New Blog Address

Hey friends and family!  Katrina and I are now blogging reallybazaar.blogspot.com . Click on the link to find out what we've been up to!

Hindi

I haven't posted anything in the past week... primarily because there isn't anything to post, haha. I've been working a lot, reading a lot, and watching a lot of arrested development. Since life has been a bit boring lately I'll share something that I have been working on throughout the past 6.5 weeks... My hindi. I've never been interested in learning a different language, but when it can improve the quality of your life it becomes a necessity, haha. Katrina recently got the rosetta stone hindi version which we're anxiously awaiting, but I've been learning here and there in the mean time. I try to get people in the office to teach me a phrase or a word every day and it's been cool because I only learn things that I want to learn... so I end up remembering everything better. So once I've learned something I usually try to speak a little hindi to my co-workers throughout the day. It normally gets a laugh (since I'm still working on how to pronounce the words) or a 'Oh my gosh... that's so amazing'. From the latter, I think they're just being nice. At the same time I don't think they're very used to a pasty white guy speaking their native language. For fun here's a few Hindi words/phrases I've learned...

Mujhe mcdonalds jana hai - I want to go to mcdonalds
Mujhe KFC jana hai - I want to go to KFC... (you get the idea)
ye kya hai? What is this?
mere passe 30 rupees hai - I only have 30 rupees. (I use this on the rickshaw drivers all the time)
aap kaise hai? How are you
tike - Ok/fine
acha hai - I like it
Mujhe paani acha laga - I like this water (water is paani)
Kitna? How much?

These are the main hindi words I use/have learned so far. Hopefully by the time we leave I can hold my own in a hindi conversation.

See ya!

Bob

Trip to Old Delhi

I went to Old Delhi yesterday with Christian and Jean-Luc (2 french canadian guys that I work with). It was simply amazing. We didn't really 'do' anything... we just walked around and tried to take everything in. The sounds, the smells, the people... everything was like it was from a different world (trying to be dramatic, but whatever). It was pretty awesome to say the least. Here are some photos of the day!

I thought this was Ghandi at first... but it's not. I can't remember for the life of me who it is...

 

 

 Man washing his feet inside the mosque:

 This was my bag after it was knifed. Someone tried to steal my stuff at some point during our walk... Nothing was taken... probably b/c I was only carrying bug spray and sun screen.

 This was outside of the metro station. I think this is a temple.

 Now I know why there are blackouts in Dehli...

 Goats eating... not sure what though...

 Boys outside the mosque. These guys kept wanting pictures of us. Really nice kids.

 Me and the guys.

 Inside the mosque... not my best life decision considering that bin laden was killed just last week. I said I was Canadian... We originally went in with shorts but we were told we couldn't go in... hence the stylish skirts.

 Boys in the mosque washing their feet

 These people loved Christian. They kept asking him to take their picture so they could see themselves on the screen of the camera.

 Crazy, crazy streets of Delhi.

 Chickens sold on the street

 Goat on the street

 Rickshaw ride!

 Rickshaw cyclist sleeping... in a very strange position.

 Chickens?... vultures?... not sure.

 Ox pulling a huge cart

 Guy getting a rickshaw ride.

Hooray Monkeys!

While walking to the gym today I walked past a family of monkeys. It was awesome!

Looks like an elephant to me

So Shiva (one of the hindu gods) has a son named Ganesha. I was asking a girl at work about her replica of Ganesha at her desk... I said, so Ganesha is an elephant? It soo looks like an elephant. She said, "Don't call him elephant, ok?". Whoops.

Corn flakes and boiled eggs?

I just got home from my first day of work after the chicken/heat stroke episode. When I got to the hotel, all 3 guys at reception stood up abruptly and asked what I wanted for dinner. So I pulled out a menu, looked it over... Of course there is only curry this, masala that... not gonna happen. I closed the menu and said, "I will have cornflakes and boiled eggs for dinner... and I'll wash it down with some mineral water". The guys at the desk thought it was the greatest joke ever. I wasn't joking. When I walked away and went into my room, the waiter followed me, laughing and said, "Dinner sir... boiled egg and cornflake?". "Yes, boiled egg and cornflake", I said. He looked a bit concerned and walked away. I am now anxiously awaiting this delectable meal. Haven't they heard of breakfast for dinner? If they haven't, they have now :)

Bobby J

Don't eat the chicken in india. Just don't do it.

Here's a rundown of the worst 2 days of my 24 years of life...

• Sunday night - Went to the office for about 6 hours (I know, this may already be cause for the worst day ever)... When I got back to the hotel I decided I would order some butter chicken since this would be my last night in the hotel (I didn't mention that my apartment is now move-in ready so I can move in any time). Anyways, I decided I would do it up big by ordering some non-veg!
• 5 minutes after eating the butter chicken: Death. Death by cause of chicken. Let's just say there was no longer any chicken to be found in my stomach... I still feel bad about what the housekeepers had to do to clean... anyways... I got very sick. So sick that I couldn't keep down food or water... Constant sickness for several hours... When I realized that I wouldn't even be able to sleep through the night I asked the hotel staff to take me to the hospital... and oh did they take me to a hospital...
• Hospital numero uno: I don't think you can call it a hospital... maybe you could call it a basement, or a dorm room. It was small, dirty, weird... I was feeling uncomfortable from the get go. I had to speak to a translator to tell the doctor what was happening since he didn't speak any english. He felt around my stomach, turned me over, and gave me 2 shots in the couch cushion (by couch cushion, I mean butt). He then gave me some medicine and sent me on my merry way... This whole process took about 10 minutes... 10 minutes? Seems a bit fast right? Righhhht...
• Back to the hotel: So I'm back at the hotel, it's probably 3 in the morning... Almost immediately when I get back I start vomiting again... not good. This continues throughout the night, but somehow I manage to get a couple hours of sleep. 
• Monday morning: Same deal: Eat, drink, everything comes right back up... At this point I'm so dehydrated that I can barely function. Time to go to a real hospital now... maybe one that has those beeping monitors and has more than 1 room.
• Monday afternoon: I arrive at the best hospital in Gurgaon. By arrive I mean, stumble through the emergency room door and let the nurses drag me to a bed. Before they start asking questions I'm relieved to see, right above me, a beeping monitor... and nurses, they have nurses too! I explained to the doctor what happened, all about the first hospital and so on. They get me on a steady flow of fluids and antibiotics. After about 3 hours they decide to admit me since I'm still feeling like garbage...
• Tuesday morning: I wake up and realize that I'm feeling much better. I have saliva in my mouth and I feel like I can move around pretty well... I realize, however, that I haven't been given any food or water since I arrived at the hospital (although I've had fluids pumped through me continuously). I ask for fruit juice, but no fruit juice comes... I ask again for fruit juice... still no delicious fruit juice. Eventually something does come... it's what katrina would call, "red drink", haha. Basically it was like cool aid except it had medicine in it and didn't taste like cool aid at all. It tasted more like salt water with a hint of cherry. Yuck.
• Tuesday afternoon: I'm feeling much better. The give me some semi-solid foods as well as some pasta and garlic bread (maybe the best food I've had since I've been here!) and I'm able to keep everything down. I'm ready to go home and I think the nurses are tired of me asking if I can go home... About 8 hours later... that's 8 hours of drinking 'red drink' and staring at the cealing... they let me go home.
• I'm in the hotel right now and it's been about 12 hours since I've been discharged and I feel really good. I'm actually hungry for food which is really good. It will still take a couple of days to fully recover from the hit my stomach took as well as the hit my body took from extreme dehydration. So I'll be watching lord of the rings and eating ice-cream for 2 days :)

I know this was a long post, but it was horrible. It wasn't even that I was sick. It was that I was sick and I couldn't talk to my wife, and since I didn't have a cell phone, nobody knew where I was... It was just a bad situation... for me and for everyone that was trying to find out which hospital I was at.

Anyways... I left out the gross details that nobody needs to know. But this was one of the worst experiences of my life. Word of advice for everyone: Don't eat the chicken in India. Just don't do it.

Bob