Travelling, or Lack Thereof
Coming to India has presented me with a plethora of
traveling opportunities — Mysore, Goa, Delhi, Agra, the Taj Mahal, and many
more. We wanted one big thing to top all of them, it had to be the
biggest thing in the world, Mt. Everest. The idea was originally put in
our head from our friend Prince, our Fragomen representative. He has a
friend in Nepal that said everything was fine to come and we were going to have
a great weekend. This was our second week here that he said that. I have
been looking forward to this for almost two months now. Until the recent
bombings and heightened situations in India started us to worry about the whole
thing. Also, the Nepalese government has recently become even more unstable.
The bottom line was that Honeywell STRONGLY recommended that we DO NOT
travel to Nepal and they could do little to protect us should something happen. This came down right from Jim Sontag, the Chief Security Officer at Honeywell.
I could not just tell him “NO”. I have a feeling that he knows what he’s
talking about. So, the trip is no more. We had to cancel our plane
tickets and look out for our better interest and safety. There are a lot
of people that would be in trouble if anything happened to us, and there are
even more people that are worried about our safe return home.
Now, that means we have another weekend in Bangalore, or somewhere
else that we can get ourselves to. I really don’t know what we are going
to do. Some ideas are re-surfacing that we have thought about previously
and even some new ones. But, what ever we do, I hope its good.
After all, this is our last weekend here.
What ever we do, I still have more traveling ahead of me
before I get home, and no, not just the flights home. I don’t know if I
said it before or not, but after I leave India, I am going to France for two
weeks. Way back at the beginning of the summer, I thought why not? I am
going to be flying home through Europe, a nice little detour to go see some
family and friends would be great! Another nice bit of timing was that my
grandmother is going to be there the same time I will. It really worked
out great. So, even after my India adventure is done, come back here to
my blog and you can read about transitioning to French life for two weeks, and
then my change back to American life. I am interested to see how much of
India I take back with me, and then how much survives my trip home.
Specifically, the head bobble. I do it without even thinking
anymore. Also, I have been phrasing some questions differently, adjusting
to the Indian way of speaking. For instance, everything is a very
indirect sentence with the major point stuck on to the end of the long winded
sentence. Speaking of speaking, I need to start brushing up on my French
speaking. I can’t expect to have the same level of English spoken in
France that I have been accustomed to in India.
On the work front, my projects are starting to wrap up, and
everything is coming to a close. I think everything will be done in time,
but I am interested to see how it all plays out - I have less than 7 working
days left!