Nate Linkon: Gettin around: Weekend update...for two weekends ago (a few pictures added at the bottom)

So I've been busy.

Sup, ya’ll. Thought I’d let everyone know about my weekend, which was pretty strange for a weekend in Bangalore.

Friday night I went to dinner with Scotty Mac and some friends that he has connections with here in India. Really nice people and they invited us to some pre-wedding dinner they are having this weekend. Unfortunately, Scott and I have another wedding to attend on Friday and Saturday. I’ll explain a bit alter. We met up with the usual crew to a bar called NASA. You people have to see this place. All of the waiters and bartenders wear NASA uniforms, or what Indians think are NASA uniforms. You walk through a hatch into the “spaceship” that is the bar. Even the bathrooms are basically airplane restrooms, which suck! Get this, there were windows around the bar meant to create a spaceship atmosphere. What would you expect to see outside of a spaceship window? Hmmm, I don’t know….maybe….SPACE. Not in India, my friends. In India you see pictures of Michael Jackson and Twisted Sister….hhhhhwhat?!?! Needless to say, we could not stay here too long. We went out to the street where drinking laws don’t exist and we bought several bottles of Kingfisher (beer) and had a little get-together at Adarsh. Nothing too insane, just a bunch of Infoscions having a good time.

Saturday night we sat around Adarsh just chillaxin. I watched Arrested Development and Desperate Housewives and then went to Forum with Winnie. Forum is the nicer mall in Bangalore that actually rivals some of the nice malls I’ve been in around Chicago. The mission for this shopping trip was to get me a new pair of kicks for basketball. What I found will blow your mind! Check it:

That night we didn’t do much but watch movies at the apartment. Around 11:00 PM Juan showed up with some Japanese people who brought a bottle of sake that was gone in less that 5 minutes. Usual Saturday.

On Sunday Scott, Juan, Winnie and I went to FabIndia to buy our Indian formal wear for the wedding of my friend Tony. Tony, and his fiancé Zeeba, are part of the group that plays basketball on Sundays. There is a reception at the Leela (the most decadent hotel I’ve ever seen) on Friday night and then the ceremony is Saturday in the morning. That evening everyone is going to the Golden Palms spa, which is apparently owned by Zeeba’s uncle who is a famous director/producer or something. The catch is that we need to wear this Indian formal wear the whole time. This is called a kurta. What do you think? I’ll post pictures.

Later that evening the entire group of us went to the Gypsy Kings concert at the Palace Grounds in Bangalore. As you can expect, not many people in Bangalore are familiar with the Gypsy Kings, so there were MAYBE 300 people there. There were three sections. The Rs 500 section, Rs 1000 and Rs 2000. Imagine a football field separated into three sections so there were partitions at each 33 yard line. Around the field was a metal wall about 15 feet high. Separating the sections were cow fences with armed guards placed every 30 feet or so along these partitions. We had the Rs 500 tickets. Obviously. Anyway, the great part was we were able to move from the 500 section to the 2000 section because nobody was there. We got to about the 5^th row of people and had a really great time dancing to some really fantastic Spanish music.

Our crew chillin before the concert on a cool beverage. (From left: Pete, Shibani, Matt, me, Juan

The Gypsy Kings (actually just Chico and the Gypsies)

Afterwards we went to Opus, a club within walking distance of the concert grounds, for Sunday evening Karaoke!!! There’s something you have to understand about karaoke in any place but the US. People take that shit seriously! It’s clear that some of these people practice their song all week in anticipation of this intense evening. There was even some woman who is the lead singer of a popular Indian pop group. She was incredible.

And then there’s the American style of karaoke: let’s get wasted and sing tunes that we have no business attempting. So after some petrified Indian sang “American Pie,” Nate Linkon steps to bat with his three choices. It’s Not Unusual by Tom Jones, Losing My Religion by REM (not my idea, btw. I was dragged on stage by my friend Shibani) and Back in Black by AC/DC. Can you believe they didn’t have Back in Black?!?! They did have Losing My Religion and It’s Not Unusual. The crowd was clearly impressed with my vocal stylings, and who could blame them?

Here are some pictures of the evening:

Some Indian People

Crazy rapping Indian dudes