A couple good days have passed since my last post. Starting on Friday, I actually got some work to do! I got started on my first project which is basically dealing with providing some recommendations about Knowledge Management for HTS (Honeywell Technology Solutions) and specifically for Aerospace within Honeywell. I won't bore with too much detail, but basically HTS is set up almost like an external consulting company to Honeywell that has to place bids along with firms like IBM, Accenture, etc. in order to keep them competitive and top-of-the-line to do the big-time tech projects within the company. In terms of making recommendations for KM, I'm actually pretty excited about this. I've been excited about KM for awhile now, and I have a gold mine of resources to start with from some of Dr. Clark's classes along with my Gartner access from PSU.

But that's enough about work. First, on the food front, since my last post and my craving for American food, that's pretty much all I've had. We ordered Pizza Hut on Thursday night, and it was the EXACT same as American Pizza Hut. Normally I wouldn't be excited about that, but boy did it hit the spot. Then Friday (after having Indian breakfast and Indian lunch at work) we went out and had Chinese (OK, not American, but pretty much). After that was the best part of all of this, there is a "Fudge and Cream Shop" in the mall that, as it turns out, is basically COLD STONE CREAMERY! It's the same style with the ice cream and the mix-ins and the mashers and the stone and all that jazz - it was such a welcomed sight and treat. Then, today also consisted of a non-Veg lunch for a change and a stop at McDonalds for dinner (the fries are the same!). We're finding that if you look hard enough, it's really not very difficult to find different types of food around. Tomorrow I hope to go grocery shopping, and I should be able to pick up some familiar things (Ramen Noodles!) that I can have and also some things to bring to mix up the lunch palette.

So that brings us to today, we wanted to explore Bangalore for our first real chance to do so since we've been here. Last weekend is when we arrived and all we did was sleep and settle in, and we haven't had a chance at night after work, so this was it. We went out and walked around a little while, and then checked out a couple malls. Sandesh and Tanu were nice enough to take us out (again, these are two of the University Relations people from Honeywell Bangalore who have been nothing but awesome in helping us out since we've been here) and they were a lot of fun. We also met one of Tanu's friends. It was a very nice, relaxing day. I got to take a rickshaw for the first time in my ride to the mall, and then another on the ride back. I have pictures and video that I will post at some point. It was much fun. When we were leaving the mall, we spied a McDonalds and were lured in by the smell of American McDonalds fries, so I got some. First off, no, there are no hamburgers at this McDonalds, but they do have McCurry. That's right: McCurry. Anyway, I got the fries to go and was eating them in the rickshaw on the way back home - a pretty fun and interesting way to cap off the day.

I've thought of a few more general observations that I'd like to share as well concerning Bangalore overall thus far. All are either differences between India and the US or are just weird things that are of note and worth sharing. The first is addresses here. In the US, it's pretty standard practice to have a number on a street, then the city, state, and zip code. Maybe an apartment number or a road box or some other such thing here or there, but it's all pretty standard and normally is a simple three-line address that one would be able to find directions to using a map. Throw all that logic out the window here. For reference, here is my address for the summer (I feel comfortable sharing it on the web because you probably wouldn't be able to find it anyway, and you also wouldn't be able to mail me something that would actually get here in the ten weeks I'll be here):

THE ORCHARD SUITES 101
No. 25 Intermediate Ring Road
Near Ejipura Signal
Opposite Barath Petrolem
Next to LG Spopee
Koramangala
Bangalore - 560047

It is very common practice to just have this "Next to," "Near," "Opposite," or other directions as part of an address. It's not even that common to have names for all the streets. And in some places, it's not even that common to have streets. We were in major traffic after work on Friday and the shuttle driver tried to take a shortcut, until we turned onto a road, went about 0.25km, and all of a sudden over half the road was just gone. It was quite the maneuvering to back up and get out of there with all the cars behind us and in front of us and wedged around, and really not even the width of the shuttle to turn around in, but we managed. Also, with the new airport outside of town, it opened before roads were really even built to it, so the infrastructure for getting there now is very poor, and people are complaining big time because it takes so long to get there. The traffic is always ridiculous as it is, but it's just interesting to note that the addresses in general and the logic are just very different. The simplicity that we sometimes take for granted.

Another observation I've made is the differences surrounding a head nod. In the US, it's pretty clear that a nod up and down means "Yes," while a nod side-to-side means "No." Here, it's common to be all over the place and I'm sometimes really confused if someone is telling me "Yes" or "No" (especially since I can't always understand their accents so I rely heavily on interpreting body language). I don't really know how to describe it, but it's basically a head bobble in all directions that is an acknowledgment or "I understand" or could also mean agreement or "Yes" in any given situation. I have noticed this before from Indian people in the US, and just thought it was an odd quirk in a person's motions, but it's actually just part of the culture as everyone does it here. I probably did a very poor job in explaining this as you'd really just have to see it, but it basically amounts to an ambiguous head bobble being pretty pervasive during most communication, and it's very difficult to understand if the person you're talking to is saying "Yes" or "No" or just nodding to follow along.

One last observation for now before I bore you all to death too much with this long post concerns the music. This is similar to something I noticed in Europe (which is that it seemed like I was in the US in the 1990's in that I heard so much popular 90's music in public places like Chumbawamba, Seal, and other ridiculous stuff pretty much exclusively), but the selection of American music that is played here is quite peculiar. Unlike Europe, there is actually quite a bit of native music mixed in as well, as I have heard quite a selection (a number of which I actually like quite a bit) of Hindi songs played (in Europe, I really only heard 90's American pop music), but also unlike Europe, the American music is really all over the map, including but not just 90's. Starting with breakfast the first morning here, we've heard an array of US country music, classic rock like one of my personal favorites: "The Final Countdown", and a lot of soft rock like Celine Dion, "Cats in the Cradle" and oddly enough " Circle of Life" from the Lion King Soundtrack. I just think it's humorous the selection of American music that seems to be popular here. It's a lot of songs that just make us laugh when we'll randomly catch part of it in the background and it's like, "Wait, did you hear that?"

I apologize for all my ridiculously unorganized parenthetical passages throughout, but it's easier to write that way for the purposes of this blog to write fast, and I hope it's not too difficult to read. Two more blogs I wanted to point out: IST Professor of Practice Irene Petrick (who actually is good friends with Heather Bean apparently) will be traveling to Bangalore in the coming week and blogging at http://eii.ist.psu.edu/blog/ while recent PSU Alum, current CMU grad student, and former Blue Band President Eric Menendez is interning at Intel this summer in Bangalore and is blogging at http://ericinindia.wordpress.com/. Once I figure it out, I'd like to add links to all four of these related blogs on the side navigation, but I'm still fighting with this MT4 platform right now concerning issues such as the layout, comments, buttons, etc, but hope to have that all resolved soon. I'm excited to do a little more exploring within the city tomorrow, get back to work on Monday, and then start planning more trips for the upcoming weekends. Flights to Delhi, Mumbai, and Calcutta should only run about 1500rps (about $30) apiece, and we can make some pretty awesome weekend (wish it could be more!) trips out of those. Our HR people have also graciously offered to help organize these and some during-the-week field trips to other companies in Bangalore like Infosys and other firms since who knows when we'll be back here. I'm really glad Honeywell is open to these types of things, and it's going to help make this summer more enjoyable and more memorable. Hope everyone is doing well wherever you are - I'll be posting again soon. Stay classy.