Mysore

In December I was supposed to visit Mumbai to attend a college friend's wedding. However, there was a problem with the hotel booking and a week before the wedding I found myself without a place to stay. Unfortunately, December ("the wedding season") is not a good time to be looking for a last-minute, affordable place to stay.

To make me feel better about missing the trip, a friend organized a quick trip to Mysore.

We saw the palace:

And the "dancing lights" show at Brindavan Gardens:

And got close to nature at Ranganathittu Bird Sanctuary:

Yea, I'm coming home for a vacation!

So one of the things that was falling apart was that I was having a difficult time extending my visa for the extra week that I needed to stay here after it expired. However, that has finally been resolved (albeit all at the last minute!) and I am now free to leave for a vacation in the US. Now I'm starting to frantically pack up my heavy stuff to take home...because I am sure I will accumulate more by the time I am ready to leave again in the fall.

In the meantime, I thought I would share some pictures of some trips that I took but never posted about. Enjoy!

Deception

Ok. I feel like I have led you all on. I mean here you are thinking that I've finally quit and have headed back to the US.

...But that is not truly the case. As it often happens here in India, the last week I was here, I was approached to stay with the company longer. Now, I am sure that you all know my feelings about staying with the training department...however, for the past couple of months, I have enjoyed my time working with one the specific programs. I'm getting to develop training plans, interact with clients, make recommendations (that are actually taken into account!) It's kind of....well, enjoyable.

So I made a rather surprising (to some!) decision to stay for another 6 months, with a trip back to the US in between.

...Of course, after which, almost everything in my life here has started to fall apart, causing me endless days of questioning whether I made the right decision. But, that is another post for another time...

Last Day

I feel as if I should have some meaningful insights to write about my last day of work at the company that has kept me in India and caused me to start this blog, but I can't really come up with any. I mean, it was pretty typical... not typical of last days, mind you, but typical of any day at the company:

The communication team for the program I am now working with was supposed to take a couple of hours and go out to dinner to celebrate my last day of work. Actually, I was supposed to brief them on the new communication curriculum first, then we were supposed to head out to eat. We actually were able to book a training room (very surprising!); however, once inside, I found that the trainer computer had no sound card nor MS Office installed (sigh). While I ran around to try to get someone to fix that, the rest of the team scattered to work on updating the end-of-the-month data that was due. Also, one of the team managers came around to tell us that there was a meeting with the program manager in 5 mins that we needed to attend. Twenty minutes later, the same program manager called to let us know that he was going down for a smoke and would be "right there" (sigh). He also said that the meeting should only last 15 mins. One hour later, one of the other trainers had already gone home and the meeting with the program manager was still in progress.

I think maybe I should revise my post on missing IST. :) I did finally get to go out-with about half of the team; leaving at the time we were supposed to be returning; to a different place than we were planning (it was 12:30 AM-the other place had closed!) The good part was that those of us who did go out had a lot of fun!

1. Close friends