Setlling In (Sort Of)

It's been over a week since I came to Hyderabad. I'm still jet-lagged and I will never get used to the food - I love spicy food, but somehow 2 Indian meals a day is killing my internal systems. The work is flowing just fine. I get little or no respect from the trainees (except when they need my help to complete an assignment) but I'm already used to that. When my older colleague George was here the first two days of my stay, the security guards at the office would salute him whenever they saw him passing by. I'm lucky if I get a good morning when I arrive. Maybe I should regrow my beard...

On Sunday I had teh car all day and I used it to meet up with one of the Cousin-Friends and his father at Gachiboli (pretty close to my hotel). From there we drove into the city - here I stopped paying attention to the road so I don't know where we drove, but I assume into the center of the city. Probably South of the Hussain lake. We stopped to buy fruits, sweets, and some medical butter. I brought the fruits and the sweets as small offerings to the hosts (parents of other set of Cousin-Friends) wheer we were all visiting and staying for lunch. There was a brief debate on whetehr we would have tiffin or lunch. Apparently tiffin originally referred to a multi-compartment box holding different elements of a full meal. You see grown men carrying these tall cylinders to work - compartments hold separately bread, curry, curd, etc. They might all end up getting mixed together before entering the oral orifice but that's at the discretion of the diner. In Hyderabad, tiffin can also mean a light snack like a sandwich or a dosa. Since I would not make up my mind, I got served both - a tiffin (dosa) followed by a full lunch!!!

After tiffin/lunch, we looked at old photo albums and set around the living room reminiscing and chatting. At some point, we got tired of this and decided to head out to the museum housing the once-private collection of Hyderabad's ruling family - the Salar Jungs (there were 3 in all). The museum was pretty cool. Each room had a theme like "Hindu statues" or "Gold & Silver Jewelry" and "Western Furniture." The place is fairly large and everyone was super-tired by the end of our tour. My companions explained the differences between the multitudes of Hindu gods, and the many many Indian languages and scripts, while I explained who was Hercules and how Venice came to be a city of canals.

I got back to the hotel at ~5pm and immediately knew that I ate something very very bad. I had the shakes and all sorts of inflammatory-response pains. I got under the blankets, woke up at midnight, took a cipro (antibiotic commonly used to cure "traveler's diarrhea"), and drank loads of water. I also traveled to the toilet several times in the night. By morning, most of the symptoms subsided and the next day I was just miserably tired. Just when I thought I beat the cursed jet-lag.

Monday and Tuesday passed the following way: wake up between 4am and 6am, go to the gym, shower, get breakfast, take car to work, teach 4-5 hours, get lunch, teach 4-5 hours, go get dinner with colleagues, take car back to hotel, sleep. Rinse, lather, repeat. Today will be the same - except it is Jewish New Year's. Since I can't have chicken soup, gefilte fish, or brisket I guess it'll have to be curry again... Maybe I'll mix it up a bit with a glass of wine!