A collection of impressions and notes on Saturday and Sunday

Saturday was affected by arriving in the wee hours and not getting enough sleep.  Himself managed to get out for a couple of walks while I shook out clothes, steamed his suit, and stowed our belongings in a convenient way.  I don't mind setting up house in a hotel for long stays.  Ironing out the quirks of the room takes doing, for instance, one has to figure out the electricity in this place and what switch does what, where the best light is...oh man, lighting in hotel rooms....Although this hotel is really very fine and goes against all the warnings in the travel guides, we were not glad to see that the pool and sauna are under renovation: Himself could have used some steam bath and swimming.  I wish hotels would tell you before you arrive.

And this hotel does not have clothes drawers.  Six desk  drawers, narrow and shallow, and two lingerie drawers in the closet;  so undies sit in one suitcase, personal gear in the other.  Boy, am I happy I bring extra hangers. But it's a workable accommodation. There's a restaurant open all day as well....

When He was ready to take walk number three, I went too. Next door is a sari emporium.  We took a look. Two floors of the rainbow fairy's cavern of delights.  I wish I was brave enough to ask to have one draped on me just to see.  Goodness me, the fabrics and colors and sparkly bits are just enchanting.  On our walk, we found a grocery and bought water and fresh ginger for my already suffering tummy.
We like grocery stores in other lands. It is interesting to see how alike/not alike the shelves are.  As small as this emporium was, it had a wide variety of items; the British influence is still apparent.

The heat started to affect us so we toddled back to our room, stowed water, rested some, and had dinner with our student who had arrived Saturday afternoon fresh from a 40 hour train trip from up north. He's been in land for two weeks "doing" India all by himself.  Brave kid.

Our coughs and congestion made sleeping unusually poor that night.

Sunday we went to church. We found there are more than one units in Bangalore. One is just 5KM away in Richmond Town district.  It's a big building with CES offices and Family History facilities. And amazingly, completely in English.  Huh. Lots of younger men and women.  I was not aware of many children, but on our way out we peeked into a children's class busy singing away, so there are families. The chairs are a misery so we did not stay the entire block of meetings...two days of poor sleeping takes its toll.  The women wear traditional dress and look so vibrant compared to what I am used to. The colors! The sparkly bits!  No two saris or shalwaars are the same.  Just multiply that by a couple million and think of the textile genius it takes to make so many splendid combinations. it boggles my mind.  A feast for the eyes.

Our conference host provided us with a car and driver for the day, which is wonderful, but the poor driver had nothing to do for long periods of time.  He, as every driver so far, was excellent in negotiating the traffic. It defies description. No apparent rules or lanes. constant tooting.  It takes nerves of steel. And I hear that the Bangalore traffic is nothing compared to other places.

In fact, Bangalore, they say, is much different than other cities. Cleaner, less crowded, traffic less chaotic (???), less smelly.  Huh.  I guess it is a good introduction for folk like me.

Because we had a couple of hours, we asked to be driven to a local market.  No tourists.  It was grand.  Saw fruit and veg I have never seen but read about in books. We were offered jackfruit, which He tasted, but after I saw the bugs, I declined.  The babies are so cute.  We found a fabric store which had pre selected lengths in a pack for the making of shalwaar:  top , pant, wrap.  Again, no two alike.  Since I would never wear some of the combinations in staid  Netherlands, it took a little convincing but the man found some neutral combinations of which we chose two.  I see some nice tropical weight two piece outfits with wrap for the summer in China....not Indian style though.

Sunday night we were expected at the University for registration and dinner.   It was disorganized, chaotic, boring, long and time wasting.  I had my knitting and my book.   am always prepared.

I finished this entry Tuesday morning.  Monday deserves its own post.

The rest of the Outbound Journey

Charles de Gaulle airport is one we love to not like. One disembarks and runs up and down escalators just to arrive at a jitny bus which drives a slow serpentine path to another entrance. More escalators and long walks through immigration (to leave the EU) and finally to departures.  The priority lounge at CDG is lovely.   Quiet.  Restful. On to Bengaluru.

When the time came to cue for the departure gate, Indian style procedures prevailed.  The longest priority line I have ever seen, and every document and visa was examined. It took ages.
However, everyone managed to get on board (as opposed to the unfortunate no-shows off loaded from the first flight in the grey Amsterdam morning.)   Off we went for nine hours in the air.

Air France, how you have fallen.  The inflight magazine was one long dull advertisement. The food was embarrassing. If this was the first introduction to Indian food for the novice traveler, it was a shock. Cardboard, nasty, uninspired.  Breakfast was some sort of gucky wrap thing...I used to look forward to Air France flights. The food was so good.

The staff was polite and pleasant; but gave us a black and white photocopy of the customs form instead of a colored original. "This is unacceptable,"says the worker bee with a head bob that made me wonder if he was going to burst into a Bollywood routine.  Thus we had to rewrite our forms...but it seems not one other soul had to; I am  still baffled. Then there was the meat. In cans. From home.

We were honest. Yes we had tuna and ham with us.  a few cans.  So we went to the Declarations. and waited. and waited. and waited.  Remember it is 1:30 in the morning. we waited some more.The single clerk  was busy in a molasses sort of way over a boxed LCD screen.  We had our little bag of eats all ready.  Finally, a man without a uniform wandered up and asked if we were waiting. We explained. He took our declaration slips over to a uniformed fella on the other side of the wall,  conversed, and came back to tell us to cheat. To change our forms to nothing to declare and go away. Otherwise the mountain of forms for us to fill out for 4 cans of tuna and one canned ham would keep us there til dawn. We scribbled and left.  But I know in my bones they would have scanned our bags and found the cans if we had been dishonest.  Then all sorts of hellish events transpire.

Our host had arranged a taxi for u. We were, without a doubt,  grateful for not having to fuss with transport at 2 am in a strange land.  We got all loaded in and drove through the night to our hotel. In the dark Bangalore looks like any other city around the airport.  Uninspiring.  Not one OOOO Look!
But maybe we were too travel worn to care.

Smooth registry at our hotel, and a huge comfy bed.  We fell into bed about 4am and set the alarm for breakfast.  Day one is finally ended.

Off we go

Yes, the visas finally came. Our vaccinations are in order.  Yesterday we packed and cleaned. Himself found the travel pillow that was exactly where it should be -and we already bought a replacement.  So now we have two sizes.  That is ok.    Sweetpea came and took the perishables and 40 pounds of other sundries to stock her own larder.  Off we drove at dark o'clock; poor little Fannie May car was surprised to be on the road so early, packed to the gills.

We left car and coats in the care of daughter dear at Schiphol. We discovered only one set of keys made it to the airport so plan B of the return to pick up car had to be implemented.  But everything else is where it needs to be. We are having breakfast in thee Priority Lounge (there is a benefit to all the frequent trips of Himself. )  We have braved one security check.

Now it is time to hike to the gate. First tstop Paris, Charles de Gaulle, one of the less favorite hubs in the world, but there you are.  :)

Incredible India; the first big trip of 2015

For which preparation is fraught with irritation

and Himself gets really cranky

When Himself looked winsome as he suggested I come to India with him in far off February 2015, I looked into those twinkly blue eyes and gave in.  My inner conversation was this:  Yes, it is crowds of people. Yes, it is noisy. Yes, it is overwhelming. Yes, it is hotter than hell.  But yes, it is the right time to go.  I am healthy enough, and if there is  a next time, I might not be.  And he LOVES the place. I love to see him so excited to go, even if the real reason is work.  India, you see,  was not high on my bucket list, if there at all.

So I left him to the planning, which grew to include a trip to this thrilling place:  http://www.junglelodges.com/kabini-river-lodge,  where it is rumored that the tigers are populous in February.  But elephants and all sorts of  wild things we usually see in zoos are there so it promises to be amazing.

He made the reservations for the round trip flight using most of our saved airmiles for my ticket, hotel one, the conference venue, hotel two, the hotel closer to General Electric where he is invited,  the reservations for the safari park....but at this writing, the reservations for hotel three for the last night and day of our stay in Bangalore are still unclear.  But that is nothing.  We may not yet be going.  

Why? You might ask, at this late date, are we not completely sure of departure. In one word, VISA.

I never in my life thought that Indian bureaucracy extended to the green, flat shores of Cheeseland, but boy-howdy, mama, they do. About two weeks ago, we had our passport photos taken to make sure we had light background, 51 by 51 cm photos. Then Himself sat before the computer and spent a couple of hours entering forms and collecting various data, making copies and collating it all for both of us.  He needed a convention visa. Since he has done this before and knew it was a tangled mess, he was able to get his visa info in a tidy, thick stack in a couple of hours.  For my visa, a  simpler tourist request was filled out. Mind you, simple does not mean short. My parents, my life history including education and reason for ever thinking I'd want to visit India included, and that just to visit the country for 10 days.

I promise I am not going to suddenly decide to live there illegally.  I will probably kiss the floor of the airplane on the return leg.

With his schedule so booked, it was a little messy to find a day to drive all the way to Den Haag ( which is a truck filled crazy highway awful drive that I hate with every fibre of my being.)  but Tuesday he carved out some time and we arrived at the Embassy well before the 11:30 closing time. We followed the signs for Visa and Passports down the drive to the basement. Upon entry there was no one manning the window so we sat down to wait.  Minutes dragged by and other patrons appeared; finally someone shouted through the window to see if anyone would respond. A woman issued forth.  We lined up. We approached with our thick stacks in hand only to be informed that the office for visas is around the corner and down the street now...this was not news shared on the website where Himself got the visa information.  ugh.

Leaving the car in a rather illegal parking spot because there just isn't anywhere to park around the embassies, we walked to the visa office and joined the line of supplicants.  The nightmare began.

While it seemed previous experience had netted a good application for Hubby, my application was sadly flawed. The back ground of the photo and my hair are close in color.  It gave the officer some pause, but he finally passed it.  Then, suddenly I needed a conference visa even though I won't be attending any of it. Baffling.  And the worst was the name.  I use ( as many Dutch wives do) a hyphen in my last name.  Family-Maiden. It's normal and cultural.  The software for India visas does not allow for hyphens and eliminates it with no space between the names.  But,  my USA passport uses a carat between the names down in the code line, thus a space needs to be inserted for the name on the visa to match the name in the USA passport.  There was no space between the two last names.  ( Got all that?)  It did not end there. My first name is a double name, like Mary Ann, or Bobbie Jo.  I started putting the two names together, no space, as an adult because helpful folks misspelled my name so often.  Hubby is used to that.  So there was no space between my first names.  It did not match my passport.  On top of all that,we needed a copy of our marriage license. Visa application failed.  In a major way.  We had to come back with all new papers for me and the marriage license.

Hubby went back to work in high dudgeon. Two or so hours of administration, two hours of travel for nothing.   My good hearted, patient, slow to anger man was furious.  He was ready to shut down the whole project.  BUT  there was a window in his really complicated awful schedule where he could go the next afternoon between meetings.   He came home Tuesday very late from an inland conference,  reworked my visa application, copied the marriage license and we fell into bed after midnight.  At least another hour of filling in and copying. (and being unhappy.)

Wednesday we really had to high tail it ( down that crappy horrible highway) to get to that office before it closed at 2:30.  But we squeaked in the door with a minute to spare, and got in line.  The worker bee took one look at my form and that was it.  There was no middle initial in my name. My name had to match the passport.  In my passport is a middle initial.  In my birth certificate there is not.  In between was my infant baptism at which the Catholic priest refused to baptize unless there was a Saint's name. Thus my then recently  deceased maternal grandmother's name became my middle name.  It depends on the document whether the middle initial is there or not.  No one has ever gotten that picky about an H in the history of man.

I burst into tears because I knew Hubby  was on the verge of cancellation and I really wanted him to go even if I could not, and he would not go without me.   He is not only one of the organizers of this conference, but he is the keynote speaker.  ...It was too late in the day to even go somewhere to get it fixed.  On the other hand, this worker bee decreed that a tourist visa was quite enough for me.  That is nice because it costs half of what the fancier visa does.  But still we left the office very sadly.

There was only one tiny ray of hope.  There was a couple of hours on Friday morning before he had an afternoon chockablock with meetings.   If we left predawn and hurried, we could get to the office and back in time.  Monday the visa office was closed. Any other day til we left, he was too booked to go back.  It looked pretty bleak.  

But that is what we did.  It took us an extra 30 minutes in the thick fog of the early rush hour to get there, the line was nearly out the door long, but we did it.  We even had two perfect forms filled out: one tourist, one conference because who knew which worker would be at the desk.  It was another long wait to pay: we chose to have courier service so no more horrible trips to Den Haag.  Another long wait and our faces and fingerprints were digitized.  Easy when you know how.

On the other hand the visa will not get here until 2-3 days before we leave IF the visas are granted.  There still is that hurdle.   Any joy in this journey has been sucked right dry.  Watch this space.

Madrid: day two

and why we prefer home-tels.

After coffee, yogurt and an orange, Himself was up and away in the dawn drizzle, only to be quite early.  That's the hazard when you don't know the city. Sometimes the walk looks like 15 minutes, but it goes straight up and down so it takes twice as long.  Madrid is hilly.  The closest Metro is a puffy climb to the hotel.  The one further is a pleasant loop through a park and along some interesting shops.  Poor Himself not only got dampish but the meeting was not all that constructive.  Even lunch wasn't great.  

On the other hand, the meeting ran out of steam an hour early, so he was delighted to hear I had targeted this as the sop to the miserable grim weather:   http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chocolater%C3%ADa_San_Gin%C3%A9s.  

So off we went by foot.  I felt like we were walking through Chinatown. There are multiple small stores all run by folk who make it seem like Beijing's neighborhood around the Geoscience University campus.  The other preponderance of stores all have Spanish cured hams as their theme.  It makes it look like the only meat here is ham.  Not true, but you have to go find a poultry shop. And tapas.  Makes you wonder how folks stay in business--all the shops look the same to me. Apparently, people here must shop in a secret place for herbs and spices.  It took four tries to even find salt in a small take along recloseable package.  Teach me to forget the condiments.....

After gorging on delish-i-ous thick dipping chocolate and churros, we decided to walk to Mercato Anton Martin:  http://www.mercadoantonmartin.com/. We saw lots of Madrid life on the way . Many Christmas markets are ready to roll this weekend, even though it isn't December yet.

We never found the mercato due to some wonky instructions on a tourist site, but we did find pig's foot for Oma in a side street shop..  Wearily we turned to home base, successfully figured out the Metro, and with only three interesting shop detours return to the home-tel for dinner.  One detour was the jambon shop next to our apartment.  We have found that few folks speak any English in this area...but they forge on in Spanish and just hope something sounds familiar to us.  This shop was the real deal. Here is where the neighborhood comes to hang out.  Not one fancy up scale detail. But ham is all it's various very expensive glory from every angle. I have no idea what our knife wielding server was saying but he gave Himself directions on which hams to photograph...while he sliced away on a ham with hoof still attached.   This is not Kansas. Bearing our booty, back to base. 

Ah, the joys of self-catering.  Fresh cooked food we enjoy, in our socks; relaxing on the sofa while things simmer.  Yes, indeed, well worth the search to find short term apartments.  The fridge is bigger than the usual hotel bar fridges for our food finds.  A regular dinner table to spread out maps and information to study.  No maids in and out unless we ask. Much bigger rooms with comfy sitting instead of having to struggle with close quarters and using the too low bed to share information. Very happy. 

Tomorrow we walk through royal Madrid , meet friends and move on to their home.  

Madrid: Take Two

Some time ago, I tagged along to Madrid for a mad rush couple of working days.  We did get to whizz through Museum Prado http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Museo_del_Prado, and walked about that area at night ( our hotel was just down the street.) I discovered that Madrid tapas were not what I thought they would be.  We also managed to find a cafe by the botanical garden where the service was so rude it was shocking. The only thing I thought really worth a trip to Madrid was churros and chocolate. Also the wheelchair valet service at the airport was amazing.  However, it was not a stellar intro to Madrid.

Thus when Himself encouraged another tagalong to Madrid, I was less than enthused but we found a self-catering apartment, close to where he needed to meet the shuttle,  and in a different district close to the Royal Palace, for a great price. Plus some colleagues who live here want to take us under their wing for the weekend, so it will be a different visit entirely.

Let me just say that if you are a tiny person, Iberian Express has planes for you.  I have sore knees from the drubbing my kneecaps got for over two hours.  The weather is really bad in Madrid just now so we had a nightmare ride the close we got to the destination. We were in the last tail row.  I was a little alarmed.

Taxi man was lovely, not one word of English.  The Madrid Christmas lights are up and they are beautiful.Amazing street traffic for, to us, so late in the evening.  But we got to the hotel street in one piece, although the hotel could spend a penny and light the sign in front.  Since we arrived well after reception closed, and it was pitch dark, it was a little fumbly to get the right number punched in and get into the building.  Our keys and info were in another secured by keypad safe inside.

We stepped into our apartment  and were blown away. It's big, it's well equipped, it's comfy.

Then we went off to buy groceries, yes, at 11 o clock at night. The store is inside the nearby train station ( so convenient)  For the price of half a restaurant dinner, we got enough to last us til Saturday, when we join our friends. Himself had an early morning so we ate and he was asleep before his head hit the pillow.

It's grey and rainy this morning. I have to find condiments.  I have to finalize checkin. but first my breakfast....in my jammies.  I love apartment hotels.  :)

Why Coming Home Can Be a Trial

At least this trip did not end with police reports, broken locks or windows, and insurance assessments.  The carport shutters were screwed  tight,  The annex door was screwed tight.  The upper window has metal screening. The shutters were down on all the side and back windows. Our delightful neighbors were in and out for mail.  Another friend did walk thrus, cared for the car, and plants.  Thus all was well at Jade House when we arrived home. Thanks to everyone we spent not one paranoid moment!

We dropped all 10 of our bags in the dining room which immediately became a cluttered mayhem of a  staging center.  Boy decided to leave for his house that very night to check his premises and so he could get to the U to sign in for his study year, perhaps take aptitude and interest tests to help decide his future.  That eliminated two bags but his tooth still needs looking at....and the dentist had no room til next week.

Sweetpea declared that she would take care of her belongings so that eliminated two more bags still leaving 60 Kilos of mostly stinky sweaty dirty clothes for me to unpack (peee-euw), sort and wash.

Himself had booked the next day (Wednesday) off to recover from jet lag.  And jet lag has been the millstone ever since. Both of us have had a hard time getting our internal clock reset. Today (Monday) i still have not had a decent night sleep. I was up at 3:30 am Wednesday sorting and unpacking.  Then I took a nap while Himself went about unscrewing and opening up the house.  Then he napped.
I got up and did laundry until I went to bed at 6:30 pm because I couldn't stand up anymore.

Thursday morning I was up at 3:30 am again to do laundry, then we both got dressed  and went to the office because he had a meeting (I caught up on emails and administration):  at 1200 we fetched Sweetpea from the house and went to a church member's funeral and burial.   He dropped us off at home and went to another meeting.  I started yet another wash load and went to bed. He dragged in about 7pm, made dinner and we both died in bed after.

Friday was a bit better.  I was up at 6, he rode his bike to work after we cleaned up the kitchen from the night before.  I sorted out some more belongings one big bag for upstairs, one big bag for in storage. Then I got dressed and went back to church for another funeral.  This was a large group. so I stayed to pitch in and serve and cleanup after the reception.  But by the time I got home it was all I could do to go up and crawl in bed.  Boy came home early so he made dinner. Again, early to bed.

And so it was in the weekend.  We dropped gifts for the neighbors and had coffee, we did some grocery shopping, the sewing machines were serviced and picked up, we went to church, we went to Clan headquarters for dinner, we stopped by Brother2 to drop off a loaned camera.  More washing and folding. Suitcases put away. Some photos viewing.  All while feeling  like molasses in January.

Today everyone else starts the University year.  I need to get my house back in order.  MEH.

I think I will take a nap.