Hey all!
Well, the original plan for this weekend was that it was going to be spent in Pondicherry. Elaine and I left on Friday afternoon and, after an obscenely long drive, arrived there at about 9PM and paid way more than we wanted in order to stay the night in a hotel rather nicer than we were planning on. Dinner and the buffet were very nice, though food has not been sitting on Elaine's stomach very well :-(. Sleep was wonderful after that long drive!
The next morning we got a slow start and didn't really get out of the hotel until a little before noon, at which point we headed over near the water (Pondicherry is on the sea) and tried to find a room for the next night. We failed completely. After an hour of trying the only room we could find was for 5000Rs. a night :-P. We decided to cut our losses, wandered about near the water for a while (saw the Ghandi statue, went to a great little bookstore "Book Cafe", and a wonderful restaurant called "Rendezvous" [This was a French colony for many years]) then headed home for Bangalore :-(. After a *long* drive we made ourselves a makeshift dinner of toast and nutella, then went to sleep. All in all, a few nice bits in Pondicherry, but it has proved to be a lesson in the necessity of planning well ahead for things.
Today proved to be *much* better ^_^. We woke up fairly early and decided to tour around Bangalore. We had the yellow flavored rice that they serve us at the flat for breakfast, then after some further futzing headed downtown to Geruda Mall, which is right by MG road. I really wanted to show Elaine the spectacle of a Bangalore mall. We wandered up its 6 stories, stopping at a store to buy Elaine some *fantastic* Indian tops, which gave the mall time to get bustling and busy and a true show of how happening of a place it is.
After the mall we walked to Brigade road and had lunch at the Paradise club, where Dad and I had gone twice for beers while he was here. Elaine had some *truly amazing* Palak Paneer, "the best food she has ever had in her life", which is a high compliment from someone with such a developed and diverse palate! We even got the recipe from the waiter, then stopped by a supermarket to pick up the spices that we will need to cook it!!! Hopefully we will be able to recreate this taste sensation!
We continued our *fantastic* day by stopping by the cat/magazine store after lunch, and spending a while there watching the cute cats and reading through a few of the magazines. It was so much fun getting to bring Elaine to all of these places that I've wanted to show her for two months (holy moly, I've been in India for two months!).
After the cat store we stopped by Blossom for several hours, Elaine flipped upon seeing the collection ^_^, and we bought a whole bunch of fantastic books. I'm going to have reading material for a *long* time. After Blossom we decided we wanted a bit of exercise, so we walked the 6km from MG road to my flat! We only stopped to admire a nice park in my neighborhood (incidentally, the weather today was fantastic!).
The last major thing for the day was dinner. Tracy and her visiting friend Rebecca decided to make pasta and sauce for dinner, and Elaine and I went to the Food Mart to buy food for a fruit salad (our [Elaine's] contribution), and matches to start our stove. Dinner was *delicious* (bow-tie pasta, tomato sauce full of zuchini, squash, and other good veggies, and a delicious fruit salad of pineapple, apple, mango, and bananna [:-)], with mango juice to drink) and we had Gelatto from Daily Bread and a Chocolate with Almonds Cadburry Bar (reminds me of New Zealand!) for dessert.
All in all a fantastic day! I don't really want to go back and do work tomorrow :-P.
Cheers,
Jason
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