Let me just start off by saying how Marisa, Melanie, and I have the best buddies ever. UOP did an awesome job of giving us a support system for our time here. Riki, Ranoo, and Avnish are the best and I'm so thankful for their help the last two days! So, thank you Riki, Ranoo, and Avnish!
On Tuesday Marisa, Melanie, and I had breakfast at the Leela Hotel. As with everything else at the Leela, the breakfast was incredible. It was a huge buffet style with everything you could possibly imagine. The fruit was fantastic, and there were so many varieties of fresh squeezed juices. There was a large variety of cheeses and breads as well. I stuck mainly to the fruit and various grilled vegetables (no wonder people loose so much weight here).
After breakfast, the three of us walked to Ambience Mall. It is a large mall that is exactly one kilometer, and I believe it had 8 floors. All major American brands were sold there as well as some upscale Indian brands. The night before we discovered the mall opened at 9am. We got there by 9:45am and to our surprise everything was black. Only a handful of stores in this giant mall even had a light on and most were padlocked pretty heavily. We walked around and windowed shopped. This mall is pretty crazy. It has an ice skating rink on the top floor, bowling alley, fitness gym, and a 5D movie theater (whatever that means?). It isn't the kind of place we were really intending to shop, so it wasn't a big deal the stores weren't open. One shop sign specifically said it would not open until 1pm. It was interesting how the mall itself opened at 9am but not a single store was even open by 11am when we left.
When we got back to the hotel I completely passed out. When I woke up I scrambled to collect my belongings in order to meet Avnish and Riki to move into our permanent place. I didn't feel so great after my nap. My sleeping pattern was (and is still) completely messed up. It felt like a bus had plowed me over. I wasn't really sure what to expect out of our permanent living situation. After talking with some CDPs (CDP = Career Development Program..at UOP most chemical engineers enter this program straight after college. It is a two year rotational program that feeds into the FOS (Field Operating Services) program which is a commitment of 3-5 years abroad) who had done a rotation in the Delhi office, Melanie, Marisa, and I were a little nervous about our arrangements. They had crazy stories regarding rats in their rooms that ate their things. I came into the situation with absolutely no expectations and was pleasantly surprised. Below is a pictorial tour of where I live!
Outside
Lobby
Hall/Stairs
Dining Area
Workout Room/Recreation
3rd Floor (Melanie, Marisa, and I are all on the same floor! YaY!)
Entrance to my room/Closet
Weird Fake Dresser/Mini Fridge
Main Portion (Bed, Desk, Chair, Table, TV)
Bathroom
Hopefully that gives you more of a picture regarding where I live! After dropping off our things Riki and Avnish showed us a supermarket that is very close to where we live. We then walked to the McDonalds for dinner in order to give our stomachs a rest from all the Indian Cuisine. We have been avoiding eating too much Indian food in one day in order to give our stomachs and bodies time to adjust to all the spices in the cooking. My Tums have saved me more than once already on this trip. As we approached the McDonalds, about five children in raggedy clothing approach us. I avoided eye contact because I knew they were asking for money. It was hard to see children in that kind of situation and condition. A little girl grabbed onto Melanie's arm and sort of cuddled it for a second. The whole time the children were saying things in Hindi that I did not understand. Avnish came to Melanie's rescue and said something that made the little girl back off quickly. Riki and Avnish both helped a lot in this situation because it was hard for me to ignore the kids and continue walking without giving them something. All of our culture training before coming to India and since being in India has told us not to respond to the street beggars. The tactic is to ignore them completely and walk away without giving them any sort of response at all. Our culture coach told us that by giving to the beggars we are reinforcing begging as a behavior which will just encourage them to keep begging on the streets. By giving, we make ourselves an observed target that will be followed every time we leave our house. Since we are living here for so long, eventually we will develop an every day pattern and these people will learn our patterns and us it to their own advantage. I'm just glad Avnish and Riki were there to help us through this first experience of dealing with it.
McDonalds for the most part tastes the exact same (the fries are literally identical). Since most of India is Hindu, there is zero beef on the menu. McVeggies, McChickens, and McFish were the variety of sandwich options available. There were also chicken nuggets, as well as a whole menu dedicated to spicy-ness. I had a McVeggie which was kind of strange since I had never had a veggie burger before, but leave it to McDonalds to make it still taste somewhat familiar. Their version of the Big Mac is made with chicken and is called the Chicken Maharaja Mac. When we went to dump our trays in the trash I noticed a little clear box that stated 'Condiment Packet Recycle.' If you didn't use your condiments, you were suppose to drop them in the box, so they could be used again.
Throughout this whole ordeal Riki kept asking us if we were okay. I was definitely not my usual weird self since at this point I still felt like a bus had plowed me over. When we got back to the Park Residency I passed out pretty quickly. I woke up in the middle of the night abruptly thinking it was almost time for work. According to the clock it was 12:30am..I had only slept for two hours. I kept forcing myself to go back to sleep but woke up multiple times every hour regardless. Eventually 4:30am rolled around and I couldn't get back to sleep so I just stayed awake and chatted with a few friends via Facebook. I'm hoping that tonight I can finally shake this jet lag and sleep through the entire night!
At 8:15am the India trio headed downstairs for our complimentary breakfast. I had a hard boiled egg, cornflakes with warm milk (they don't serve it cold), and some Puttu which is a ground white rice dish that contains coconut and water. It was the least spicy out of all the Indian food I've had thus far. Riki picked the three of us up at 9am to head to work. Traffic is pretty ridiculous (I still think Sao Paulo, Brasil has India beat though). There are no lines on the roads, so cars just sort of do whatever they want. It is extremely different from the systematic driving we have in the U.S.A. There is a lot more honking involved, and big cars surprisingly fitting in tiny spaces. It's extremely aggressive driving, yet defensive. Simmi, my mentor at work, said that if you look at the statistics more accidents happen in India when there isn't traffic because people aren't driving as aggressively and defensively.
Work the first day was a fairly standard orientation day. We received an HR presentation regarding Honeywell overall. We would go over a sector of Honeywell and then dive further into what India does for each sector which was very interesting since I didn't know most of those India specific details before. We met a TON of people. It will definitely take awhile to remember everyone's names! Simmi is awesome. She was very friendly and so knowledgeable about UOP. I know I'm going to really enjoy working with her this summer. Sangeeta, the HR representative who has arranged all our accommodations in India, took us to the cafeteria for lunch. This was by far the spiciest food I have eaten. It was so hot!! My stomach was definitely not ready for that amount of spice. At this point the combination of jet lag and crazy spicy food started to get the best of me. After meeting with a few other people, the work day was done and Riki took us to Spencers. Spencers is essentially a shopping mart similar to that of a Meijer or Walmart. I just bought some hangers, water, snacks, and mangoes. Everything (except the hangers for some reason) has been MUCH cheaper than in the U.S. Some of the prices have shocked me when I've compared it to prices in the U.S. I spent less than ten dollars on 3 bottles of water, hangers, 2 bags of chips, a bag of chickpeas, a snack thing that I don't know what it is, and mangoes. You definitely get your bang for your buck here in India. A combo meal at McDonalds costs about 2 dollars compared to the 5 or 6 dollars you would spend in the U.S.
In the interest of easing ourselves into the spices of India, we ate Dominos Cheese Pizza for dinner! It was pretty good. The crust was a little different, and there was about a drop of sauce on the pizza. On the cheese pizza they put tomatoes on top. Our guess was that they did this since they don't put a lot of sauce underneath the cheese. It was definitely good to give our stomachs a break. Everyone at work says that by the end of week three our stomachs will be able to fully handle all the Indian spices.
Tomorrow will be a get down to business kind of day at work. I'm going to find out a lot more about my project which I'm pretty excited about! The last few days have been pretty exhausting. I didn't have near as much trouble getting over the jet lag when I wen to China as I'm having now. Everyone has been so nice and welcoming here it is indescribable. The service we have gotten in India out does the service in the U.S. by a million miles. People are very proud of their jobs and very good at what they do, whatever that might be. I probably won't write again until this weekend. We are planning on visiting the Kingdom of Dreams and possibly the Lotus Temple and a few other sites. If you have any questions or comments feel free to leave them =)
I'll leave you with a picture of a lizard that was in Melanie's room. Poor girl has had two lizards in her room the last two days. Marisa is becoming quite the lizard hunter! Here's to hoping we can all sleep peacefully through the night and get over our jet lag!
Love,
Sequoia
On Tuesday Marisa, Melanie, and I had breakfast at the Leela Hotel. As with everything else at the Leela, the breakfast was incredible. It was a huge buffet style with everything you could possibly imagine. The fruit was fantastic, and there were so many varieties of fresh squeezed juices. There was a large variety of cheeses and breads as well. I stuck mainly to the fruit and various grilled vegetables (no wonder people loose so much weight here).
 |
| Good Morning India! |
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| View from the Leela |
 |
| Brenna said strange things happen in this field, but I didn't see any! |
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| Ambience Mall |
Outside
Lobby
Dining Area
Workout Room/Recreation
3rd Floor (Melanie, Marisa, and I are all on the same floor! YaY!)
Entrance to my room/Closet
Weird Fake Dresser/Mini Fridge
Main Portion (Bed, Desk, Chair, Table, TV)
Bathroom
 |
| I don't know what the bucket in the shower is for... |
McDonalds for the most part tastes the exact same (the fries are literally identical). Since most of India is Hindu, there is zero beef on the menu. McVeggies, McChickens, and McFish were the variety of sandwich options available. There were also chicken nuggets, as well as a whole menu dedicated to spicy-ness. I had a McVeggie which was kind of strange since I had never had a veggie burger before, but leave it to McDonalds to make it still taste somewhat familiar. Their version of the Big Mac is made with chicken and is called the Chicken Maharaja Mac. When we went to dump our trays in the trash I noticed a little clear box that stated 'Condiment Packet Recycle.' If you didn't use your condiments, you were suppose to drop them in the box, so they could be used again.
Throughout this whole ordeal Riki kept asking us if we were okay. I was definitely not my usual weird self since at this point I still felt like a bus had plowed me over. When we got back to the Park Residency I passed out pretty quickly. I woke up in the middle of the night abruptly thinking it was almost time for work. According to the clock it was 12:30am..I had only slept for two hours. I kept forcing myself to go back to sleep but woke up multiple times every hour regardless. Eventually 4:30am rolled around and I couldn't get back to sleep so I just stayed awake and chatted with a few friends via Facebook. I'm hoping that tonight I can finally shake this jet lag and sleep through the entire night!
At 8:15am the India trio headed downstairs for our complimentary breakfast. I had a hard boiled egg, cornflakes with warm milk (they don't serve it cold), and some Puttu which is a ground white rice dish that contains coconut and water. It was the least spicy out of all the Indian food I've had thus far. Riki picked the three of us up at 9am to head to work. Traffic is pretty ridiculous (I still think Sao Paulo, Brasil has India beat though). There are no lines on the roads, so cars just sort of do whatever they want. It is extremely different from the systematic driving we have in the U.S.A. There is a lot more honking involved, and big cars surprisingly fitting in tiny spaces. It's extremely aggressive driving, yet defensive. Simmi, my mentor at work, said that if you look at the statistics more accidents happen in India when there isn't traffic because people aren't driving as aggressively and defensively.
Work the first day was a fairly standard orientation day. We received an HR presentation regarding Honeywell overall. We would go over a sector of Honeywell and then dive further into what India does for each sector which was very interesting since I didn't know most of those India specific details before. We met a TON of people. It will definitely take awhile to remember everyone's names! Simmi is awesome. She was very friendly and so knowledgeable about UOP. I know I'm going to really enjoy working with her this summer. Sangeeta, the HR representative who has arranged all our accommodations in India, took us to the cafeteria for lunch. This was by far the spiciest food I have eaten. It was so hot!! My stomach was definitely not ready for that amount of spice. At this point the combination of jet lag and crazy spicy food started to get the best of me. After meeting with a few other people, the work day was done and Riki took us to Spencers. Spencers is essentially a shopping mart similar to that of a Meijer or Walmart. I just bought some hangers, water, snacks, and mangoes. Everything (except the hangers for some reason) has been MUCH cheaper than in the U.S. Some of the prices have shocked me when I've compared it to prices in the U.S. I spent less than ten dollars on 3 bottles of water, hangers, 2 bags of chips, a bag of chickpeas, a snack thing that I don't know what it is, and mangoes. You definitely get your bang for your buck here in India. A combo meal at McDonalds costs about 2 dollars compared to the 5 or 6 dollars you would spend in the U.S.
In the interest of easing ourselves into the spices of India, we ate Dominos Cheese Pizza for dinner! It was pretty good. The crust was a little different, and there was about a drop of sauce on the pizza. On the cheese pizza they put tomatoes on top. Our guess was that they did this since they don't put a lot of sauce underneath the cheese. It was definitely good to give our stomachs a break. Everyone at work says that by the end of week three our stomachs will be able to fully handle all the Indian spices.
Tomorrow will be a get down to business kind of day at work. I'm going to find out a lot more about my project which I'm pretty excited about! The last few days have been pretty exhausting. I didn't have near as much trouble getting over the jet lag when I wen to China as I'm having now. Everyone has been so nice and welcoming here it is indescribable. The service we have gotten in India out does the service in the U.S. by a million miles. People are very proud of their jobs and very good at what they do, whatever that might be. I probably won't write again until this weekend. We are planning on visiting the Kingdom of Dreams and possibly the Lotus Temple and a few other sites. If you have any questions or comments feel free to leave them =)
I'll leave you with a picture of a lizard that was in Melanie's room. Poor girl has had two lizards in her room the last two days. Marisa is becoming quite the lizard hunter! Here's to hoping we can all sleep peacefully through the night and get over our jet lag!
Love,
Sequoia
