ThoughtWorks: Immersion: First Real Day in Pune

It’s now 10:59am, and I just woke up. Traveling sure takes it out of me.

Sleeping late was nice. %^}

Yesterday was all about adapting to this time zone. We napped in the morning, then my friend Ashish (from pcOrder days) came over and took us (Chris and me) to lunch. We went to a coffee shop named Mocha, and I had an omelet and a strawberry milkshake. We smoked a hookah! No tobacco, just herbs and mint. It was interesting and kind of fun. Then Ashish dropped us off (“us” is me and Chris still) at a mall. It’s actually sort of like a giant department store, but has a few other stores in it too. I bought a small point and shoot camera (sometimes I don't want to carry my Canon DSLR for snapshots) and an inexpensive watch for traveling, which will be easy to reset time on. So now I know what time it is here. %^}

We came back, and both of us took naps.

Oh – the shopping was really because Chris’s suitcase didn’t make it to India, so he needed a shirt and some basics to hold him until his bag showed up. Which it should do today.

We both showered, then had dinner at about 8pm local time. The guy from ThoughtWorks (Naressh) who’s responsible for logistics for Immersion came by about 10pm, brought us welcome bags that include a cell phone, some info, and a tourism guide to Pune.

We went for a short walk. Our hotel is in a cul-de-sac, so you go out the hotel, turn left to the corner (just a few paces), the turn right to go a short block (a medical clinic, lots of stray dogs, a rusting tractor), then turn right onto a local street (more stray dogs, surprising number of people out and about at 10:30pm, motorcycles, cars, them driving on the left side of the street, honking their horns and flashing their lights). One short-ish block and turn right again onto something between a street and an alley, and we stopped at a little local tourist/gift shop that was still open and each bought Tibetan meditation bells (brass bowls, basically). Then we came back here to go to bed.

I managed to settle down and get to sleep by about 11:30, and slept until 10:30 this morning!

It’s 11:20 now, and I’m going to shower, dress, and go have some food and take my malaria medication.

Whew!

More to come.