Another 3 month sentence -- my fifth in a row.

After probably another 10 hours of work on my part over the course of 3 months hassling and hammering on our HR department to actually do something, I submitted the paperwork for a visa extension (against my better judgment at the time actually). Then I was given the pleasure of dragging the family downtown (90 mins in the traffic) to be "seen" (not questioned or quizzed) by several bureaucrats for signatures (while generous amounts of money changed hands behind the scenes I promise). Then another few days to wait while said bureaucrats decided what to do with me. I was granted permission to stay here in India for another 3 months.

The joy. The thrill. The emotional outburst that it brings.

This is now the 5th time these folks at the immigration consultancy have told me they were getting a one year visa.

You can imagine how pleased I am with the "service" they are providing.

Aw crap, and I thought I was going to be "happy" on this blog again. Arrrgh. It's just that it's therapeutic to rant it all out!

As Rocky would say: Next time for sure!

New Year, New Attitude

I spent the last couple of months really not liking India, and then for the Christmas holidays I was stuck here due to an amazing combination of incompetence on the part of my HR team and the bureaucracy of the Indian government. So the past month has been tough. Missing family, friends, and festivals.

But, I'm stuck here for another couple of years, so there is no bloody use in having a bad attitude about it. Let's have some fun.

I do have some nice things to write about. Today's positive thinking is brought to you by a bicycle ride. A friend from work came over and we did a 13-mile loop through the villages east of Whitefield.

You only have to get out of Bangalore to understand how someone can come to India and love this place. Bangalore is the Cleveland of India, I'm convinced. If it's not, then it's possibly the Odessa (TX, not Russia). But get out into the villages, and wow...

We were riding along one road/dike and it was early in the morning, the mist was still kind of hovering, and the fields below were all green and freshly cut (rice? wheat?). I really felt like I was back in Holland for a minute. A bit later, we turned the corner into a village of thatch-roofed huts, stopped for a couple bananas, and did our best to chat in Kannada. Turns out the dudes were from Tamil Nadu and don't speak much Kannada. So I was apparently teaching them Kannada.

Further up ahead, the fields were all irrigated from the river, and everything was just so green and beautiful. It's January and the fields are blooming and producing. The scent of cows everywhere. The sight of people working fields by hand. The sound of birds..

Dreamy I tell you. And definitely not Bangalore, that's for sure.

I think I want to go home...

Just one of those days...