The week with Dad

Hey all,

I'm starting to fall behind on this blog, so I'm going to skim at a higher level than usual over the last week (especially since Dad has been keeping a very detailed journal too). I'll start off with this past Sunday. Dad and I headed over to Lal Bagh Gardens, which is a botanical garden on the far side of Bangalore. The garden has a few nice features: a great view of the skyline of the city, a couple of really nice lakes (with lotus flowers!), a silk tree, and some kooky topiary. Overall, however, it was not particularly taken care of. There was trash everywhere, their 'glass house' display area was completely empty, and the 'Japanese Garden" looked like an angry mob had taken axes and flame to it. I guess the lesson is that European-style tourist spots in India don't live up to their European counterparts (duh!). Dad and I were going to go to a tiffin place near the gardens for lunch, but there was a line spilling out on to the street so we caught a rickshaw and went to a place near MG road called "Pub World". It was supposed to have 4 different sections designed like pubs from different parts of the world, but they were so similar I could barely tell where one section started and the next began (for instance, the only distinguishing feature of the "wild west" style pub was the swinging, saloon style, doors).

I worked a bit that afternoon, and for Sunday evening we went with Nels, Tracy, Rob, and Pavol to the dosa place near home. It turns out they have a *huge* selection of delicious meals, and I think we ate there 3 or 4 more times this week!

On Monday Dad and I went down to the MG road area to get Dad tickets for a bus tour into Mysore for Wednesday. We were hungry, so we ended up walking along a part of the MG road area that I haven't been to before (actually along MG road) and grabbing a wonderful lunch at a slightly swanky place called 'Emgees' (say it out loud if you don't get it). Cubbon Park was between us and the bus ticket office, so we decided to wander through. We got slightly lost and ended up in a part that was *much* prettier and better maintained than the parts that I had been through before, and made the place look better than Lal Bagh. We eventually made it to the ticket office and got Dad a ticket for Wednesday!

There was a big sign at the end of Lal Bagh that had a listing of traffic violations and fines that I thought was amusing and took a picture of. I was just looking at the picture and reading through the fines such as "Racing/Trial of Speed - 300Rs.", "Jumping Traffic Signal - 100Rs.", "Using musical/Shrill Horn - 100Rs.", and "Cutting Yellow Line - 100Rs." (all of which I have observed frequently, especially the horn one) when I noticed "Ladies seat occupying by male person - 100Rs.". I don't know which seat is the "Ladies", but I thought that its an interesting thing to have a traffic fine for.

For dinner this Monday Tracy, Dad, and I tried to find "Daily Bread", which we had been told was a really good sandwich shop. We ended up going about 2km farther than the store (we found it on the way back) and having dinner at the *very* sketchy (but delicious!) "Orange".

On Tuesday, Dad and I stayed closer to home and explored the area. We wandered about a small park near the office that is the best maintained of the parks I have seen (no trash piles!), then headed down the road to a "Tuberculosis Hospital" (Dad is a lung doctor, with a sort-of sub-specialty in tuberculosis). We wandered inside and (after Dad gave his credentials) were able to chat with one of the doctors there for about 20 minutes. It turns out the place doesn't treat patients, but is the central place in India for training of doctors to care for tuberculosis and for research into processes to eliminate the disease from India. After we left Dad explained all the medical details I hadn't understood, and described the details of the disease to me. All very interesting.

We then tried to get into Palace Grounds, which is a really huge open area where concerts are held, to try to see the Bangalore Palace which occupies a small corner of the grounds and is supposed to be a copy of Windsor Palace! On the way I bought some "Jackfruit" from a street vendor. It is a *huge* [larger than watermelon] spikey fruit that has a bunch of smaller yellow pieces inside that you eat individually. I had one and it was delicious, but my mouth started itching so we decided to throw the rest of the pieces I had bought away :-(. I haven't been able to find any in a supermarket, but hopefully I will have more luck in the future.

Anyway, after walking several km we found an entrance to Palace Grounds and wandered in. It was, unfortunately, partitioned so that we couldn't get to the side that has the palace, but we did spot what looked like a large amusement park, and we found an abandoned go-kart course where we sat and enjoyed the breeze for a while. That was the lowest population density that I have experienced in a month and a half!

After we tired of Palace Grounds we took a rickshaw to Daily Bread (we knew where it was now!), had fairly good sandwiches and delicious gelatto for lunch, then I went to work. We had dinner again at the dosa place, and it was again delicious!

On Wednesday I woke up at 5:30AM and grabbed a quick shower before helping Dad get an auto-rickshaw down to the bus place for his tour, for which the bus left at 7AM and returned at 11PM! He had a great time, though the day was rather long!. As for me, I went in to work at 6AM and worked till 8PM, trying to catch on all the time I had been spending out of work. However, Wednesday was Nelses 25th birthday (and Thursday was Christian's 31st), so a *huge* contingent of people from the office went over to Opus for karaoke night. Some highlights of the evening: talking with a new intern, Camillo, from Columbia and getting the inside scoop from him on traveling to Columbia (sounds like it would be fantastic! And it is quite feasible to do without being kidnapped/killed!), along with Christan and Udai sang "Under the Bridge" (we had a stage act and everything. We sang badly, but had fun ^_^), and had tequila shots with Nels and Christian because it was their birthday (then found out that each shot cost 450Rs.!!!!! That is more than $10 for each shot!).

Thursday was Dad's last Day in Bangalore :-(. I worked in the morning (as had become routine), then we had lunch at the dosa place and headed over to commercial street to do some shopping. The shopping was really a lot of fun and Dad found a whole bunch of cool things, such as a *beautiful* figure of Krishna. We also bought a pair of kurtas (traditional Indian shirts) together, and I (finally) found a couple of cool earrings for myself.

After lots of shopping we headed over to MG road to sit down and relax for a while over a couple beers, after which we did a little more shopping on MG road for some positively *beautiful* scarves. I tried to get an auto-rickshaw in a slightly different spot than usual to get back home, and it ended up causing us to have to walk and extra km to find one (though we got meter!).

Back home it had gotten dark and the power was out, so Dad had to finish up his packing in the dark. We went to dinner (again) at the delicious dosa place, then I called a cab to pick us up for the airport. Just getting the cab to the house proved to be an adventure as it was hard for me to get ahold of the guy on my cellphone, and it took him *an hour* of roving around Sadashivanagar to actually find the place! Even once we were in the cab the adventure was not over, as the cab had a broken horn, the driver was constantly on his cellphone, and when he wasn't on the cellphone drove more recklessly than any other person I have yet seen here!

The airport was a zoo, but I think that it always is. I flashed my passport at the guards and managed to get into what turned out to be the passengers only area and helped Dad get all checked in and said goodbye. Then I tried to leave, and almost got arrested! I tried to just cooly walk out the door, but there were security guards on both sides and one of them stopped me. I tried some BS story about having to say goodbye to someone, but he just told me to go back inside (apparently once inside, you are only supposed to leave on a plane!). At this point I told him that I had just gone inside to help my Dad, and that I wasn't a passenger. He was *not* happy with this and asked, somewhat angrily, how I got in. I said that I just showed my passport, which he then took from me and stared *balefully* at. All through this exchange Dad was inside the airport and watching, getting ready to bail me out (though I don't know what he could have done). After a couple of minutes of staring at the passport, the guard handed it to me and just looked away, like I had disappeared. This was all the sign I needed, so I (quickly) waved goodbye to dad and *booked* it away from the guard and headed back home via the waiting taxi driver!

I would like to end the post on that high note, but I have just a couple of other things to mention. Once home I ended up staying up for several hours with Nels and Tracy, listening to music and generally putzing around. We also went outside and danced around on our roof in the *deluge* of rain that hit right after I got home (which marks the first, and probably only, time that I have had my shirt off while being outside in India :-0).

Not too much happened on Friday. Mostly just me working all day (after a year I understand why the CRF probability distribution is convex! I'm sorry to all my readers, but it was a triumphant moment and I had to put it in here). I was expecting to do something that evening, but neither Nels or Tracy came home, so I ended up just futzing on the computer (downloaded all the PhD comics ^_^) and reading my book [it turns out Tracy went to an office party that I forgot about, and Nels is off traveling]. I ended sitting in bed reading for a while, and all the sleep deprivation I've gone through in the last week (working and hanging out with Dad doesn't leave much free time, and I haven't really managed more than 5 or 6 hours in a while) caught up to me. I managed to turn out the light in my room, but I didn't even push the book I was reading out of bed (let alone change or close the door!) before sleep took me (apparently Tracy couldn't figure out what was up, because all the lights were on and my door was open when she got home at 2AM, but I didn't come out of my room or anything).

I woke up fairly early today, but have not done all that much. I finished "Pride and Pregidous" (reading in a nice little park near the flat), which was actually quite good, far better than I expected, and have talked with Elaine, Mike, and Dad (who got home safely, though his bags were soaked in the above mentioned deluge [and apparently my copy of Dummit & Foote that I shipped back with him looks like someone took a sledgehammer to it :'-( ). I'm really enjoying having a nice, relaxing day at home for the first time in weeks ^_^.

Thats all for now! I will post pictures from Dads visit sometime today.

Cheers,
Jason