Today was a pretty good day overall. I enjoyed what we had today to eat, and I'm starting to get used to HOW to eat it as well.

It's funny how quickly I forgot being at school, but it didn't take long to set back in how much I look forward to Fridays during the work week. I definitely can't wait for this weekend for a little bit of R&R and also some exploring of Bangalore.

I had a good laugh today when I was on hold before a conference call and heard the Honeywell Corporate Anthem playing. Last summer, I remember listening to a bunch of Corporate Anthems and determined that Honeywell is certainly in the top five - KPMG also has a fantastic one.

Found a video on YouTube today of driving in India just to show you for example. This video isn't even nearly as congested as it is in Bangalore, but this is the exact style of driving - lots of fun!

Congrats to my brother Chris who is graduating High School today! Wish I could be there. I'll post again when there's more to report!

First off, I wanted to post links to the blogs of Joel and Matt who are interning with me this summer. Check them out at http://blog.joelboucher.net/ and http://www.mattprindible.com/india/ respectively.

OK, so three work days down, 47 to go. Pretty eventful happenings the last few days since my last post: a lot of firsts. I managed to get sick for the first time - not terrible, just some stomach issues, but I know that's part of the normal adjustment process. By the time I make it back to the U.S., I'm going to be immune to anything it can throw at me. I don't know if it was food or water or what, but I'm just going to take it a little more slowly with the food. It's all very spicy: breakfast, lunch, dinner, you name it. I like spicy, but I'm just going to need to get adjusted to it.

I also exchanged money for the first time. I handed over $160 US dollars and $10 Euros and felt like I got completely ripped off when I was handed back like 8000 Rupees. The stuff feels like Monopoly money, or maybe better said Ghandopoly money. Every bill has Ghandi on it: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Indian_rupee. It's about 42 Rupees = 1 US Dollar. Overall things seem to be cheaper here, though. For example, I can get a meal out somewhere for about 100 rupees, which is like $2.00. Anyway, so that was an experience.

Another first was my first day at our campus. Honeywell in Bangalore is comprised of a couple different campus locations. We spent the first days at the Main Campus (comprised of buildings each named after a planet), then today went to the Orion campus (catching onto the theme?). Orion is where I'll be working the rest of the summer. I met my manager for the first time and some other people on my team. I'm not really sure yet what I'll be working on, but that should be sorted out by the end of the week.

It was a little bit frustrating and boring today not having anything to work on yet, and also not having Internet at our cubicles (!). But, hopefully soon that will all be worked out. The biggest positive to take out of everything so far is that everyone we've met and worked with has been so very nice. The HR people here have all been absolutely fantastic, and the guys on my team also seem great. They're going through this for the first time as well, so I can understand that things are a little hectic here to start. If my workstation and email and things are all set up tomorrow, I'll be able to finally access the calling card information to call home, communicate with everyone else using the internal communicator, and hopefully start work on my projects. That will make things a lot better.

One first that I'm still waiting for is a HOT SHOWER. The apartments we're staying at are fantastic, but I always seem to catch the shower at the wrong time. I know Larissa gets a hot shower everyday and Joel has been lucky as well, but I must be trying to get a shower at the same time as everyone else. I'm going to try some different times so I can start getting hot showers. Otherwise, it's going to be a long ten weeks.

I've been keeping up with the news from the U.S. as well: Ortiz on the DL for a month, and Barack finally declares victory over Hillary. I guess with her out of the picture, the scariest woman in U.S. politics is now officially Michelle Obama. As far as the Red Sox are concerned, I've missed not being able to flip on a game at night, but it's fun to get up in the morning and check all the scores and follow along online for a couple innings before I go to work. (The standard 7:05PM start time is 5:35AM here.)

I guess that's about it for tonight. Hope all is well with everyone wherever you are. Also, if you're having trouble commenting, please shoot me an email or an IM and I'll try to figure out the problem. I've heard from a number of people that you can't comment on here, so I'd like to fix that if possible. Take care!

Wow.

Day 1/50 is complete. Basically all we did today was go through orientation and "Induction" to Honeywell. I now have my badge, etc. Tomorrow will be cultural training, and then Wednesday is when I will finally start my actual assignment.

We spent most of the day with Sandesh and Tanu, two of the HR people here in Bangalore, and they've really helped us to get accustomed to Honeywell and to the area. We went out with them yesterday actually to the mall - the largest mall in Bangalore - The Forum. There we got a chance to look around and see some bookstores, music stores, clothes stores - everything is cheaper here overall than in the US. Also, we went to the food court and got some awesome food. I pretty much crashed after that and then woke up this morning in time for breakfast and work. I'm almost recovered from the jet lag, but I'll probably crash soon after this as well even though it's only 8PM.

Probably the biggest observation of the day was the amazing wonder that is the morning commute. There really are no lanes and there really are no stoplights. Most of the vehicles on the road are rickshaws and motorcycles, and they basically just weave in and out of everyone else. There is the constant beeping of horns and basically just constant chaos. It's quite fun.

Another cool thing today was just reaffirming how cool Honeywell is and just how much they do. Basically, think of anything there is that you don't know who makes it: Honeywell makes it. From thermostats to car filters to vacuum bags to anti-freeze to runway lights to sensors to landing gear to microchips to stoplights, Honeywell does it and more. The work day is 9:15-6:15, so we catch our shuttle at around 8:15 and make it home by 7:00. That does make for a pretty long day, and unfortunately it gets dark by 7:00 even in the summer, so we're really not going to be able to enjoy much sunlight expect on the weekends. But alas, that's work, and I know it's going to be a great experience.

We also checked out the grocery store for the first time today. Fresh fruit and vegetables are very cheap, but stuff like spaghetti sauce is actually very expensive, like $4.00 a jar. We'll have to adjust to what we want to make for meals. Basically, though, we're going to be eating breakfast for free at the hotel and lunch at Honeywell for pretty cheap, so dinner may just end up being mangoes every night - we'll see.

Best of luck to everyone else who also started work today! I'll check back in after I've actually started with my work with my manager.

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