and then this one time...

Day 11 – Thursday, April 6 – “When are you going to call us home?”

Today we went out for lunch and ran a few errands at the same time. Prashant and Avanee brought Nitin and me to a mall, where I was able to get an USB card reader, and Nitin got to ask about unlocking his phone (it ended up being too expensive, so he said no). The mall was also close by to the McDonald’s that we had gone to the day before. On Wednesday, I was working away in the late afternoon, when Prashant came in and said, “Let’s go, we’re going for a break!” We ended up going with a bunch of the staff for a snack at McDonald’s. My first time! I noticed delivery bikes, and the slogan, “When are you going to call us home?” McDonald’s delivers in India, to compete with the other restaurants who all deliver too. Crazy. The menu has lots of vegetarian options, chicken, and fish, all attuned to the Indian palate. I tried a McCurry Paneer (or something like that). Essentially, it was paneer with curry sauce on a thick pizza like crust. It was tasty.

Avanee and Prashant at lunch.

Anyway, back to Thursday, which was Nitin’s second last day in Mumbai. He wanted to go back to Paneeri to by a lengha for his sister that he had saw on Sunday, but hadn’t purchased. So, we made what was supposed to be short stop at the store. When the driver pulled up to the curb in front of the store, a guy opened the door for me. It seemed a bit weird, as I wasn’t sure why he was opening the door for me. And then I saw the rifle that he was carrying, and I was even more concerned. I looked over, and some guy had opened the door for Nitin too, and the drive didn’t seem concerned, so I got out of the car. It ended up that the guys were security guards for the store, but I was really freaked out, as he was carrying a weapon!

Well, we ended up finding the lengha that Nitin wanted to get his sister, and I ended up getting one too! It was funny, ‘cause after we had found the lengha for Nitin’s sister that we had seen the other day, the sales associate asked if I wanted anything. I sort of shrugged and laughed, and told Nitin that I don’t really have a clue, so I need time to check stuff out. So Nitin speaks to the sales associate in Hindi, and tells him to go slowly, so as not to overwhelm me. So the sales associate ends up slowing down bringing out the lenghas and showing them, with exaggerated actions. It was very funny, as he said, “Look, I am showing them slowly.”

After a long day, including the shopping, we headed back to the hotel. Nitin went to the front desk to get a late check out the next day, and as I waited, I ended up chatting with Preeti, the manager who had checked me in. I mentioned the cake, roses, and birthday wishes, which were great, but also the fact that it was not my b-day. She ended up saying that the hotel copies the b-day information from guests’ passports, so there must have been some transcription error. It was nice anyway :)

Miscellaneous TV stuff:

• Found the OC. It’s on 5 days a week.


• Have seen the commercial where a guy is moving an “air conditioner”, while a devil keeps insisting that it is just an air cooler, ‘cause “if it doesn’t cool at 48 degrees Celsius, then it’s not an air conditioner.” That’s just frickin’ crazy, as it pretty much means that it gets up to 48 degrees here regularly!

posted by LZ @ 11:49 AM