Playing in the Sand

Everyone grab your travel bucket list. Got it? Good. Now rip it up and throw it in the trash.

Now grab a new sheet of paper and put these words on the top line;  “Visit Dubai and Abu Dhabi”. Then fill in your list from there.  While you’re at it, go ahead and throw India in at around 85 or so. (Just kidding. Kind of.)

That may be a little dramatic, but after visiting the United Arab Emirates with my friends and fellow Target Expats Chris and Casey this weekend, I am in love with the place and highly recommend a visit. Especially if you are in the construction or architecture industry or just plain like cool buildings, it’s a must see. The city is clean, not crowded, and is actually ahead of the curve on infrastructure.  Apart from the Burj Khalifa in Dubai, which is the tallest building in the world, there are countless other massive yet awesome buildings in both cities. You could take any one of probably 20 buildings, put it in any US city, and it would be a signature landmark. Maybe I’ll do another post just on the buildings. For now I’ll just give a (probably not so concise, but with a lot of pictures) summary of our trip.

Me and the Burj. It's tough to get a feeling for just how massive this building is.

Friday

After finally waking up Casey and hearing about how her room was haunted by a ghost, we caught a quick breakfast (which included beef bacon, as pork isn’t eaten by Muslims) and headed out for the day. We didn’t have any plans until 3:00 that afternoon, so we just decided to go downtown and look around. We ended up by the Burj and walked around it for a while, as well as the world famous Dubai mall. (I say that tongue in cheek, as the cab drivers describe everything they point out as either world famous or very famous.) Since Chris and I didn’t bring sunglasses, we made a stop at the sunglass store, as we didn’t want to brave the desert sun without them. This also gives me the chance to explain to you that Casey takes a billion pictures, and talks you into posing for anything and everything with anyone. It’s easier to give in rather than argue.



Exhibit A: Taking picture with the sunglasses sales lady.



After walking around the mall a bit more, we decided to go to what we thought was a 7 star hotel shaped like a sail boat. Turns out we got the name wrong, but our wrong name still led us to a hotel that was out on one of the man made islands shaped like a palm tree. As we later learned, the hotel we thought was a 7 star was actually “only” a 5 star, so I guess our blunder wasn’t too bad.



Sailboat hotel, as stolen from google images.



That afternoon we got picked up for our desert safari. We started the safari by going dune busting, which basically means you pile into a Toyota Land Cruiser fitted with a roll bar and drive up and down sand dunes in the middle of a real desert. It was a blast! There was a few times where I thought we might topple over, but we were able to avoid that. The car in front of us had some problems though. One of the passengers got car sick, so they had to stop suddenly so she could get out and womit. (Most Indian people say their W’s like V’s and vice versa. Some words are freaking hilarious. My favorite is when they say Vomit but it sounds like Womit. Which is how I’ll pronounce it for the rest of my life.) They also got high-centered on the top of a massive dune, and we had to pull them off. If I could do one thing differently (and that I will do when I go back) I would spend the extra $100 for my own dune buggy. That looked amazing.



Preparing to bust some dunes!



After our dune busting, we were driven to a different part of the desert where our guide company had their own private camp set up, with all sorts of fun activities. We had a lovely traditional buffet which we ate sitting on pillows in the sand with our new friend Julio, whom Casey recruited to be her own personal photographer throughout the entire day. (Julio took half of the pictures in this blog...) Chris enjoyed the meal so much that he fell backwards off his pillow into the table behind us!



If you imagine Chris falling backwards into the table behind us, it makes this picture a lot funnier.



We got to dress up in traditional local gear….



The last time I had this outfit on, I believe I was playing a wiseman in the church Christmas program.



Smoke a hookah…

Don't worry mom, it's perfectly legal.

Camel rides….



I didn't ride the camel this time, as I didn't want to spill my $8 Bud Heavy.



Henna tattoos (which only Casey participated in, and I’m glad because Casey’s turned out to look kind of like an unfortunately colored stain), and we saw a belly dancer (which I didn’t get a good picture of).

All in all it was an incredible and memorable day!

Saturday

The day started with waking up to find Casey on the couch again, as the ghost had apparently come back and choked her in the middle of the night. Not having gotten much sleep, she was a little crabby when Chris decided to try to wake her up by dancing with her to the music he was playing. The rest of us were having fun, but Casey wasn’t amused.



Chris felt like dancing, Casey felt like sleeping. Chris won.



We were supposed to be picked up at 9:00 for our day tour of Abu Dhabi, and our driver had called to confirm that the night before. Those of you who know me well, know that I am intolerant of people being late and wasting my time, especially when I am paying someone to perform a service. Therefore, when 9:30 rolled around and we still hadn’t heard from our driver, I was starting to get a little antsy. So we called the company and they ensured us that someone would be there in 15-20 minutes. Of course, our driver finally showed up at 10:30, so I was pretty cantankerous by then.

Luckily the day picked up by then as the drive to Abu Dhabi went pretty quickly. Our first stop was Yas Island, which is a man-made island that houses an impressive Formula One racetrack, as well as Ferrari World, which is an amusement park that is home to the world’s fastest roller coaster. Unfortunately as we didn’t have time to enjoy the park ( it costs something like $100 to even get in) we just were able to look around and visit the gift shop. When I go back, I’m definitely doing the roller coaster.

From there we went to a visitor center that laid out the vision of Abu Dhabi. It really is an impressive city with a great future. Amongst the other impressive buildings, beautiful beaches, and man-made islands, it will also soon be home to its very own Guggenheim Museum, as well as its own Louvre.

From there we visited a local fish market and a date market…

Sharks! They smelled like roses....

And then we were off to the Sheikh Zayed Mosque, which was an incredible experience. It is the third largest mosque in the world, and can hold 40,000+ worshippers. The entire building is a mirror image of itself, and made almost entirely out of marble. The carpet in the main prayer hall is the world’s largest carpet, made on site by 1200-1300 carpet knitters. The carpet weighs 35 tons and took 2 years to complete.

Women have to dress in Burka before they enter, and everyone has to take off their shoes.

The mosque has seven chandeliers that are made entirely of Swarovski crystals. The largest chandelier is the third largest chandelier in the world, and is 33 ft in diameter and 49 ft tall.

After the mosque we drove around and looked at the Royal Palaces, saw the supposed Sex and the City 2 hotel (which it turns out the entire movie was filmed on Morocco.) Apparently the cheapest room is $7k a night.

View of partial Abu Dhabi skyline from across the marina.

Then we went to the “wery famous” Marina Mall, and had probably my favorite meal of the trip. After months without beef, a BK Whopper does wonders for the psyche!

The Burger King was the best meal I had had in a month.

After the mall and another stop at a Heritage village, it was back to Dubai, where we had a tour of the Burj Khalifa (the big ass building). Another great experience as we were taken up to the 124^th floor to the viewing deck. We thought we were going to be able to go closer to the top, but we were only about 2/3 of the way up! After that we ate dinner from a patio where we could watch the water show that rivals the Bellagio. Since they don’t serve alcohol anywhere but hotels within the city, we had to entertain ourselves over Root Beer.

The Burj at night after our tour.

After that it was back to the hotel. Luckily I got to sleep in the master suite, because Casey had been haunted by a ghost the two previous nights, and didn’t want to risk a third night.

Sunday

No time for fun on Sunday. I awoke having not seen or heard or felt or smelled a ghost. (Shocking, right?) Then we were off to the state of the art airport, where we were able to enjoy a lovely McDonalds meal. I was so excited to get one more burger in before we headed back to India, that I actually forgot to order beef and went with chicken instead. Oops.

All in all, it was an amazing weekend, although I left feeling that we had just scratched the surface of what the country has to offer. It was definitely a little depressing getting on the plane back to Bangalore. I will for sure be making a return trip back. It’s amazing what you can do when you find a couple trillion dollars hidden under some sand dunes and are able to build a city from scratch.



Sad faces because we are leaving. (Another brain child of Casey)



What made it even better was the company. After living in the same city and working for the same company for years, I had to move 8000 miles away to meet and become friends with Chris and Casey.  Not sure how many times we sang the Zack Galafanakis hit song, “We’re the Three Best Friends that Anyone Can Have” from The Hangover, but it was a lot.

I’m sure you’ll be reading more about them in my adventures soon. But up next is a vacation to Nepal, as well as the Taj Mahal with visitors from Down Under!

The Daily Grind

I’ve received quite a few questions from people about what my daily routine is like. So here is my attempt to walk you through my typical day. I’m a guy who likes to have a routine, and although it took me a little bit to establish one here, I now have one that I’m pretty comfortable with.

I wake up every day at 6:57 AM to the sound of Travis Tritt singing “It’s A Great Day to Be Alive”. That’s one of my favorite songs of all time, and no matter how crazy things get, that song always puts things into perspective for me. I never get tired of hearing it. The joys of technology (via my iPad) has made it possible for that to be my alarm! I once had a colleague that told me the first time I met with him that, “Every morning when you wake up, you can choose whether you have a good day, or a bad day. It’s your decision. It’s all about your attitude when you wake up,  how you attack the day, and what you make of it.” I’ve never forgotten those words, and I’ve found that Travis Tritt is the catalyst to me having a good day!

Then I turn on the Indian ESPN, which sometimes you can catch a basketball game on, since the time difference is 11.5 hours. Usually it’s some sort of X-games, cheerleading championships, or cross-fit competitions. Why they choose to play these things on Indian ESPN in the morning I will never know. Anyway, by the time I shower, iron my clothes, and get dressed it’s usually around 7:30.

I head down to breakfast, where the restaurant at my apartment has a lovely spread. My typical plate includes watermelon and pineapple, the potato of the day (they make potatoes different every day of the week, my favorite are the classic wedges with bell peppers and the tri-taters that I grew to love from school lunches growing up), some sort of rice or noodles, banana walnut bread or chocolate croissant, and eggs made to order. I usually go with scrambled eggs, depending on who the egg chef is. If it’s the right guy, his scrambled eggs would be the only ones I’ve had who could rival Randall Olander’s special recipe eggs. They are delicious. As soon as I walk through the doors they know what my coffee order is and usually have it waiting for me at my usual table by the time I sit down with my plate. I also catch up on my American News and scores on my iPad during breakfast.

After breakfast I head back up to my room where I have a standing Skype appointment at 8:00 every morning. Apparently I was behind the times before I came here, because I had never used Skype before. It’s amazing. It makes a world of difference when you can actually see the person you’re talking to. Plus I also get to see Dixie. Her full name is Dixie Lou Hu Sanchez, Jr. I’m not really sure how the full name came about, but it stuck! Talk about an adorable little dog!  Anyways, Skype has been a life saver while trying to maintain healthy relationships from India.

Dixie Lou Hu Sanchez, Jr



At 8:30 I head downstairs where my driver, Shyam, is waiting for me. Here’s a little explanation on my timing. The India work day is very different from the American work day. I would much rather get into work at 6:30 or 7:00 and leave at 4:00. It doesn’t work that way here. Leaving at 8:30 means I still beat the morning rush, and can get to work by 9:00. When I get to work at 9:00, I’m one of the first 5% of people in the office. The lights usually aren’t even on yet. The typical Indian work day starts around 9:30 or 10:00, often times later. But of course they also work until 6 or 7:00, sometimes later. I hate those hours. I need to have an evening to unwind a little bit, and need to get decent sleep in order to function.

My job responsibilities here are very much like what my job has been like in the US. It’s a nice mix between on-site work (like what I was doing when I lived in Hawaii and New Jersey) and Project Management, which is what I’ve been doing the last few years. Target has two separate campuses in Bangalore, which are about an hour apart. Both are in business parks that house other international companies such as IBM, Yahoo, Cognizant, etc. The main office building that I am in has 8 floors. Connected to that is another office building of 8 floors, of which Target has the rights to 3 of. We already occupy one floor, and are building out the other two floors. Managing that has been the biggest part of my job thus far. We also will be doing a remodel at our other older building that is on the other side of town. That will start soon.  I’ve also been flying to Delhi (which is in north India) for a different project that I originally had nothing to do with. But it’s not going exactly as planned so I’ve been assisting with that as well.

My lovely workspace.



Personal space isn’t something that is valued, or even really exists in India. Therefore in office buildings, people are pretty packed in by US standards. I share a cube about the size of what I had in MN with another guy, Kiran. Apparently he’s a popular guy, as he always has visitors that often come and make the space even more…um (trying to resist saying loud and smelly. oops just did) ….cramped. I’m pretty used to the office setting here though. It’s a very nice space, not unlike office buildings you’d see in the US. Other than the large statue of the god Ganesha that occupies the entry to the break room. That probably wouldn’t fly in the US. Actually, there would be a better chance of a statue of Ganesha being allowed before a statue of Jesus or Mary would (trying…..to resist….….political………tangent).

Thank Ganesha we have someone guarding the coffee. (pun intended) 



I’ll get into the specifics of my job in another post. The specifics  will take longer to tell than what I’ll have room for here. There will be a lot of fun “technology” pictures and anecdotes in that one, so get excited.

Meal times also vary. Target provides its employees with a free vegetarian lunch every day in the cafeteria. Hopefully I’ll find time to do a post in the future just on the lunches. If anything will make you feel sorry for me about this whole experience, the visuals on that post will be it.  If I eat with my team here, it’s usually about 1:30 before we eat lunch…which is in stark contrast to my usual 11:30 lunch time. If I decide I can’t take the cafeteria food any certain day, the business park has a food court that has a Dominos and KFC. I’ve eaten Dominos and KFC more times in the last three months than I have the entire rest of my life combined.

Since the time difference is nearly exactly 12 hours from the US, conference calls with partners back home usually take place in the evening in Bangalore, which is the morning in the US. So the calls usually start at 6:30 or 7 local time. So three days a week I’m faced with the decision of trying to make it home before the calls start or stick it out at the office until after the conference calls are done. It depends on what I have going on that day, but since it takes me at least an hour to get home after the calls due to traffic, I don’t get home until 8:30 or 9 if I take them from the office. So I usually try to make it home before they start.

So most of the time my work days wind down about 7:30 or 8:00, which make for long days and long weeks. But it’s all part of the Bangalore daily grind. After work I usually head up to the apartment gym to run a few miles and lift some weights in preparation for the Tough Mudder. The Tough Mudder is a 12 mile race that has a different obstacle every half mile or so. Kind of like a Warrior Dash x 4. I signed up for the race with some friends from work before I knew I was coming. The chances of me being home in time to actually participate in the race are slim, but it still provides me motivation to get my butt off the couch to workout, just in case. The combination of that and the food here has me at my lowest weight since high school! So I guess that’s a plus.

I don’t cook here. I actually enjoy cooking and do it quite often back in Minneapolis, but it takes too much time and energy here. If I’m not racing back from work to get on a conference call, it’s late and I don’t feel like starting the 2 hour process of going to the grocery store. It’s not like you can just run to Target and get everything you need in 10 minutes and get out. It takes forever, and the selection at any one store is crap.  Hell, I’d take Little River’s  5 aisle grocery store any day over what I shop at here. You could probably find 80% of what you needed to have an averaged well stocked American kitchen, but you’d have to go to 10 different stores in 10 different parts of the city to get it all. I don’t have the time and the energy for that. I’ve been to the grocery store 4 times in 3 months here. I pile my basket full of all the American foods I can find at the store. Staples include Nature Valley granola bars, Pringles (which I don’t think I had eaten since maybe high school), mini Snickers, and Coke. You have to go to a special store to get meat that you can trust, and a loaf of bread won’t last a week before getting moldy, as there aren’t any preservatives in it. I tried to do the peanut butter and jelly thing for awhile, but my bread kept molding and I’d have to throw half a loaf away. I don't drink the milk because it comes in a box and sits on a non-refrigerated shelf. I don't trust that for some reason.  Sure, I could buy the local ingredients to make the local food. But why would I spend the time and money to learn how to cook a cuisine I don’t really even enjoy that much in the first place?

 What adds to my reluctance to cook is the room service. There is a full menu to order from in my room from the restaurant downstairs and with one quick touch of a button on my room phone and a 10 second conversation, I can have a delicious plate of chicken Pad Thai in my room in usually under 15 minutes. All for 250 rupees (about $5). To me, it’s well worth it to not have to go to the store, worry about the ingredients you’re purchasing, and taking the time to actually cook it.  As Branden Comfort is aware of from his visit, you can also have beer and alcohol delivered directly to your room at any time of the night. Also a plus.



Enjoying room service Kingfisher at 2 AM over a game of caps.



After I secure my room service or granola bar, Pringles, and Snickers minis dinner, I plop down on the couch to watch an hour or two of TV. The great thing about India is that they are typically about a decade behind on popularity of American pop culture. There are 5 channels that play American movies on my cable. 80% of those movies are from the 80’s and 90’s. It’s great! I’m getting caught up on all the movies I missed out on during that period that I wouldn’t look twice at while channel surfing back home. I think I’ve seen every Arnold Schwarzenegger movie ever made now. They love him. Sylvester Stallone too. There was also a very interesting Nicholas Cage movie marathon on last weekend. They also love their kung fu movies, Tom Cruise, and Julia Roberts.  

About that time work in Minneapolis starts ramping up, so I answer a few emails here and there until about 10:00 when I head to bed. The next thing I know, I’m waking up to “I got my rice cooking in the microwave. Got a three day beard I don’t plan to shave. And it’s a goofy thing but I just gotta say, I’m doing alright.”

Indeed. I am doing alright.

Drive a mile in my shoes...

I had actually had traffic as a speaking point in another soon to be published post, but then I realized that there was too much vital material and visuals to have this topic attached to another post. It needed its own.

First, I feel the need to explain to you that I have not, nor will I ever, get behind the wheel of any sort of vehicle as long as I’m here. That would be catastrophic for everyone involved. There is no place in India for “normal” driving. It would be hazardous to your health to follow normal driving rules. There is only one person I know that I think might have a good time driving in India, and that is my co-worker Blake Brosa, who will update his Facebook status while driving bragging how fast he is making the trip. He would fit in well.

 I have a driver, Shyam, who picks me up in the morning and waits at work until it’s time to leave. Basically he takes me anywhere I want to go at any time. It’s nice, not going to lie. I wouldn’t have lasted 3 days in India if I didn’t have a driver. But even with a driver, the experience is that bad that I feel the need to tell you about it.

When I first got here, it easily took that prize as my #1 hated thing about India. I’ve gotten used to it somewhat, but it’s still terrible. Really I don’t even know where to begin. Let’s start with the infrastructure. The way I like to explain it is l could give my 2 year old nephew a piece of paper and a crayon, tell him to scribble for 2 minutes, and what resulted on that piece of paper would be a more coherent system of roads than what Bangalore has. There was absolutely zero city planning done whatsoever. That’s probably the root cause of the whole thing. That and the fact that there is 8 million people trying to get somewhere, all on no more than 4 lane roads.



FML



Next is the variety of “obstacles” found on the road. Notice I didn’t say automobiles, or even modes of transportation. Obstacles. Mopeds transporting families of 4, fruit carts, water buffalo pulling carts, tractors, cows, donkeys, oxen, stray dogs, tuk tuks (auto rickshaws), people, traffic cops (not sure what they actually do except stand in the middle of the road and blow their whistle), just to name a few, are all very prevalent on the streets. That’s just on a normal ride into work. That’s in addition to the hundreds of different kinds of cars, trucks, vans, motorcycles, and other kinds of “normal” modes of transportation. Everything is seen as an obstacle that you have to try to get around as quickly as humanly possible. When everyone is stopped at stoplights, the motorcycles and mopeds are weaving their way through cars, sometimes driving on the sidewalks, to get to the front of the line for when the light turns green. At a long traffic light, there could be a pack of 20 or more two wheeled vehicles that made their way to the very front.

Tuk tuk = Death Trap

Water Buffalo = Obstacle

In Kansas, when you use your vehicle horn, you are more than likely saying hello to someone on the road or standing in their yard. In Minneapolis, if you use your horn, it’s probably because someone just did something that they shouldn’t have done that angered you. In India, you use your horn for everything. Drivers keep one hand on the wheel and the other on the horn. It’s a turn signal, it’s a way to tell someone you’re behind them and to get out of your way, it’s to alert the guy pushing the fruit cart that you’re coming and you’re not going to slow down, it’s a way to alert other people of your presence when you’re driving in the opposite lane. I heard more horn honks my first two days in Bangalore than I have heard the entire rest of my life. The sad thing is I hardly even notice it anymore.

Lights aren’t a given at night on the streets either. It seems that Indian drivers only use their lights when they feel like it. Some will just be driving down the road at night and turn them off willy nilly.  I asked my driver once why he shut off his lights, and he said it was as a courtesy to the other drivers coming the opposite way. So they don’t have lights shining in their eyes. Huh? Isn’t that what low beams are for? Plus, I’m pretty sure the word courtesy doesn’t belong anywhere in a conversation about India traffic.

What are those lines painted on the roads? In America, we know them as lanes. In India, they are more a suggestion to be ignored. Drivers will cram into any space possible, even if it’s detrimental to their overall position. If there is a tiny space on the left side of the road you think you can squeeze into, you honk your way up there, even if you need to turn right in 50 meters. It’s mind boggling. There are more side mirrors knocked off from unnecessary squeezing into spaces than there is during a snow emergency in Minneapolis.

On what level is this a good idea?

I’m not someone who gets sick very often. I haven’t vomited since “the Great 823 Case Race of ’06”. But my first couple of weeks, I felt like I was on the verge of hurling every time I got in the car. It’s constant accelerating and slamming on brakes.  In between speed bumps, it’s a drag race to the next pot hole where they slam on their brakes 10 meters beforehand and slow down just enough to not rip off an axle. The most stressful parts of my day used to be the ride in and the ride home from work.

Forget about taking public transportation. Bangalore is about 20 years behind on that, too. They are finally building a metro system, but only have one small stretch of it completed and it doesn't go anywhere that's beneficial to me. Buses are ridiculous. People pack into every square inch of those things. When you can't pack one more person in, you hang off the back or out the doors. Maybe even sit on the roof. Not joking.


I'll take the next one, thanks.

 Somehow I’ve gotten used to it all. There are still times where it irritates me, but like many other things in India, you learn to live with it. I can even read a book in the car now, which makes the trips go faster. I don’t really notice the constant braking unless we have to lock ‘em up. Apparently Shyam is a little wilder than the average hired driver. I’ve been told that by people who have ridden with me. But if we leave the same place at the same time as someone else, we will beat them to the destination 99% of the time. I don’t know how the drivers can know where they’re going all the time, but mine has never been lost (that I’ve been able to tell)!

I do know this. After my experiences here, I will never ever ever ever ever complain about traffic in the U.S. ever again. Ever.