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It’s been five days here in Bangalore, India and I think I’m starting to get in the swing of things. Getting to work each day has been an adventure with the traffic patterns being much different than back in the US. Driving a vehicle on the streets of Bangalore is much like walking in a crowd. There are lines on the streets, but it means nothing. Cars, motorcycles, bicycles and pedestrians pass each other inches apart. At first I thought it was much like China, but now that I’ve commuted for five days – I realize that it’s much more chaotic. Thankfully, Chris and I have a driver that comes to pick us up from our hotel each morning at 9am and we get to work at Ecospace Campus (which is 3-4 miles away) in about 45 minutes. He also takes us back to the hotel, or to a restaurant or shopping if we want to.

I’ve never been on a business trip, but I think I like it. Other than missing the comforts of my home, friends and family – I get to experience a country for free. I’ve eaten at very interesting restaurants (Bombay Post, BBQ Nation), drank Kingfisher beer, witness a wedding, play a Sitar, and meet my Indian AOL colleagues. It took much less time to adjust to being in India than I thought. Possibly because Bangalore is a city of technology. If you’re company isn’t represented here already, you’re already late to the game.

This weekend marks the start of Ganesh Chaturthi, or Ganesh Festival, celebrating the birthday of Hindu God Ganesh, which lasts for an odd number of days (usually 1 to 11). Walking around yesterday, there were statues of Ganesh prepared to be displayed this weekend. We still haven’t hit tourist market central, MG Road, but definitely plan on hitting that this weekend.

I have 3.5 days left. Unfortunately we won’t get to travel up to Agra to see the Taj Mahal but there is so much more to see here in Bangalore. Other than that, the training sessions that Chris and I are conducting have been very productive and well received. I’m looking forward to taking advantage of all this city has to offer.

As always, keep checking out the constantly updated set on Flickr: India Trip.

Hey everyone, quick update here because I can’t really fall asleep yet, but I’m here in Bangalore India on a business trip. I’ve been taking some pictures of the business class amenities on the plane, the Frankfurt Germany airport, and a few of the Bangalore airport. I haven’t seen much, so these might be a little boring, but keep checking on this set because I’ll be uploading pictures to the set all week long.

Update 9/13 – Added more pictures!

Update 9/14 – Added even more pictures! 

Bangalore India Trip Set on Flickr

It’s the last day at the beach here for me and for the first time in a few years, I had my fantasy football drafts the week before going to the beach.  This is especially nice, because I got to pick my team rather than using the pre-set autodraft.  (I’ll post my two lineups in a later post.)  Unfortunately, I have to head back a little earlier than usual this year because of school, but I’m glad to sneak in one more relaxing vacation before I’m inundated with homework and reading.

Also when I get back to work, I will be frantically prepare some training material for my trip over to Bangalore, India to train a few new analysts.  I’m really excited to get a free trip to a place that I never thought I’d visit to experience new cultures and food.  I’ll be heading over with my co-worker, Chris, and we’re going to try to chase down some NFL games in a bar.  Not sure if they get the games over there though.  You’ll definitely see a slew of pictures posted/linked from in in about two weeks, so keep checkin’ back in.

Working for AOL has its benefits every once in a while. I’ve had the chance to see a few movies before they come out – Harry Potter and Rockstar are the only two that come to mind. Yesterday, I got to catch a preview of one of this summer’s blockbusters: Shrek the Third. As expected, co-workers brought their kids in droves to the movie. It was interesting to see the genius of the Shrek writers in action by having two levels of comedy and see the adults and kids laugh at different parts. Kids laughed at the many fart and poop jokes (embarrassingly enough, so did I), and the adults laughed at digs at current events or when curse words were masked by fog horns. It’s good to know that kids around the age of five weren’t able to extrapolate what curse word was being censored. The adult/kid interaction with the movie is something I usually don’t experience with these kids movies because I see them many weeks after they come out in more empty theaters.

Once again, the animators were top notch with the visuals and animation. The voice acting on par with the previous Shrek movies – although Justin Timberlake, who provides the voice for Artie, had the weakest performance. Overall, this is what you’d expect from the Shrek series – multiple layers of humor, clever story writing, and excellent visuals and animation all taking advantage of the character development established in the first two movies. One thing that was missing was the catch song at the end of the movie. The first movie had (one of my fave bands) Self‘s extremely catchy song, and the second Shrek had a great Counting Crows tune. Shrek the Third didn’t have that memorable song as you’re filing out of the theater. Oh well, you can’t have everything. Anyways, I’m 2 for 2 for seeing summer blockbusters this summer…way ahead of my normal curve…