The hunt is on

In everyday life there's always things to do. But they do get a bit more complicated when you're not very familiar with the country.

For example at the moment me and a few friends are thinking of finding a flat of our own. Lately there's been a lot of issues with the trainee flats and it's gotten very crowded at home. For short periods this isn't a problem but now it's starting to get a bit too much. You really do need somewhere a bit calm and quite to unwind after work. At the moment this isn't something you can do in our flat. So therefore we're now on the hunt for an appartment. Tricky, but keep your fingers crossed!

At the same time we're trying to find a good gym. This is proving to be harder than it sounds. So far all the one's we've seen have had one of these problems: no hot water, ladies only allowed during business hours or Swedish prices (as in a third of my salary each month). But the search continues! We've heard some rumors of other places so it shouldn't be impossible. At times like this you do wish you worked for one of the big companies where they have an in-house gym for the employees. Well, you can't have everything.

All is good and well in India otherwise. And as promised here's the link to the article in The Hindu. Apparantly I have a very hard name to spell ;)
http://www.hindu.com/2008/02/13/stories/2008021357850200.htm

That's all for now. Hope everything is great with everyone back home (or wherever else you might be)!

Normalcy setting in

It's been a while since my last post. You might wonder why. Basically it's because everyday life is setting in. I don't think so much of the fact that I'm in India and things are settling in to a good routine.

Work is getting to be very interresting as I get more things to do and opportunities to meet with the clients and so forth. Even been holding sessions on Sweden and Swedish culture for the English program they have at the part of the company called Elan. Very fun!

General updates:

I'm finally joining a gym (over two months without any exercise...it's about time) It's supposed to be good, so here's hoping.

I had my first real Swedish fika with a Swedish friend here. Felt a bit strange (but nice) to talk in swedish for such a long time.

A lot of friends have left and new have arrived...the life of an intern, but still sad sometimes.

I changed rooms in my appartment and now have a closet all to myself...yay!!!

Football is taking up space in my life. (isn't it ironic!?) With a lot of football loving people around it's hard to get away from. I even went to see a game on Sunday. Interns and AIESECers playing. After the game a reporter came and interviewd us for an article in The Hindu, one of the biggest newspapers here. I'll for sure put up a post if it ends up in the paper.

And finally...I experienced my first rainy day here. Going to work in an auto mostly resembled a boat ride, in a very small boat. We didn't get any water on us from the sky but were still soaking wet by the time we arrived at work. And with the enourmous puddles that formed here and there on the streets, the autos did actually look a bit like boats as well. Really looking forward to the raining season....or something...

All in all...having a good time and happy as a fish in the sea =)

New Years in Goa

In all haste (due to some problem to getting everyone to agree etc) it was decided that we were going to Goa for New Years. We were around 20 people, interns, AIESECers and "hang arounds", that went. Somehow by luck and good connections we had found tickets and places to stay for the four days we were going to be there.

The day we were leaving for Goa there were a lot of disturbances in the city due to the death of one of the political leaders. He died of natural causes but his followers felt that there should be a shut down of the city. And so there was. I was at a clients offices all day and going back into the city there was a rush of people going home (at 4pm!) and the stores were closing down. As a precaution our company provided us with a car to get safely home to get our things and to get to the bus. Otherwise it would have been a bit harder to get anywhere. After this I realized that I need to keep up with the news here. So I've started reading a few different papers everyday and it really does make a big difference on how integrated you feel.

(If you wanna read about the incident, here's the story: http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/Cities/Hyderabad/City_goes_into_mourning/articleshow/2659779.cms )

Anyway, back to the trip.
The bustrip was about 14 hours and we arrived just before lunch to our appartment at Baga Beach in the north of Goa. It felt so relaxing to get there at first because of all the tourists. We blended in very well except maybe that some of us had a bit more clothes and a little less tan than the average person.

Now Goa really reminded me of Portugal. Not so strange as it used to be a portugese colony. The architecture is a bit different and the food definiently is. A lot of seafood and not nearly as spicy as Hyderabadi food. But then it is said that Hyd has the spiciest food in India. (Anyone knows if this is actually true??)

During the days we occupied out time with swimming and laying on the beach. Only moving after the sun started setting. During the nights we were partying or hanging out either at a club or at the beach. Very relaxing!

One thing here that was very good as well was the fact that it was easy to choose if you wanted a more secluded beach/part of a beach or if you wanted to be in the middle of the craziness. On the first day we went quite far away to a beach called Morjim, absolutely wonderful! A beautiful beach, and almost no people!

For the main event i.e. New Years eve, I went to yet another beach called Candolim. There I spent the evening with some other friends from Hyderabad. We had some great seafood and good wine and just before 12 we went to a club for a few hours of partying. All in all a very nice evening but not with the crazy partying I usually do. It felt like a good way to start the year.

The following day it was already time to head home again. It turned out that the AIESEC croud had skipped sleeping all together and were therefor somewhat tired at 2pm when we were leaving.

The bus ride home was very quiet but for some strange reason the bus kept stopping all the time. (seven times, as compared to one on the way to Goa!) This included one change of bus in the middle of nowhere. We arrived 1,5 hour later than predicted but still in good enough time to not be too late for work.

So that was it for this vacation. It was over much to quick.

Can wait to the next one!