was on a higher ledge just out of our reach. Here's a picture of the monkey on the ledge with Matt's glasses:

While eyeing us down, he proceded to open the case, take out Matt's glasses, as well as a piece ofcleaning fabric, and investigated the items while Matt stood steaming at the thought of this monkey either stealing the glasses or dropping them off the ledge. The monkey eventually lost interest and dropped the glasses on the floor in front of him. Unfortunately, he took the time to grab the postcards Matt had purchased and toss them off the edge before he scampered down the mountain. He also bit through the contact solution and emptied it out.

All in all, a very hilarious situation. I'm just glad he threw Matt's postcards off the cliff rather than my wallet!

More updates to come.

Next: Pictures and stories from the crazy beer pong tournament we held at Adarsh that almost got us evicted from our housing. To hold you over till Monday, here is a picture of Petar the Macedonian Destroyer and I playing a game of Beruit. Keep in mind that I'm almost 6 ft. tall.

It’s the small things in life…

So I’ve had a horrible day. Scratch that, I’ve had a horrible week. The last 9 days I’ve been at work I’ve pulled between 12- and 14-hour days. I’ll get to work at 8:45 AM, keeping in mind the hour commute on the bus beforehand, leave work at either 7:15 PM or 8:15, only to sit on the bus for at least an hour to get home. You think I’m done? No way! I microwave some leftover Chinese food, order a pizza, or eat what’s left of the dinner that Huda makes for Josh, and then take conference calls with the United States till 9:30 or 10:30. That’s a pretty friggin long day! I’ll watch some crappy reruns of the second season of Friends, read for a few minutes till I pass out around 11:30 or so. Next day: rinse and repeat. Sucks, eh?

So why the hell am I in a good mood today? After all, I’m sitting at work at 5:30, I’ve missed the early car home, I’ll have to wait till 6:15 to take get into the worst traffic in Bangalore to go meet some friends for dinner. The reason I’m so happy is that I’m in love…

In love with the Goddamn Atlanta BRAVES!!!

I’ll admit, there’s very little I miss more than American sports. The most time I waste at work is spent reading everything I can on ESPN.com. And with the exception of the Braves getting pounded by the Cubs the other night 10-1, they’ve been absolutely fantastic. They beat the Cubs last night as Jorge Sosa pitched one of his best games yet. Who knew he’d be so great for us!

Not only that, but Andruw Jones leads the majors with 40 homers, Chipper’s back and actually hitting quite well (he hit two two-run homers the other night), and they’ve consistently been able to field quality pitchers, defenseman and offense through crippling injuries to key personel. Any other team would have crumbled under such pressure. They’ve had to play all but maybe 20 games with a rookie in the starting line-up, most of the time a rookie brought up from the minors mid-season. This gives me a chance to speak briefly about the man that I would want to marry my daughter if I had one: Jeff Francoeur!!! This guy is an Atlanta native who is batting .360 with 10 homers and 30 RBI’s in 136 at-bats. Not only that, but he’s one behind the leader FOR THE SEASON in defensive assists with 9 men gunned down trying to advance on the pads (I believe). He’s only been around for less than half the season! Last night he found a way to contribute in a low-scoring game with, from what I’ve read, one of the prettiest bunts you can put down.

So the Bravos are likely heading to the post-season again! Shall I say14th straight division title?! Let me say something else, remember when everyone was talking about the NL East being the weakest division in the majors early in the season? Ahem!!! Well if I’m not mistaken, every team in the division is at least 5 games above .500 and 4 of the top 5 teams in the race for the NL wildcard hail from the East! Say WHAT?!?!

Alright, I’m done ranting for now.

However, my NFL fantasy drafts begin next week, so there will surely be more madness. I will watch 24 straight hours of ESPN when I get back to the United States in the winter. Dad, get that TiVo roarin’!

GO BRONCOS!!!!

Much belated update...

So what's going on guys?

Sorry it's taken me so long to give an update, but work has been pretty rough lately. 3 or 4 12-hour days in a row kinda wears you down. I was here till almost 9:00 PM on Friday night while a bunch of my friends were out drinking, relaxing, having a nice dinner at Blu Bar! It was just killing me being at work that late on a Friday night! I'm really enjoying the work I am doing, but my project is due by the middle of this week and there's still quite a lot of work to be done. They have, however, given me a team of employees to help me. Chandan, Veena and Rahul. HA! Doesn't that RAHUL! Sorry... Anyway, they are helping me create 13 case studies and boy is their help sorely needed! I'll let you all know the progress on my work. As soon as this project is done I will begin to work on the corresponding website to the brochure I'm creating. The whole project should be done by the middle of next month at which point I will begin a new rotation with another team in Corporate Marketing.

It's been a while since I've spoken with you guys, but last weekend I went on vacation over the long weekend to Hampi. We left on Friday afternoon for Chikmanglur, where we stayed at the Taj hotel, which is set amidst the coffee plantations of India. Pretty good coffee. That was about an 8-hour drive, including the popped tire we had to deal with. So we were stalled in this little village for about 1.5 hours and I don't know if these locals had ever seen white people before! A decent crowd gathered by our broken-down Toyota Qualis to see what was going on, and when the children realized that the car was full of white people they ran away only to peek out at us from behind buildings. Crazy, eh!

We saw a few temples around Chikmanglur, which were really cool. Here are a few pictures.

We then drove another 7 hours or so to Hampi. You have to keep in mind that most of these roads are hardly roads at all, more like dirt paths. This was the bumpiest, muddiest, rockiest ride of my life! This is a fairly mild representation of what we dealt with for countless hours of the roadtrip. In reality what we dealt with was muddier with more rocks:

A picture of myself with our driver, Shakur. Pretty hilarious dude. He was so proud to be carrying around the group of us.

Hampi was awesome! The landscape is made up of huge boulders, banana plantations and ancient temples. Like nothing I had ever seen before. Absolutely beautiful!

We ate lunch at this really cool restaurant on the banks of this river called The Mango Tree. Here’s a picture:

Later that afternoon we hiked to the top of this mountain where there was a really amazing temple that offered a view that literally took my breath away. This temple is about 600 years old and the steps up the mountain were just slabs of marble strewn the whole way up the mountain. A fairly treacherous hike, but so worth it! Here’s a picture of Winnie and Laura at the top.
Another shot of the incredible view:

So all in all a great trip. I was really able to see the beautiful parts of the country that you would never guess exist from living in Bangalore. I'm gonna get my hands on other people's cameras for more pictures from the trip, so be looking out for those. There's also a very funny story about being attacked by monkeys, and I cannot possibly do it justice without the pictorial narrative.

We have another vacation coming up in the middle of October and I’m thinking about planning a trip to maybe Goa or Kerala, which are both supposed to be incredible!

Anyway, I’ve gotta get back to work, but I will definitely post a few updates this week to keep everyone up to date.

One-month anniversary

I can’t believe it, but as of yesterday (Thursday) I’ve been living in Bangalore for an entire month! Easily the quickest month of my life by far. It honestly feels like I just arrived last week, but when I stop to think about it I’ve experienced so much and learned such a great deal about not only this country and its culture, but about people and life in general. I don’t want to get too philosophical on you guys, but it’s amazing just to think about all the food I’ve eaten in the last month that I probably never would have experienced had I not come here. It’s those little things that keep this whole experience interesting.

Speaking of good meals, I went out last night to a restaurant called Sunny’s. Whoa! Really incredible food!!! I felt like a baller and was trying to impress my friend so I opted for the imported bottle of wine, we had appetizers and deserts and the whole thing ran about Rs. 1800. Not bad, eh? I promise a meal at this restaurant to anyone who actually comes here to visit me. If anyone actually comes and visits me here I’ll buy them much more than this meal, but let’s just be realistic…that’s not gonna happen. A few nights ago I went to an Afghani restaurant called Samarkand. Interesting place with an authentic Afghani atmosphere, caves and all. I’m not kidding. The wait staff wore traditional Afghani garb that will be giving me nightmares for months. I didn’t think I’d like it, but I’ll surely go back there. Here are a few pictures of that night:

Prakash and Winnie

Josh, Pete and my hand, appropriatly enough holding a glass of wine.
Two new guys showed up last night. Juan from Harvard and Scott MacPherson Stapleton from Georgetown. They didn’t get in till pretty late, but we were all hanging out in Winnie’s apt anyway so we just waited up for them. I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again, really impressed with every single person that has come out here. By the way, here is a picture of Pete and Laura on the bus ride home after getting doused by a torrential downpour. Welcome to India!!!

Also a picture of me being very wet, cold and hungry. Are we having fun yet?!

Today at 2:00 we all get in our car and head to Hampi. I guess it’s about an 8 hour drive to Chikmangalur, where we’ll be staying in the Taj and then doing some sightseeing on our way to Hampi. I really have no clue what to expect, but it’ll be interesting to see more of the country. I’ll make sure Winnie takes plenty of pictures so I can post them when I get back. The government has clearly confiscated my pants, shoes and digital camera. Sonofabitch!

This is to all you nay-sayers out there

I had a few minutes and thought I would write a quick entry because there are some cool things going on.

First of all, I wanted to share this article from the New York Times about working in India. The article is very interesting and really highlights the value of the position I have taken with "IndiaIT". On the down side, it seems to make my pitch a bit less timely as they've been covering the topic quite a bit lately. Anywho, this is also for all of you who couldn't believe that I would move to India after graduation. You'll be eating your words when you all work for me!

M.B.A. Students Bypassing Wall Street for a Summer in India

"The final 40, who cut a wide academic swathe from engineering schools like M.I.T. and Carnegie Mellon to business schools like Stanford, Wharton and Kellogg, have since arrived on campus for average stays of three months. The interns work in areas from marketing to technology. They live in a 500-room hotel complex on Infosys' expansive campus in the suburbs of Bangalore, exchanging coupons for meals at the food court and riding the company bus downtown to decompress at the many pubs and bars."

To think that these are the "interns" and I'm an executive. Seems a bit backwards, eh?

Be sure to check out the picture. That person sure looks familiar, doesn't he? You may not recognize him because he's not drunk with a banana leaf on his head. Don't let him fool you, though. Jason may look serious in this picture, but he's actually looking at porn on his lunch break.

So two new US hires showed up last night. They are Pete from Cornell and Laura from Georgetown. Again, I'm suprised/impressed with how intelligent and cool these recruits are. I'm glad Josh did a good job choosing my friends for the next 18 months. It's also nice to have more people to hang out with at Adarsh.

I had an interesting moment today at work. It turns out that it's not just friends/family that read my blog. Apparently there's a whole team of "IndiaIT" employees who are paid to read it! These people are the online team, and they check for new online content regarding "IndiaIT" on a daily basis. That means that every time I write an entry that includes a mention of "IndiaIT", someone accross the room from me reads it. (Hello, Sanjay!) Sanjay, the head of online, clued me in that I may want to be careful about how I bash my bosses and fellow employees in a public forum. Who knew?

Did I mention that "IndiaIT" is the greatest place in the world to work?

Weekend Update, work continues to pile on

So I’ve been given a few more assignments that will surely make my life a bit more interesting over the next 3 weeks or so. In addition to the work I will be doing for CampusConnect, I have been put in charge of creating the microsite and brochure for our alliance with Oracle. Oracle, for those of you who don’t know and I certainly didn’t, is a manufacturer of software and hardware products designed for business use. "IndiaIT" has an alliance with Oracle, as they do with Microsoft, SAP, and others, to create solutions that enhance the Oracle products. For instance, "IndiaIT" will create a solution with Oracle that enhances a company’s ability to upgrade their Oracle platform more efficiently, thus minimizing downtime and whatnot. Hopefully that is clear to you, because it hardly means anything to me yet. Whew, I never thought I would ever work with anything like this.

Anyway, this brochure and microsite must be ready by the time Oracle World comes around on 17 September. This means I must have the brochure ready to print and the microsite ready to launch by the end of this month. Did I mention that we’re starting from scratch to do this and I haven’t had extensive experience with either of these media? This blog may become a place for me to vent for the next few weeks. As it is I’ve only had this assignment for a day and I am scraping time to write to you folks.

I’ve also received the green light, actually more of a yellow light, to begin pre-production on a video presentation to be delivered at recruitment information sessions in the United States about the experience of moving to Bangalore and working for "IndiaIT". I called Bruss last night to talk about what would go into such a project considering my directoral skills are minimal at best. His response when I told him of the project, “Nate, it seems that they brought you to India to promote yourself.” Surprisingly enough, these have all been my own initiatives in an effort to find work in the downtime before I was given the Oracle project. We’ll see where this goes; hopefully I haven’t overloaded myself like Winnie did. I have a conference call with the US later this week to discuss the feasibility of such a presentation. Assuming all goes well, I will begin pre-production for my first 8-10 minutes feature film in the next week or so.

That’s about it on the work end. You’ll be hearing more as I get deeper into it. I haven’t been able to read any of my books for the past few nights because I’ve been reading case studies about Oracle in an effort to make heads or tails of it. I can tell it’s coming slowly.

I didn’t get to write yesterday, so I’ll give you a rundown of the weekend.

Friday night I went to a tapas restaurant with a bunch of other coworkers. It was a great time. There was “live” music, and by “live” I mean that there were two Indian guys standing at keyboards covering Billy Joel, Michael Bolton, etc. covers. The weird thing: they were definitely lip syncing with the vocal track. They would be singing Piano Man, and then turn to talk to a guy next to them, but the vocal track didn’t skip a beat! WTF?! Who knows if they were even playing the keyboards? Is it possible they were paid just to stand there and mouth the words to all of these songs? A part of me died…We then went to Blu Bar, a really nice club at another one of the hotels in town. A good time was had by all. Here are a few pictures:

I have no idea what is going on here

Or Here

Hahaha...banana leaves

Saturday I went to Farah’s house for lunch. Man, her house is something else! Three cars in the driveway, seven or eight servants at any given time, and the whole house was marble. Just crazy! The food was also amazing. We had prawns, crabs, rice, various South Indian dishes…At one point I mentioned that I liked mangoes, and within 10 seconds there was a dish of freshly cut mango in front of me. I’ve decided that if you can be rich, living here can be quite a luxurious experience. Farah and I hung out for the better part of the day. We got coffee with her friend Kamya and then met up with Winnie and Josh. We had dinner at this standing street side restaurant. I still don’t know much about Indian food so Farah ordered for me. The guy behind the counter hands me an empty dish and then he scrapes some food out of a few different pots and tosses it on my plate. The Department of Sanitation would’ve had a fit had they seen this!

We went out to a bar where we met up with more of Farah’s friends. They were all very cool! The bar closed at 11:30, which is really starting to get annoying by the way, so we decided to go buy some beer and hang out at my apartment. I didn’t realize there were liquor stores open at midnight? Well, there aren’t. We drove to this place just outside of town and pulled to the curb near this house. A kid who was probably 14 ran to the side of the car and took our order. We asked for 8 Kingfishers and a few minutes later he brought them out in a box and put them in our car. We gave the kid Rs. 600 and drove off. Not a bad system, if you ask me. Someone could make a killing doing that in Evanston!

That’s it for now. I’ll do my best to keep you updated as the work load gets heavier and more interesting.

P.S. I’m starting to think that the digital camera my mom sent me has been confiscated (read: stolen) by the Indian police. I have yet to see it, so I’m starting to think that I won’t. Until then you have to deal with the pictures that Winnie takes, and her only pictures are of us out on a weekend night goofing off. These are more interesting anyway, right?

Work is finally picking up…

So it would seem that "IndiaIT" corporate marketing department has finally realized that they have a very expensive, talented, not to mention dashingly handsome, marketing executive from the United States sitting in a cube completely underutilized. Today I decided to take a more proactive approach and went out to find work. It seems that rather than concentrate on one team, I will be jumping head-first into a few teams, at least for the time being. I will be working on projects with the CampusConnect, the university relations online portal, as well as the PR group and the Banking and Capital Markets (BCM) teams. The problem is that I am very interested in several groups. I imagine that once I begin these various projects I will decide where I want to focus and thus will begin my first solid rotation. People here are really chilled out, so I felt like I was gonna sit here forever unless I did something about it. It’s a very different, much more relaxed, environment than I’ve ever seen in the US. People are always taking breaks, showing up late, leaving early, yet they seem to get more done in an average day than most Americans. They must if the company is growing at roughly 30% annually.

I have what I think is a pretty good feature for the PR team to develop. ME! I will be developing a story about myself and my job here that I will pitch to a large US media, such as The New York Times, Wall Street Journal, Fortune, Forbes, etc. (cross your fingers) Luckily, I have friends here who have connections to the Asian Wall Street Journal as well as the Indian correspondent for the NYT, WSJ and BusinessWeek. Here’s the gist:

The position that Winnie, Matt and I have taken here in Bangalore is an extremely new concept, especially as a first job out of college from the US. It is one thing to come to India after having some post-graduate work experience, but it is quite another to come to India a few weeks after graduating from an American university. Furthermore, there are many implicit facets of a global position such as this that will attract increasing attention from US graduates in the near future, so this story would be both timely and innovative. The fact that "IndiaIT" is one of the first outsourcing companies to take on such an initiative makes the article newsworthy on several levels. I have read articles in both The New York Times and the Wall Street Journal, news outlets recognized on the senior executive level, that have specified international experience as a new requirement for C-level executives. It should be highlighted, and publicized, that "IndiaIT" is one of the first to recognize this fact and utilize it as a way to develop future leaders. I have spoken with Josh about the profiles he has done, and I do not want to overlap too much, but I think that an article such as this featuring the new US hires could add credibility and exposure to "IndiaIT" from an executive standpoint, as "IndiaIT" becomes a more internationally recognized company rather than merely an Indian outsourcing company, and on a recruiting level, as this type of article could help greatly in the international hiring efforts of the future. There is already some interest from US media, specifically The New York Times, and my experience has shown that expressed interest from media is rare and should be capitalized upon immediately before it dissipates. In the case of the NYT, their earlier profile on Josh makes my suggested article an easy follow-up, especially as Josh was the one who began the international recruitment process.

Any thought? Criticisms? Honestly, I’d love to hear them.

So that’s my brainchild of the moment. I’d love to send a New York Times feature on myself to the folks at Edelman and Cramer-Krasselt!!!

Winnie has moved out of my cube, FINALLY! (Obviously kidding. I have to be carefull because she’s a very sensitive girl.) I’m getting to know many of my coworkers and they are starting to open up to this confident, yet refreshingly humble, American chap. Everyone seems to be very cool.

The other day I had to sit through an entire day of analyst training. We sat from 9:00 to 18:30 in a conference room listening to this consultant from the Knowledge Capital Group tell us about analysts and the best way to achieve positive relationships with those analysts that can yield new business. I had done some of this work at Edelman, so much of the material was repetitive for me. Basically, it was 9 hours of restraining myself from shoving my pen through my eye. See, my life isn’t so exciting all the time.

We went out last night (Wednesday) to a bar called Cosmo Village and just kinda chilled. Josh, Winnie, Matt and I are planning a trip over the Indian Independence Day weekend, which is in two weeks. We get the 15th off, so it looks like we’re going to Hampi. I couldn’t even tell you where in India that is right now. We were deciding between a few places, and I hadn’t been to any of them, so I just let them decide. It looks like it’ll cost about $200 for the weekend including transportation and rooms at the Taj, which will probably be the nicest hotel I’ve ever stayed in. I was down with staying in a lesser hotel, but my compatriots wouldn’t hear of it. Oh well! Apparently there are some really awesome temples and whatnot. It’s exciting that I’ll finally get out of Bangalore. You get an extremely skewed view of India when you spend your time in Bangalore. Although now that I think about it, staying in the Taj doesn’t really allow me to experience the down-and-dirty side of India either, but I guess I’ll just have to make do.

I would like to take this time to recognize a very close friend of mine, Christopher Bruss. Apparently he has been feeling neglected lately, not having been mentioned in my blog. Chris, you are a self-important, conceited SOB who clearly has nothing going on in his life, leading you to concentrate on how often you are mentioned in my little online journal that nobody even reads. Just because I mention Hess a few times on his BIRTHDAY doesn’t mean that you are less important. I mean, come on, Hess can really use a boost to his ego. You would too if you were such a complete loser. I mean, COME ON!!! Would a guy in $4200 suit….nevermind.

Alright, it’s the end of the day, so I need to wrap this up and catch my ride home. I think I’m just gonna chill tonight. I slept through my alarm this morning as it is and was almost late for my 9:00 meeting.

I’m just a chilled out entertainer. Peace.

Another Indian Summer Weekend (and a picture of one of our monkeys)

Greetings from my desk on a tired Monday morning. This weekend I put a significant dent in the Bangalore night life. Both Friday and Saturday were well spent as the clubs were allowed to be open as late as 1:00 AM!!! May not sound impressive to the folks in Chicago, but that’s the latest a bar has been open around here in months. It’s ok, though. It just means that we get to the bar around 8:30 or 9:00 instead of 10:00 or 11:00 and you generally get a better night’s sleep, unless you end up at an after-party in some Indian guy’s penthouse apartment till 3:00 in the morn. I’ll explain.

Friday night I went out with Winnie, Josh and a few of Josh’s friends, Armand, Roma and Liviani. Pretty fun crew. Armand is quite the guy. I’m pretty sure I’ll only be able to take him in small doses. He’s a very loud, very large Iranian guy from Berkley, California who manages a bank here in Bangalore. He turned out to be a good connection on Saturday evening. We also had the opportunity to discuss Winnie’s obsession with Indian men openly for the first time. I honestly think that is one of the reasons she took this job. Me? Not a big fan of Indian women yet. Overall, pretty ordinary night. Winnie and I ended up taking a rickshaw home with the worst driver on the face of the earth. He demanded 200 rupees when that is roughly 5 times the normal fare. Paying 2 times the normal fare after midnight is acceptable, but that was just ridiculous. We let him take us home, we paid the fair rate of about Rs 100 and bolted through the gate at Adarsh Gardens. Our security guards will never let a rickshaw driver through, so we knew we were safe. You have to be careful about these kinds of things because I have friends who have gotten knives pulled on them for arguing rick fares. I’m getting really sick of drivers trying to rip me off just because I’m white. True, the difference between getting ripped off and getting a fair price can be about 25 American cents, but it’s the principle. They will say, “You are so rich, and I am so poor. What is 25 rupees to you?” I make a concerted effort to make this place feel like home, and that’s not going to happen if I’m constantly getting ripped off like a tourist. Besides, if you admit to me that you are trying to rip me off because of my skin color, that only makes me much less likely to help you out. Just a little word of advice for any aspiring rickshaw drivers out there.

Saturday was my day as an aristocrat in Bangalore. We spent the majority of the day at Deluxe 5-Star Hotels. Winnie, her friend Maghal, and I met Josh and a few of his friends at the Hotel Oberoi for tea. I’ve said it a thousand times, but these hotels are the most ridiculous places on earth. We had tea and I had my first bite of beef in a few weeks. There are places in Bangalore where you can get beef, but it’s rare. Most of the 5-star hotels will have steaks and hamburgers, but it is difficult to get good beef in India. These are the only places that can afford to have it imported. I still ordered my burger medium, which is more well-done than I usually like. I need to buy a white linen suit and a cabana hat. Here’s a picture of the place we ate (not exactly where we ate, but till I get my camera this will have to do):

We then stopped by a bookstore on MG Road where I purchased a copy of Herb Cohen’s book “How to Negotiate Anything,” which comes highly recommended by a relative of mine who is a very successful businessman. Book stores are an experience around here. Basically just thousands of books pilled from floor to ceiling. I don’t know how they keep it organized, having no shelves and all, but I found the book I was looking for in less than 5 minutes!

Then I met Matt, Ricardo and Armand at a bowling alley near the bookstore. We bowled a game and ordered food and drink. Good time was had by all, nothing too crazy. This is where the evening gets good.

Armand knows an Indian business man who is a member at Club Athena, maybe the nicest, most exclusive club in Bangalore, which is located in the fanciest, most decadent place on the face of the earth. This place is the Leela Palace. Here is a picture:

You pay Rs 700 at the door, but they give you a personal debit card with Rs 700 credited to it. We were taken to the VIP section where we had a private bar. It’s impossible to really explain this place without pictures, which I obviously don’t have, but there are a few shots that Winnie took below. The clientele was certainly impressive by several measures. More beautiful Indian people than I had ever seen in one place before. I hung out with this French guy who ordered me champagne, talked with several Indian businessmen…everyone is very open to meeting new people because so many of them are here temporarily on business. Such incredible networking opportunities. However, these people had no interest in networking and placed much more importance on ordering drinks. My kind of crowd.

I met up with Farah, a friend from NU, and she invited a few of us to go to an afterparty that her friends were having. It was really nice to hang out with someone from school. We partied till around 4:00 in the morning when I realized that I had been out “having fun” since 7:00 PM and I was clearly passing out. Nevertheless, I lived up to my promise to have a wild night in honor of Daniel Hess’ birthday. Could he have seen me, he would have been very proud.

Still having a good time in Bangalore and it’s starting to feel more like home rather than an extended vacation in a third world nation. This coming weekend will be spent doing less partying and more exploring of India. (I know you’re getting sick of my stories about my evenings in fancy clubs. If you’ve heard one, you’ve heard em all.) I think we may travel to Mysore to visit a few temples and see the Infosys campus there which is supposed to be very impressive.

Now, the picture you’ve all been clamoring for.

Here is your moment of Zen: