Different Already

I knew that this time around, India would be different.  But I am already noting the vast ways in which these differences are extremely obvious.

Let’s start with my accommodations.  My first days are being spent in my boss’ building in an apartment that is owned by a professor who is in the United States 6 months and India 6 months.  It is two floors, multi-bedroom, living room, dining room, huge balcony.  I am alone in a palace.  And the places I am looking to live are so expensive (by Indian cost of living) that they make me nauseous.  Juxtapose this with my first days in 2010...my current bathroom is about the size of my living quarters last year.  There were cockroaches, moldy bathrooms, mosquito nets, a holey red tile roof.

Second, transportation.  We walked, took the bus, or took an auto.  Thus far, I have traveled only by air conditioned car, sometimes with a driver, sometimes driven by my boss. In this car, there is a remote control in the backseat so the passengers can control the volume/radio station on the stereo.  

Third: food.  I am eating solid, homemade Indian food in the mornings and evenings, and thankfully in smaller portions than I was fed last time around, but lunches are taken out or ordered in.  Yesterday the first question was, “Do you want to order pizza?”  We ended up going to Au Bon Pan (it was the only fastish place in walking distance that served something gluten-free...aka rice. in India!).  Today we ordered from an online menu and had Chinese delivered to the office.  Tonight I met up with some girls who are working at an international school in the area (both from England, but originally French-Zimbabwean and Colombiana)...we went to a cowboy-themed club where the mixed drinks cost as much as my tear-jerking steak last fall.  It was bumpin with the latest and greatest American music.  Pop/hiphop though, not country.  They clearly failed when it came to consistency with the theme.

And I just realized that, since getting here, I have been either in a car, in my office, or in an apartment building.  This is so different from the amount of time outside I had in 2010.  Scratch that, I was outside today...standing outside of the shopping mall trying to recruit students to serve as extras in our corporate video.