Hello to everyone! I've been informed that some of my content is going to be picked up in a dispatch series on PSU Live starting with the first entry that was posted today: http://live.psu.edu/story/31281. Welcome to anyone who doesn't know me and who is interested in following along to read about my encounters this summer. As summarized in that article, I am one of four interns taking advantage of an awesome opportunity to work in India this summer as part of a pilot program with Honeywell. We hope that this will lead to more international internships for students in the future.

Anyway, lots to talk about since my last update. We had a good finish to the weekend, but are really looking forward to the weekends upcoming. On Sunday, we went grocery shopping and I splurged on a small jar of peanut butter for $6 but also bought a big bag of mosambi for less than a dollar. Mosambi is a citrus fruit similar to an orange, but also kind of like a lime that I tasted at work and like quite a bit. They're good for a snack and really cheap. Also on Sunday was a chance to hear even more 90's music at this cool place called Mocha. It's almost as if time is standing still in the U.S. and we've gotten an opportunity to travel back to the past and watch this nation develop into the 1990's. Another funny thing I noticed on Sunday was the show MXC on television in Hindi. It was still funny to watch, perhaps even more funny than watching in the English version.

Monday brought about the start of another work week, and I started to delve deeper into my project work. I think we saw our first cow in the middle of the road on Monday as well. It was funny to watch the stop-and-go-traffic just totally maneuver its way around the cow so as not to hit it. I've been told that if you hit a cow with your car, you better just run as far away from the car as quickly as you possibly can because an angry mob will form and they'll beat you up and torch the car. Fun. And sorry to keep talking about music, but I also heard some interesting ring tones at work on Monday as someone had the ring tone "Smack That" as the first song I've heard here from the current decade, but someone else restored my faith in ridiculousness when I heard "We Wish You a Merry Christmas" as a midi ring tone.

Tuesday was a great day which involved seeing a familiar face in an unfamiliar place. In something that we'd been trying to plan the past week or so, we ended up meeting up with Eric and went to a steak restaurant. Yes, I was quite skeptical at first as well (THERE'S STEAK HERE?!), but the place turned out to be pretty darn good. It was called the Juke Box and was not far from our apartments, and boy was it good to taste some beef. I even cued up Aaron Copland's Rodeo before heading off to the restaurant to get me in the mood. It's not the best I've ever had, but it was nice to taste, and was also a lot of fun to see Eric and meet some of his friends from Intel. I hope to be meeting up with them again soon - we may be getting lunch at the Intel office on Friday (it's not very far from our office).

Then today served as a nice day to break up the week a little bit. Matt, Larissa, and I work at the Orion campus normally, but today we headed to the main campus so that we could meet up with Joel and take care of registering at the consulate so that we're free and clear for the duration of our visa. This entailed running around the city quite a bit to get passport photographs and copies and things, but we got to meet Prince from Fragomen (the law firm we've been working with that helped me immensely to get my visa in NYC on very short notice and then helped us immensely today by babysitting us throughout the city - Prince was also an awesome guy) and had a cool day. We saw MG (Mahatma Ghandi) Road and a lot of cool places in the city. Some parts of this city are still certainly underdeveloped, but this part of the city could have just as easily been New York. They're working on the metro system and all the street signs and shops and things were just like New York (pictures forthcoming). I think a lot of people have misperceptions about Bangalore in thinking that it's underdeveloped: it really isn't. It's a different place for sure, but it's really one of the exceptions in India in that it's become so industrialized and so big and so well developed so quickly. I can only imagine in five years what the city will be like.

Other than that, I'm trying to think of a couple other general observations of the city while I try to soak this place in. First off, there are dogs everywhere. I can almost liken the wild dogs to wild squirrels in State College - they just roam around. Sometimes it's sad, but really they find a way and they're just part of what it's like here. Another general observation is how energy efficient they really strive to be. Like the rest of the world that I've seen outside the US, the vehicles in general are much smaller and they're all manual transmissions, but it extends beyond that. Even in our apartment, there is a little fob attached to our key that we use to turn on the power in the apartment. When we leave, nothing is left running, no lights, no power. They do a pretty good job conserving.

I think Dr. Petrick is set to arrive in Bangalore shortly if she didn't already today, so I wish her the best of luck as she's getting started here. I hope that thus far anyone who's reading has enjoyed reading my blog. Please do let me know if there are any other types of comments or questions you have or anything you'd like to know about the city or you'd like me to blog about. It's the first time for all of us, and since I'm the one who's here, I have the opportunity to give first-hand feedback if you want it. I'm doing this partly for me for sure, but it's mostly to keep all my family and friends updated, and to provide interesting information to anyone else that wants to read it. So don't hesitate to leave a comment or a question or let me know if there's anything you'd like to know.

Up until today, I had been mooching off someone else's unprotected wireless network to bring you these updates and to check my email, etc., but as of today that SSID is nowhere in sight and the era of free access may be over. The apartment wants about $6 per day for Internet which is ridiculous, so my updates may have to be a little bit more stretched out, we'll see. Where there's a will, there's a way so I know I'll still be blogging, I'm just disappointed I won't be able to keep as close of a tabs on email or chatting on AIM with friends. So to my friends: I'm not ignoring you, I just have limited access for now.

As I look toward the rest of the week, we're starting to really plan our travel destinations for our final eight weekends here. This weekend will be spent checking out the nearby National Park where we can see wild animals (like Tigers, Lions, Elephants) running around, not like a zoo in the US. We also may be checking out an amusement part and go-karts nearby with our new best friends/co-workers Sandesh and Tanu. In terms of future weekends, we're working with Honeywell travel agents (who are helping with logistics) to try to make some plans to hit all the hot spots within India, including most importantly Delhi/Agra to see the Taj Mahal. Other places on our long list include Goa, Mysore, Kerala, and Mumbai. Seeing as we're starting to get into monsoon season, though, some of these places may be better destinations than others depending on the weather so we'll see. A trip to Mt. Everest would sure be something as well, but we're going to need to really look into the cost for airfare and such for all these trips because it's going to get expensive and we don't have that much to spend. I just want to see as much as I can while I'm in this part of the world this summer.

It's been really great having all these experiences thus far and forging new friendships with the other interns and the other people we meet here, so I'm looking forward to the road ahead. As always, I hope everyone else is enjoying their summer as well. I know a lot of the US has been experiencing unseasonably high temperatures while this week it's been relatively cool in Bangalore with the cloud cover, so we're in the 70's while many of you are feeling the heat in the 90's. Regardless though, I wish everyone the best for the rest of this week, and I'll be updating soon. Please let me know if there's anything you'd like to know at any point or you have any feedback about my blogging, this is my first time. Stay cool, talk to you soon!