you're a pill to ease the pain of all the stupid things i do
I'm so tired; I have work that I should do, but I'm going to go to bed instead. Luckily for me, the twelve-hour time difference means that if something is needed in California by Friday night, I can get up and do it on Saturday morning. Yippee.
I went to work, of course, and did some stuff. I left around seven with Arod, Uma, and Ruksha to go shopping. Traffic was absolutely horrendous, because there was a lot of rain and lightning today, and consequently there was a lot of flooding and various roads were washing out. So, it took an hour and a half to get to Banjara Hills, which normally would take less than half an hour. By the time we got there, Uma had to leave (it took her another hour and a half to get home). Ruksha, Arod and I hung out for awhile at Cotton India; they sell the materials for various Indian outfits, and I got enough stuff for two complete outfits as well as two tops. I will endeavor to post pictures when I have the outfits, which should be by mid-week. After shopping, we took an autorickshaw (extremely wet!) to Ohri's, where we had tasty Indian food; the driver finally made it back from dropping off Uma, and Arod and I got home around midnight.
Tonight was quite entertaining, all in all, although there were prolonged bits of conversation that I couldn't understand since Ruksha and Arod were talking to the storekeepers and tailors mostly in Hindi. The shop was much different from the impersonal, polished splendor of Hyderabad Central; it was a tiny room lined with shelves piled high with fabrics, and the street-facing 'wall' was missing, thus exposing the store to the elements. After we chose fabrics, we took them to the next store/room over where the tailors were located, and they took our measurements and determined what necklines and shirt lengths we wanted. That type of shopping, compared with the autorickshaw ride and the fact that we actually crossed a busy street without being accompanied by one of the drivers, made me feel like we had won some precious moment of freedom. I am back in my gilded cage tonight, but for a couple of hours I almost felt like a real person again.
Ohri's was fun; we had murgh makhni (not as good as Angeethi's murgh makhni, but murgh is murgh and always tasty), and we were thoroughly harassed by the overly-attentive staff. Ohri's is like a very upscale food court; the top floor is the Far East (Chinese food--my favorite Chinese food in Hyderabad, I think, although Mainland China gives it a run for its money), the middle floor is upscale Indian, and the ground floor is sort of a cafe with baked goods and traditional Hyderabad biryani (a rice dish of sorts). We stopped on the ground floor to pick up some cake, and I was bemused to discover that all of the waiters were wearing 'flair' a la 'Office Space'. In other words, they were all wearing various buttons; one said 'I Survived The Titanic', which surely meant something of which I am unaware, but it was so strange that I stared at it for far too long and got caught in the staring. Not that that matters, since I get stared at all the time, but I wish I hadn't been caught. They were also wearing aprons with strategically-placed pockets to form smiley-faces, and every time a customer beat the gong to indicate that they were happy, the waiters all had to yelp in some sort of Pavlovian response. Very, very strange.
If I'm going to get up and work, I should really go to bed. I do want to pass on one strong recommendation to everyone reading this: pack up your bags, quit what you're doing, and move someplace completely random. It's an absolutely amazing experience, even if at times it is frustrating to deal with culture barriers, food misadventures, and general outsider status.
Oh, and if you're interested, I want to play Indian Cricket Mafia--if you don't know what mafia is, don't ask. If you do know what mafia is and you want to play, let me know. If I moderate you'll have to accept that I'll have to be asleep during part of the day, but surely you can handle that. Now, it's time for bed!
I went to work, of course, and did some stuff. I left around seven with Arod, Uma, and Ruksha to go shopping. Traffic was absolutely horrendous, because there was a lot of rain and lightning today, and consequently there was a lot of flooding and various roads were washing out. So, it took an hour and a half to get to Banjara Hills, which normally would take less than half an hour. By the time we got there, Uma had to leave (it took her another hour and a half to get home). Ruksha, Arod and I hung out for awhile at Cotton India; they sell the materials for various Indian outfits, and I got enough stuff for two complete outfits as well as two tops. I will endeavor to post pictures when I have the outfits, which should be by mid-week. After shopping, we took an autorickshaw (extremely wet!) to Ohri's, where we had tasty Indian food; the driver finally made it back from dropping off Uma, and Arod and I got home around midnight.
Tonight was quite entertaining, all in all, although there were prolonged bits of conversation that I couldn't understand since Ruksha and Arod were talking to the storekeepers and tailors mostly in Hindi. The shop was much different from the impersonal, polished splendor of Hyderabad Central; it was a tiny room lined with shelves piled high with fabrics, and the street-facing 'wall' was missing, thus exposing the store to the elements. After we chose fabrics, we took them to the next store/room over where the tailors were located, and they took our measurements and determined what necklines and shirt lengths we wanted. That type of shopping, compared with the autorickshaw ride and the fact that we actually crossed a busy street without being accompanied by one of the drivers, made me feel like we had won some precious moment of freedom. I am back in my gilded cage tonight, but for a couple of hours I almost felt like a real person again.
Ohri's was fun; we had murgh makhni (not as good as Angeethi's murgh makhni, but murgh is murgh and always tasty), and we were thoroughly harassed by the overly-attentive staff. Ohri's is like a very upscale food court; the top floor is the Far East (Chinese food--my favorite Chinese food in Hyderabad, I think, although Mainland China gives it a run for its money), the middle floor is upscale Indian, and the ground floor is sort of a cafe with baked goods and traditional Hyderabad biryani (a rice dish of sorts). We stopped on the ground floor to pick up some cake, and I was bemused to discover that all of the waiters were wearing 'flair' a la 'Office Space'. In other words, they were all wearing various buttons; one said 'I Survived The Titanic', which surely meant something of which I am unaware, but it was so strange that I stared at it for far too long and got caught in the staring. Not that that matters, since I get stared at all the time, but I wish I hadn't been caught. They were also wearing aprons with strategically-placed pockets to form smiley-faces, and every time a customer beat the gong to indicate that they were happy, the waiters all had to yelp in some sort of Pavlovian response. Very, very strange.
If I'm going to get up and work, I should really go to bed. I do want to pass on one strong recommendation to everyone reading this: pack up your bags, quit what you're doing, and move someplace completely random. It's an absolutely amazing experience, even if at times it is frustrating to deal with culture barriers, food misadventures, and general outsider status.
Oh, and if you're interested, I want to play Indian Cricket Mafia--if you don't know what mafia is, don't ask. If you do know what mafia is and you want to play, let me know. If I moderate you'll have to accept that I'll have to be asleep during part of the day, but surely you can handle that. Now, it's time for bed!
posted by Sara @ 12:17 PM
1 Comments:
At 8:35 AM,
Anonymous said…
What if we don't know what cricket is?
- Can Sar
Post a Comment
<< Home