By Special Request

I've been told that I haven't been blogging enough lately, and I apologize. Unfortunately, this past week has really just been about work and the hotel, so I didn't have much new to share. Since there is nothing new, I thought I'd share some of the other pictures I've taken since we arrived in Bangalore. But don't worry - we leave for Agra at the crack of dawn (actually, before that - our driver is picking us up at 3:45am!), and by the time we return very late on Sunday night, I fully expect to have plenty of pictures and videos of the Taj Mahal to share with everyone! If today's post doesn't excite you, hopefully the posts recapping our Agra visit definitely will!

Because we're travelling for such an extended period of time, IBM reimburses the cost of laundry service at the hotel. They've been great so far - which has impressed me, since I have a strange need to line dry practically every item that I own. It gets picked up in the morning and returned to me around 7:00pm at night -- everything beautifully folded and packaged in a wicker basket.

We've also noticed that we tend to attract a lot of attention everywhere we go. We expected it when we were in the smaller towns, since American tourists are probably not all that common. But we even get it on the streets of Bangalore - which is probably the most diverse city in India! And trust me - the attention is NOT subtle. It's charming when it comes from the cute little schoolchildren in their uniforms, who say Hi, and ask us our names to practice their English. It's a little weird when it's a group of 30-something year old men that want to take their picture with you!

I've learned that skin as fair as mine is quite a fascination here in India. A lot of the ads you see on TV are for lightening creams, so that you can lighten the tone of your skin. I obviously have no need for anything like that, since I'm already white as a sheet. When we were shopping in Mysore, an older gentleman and younger woman both told me that I had skin like Nicole Kidman, and wanted to touch my face (so I let them). After that, the woman returned with sparkly bindis for all of us. You'll also notice the red mark on my forehead. We received those at the temple on Chamundi Hill, and I believe it's called a Tilaka.

Finally, we did have a day off here on Wednesday, January 14. It was the start of a Pongal, which is a regional harvest holiday. Here in Karnataka, it was in honor of the sugarcane harvest. Everyone gets dressed up in their finest clothes to visit friends and share homemade sweets. On Thursday, many of the girls in our class wore their beautiful sarees to celebrate, and we couldn't resist getting a picture!