The Weekend - Questions from Friends

Its been a couple of days since I've posted and I feel so far behind. I'll try to get you caught up on our weekend and some of the more common questions we are getting asked....

The Weekend... (pictures soon to follow) ...

We went on a tour of Bangalore on Saturday and it was really cool to see all the history, traditional neighborhoods and modern conveniences all in a 3 mile radius. We saw a Hindu temple, a market, a traditional laundry, all the British colonial buildings, Winston Churchill's church, a mall, a Chucky Cheeses, ate at McDonalds, saw cows, donkeys, chickens, eagles, dogs and sheep ....All in the city.... All within 3 miles ....Amazing. Talk about stimulation overload!!

Then on Sunday we invited 3 other families for brunch. There were 18 of us total, with 10 of them being kids. They had a blast playing together and swimming. It is nice that we are meeting other families, its really making a difference for the kids (and Tom). You'll be happy to hear that we are taking our role of hosts to this country as well:)

The Questions....
So... does it feel like Target?
It feels like Target in a different time warp. Lots of Target stuff all over, but the communication is different. Less direct. Also it takes 3x's as long to do anything. Even refilling the copy machine is a pain. They don't have office supply stores here, so when you run out of paper, you have really run out of paper. Weird.

Do you feel like a rock star being driven around all the time?
The driver thing is nice actually. The traffic here is so scary I cant imagine trying it myself. But, it is hard to have to call someone every time you want to go somewhere. I feel like I have to be polite all the time too. Sometimes it would be nice to just get in a car and go. Also, because we are driven everywhere, I have no concept of space or distance. Things could be 1 mile or 10 away. They could be east or west. .. no idea. I cant say I dont like it, but it is a surreal feeling...

How are the kids?
Good, they are finally over jet lag and are back to their happy selves, making friends, playing, swimming. In fact, their new chant is ... swim, eat, nap ... swim, eat, nap... swim, eat, nap .... you can tell what they have been doing everyday. The people here really indulge kids (and we thought Korea was bad!). Any time any of them makes a peep, they put chocolate in their mouth or pick them up and carry them around. Its not unusual for one of the kids to "disapear" during dinner for 5-10 minutes and come back happy and full of chocolate. It is making discipline a bit of a problem ...

What else.... We get to move into our house on Saturday, yeah!! We got the kids school applications in today, hopefully they'll be able to start Monday and we can get into a routine. Our stuff has arrived and is in customs (double yeah!) So... by this time next week, I hope to be moved in. It will be so nice to be able to eat breakfast in my pajama's and to not all be living in one room . I cant wait!!