Mumbai 1

I'm here in Mumbai and doing fine. Miraculously, they let me check in 9 HUGE boxes at the airport in Paris, I was able to find some help to cart them through the airport here and I got them through customs as well. I know I must have been quite a spectacle - the only blonde person in the airport standing next to 9 huge boxes trying to negotiate with customs officers. It seems that if you're willing to pay (3000 Euros in excess baggage and $1000 worth of Rupees for customs later), you can bring almost anything with you into India.

We're in our second day of fielding the research. Yesterday there were some hang-ups with the Internet, but today it's all straightened out (I hope!). Also - for the first couple of days I couldn't get hot water in my hotel room and I thought it was just because I was in India, but this morning (to my delight!) the water was hot so they must have had a pilot light out or something.

This place is much different from Bangalore. There's a lot more people and a lot more poverty. I would describe it kind of like being in Times Square in NY, with all of the people hustling and bustling around, but instead of wearing business suits and briefcases, everyone's in tattered clothes and no shoes. It's not as lonely here as it was in Sao Paulo because everyone speaks English, but the dynamic of being a woman who's in charge of a project that a lot of men are working on here is kind of strange. It's a little difficult - I feel like sometimes they're not taking me seriously or think they have better way that they're just going to do anyway - so at times I have to state over and over and over how I want something to be done, and have had to get a little angry and demanding on a couple of occasions because of it.

I'm also learning about acceptable tipping standards. The second night I was here I ordered dinner to my room, then requested more tea, then requested more toilet paper. I tried to write a tip on the hotel bill for the service that this one guy had given me for all three trips but they don't do that here - so later on I gave him the equivalent of about $10 worth of rupees. Well apparently that was wayyy too much because now this guy and other staff at the hotel basically follow me around all the time trying to be helpful. Yesterday at breakfast I reached for my spoon on the table to stir sugar in my tea and this guy tried to reach over to hand it to me! This morning I got a call at 7:30 from the staff to see if I would be coming to breakfast. Anyway - live and learn. Next time I'll know!

Needless to say - the last few weeks of this project have been some of the longest and possibly most stressful of my career so far, so I'm really looking forward to finishing up tomorrow and heading home. I get home on Monday morning and I'm upgraded on the way from here to Newark so I'm VERY glad about that - I know I will thoroughly enjoy it!!!