India - Day 1

Having arrived in India at 4:30 am, I only went into work for a few hours in the afternoon today.

I got a driver from the hotel to take me to the office. Everyone is super friendly here, and always interested in hearing all about your day. Work is very nearby - probably less than 2 miles from the hotel. After the long ride from the airport, I am used to the crazy driving. We quickly arrived at the main gate of the technology park, which was very heavily secured - men dressed in camouflage and holding machine guns were standing out front. There were probably 15 other security guards with billy clubs that looked like they had been used a lot.

They are very picky about having a badge to get in, which I did not have. Someone from Paprikaas was supposed to meet me at the gate with a badge, but I had arrived a few minutes early. The guard demanded I get out of the car and stand in line to get a badge, which I did. By the time I got up to the window the guy from Paprikaas was there with the badge. We both got back in my car and the driver took us to the building. Before the car was allowed in, they were doing something with a very strange/scary looking device with an antenna sticking out of it. I think it was some sort of explosives detection. I was told that security has been increased since the attacks on the hotels in Mumbai last December.

I got the grand tour of Paprikaas and met a bunch of people today. They are located in a HUGE technology park with lots of giant buildings, and even a mall with lots of restaurants. Paprikaas has 3 floors of the building they are in - 9, 10, and 11. I am on the 10th floor with the majority of production, IT and more production is on the 9th floor, and the 11th floor is a team of 75 people dedicated to Dreamworks. They have a dailies viewing room, ping pong room, acting room with mirrors all around and a video camera to record reference, HUGE training room equipped with dual projectors and an audio system, and a couple different cafeteria type rooms with tables and chairs to eat at. The production space is all fancy, colored cubicles. It's a very nice environment, not unlike studios in the US.

After my brief visit, the office assistant took me down to the mall so I could get something to eat - I was starving!! They have a ton of Indian restaurants, as well as Subway, Pizza Hut (which is extremely popular), KFC (also quite popular), and Baskin Robbins. I had Subway today.

The drive back to the hotel was fun, I now really enjoy riding in a car here. It's fun to watch all that is going on around you - Women sweeping loose dirt off of the dirt below (and I mean literally - piles of dirt), piles of garbage on the sides of the road growing as people throw more stuff on them, and children digging ditches with very primitive tools.

Back at my hotel, they go around the whole car with a mirror to look underneath for explosives, and they carefully inspect the inside and the trunk. After we go through the gate I must go through a metal detector and let them search my bag before I am allowed in.

I am exhausted, and very thirsty. I call room service to get me a bottle of water. It took 30 minutes to get the stupid water and when it arrived, a lady called me and said a man is waiting outside your door, please open it. I opened it to see a smiling indian man holding a nice basket lined with a cloth napkin, and a bottle of Aquafina laying neatly inside. It was all I could do not to laugh.

I am finishing up on my computer, checking my email, and getting ready to go to bed when the phone rings again. It is the same lady, and she says "There is a man outside your door with a bottle of wine, please let him in". I ran to the door and let him in - he ran into the room and left a bottle of wine in a basket on my table and quickly left. I had no idea what was going on or why they were giving me wine - I had not ordered it. It got the best of me and I decided to call room service to ask where it came from - the guy said he would find out. He called me back a couple minutes later and said "For you, the wine is complimentary". I still don't know where it came from or who paid for it.

What a long day, it will feel good to get some sleep.

12 days to go...

Arrival in India

It's official, I'm in India!! There is a little bit of culture shock right now, but not too bad - I prepared myself well before I got here.

Flight to India was pretty uneventful - I slept through most of it.

I was quite nervous about getting through immigration and customs, but it was simple.

When I got outside, there stood two Indian men smiling ear to ear as I made eye contact with them, holding a sign that read "Mr. Brian Burger" - these would be my drivers.

I didn't have the heart to correct them on my name, as I do everyone else. They were very nice and spoke very good english.

I was prepared for a rough ride to the hotel, but it started out fine, on what looked to be one of their major highways. There were 3 lanes on each side, with lines painted to separate them, but that's where the similarities to US highways end.

I had my nose buried in my blackberry reading all the emails about bike rides to the beach and snow cones that all you people in CA are enjoying. I wasn't paying any attention to what was going on with the car. Pretty soon we stopped and I heard "Have a great stay, Mr. Burger" - I freaked out because I wasn't paying attention and thought we were at the hotel already. I started shoving the phone back in my pocket, gathering my belongings, and taking off my seatbelt. Only to have the car roar off once again as I looked out the window at the man that had helped with my baggage. He was standing on the side of the road in the middle of nowhere with what looked like a homeless man's shelter behind him. I quickly realized we were just dropping this man off - I have no idea if that's where he lives.

I decided at this point that it was best I pay attention to what was going on with the car. As it turns out, I should have continued reading my email.

The ride was definitely an experience. So, back to the differences between US and Indian roads. In the US, the big, red octagon-shaped signs wih the word "STOP" in the middle of them usually mean to do just that. Not in India. In India it means "Please blow through this intersection as fast as you possibly can whilst blowing your horn without regard to the cyclists, cars, and giant trucks heading through from the opposite direction". I guess that wouldn't fit on a sign, so they just went with "STOP".

We went through at least 3 of these signs in just this manner, but that was nothing compared to the man peeing on the side of the road for the whole world to see, the stray, malnourished dogs that roam the streets in search of a fresh pile of garbage to eat, and the hundreds of near (and when I say near, I mean within inches or less) collisions we had with pedestrians, motorcycles, bicycles, and trucks large enough to make our compact car MUCH more compact.

If all that wasn't enough, we were on the Indian equivalent of the 405 freeway, traveling at over 100 kph, and every couple of miles or so there would be these GIANT speed bumps. The driver would slam on the brakes and go over them as slowly as humanly possible, but we still bottomed out on a few of them.

I finally arrived at the hotel, and they were waiting for me and greeted me. I was shown to my room and since then have been settling in. I am heading to work in another hour or so (at 2:45 pm local time). I sure will be tired tonight.

Hopefully pictures to come soon.

Flight to London...continued

So, I forgot to mention one very ironic thing about my flight to London.

They had a whole bunch of movies to choose from on the plane, but the featured movie was Benjamin Button. I decided to watch it again.

I thought it was ironic enough that the featured movie was BB, since I worked on it with the company I am flying to India for, but it gets better. One thing that I didn't notice in the movie before (perhaps then it didn't mean anything to me), was that when Ben leaves Daisy to raise their daughter, he goes to India!

After BB was over I looked for another movie to watch. They had Slumdog Millionaire which I have been wanting to see anyway, so I watched that. To those of you who warned me not to watch it before I went to India, you were half right and half wrong :-)

Arrived in London

Well, here I am in London - sitting in the wonderful British Airlines lounge and typing on a lousy british keyboard (took me about 30 minutes to find the @ symbol earlier).#

The first flight was great, and I was very happy to be in business class.

Longest flight i've been on before this was from the west coast to the east coast of the US.

They served dinner and breakfast on the plane - I have never eaten a meal on a plane til now.

For dinner they served a salad and bread for a starter, I chose the chicken curry for the main course (to get myself ready for India). Wow, I have no tolerance for spicy stuff AT ALL! It came with rice and veggies which I ate. Dessert was a fantastic cheesecake with some sort of ginger sauce and sliced almonds on top. Oh yeah, and they gave me this really cool little box of truffles (not really so much cool as it was tasty). Champagne to drink with dinner as well!

For breakfast I had Special K cereal with strawberries on top, raspberry yogurt, a banana, a blueberry mini muffin, and a strawberry-banana smoothie. Good stuff!

Well, I have to run now to catch my next flight. I'll be in India soon - and just as I was getting used to being surrounded by all these people with wonderful british accents. Feels just like work!

More later.

India

As many of you know already, I will be off to Bangalore, India in the next couple days. I will be over there for about two weeks for work.

I will be trying to post to this blog at least once a day, assuming I have a sufficient internet connection.

Check back for updates and photos along the way.

Finally, I have a blog!

Well, it has been a long time in the making, but at long last, Burger Buzz is here!

This blog is mainly intended as a showcase for my photography, and a place to write about my adventures.

I do tend to have a lot of adventures, sometimes unintentional, so there should be plenty o' content rolling through for you stalkers to read.

Hope you enjoy.