Halloween!!!

Well, here are some Halloween pictures for your viewing enjoyment. It was a busy day. The kids had a Halloween parade and party at school in the afternoon (they even let Anna come back even though she is only doing half day). It was a bit overwhelming for Ben, but Liz and I enjoyed being there with Adam and Anna. Then we came home and did our chores. We ate an early dinner with some friends then hit the streets to get the goods. It was cold, but I don't think the kids cared. They literally ran from house to house. Then it was off to our ward's trunk or treat event. Very fun. Holidays are so much more enjoyable with kids. They just get so excited about things. Adam and Anna made their own decorations and hung them up because I don't do a lot of that for Halloween. I think they have gotten just as excited about Halloween as they do for Christmas. It sure has been a lot funner for me. I even bought myself a t-shirt to wear on Halloween. Hope you all had a good one too! I will let you figure out what the kids were.
 
 
 
  

Pumpkin Painting

We still don't exactly trust the kids with long sharp knives, so tonight instead of a pumpkin carving festival, we had a pumpkin painting festival (I still carved mine!). The kids all did a great job with theirs!

Wisconsin

Last weekend we took a trip to Wisconsin to visit Tammy's brother Todd and his family. We had a great time - played some fun games, took a long hike through an amazing corn maze, ate Wisconsin brats, and had an all around great time. The drive home along the river was nice too with the fall leaves falling.
Cousin Alia with the kids.
Here's Adam enjoying a view from a high bluff overlooking LaCrosse.
No blog entry is complete without a picture of Benny. He had fallen a few days earlier and still had a nice scratch on his head.
We tried for a family picture, but this is the best we got. Doesn't Tammy look great?!! 

Don't turn your back

I wanted to post a little bit about our little 2 year old Ben. He has only been two for a few weeks but he is doing his best to show us he is two. I don't know if it is because I am busy and often distracted with helping the other kids, but he is always managing to get himself into trouble. I can hardly turn my back on him for a moment without something happening. One of his favorite things to do is to turn on the water in the bathroom and have some fun playing in it. He can climb on the toilet and reach it, so I never know what I am going to find when I go in there. In the kitchen I have started putting the stool out in the garage because he was always getting himself, and the floor soaking wet "doing the dishes". It is not uncommon for us to find writing all over him or the wall. In fact there is one wall I think I am going to have to paint to get rid of the writing, and I can't tell you how many times I have scrubbed off his face and arms after he has been coloring with his sisters. The tabletop is also a favorite drawing spot of his. He has also succeeded in putting about a ton, maybe half a roll, of toilet paper in the toilet at one time. It would have been more, had Anna not tipped me off to what was going on. He also has figured out how to open the fridge and will often pull things out of there without me knowing. Yesterday it was steak sauce that was being toted around the house, with no lid, of course. He has also dumped liquid smoke in my spice cupboard so it always smells like outdoor cooking now. He is tall enough to get his own water from the fridge door now, and I already mentioned how much he loves water. I am now using the lock on the door that stops the water from coming out, a button which I thought I would never use. I wasn't even sure why it was such a great feature, but now I know. Thank heavens he can't reach the buttons yet. Sometimes I will give him something to eat. He will immediately put his hands in it grab a big handful, then rub it all over the table, then all over his face, then all over his hair. The other day, I gave him some milk, let me rephrase that, he got some milk out the fridge, it was one of the girls cups that already had milk in it, I guess he was feeling water deprived since I locked the water on the fridge door, so he decided to dump the milk in his hair. I didn't notice 'til I heard the giggling. Tonight beats all though. I was reading to the older three and then went into the bathroom to get their toothbrushes ready. Ben had turned on the water and gotten his toothbrush and was brushing his teeth... with the hand soap. The soap was all over the counter and he kept wiping his mouth and making this face. I could smell it on his breath. It must not have been too bad though, because he didn't cry. I guess I won't ever be able to threaten him with washing his mouth out with soap, eh?

The funniest thing is, despite all of his trouble, he is the cutest thing ever! Adam will often ask me, "Is he the funniest of all the kids?" He just makes us laugh so often. Lizzy's common response to me about Ben is, "Two year olds sure are hard to take care of." Anna has learned just to let him have his way. We all can't help but smile when he is around. He is funny. He is sweet. He is a little troublemaker, but I think that is part of his charm. All of you grandparents out there are just sitting out there laughing, while all of you parents of young children are thinking, many I'm glad that's not my kid! When Ben is a parent raising a two year old, I will just chuckle to myself and remember days and weeks like these!

India - wrapping it up

Well, after a grueling 36 hour journey, I made it back home earlier this morning. I'm exhausted! We left Pune on Friday morning and flew to Delhi. We had some time to kill before our flight left Delhi, so we toured the city a little. We saw a very tall old Minnaret and a ruined Mosque and a newer Bahá'í temple called the Lotus temple. They were all kind of neat to see, but I think we were a little tired of sightseeing and ready to head home so they weren't as impressive as they could have been. We caught our flight out of Delhi just after midnight this morning (India time) and flew for nearly 16 hours to Chicago. After a couple of hours getting through customs, we made our connecting flight to Moline and arrived here about 9:00 this morning.

Tammy and the kids were waiting in the airport and it was GREAT to see them again! I had a great time in India and will carry fond memories of my time there, but am SO glad to be home again. Now I'm just trying (somewhat unsuccessfully) to stay awake until bedtime so I can start adjusting back to American time.

Thanks for all of your interest in my experiences in India. It's a great place to visit if you ever have the opportunity!

India - the team

One of the best parts of my India trip was getting to know the team I work with here on a more personal basis. We've been working together for several months, but it's really hard to get to really know someone with only a few meetings a week over the phone. This experience has been great for that.

From left: Pallavi, Yashveer, me, Brij, Anil, and Sridhar


The team really treated me well during my stay. I mentioned earlier about the lunches they took me to last week. This week, on Tuesday, they treated me to a night on the town. We took off from work on board several "two-wheelers" (motorcycles). I've not ridden motorcycles much in my life (my brother had a dirt bike when we were younger, but that's about it) and I've certainly never ridden motorcycles in the kind of traffic or roads that you find around Pune. It was a little scary for me at first, but I eventually settled in and enjoyed it.

First stop for the evening was my very first Bollywood movie. Bollywood is India's version of Holleywood that cranks out lots of high quality movies every year. In fact, I've heard it reported the Bolleywood movies now bring in more total each year than Holleywood movies (quantity of movies produced and quantity of people viewing them play into that). The movie we saw was called "Ghosla Ka Khosla". The movie was great - it was all spoken in Hinglish (Hindi with a little English mixed in) so I didn't follow the dialog too well. Even without the dialog, I followed the plot easily and knew the context of most of the conversations. The movie was very enjoyable - you can read more about it (in English) at http://www.khoslakaghosla.com/

After the movie the team took me to a little hidden restaurant in the middle of a small villiage in Pune. We had to take some pretty crazy little dirt roads back into the village to get to find the restaurant (no signs). The restaurant was outdoors under a bamboo leaf roof. Marble walkways led to private secluded tables. The tables were set low to the ground and we all sat on the ground on pillows and padding (no chairs). This is traditional style Indian seating. The food as usual was great - and the ambiance and setting were perfect.

After the fun evening at the restaurant, one of the team drove me back to the hotel on their two wheeler and we called it an evening. Thursday evening I treated them to a fancy meal at the hotel I was staying at and again had a great time together. [Side note: By the way, I mentioned that the hotel was really nice. Well, Thursday Angelina Jolie and Brad Pitt arrived in Pune to start shooting a movie there and were staying in the same hotel we were in. I never saw them - I think they snuck them in and out of the hotel pretty quickly, but it was still kind of fun to have some famous people staying where you are.]

Too many new posts!

Hi all. Following are several posts I've written the last few days but haven't been able to publish due to problems getting on the Internet. Sorry to hit you with all of them at once! IMPORTANT: Tammy posted a really nice article last night. Don't get sick of reading all of my posts and miss hers!

India - The culture

I want to write a little about my observations of the culture here in comparison to U.S. culture. I mentioned before that the Indian people seem very happy generally. I think that much of that happiness comes from the way the people live their lives For one thing, they are very relationship oriented - it seems most things in life revolve around other people and relationships with those people. Because of that, there seems to be much less selfishness than in America - everything is done with a mind on the family or those in the community around the individual. A few examples of this:

* The people here are all very service oriented. They serve one another and strive to see to the comfort of those around them. This is particulary true of foreign visitors - I've been treated almost like royalty since arriving.

* The young people I spent Saturday with (see blog entry about day 9) were very supportive of one another. In the U.S. a lot of times young friends spend their time together teasing and tearing down and poking fun at each other. There is tremendous sarcasm among U.S. youth. Indian youth also have fun together, but I didn't notice a single instance where one put down another (even as a joke). They were always encouraging of one another and very friendly to one another. Even when one was a terrible dancer or a terrible singer - there were no jokes or laughter - only encouragement.

* People spend their evenings and weekends with their families and neighbors. It seems there is much less of individual media consumption (rather than playing video games or surfing the web or watching T.V. the people are relaxing with their families and visiting neighbors).

* The people live much more simply than Americans. Life is much less about acquiring things and much more about sharing what you have to make those around you happy.

Not all is well here - there are still very pronounced social divides (castes) within society here. This can be a little uncomfortable at times for a foreigner. I don't really understand how the caste system works, but there is definite division between classes of people here. For example, we were going to lunch the other day and approached the elevator to ride to the cafeteria. There were two custodians that had just gotten on the elevator as we approached. The man I was with just made some gesture and the two custodians got off of the elevator and allowed us on. There was plenty of room for them, but they were not allowed to share an elevator car with us. I've had similar experiences time and time again here.

I've talked some with the young people on my team about marriage customs here. Marriages are generally arranged by parents of the youth. People don't usually choose their spouse. One young lady told me that it's okay because with her parents are more mature and much more understanding of what marriage takes than she is. They know her well enough that they will find a young man that will be a good fit for her. Divorce is not well accepted here and marriages arranged this way generally work out.

One young man on my team is experiencing the down side of this though. He has a girlfriend that he likes very much and wants to marry, but she is from a different caste. It will be impossible for him to marry her without being abandoned by his family.

India continues to become more and more westernized all the time and some of the traditional customs are weakening a little. The changes are coming in both positive and negative ways. I've been reading in the newspaper here about a debate going on in the national government to legalize pornography. It's currently illegal to distribute pornography in any way in India. Mainstream media (television, movies) is very clean compared to American media largely because of these laws. Every article I read is supportive of easing that ban on pornography and allowing some distribution of it. I was filled with great saddness reading that - if they only knew the consequences that are coming from that movement!

Economically India is growing tremendously. I saw in the paper this morning that the gross domestic product here grew 9% in this recent quarter and seems to be growing as fast every quarter. That is bringing new prosperity to the country though there is some debate because it seems that prosperity is leaving the poor behind. I think the money will eventually trickle down to benefit everyone here though.

That highlights some of the major characteristics of Indian society I've noticed in my short time here.

India - Pune

The city of Pune is located on the western side of India about midway between the north and the south of India. It's about two hours drive east of Mumbai (Bombay). There are three seasons here - winter (October-March), summer (April-June), and the rainy season (July-September). We're here during the transition from the rainy season to winter. The weather is nice right now - highs in the 80's with occasional showers. Winter gets a little cooler - highs in the 60's or 70's. Summer is very hot - highs around 110-115. The rainy season brings a lot of rain off the Indian ocean so this area is very green and wet. It has rained at least a little every day that we've been here.

Pune seems to be a more modern city than the areas we visited last weekend between Delhi and Agra. In those areas we saw a lot of primitive housing, primitive transportation, and poverty. Here there is definitly still a lot of poverty, but it's not everywhere like we saw up north. It's not as common to see animals roaming the streets - modern vehicles, motorized rickshaws and motor bikes are more common. Pune is a big city with lots and lots of people everywhere and plenty of big business.

I wanted to talk a little about construction of these modern office buildings here - it's very different than in the U.S. There is not much heavy equipment used here - most everything is done with manual labor. For example, you've all seen the pictures of women carrying big jugs of water on their head. It's a very common sight in India. So the construction companies, rather than use concrete trucks and concrete pumps, hire these women to carry concrete up into the buildings. There is a never-ending stream of women going up into the buildings with a jug on their head. At the bottom someone is mixing concrete and filling their jugs. Then the women walk up into the building and the men dump the concrete into the forms to make the building. Most women here dress in beautifully colored sarees and the construction site is no different. Somehow they manage to keep their dress clean and beautiful even in the filth of the construction site. Also, all of the scaffolding and ladders are made from bamboo poles lashed together with twine. When the buildings are finished, they look as good and as sturdy as any American high rise built with modern tools and heavy equipment. I'll try to get some construction pictures to post later.

India - The food

Most people visiting India either love the Indian food or hate it - not much in between. I came fully expecting to not like the food at all, but have really enjoyed it. I'm given the option of American food nearly every meal but have chosen Indian most of the time and have nearly always really enjoyed it.

Food here is served in two ways - veg or non-veg. About half the people here are strict vegetarians and the other half will eat some meat like chicken, fish, lamb, and goat. There is no beef served here (holy cows) and pork is considered unclean and also not served. So, at any restaurant, you order either from the Veg menu or the Non-veg menu. The food looks and tastes essentially the same regardless of the menu. It's normally a spicy gravy (curry) served with flat bread (roti). Traditional meals are served without silverware - you use the roti to sop up the soup and gravy. Restaurants always have silverware available though.

Most Indians think Americans don't like spicy. They always want to order things less spicy for you. I always ask for more spicy - in fact Indian spicy pales in comparison to Mexican spicy so even ordering extra spicy is easy to handle.

Meals are usually served with desert - something small and sweet. One common desert (I can't remember the name) has a little cake doughnut ball soaked and served in syrup (that's as close as I can describe it). Ice cream is also served a lot for dessert.

India - Day 9

Saturday was a nice break from the rigourous work routine we've held during the week. We got up early and went to the office to meet with all of our extended teams for a team excursion. Only one from my team was able to come, but there were about 25 in all that made it.

John Deere owns company buses in India. These busses drive around Pune every morning and pick up workers to take to the office or to the factory. We borrowed one of the busses for our Saturday excursion.

We drove about an hour from Pune to where the air is a little fresher and the spaces a little more open. We had made reservations to spend the day on a "farm" (where else would a bunch of John Deere employees want to go?). We arrived and the "farm" and were vastly disappointed initially. It was really just some family's house with a moderately big yard (by Indian standards - it was still smaller than our yard in Bettendorf).

Our plans were to play cricket in the morning, but the lack of space for a cricket field quickly dashed that idea. We still got our the cricket bat and knocked the ball around a little, but couldn't really play a lot. Cricket is by far the biggest sport in India. I had never played, but it's similar enough to baseball that I didn't have any trouble.



After the cricket play and some breakfast, we played another game called kibida (I think). It's a game where all the players are in a box (about 10 yards x 10 yards). There are two teams which each stay in one end of the box. One player from one side crosses the mid line and tries to tag players from the other team then make it back across the line. Players from the other team try to detain the player that crossed and keep him from crossing the line back to his side. If the player makes it back across every player he touched is out. If the player doesn't make it back across he is out. First team to run out of players loses. I enjoyed that game - it was pretty physical though.




After the kibida game we went on a "trek" (a.k.a hike) up a mountain behind the farm. It was a pretty good hike to the top but offered some really nice views from the top. It's the hazy time of year in India (just after the rainy season) so the views weren't as nice as they could have been. We saw a wild four foot long cobra on the way up and some other wildlife I'd never before seen (like a scarab - a big bug). As always there were plenty of cows around.


The peak in the distance is our treking destination.


Here's the whole group about half way up the hike.


This was our guide on the hike and view from the top.

After the hike we were all pretty tired, so we lounged a bit on the porch of the farmhouse. They let me use one of the traditional cots and take a short nap. After lunch someone asked - what are we going to do now? The leader of the group said, "Now we drink beer and dance!" So we all went into the farmhouse in the living area (also the kids bedroom) and drank beer and danced. Only about half of the group drank beer - the other half were observing a period of abstinence from alcohol and other things during a religious festival that's going on now. I'll let you speculate which half of the group I was in!

I was expecting the dancing to be some traditional dancing that they were going to teach us Americans. Turned out they just wanted to dance. So the music and dance styles were very much like Americans dance - some disco, some techno, some of everything. The music was Indian pop music - similar to American pop. The strange thing was that there were no women in the group. Just a bunch of guys dancing. It's very normal here for guys to get together and dance and girls to get together and dance separately. You'll also often see guys holding hands with each other walking down the street. It doesn't mean they're homosexual - it's just part of the culture and accepted and normal here. They persuaded me to dance a little - though I never was much for dancing so did as little as possible!

After the dancing we piled into the bus and returned to Pune. Because of the festival the roads in Pune were very crowded and it took a long time to get back to the hotel. Indians love to sing, so all the way they sang Indian songs - some traditional, some modern. Everybody took a turn so of course I had to have my turn. I sang "Old MacDonald had a farm". It was a big hit.

It was a really fun day altogether. I was fun to see the kinds of things the people here enjoy doing. It's altogether very similar to what young people in the U.S enjoy doing.

India - Days 3-8

After the very busy and long day on Saturday, we took a relaxing Sunday morning and just stayed around the hotel. Late Sunday afternoon we flew from Delhi to Pune arriving in Pune late evening. We are staying at the Le Meridien hotel in Pune. It's a very nice, 5-star hotel offering every kind of service imaginable. They even stop by every night to pull back your bedcovers for you. I'm not used to being waited on to that degree.

Monday morning we headed to the office for the first time. John Deere's technology center is located in Magarpatta Cyber City on the edge of Pune. A few years ago a bunch of farmers got together and came up with this idea of developing their farmland into a Information Technology park and so started Magarpatta City. The city is circular and built around a big central park. The first ring around the park are large modern office towers (I think there are 12 in all - about 6 have been built. Outside of that ring is a second ring of office buildings. John Deere owns one of those second ring buildings. There is also a residential area, restaurants, and schools all within the walls of the city. The entire city is walled and gated to set it apart from the rest of Pune.



Arriving at the office, we met up with our teams for the first time. My India team consists of a project manager, two senior developers, and two "freshers". Freshers is their term for kids newly out of college still learning the ropes. The purpose of my visit is to develop a better working relationship with this team and to train them more on what we are trying to accomplish in our project. So, we meet every day for a few hours for training sessions, then work together the rest of the day on project tasks. Working hours are different than we're accustomed to. The workday generally begins around 10 am and ends around 6 or 7. We've actually been staying until 8 pm most nights so that we can be in some meetings with our teams in the U.S. (8 pm here is 9:30 am in Illinois).

On Tuesday my team took me out to a nice restaurant in Pune (I don't remember the name - I really don't remeber too many names of things here). It's a restaurant featuring food from the Bangalore region of India. We were there for nearly three hours and went through something like 6 courses of food. It was great, but certainly not the most productive workday I've ever had!

The rest of the week was pretty much the same. Get up early and work, eat breakfast, go to the office, meet with the team, have lunch, work with the team, work with the U.S team after they arrive, go to the hotel, have dinner, then work some more until late.

Where have I been you ask?

Well, I have been holding back on the blogging the last week and a half or so. Greg has been gone and I kept thinking that he would be posting more, but he has had trouble connecting to the internet in his hotel. He also has the camera so I can't post any fun pictures. I have not wanted to detract from his India trip because it seems so cool, but I couldn't stand it any longer so you get to hear some mundane things from me.

First I have read some excellent books lately. They are church type books, which some of you may not like, and to tell the truth, I don't read them that often myself, but we bought a few while we were out west this summer. The first I think if you are a woman you should read. It is called "Mary, Martha and Me". It was written by Camille Fronk Olsen, who was one of my professors at BYU. She taught one of my favorite classes, Women in the Scriptures. This talks about the different ways we serve and learning to serve without being cumbered in service. It is really good. I just wanted to mention it.

The second one, I highly recommend to anyone. It is called "The Peacegiver" by James Ferrell. It is a fiction book, which the author calls an extended parable, that is about the atonement. It is about a guy name Ricky who is having major trouble in his marriage and he feels like he has been really patient through all of it and kind of places the blame for everything on his wife. As he is sleeping one night, his deceased grandfather comes to him and they are allowed to be placed where they can actually view true scripture stories. These give the grandfather teaching opportunities which in time help Ricky see that the way out of his problems, of anyones problems is the atonement. It is a pretty powerful book which makes you take a deeper look at where you stand with the Lord and if you are unknowingly, or knowingly, sinful or hurtful towards others and the Lord. It has really given me a stronger desire to take a look at myself and find where I can change. It has also made me realize that I should study the scriptures more deeply. There are so many things in them that can bring us clarity, that I have missed so often. I gave this book to my friend who does not like to read at all. She rarely reads and does not enjoy it, but I convinced her. She finished it in 2 or 3 days and ordered 4 copies for her and for her family members. I also enjoyed sharing it with her because it opened our discussion up to more meaningful and deeper things. So read it and then share it. It really is one you have to read.

Lastly, I am thankful for General Conference. I think that probably like many of you it is something you anticipate and look forward to. I can't say that I was able to give my full attention all the time (I think you understand), but there were things in there just for me. So many of the things I have been pondering and searching for, were there. It is just a reminder that the Lord loves us all and wants ALL of us to return to him. There is hope for all of us. Why would we not make that effort when the promises are so great. I want to be better. I can feel him calling to me. It is a good feeling to feel loved.

India - Day 2 - The people and poverty

I want to take a few minutes and write some of my thoughts about the people and conditions in India. As I was preparing to come over here, many of my coworkers who have been here warned me about the poverty and the horrible living conditions of many people here. So I came in expecting that and thought I was prepared to handle it (after all I've seen poverty at times in my life before). Turns out I was SO unprepared for the reality of life here. The scale of the poverty here is just unimaginable - it's everywhere and deeply disturbing and very disheartening. People live in the most unimaginable conditions - many just sleep on the side of the road - others build shelters from tarps or tree branches or trash or mud or any other way they can be creative. Abandoned buildings are dismantled brick by brick and people use discarded building materials to build their little shacks. And it's not like there are just a few communities where the poor live - it's quite literally everywhere. We drove for four hours to Agra and saw very few if any areas where there weren't people living on the side of the road. The sanitary conditions are horrible. The bathroom is the side of the road and bathing is done anywhere you can find water - normally filthy dirty ponds.



I have to admit, the first few hours of seeing this I was repulsed and really didn't want to be here. I felt disgusted by what I saw and just wanted to run back to my nice clean cozy home in the U.S. and forget what I was seeing. But I guess as the day wore on, I started to see things in a little different light. As I watched people going about their daily lives, I didn't see a lot of despair among them. They seemed somehow content and happy with their lives. There wasn't the anger and envy or resignation we see among some of the poor in the U.S. Instead it's a people making the best of a bad situation. This was especially evident looking into their eyes (I believe you can learn a lot just looking into a person's eyes). I really felt a depth and a goodness in these people - a real understanding of life that doesn't appear in the eyes of too many Americans.

As can be expected in a situation like this, there are lots of beggars looking for handouts or looking to sell cheap trinkets for money. Everytime we would get out of our car, we would be immediately mobbed by people wanting something from us. As we were working our way back to the car, people would surround us and try selling us their goods as aggressivly as possible. They would even climb right into the car with us if we allowed it (and a few did). They wouldn't take no for an answer unless our Indian friend (travelling with us) would intervene and tell them to go away.

I have a soft spot in my heart for little children and would usually cave in and buy something from them. There was one particular little girl that I won't soon forget. We were at a rest area (if you can call it that - not like an American rest area). A little girl (about 4 years old) was there with her dad. He was playing some kind of musical instrument and she was dressed up in some outfit doing a shy little dance and asking for money. I had made up mind that I was going to ignore them and just make my way back to the car. As they approached I turned around and walked back into the rest area. They followed but of course didn't go inside. As I came back out, they were waiting there and started doing their little show. My coworkers and I just walked past them and went to the car. I climbed in the back and everyone else got in. The little girl had followed us to the car and was holding our her little hand for money. About the time the doors all closed I looked out and saw the little girl looking at me with a sad kind of look. As I sat there looking at her and thinking about how she lives and the life ahead of her my heart broke and I could only sit there and think "Hang in there little one." I smiled at her and gave her a big wink of encouragement. Most unexpectedly, she winked back at me and a huge smile spread across her face. As we pulled away she just started waving goodbye beaming with that big smile. I'm not sure why she made such an impact on me, but I thought about her for a long time in the car after that. I wish I could have done more for her.

I should say that while there is poverty, there isn't much hunger. People seem well fed and well nourished. Also, I feel very safe here. While I don't think my wallet is always safe, I don't feel personally threatened at all. I've only had one day's worth of experience but already feel like I'm understanding the people here better. I hope that understanding continues to grow. I so far feel really good inside about the people I'm meeting and seeing here.

India - Day 2 - Sightseeing

We spent most of the day sightseeing in the Agra area. Agra is the home of the Taj Mahal - one of the seven wonders of the world. It's just as beautiful as it appears in all its pictures (even more so in person). Following are a few photos of the Taj. Click the pictures to see higher resolution.

I guess this is a "must take" picture when visiting here. Everyone was standing around with their hand in the air "holding" the Taj Mahal.

The artwork on the Taj Mahal is amazing. It's not paint at all - it's jewels and stones etched directly into the marble. The green is jade, red is saphire and so forth. When the light shines on the building in the right way, the jewels literally glow in the translucent marble.

We also stopped to visit the tomb of Akbar - one of the great ancient emporers of India. The tomb itself wasn't as impressive as the wildlife living around the tomb. There were monkeys everywhere and they were quite friendly.

That's me and Brian (a coworker travelling with me) on the elephant.

India - Day 2 - Traffic

I expect day 2 in India will turn out to be the most memorable day of my whole trip. I think we saw and did just about everything I imagined I would ever see or do in India. It's a four hour drive from Delhi to Agra so we started early - about 4 am. I had originally thought I would sleep some in the car on the way to Agra - after 5 minutes in the car, I realized there was no way that was going to be possible.

Traffic, even at 4 am, is wildly different than in the U.S. Let's start with vehicles. Anything that moves has a right to use the roads and highways of India. Even the big super highways have such an interesting mix of traffic. Lots of people walking, riding bikes, rickshaws, bullock-drawn carts, camel drawn carts, horse drawn carts, motorcycles, mopeds, elephants (we saw lots of them plodding down the road loaded down with things), pack mules, lots of tractors and combines (even an occasional John Deere), lots of big trucks (usually loaded taller, but less length than U.S. trucks) and a handful of cars (suprisingly few compared to other forms of transportation). The big trucks are all very colorfully hand painted with lots of charms hanging from them (to bring good luck). On the back of almost every truck were the handpainted words "Blast horn. Use dipper at night." Dipper I found was the headlight dimmer switch. Blast horn because the trucks don't have much in the way of rear view mirrors so you use your horn to let them know you are there.



The roads themselves were in very good shape - I was expecting much worse, but I think for the most part they were as good if not better than the roads we find around home. There is not really any concept of a traffic lane in India (though there are lines on some roads). You just kind of use whatever part of the road fits your need at the time. Generally you drive on the left-hand side of the road, but it's not uncommon to drive in the oncoming traffic lanes (even when there's oncoming traffic and even on hills). Even when you're on a divided super highway, don't be suprised to see oncoming traffic in your lane. If you need to stop, just stop your car anywhere and jump out. Everybody else goes around you.

Traffic moves in a kind of ameba-like manner. Since everyone is moving at different speeds, you just kind of weave around in and out of lanes. Horns are used constantly as a way of signally your intentions. If you want to pass someone, you just come up hard behind them blaring your horn. Either they move over or you swerve around them. Cutting off and getting cut off are standard procedure. Animals are everywhere (especially cows). Traffic lights are generally meaningless.



Strangely, traffic works well in India. For as crazy and seemingly out of control that it is, everybody understands the rules and everybody plays by the rules. Yesterday I mentioned about the temper on the guy that shuttled us to Chicago - every little thing made him mad. Those things were nothing in comparison to the wild traffic here. Yet everyone here just accepts it and noone seems to get upset about it.



Sorry to go on so much about such a mundane subject as traffic, but traffic is really one of the most impressive and distinctly different things about India. It is far from mundane and will take some getting used to!

India - Day 1

During my trip to India this week and next, I'm going to post some of the interesting things we're up to over here along with my impressions of India (don't worry - I'll leave out the boring stuff like work, so don't expect much on the weekdays).

Day 1 started off Thurday in Moline and was one of the longest days I can remember (or was it two days?). We boarded a shuttle for the airport at 11 am (I was already missing my family terribly by the time I stepped foot on the shuttle), destined to travel for the next 24 hours straight. Our driver to the airport was quite a character - telling tall tales and getting mad at every other person on the road. I only mention him now because I'll bring him up again in Day 2 posting.

Our flight from Chicago was delayed more than two hours (us sitting on the plane for most of it). It was really kind of a lame reason - someone forgot to fill the water tank up so the toilets wouldn't flush. I guess for a long trip like that the take about 327 gallons of water (if I remember right) so it took well over an hour to fill the tank. There were other delays too, so we were off to a bad start.

The flight itself went relatively smoothly. I was seated in business class so I was well fed and had a comfy chair to stretch out in. We don't usually get to fly business class, but due to a scheduling problem, I could only go business class. My boss's boss is travelling with us, so it was a little uncomfortable sitting up front with him back in economy, but he was good natured about it.

Around dawn, I watched the sun rise over Greenland. That was SPECTACULAR. The sunrise actually started in the north. Up there there isn't much more north to go so I guess it was peeking over the top of the world before it peeked over the side. Greenland is all frozen tundra so the sunrise looked like it was slowly illuminating a sea of white. Anyway, that was really cool.

We continued on across the north atlantic then skirted down across the Scandinavian countries headed straight for Moscow, Russia. About 50 miles short of Moscow (I was really hoping to see it), the plane took a sharp left and headed due west into barren lands of central Russia where we turned south again. We came across central Russia and down over the "stans" Afganistan, Pakistan, Turkmenistan, Tazjikistan (I'm making up the spellings as I go) and so forth.

I was a little nervous flying over Afganistan knowing there are still people there that don't like Americans (I was on American Airlines). But, I guess flying at 36,000 feet in the dark (oh yeah, we flew straight through Friday - it was dark again already) helps in the safety department. The thing that suprised (and saddened me) was how dark Afganistan was - very few lights, just vast darkness (and no, it wasn't cloudy). We flew directly over Kabul and from my seat I could only see a few main highways with street lights and not much else.

When we crossed the border into Pakistan, there was a marked difference - lots of lights everywhere. In fact, the thing I liked most about Pakistan was how its lights were laid out. Every mile or two (hard to judge from the air) there is a little community of lights (and probably people too). Then there was a little gap and another little community of lights. The thing that was cool was how evenly spread they all were - it looked kind of giant checkerboard going on and on for miles and miles.

India and Pakistan have continuing differences of opinion as to where the shared border actually lies. One of them has staked out their claim by placing lights every few meters all the way along the border as far as the eye could see - and it was a clear night so I could see a long, long ways. It was like someone took a map of India, and lit up its border.

Finally we arrived to Delhi - the 7th most populated city in the world (and the most densly populated of the top 20 most populated). Customs was not a problem - no one said a word to me, just stamped the passport and sent me on. I think the first thing that hit me getting out of the terminal was the smell and taste of the air. Delhi (due to pollution) has a kind of burnt smell or something. The air was also humid so it was kind of a heavy burnt air to breathe.

The airport and the hotel were only a few minutes aprart. We had a driver pick us up and shuttle us to the hotel. There I had my first experience with traffic in India - and is it ever an experience! More on that during my report on Day 2. We finally dragged our exhausted selves to our rooms late Friday night. We only had three hours to sleep before getting up to start a very busy day 2. I'll write about that tomorrow (and will post lots of pictures)!

For those who are interested

Here is a better picture of Adam's eye injury. He has been fine with indoor recess and was happy to be the scorekeeper in PE today.
  

Benner's Birthday

Well, my baby is 2. I can hardly believe it. The first year of his life dragged on and on and the second one has flown by. He brings so much joy and laughter to our family. He is full of energy and life. He is independent in so many ways now. We celebrated in the evening by having a Ben family home evening where we talked about his pregnancy and birth. Then we all told what we liked about Ben and what he brings to our family. The consensus was that he is very funny, as two year olds often are. The kids gave him some of their cast off toys and we gave him a few presents. He loved his Blues Clues dog and his Little People house. He especially likes opening the doors and shoving the people through. Then we had Mexican Chocolate cake and ice cream. The kids decorated the cake. Then he stayed up late and played some basketball with his mom while Adam played fooseball with his dad (we bought a cheap used fooseball table on Saturday). I think I got the most exercise as I had to lift Ben up to the hoop each time. He is a hefty two years old. It was a pretty low key day, but fun too. At the beginning of the day when we would sing Happy Birthday he would sing to me, since my birthday was a week ago, but by the end he would point to himself and say "Ben's birthday". It was a good day.

Ben's Birthday!

Yesterday we celbrated Ben's birthday. Here is a picture of him playing with his new Little People house and one of him blowing out his candles.