At the office, this is an at least monthly occurrence, and is also code for "whatever you thought you were going to do this week, you are wrong." Still, visitors are great, because often they come bearing gifts of M&M's (refer back to my diet plan), usually you get at least one free dinner, and there's also the benefit of productive face-to-face meetings. This set from my group was especially great because I've worked with most of them before so it was also nice to see everyone. Oh, and they brought tons of candy, coffee, popcorn, granola and all sorts of goodies (they must not have thought we had food here). I got LOTS of free dinners with good company. And we had a lot of good work get done too. I also remembered what an awesome and supportive husband I have.
We started the day on Sunday with a fantastic brunch at the hotel, followed by the usual driver issues. You see, it was a special day for Puja, where you bless your implements - like cars, weapons, machinery and such. In fact the day before we had the fun of working around puja issues when we learned that apparently, you are not supposed to use the implement for 24 hours after it's been blessed. Ok. But we had puja on our car and Caden's bike too (remember my fear of injury), and then had to bum a ride to dinner. But anyhow, we worked around the driver fun (it sounds so much cooler in theory than it is in execution). And we were off to see the town. We started at Bull Temple, one of Bangalore's oldest and built in the 16th century. It was in fact quite busy with the line-up of vehicles for puja. Then we headed to Lalbagh Botanical Gardens, a 96 hectare park in the city center laid out in the 18th century. I enjoyed the stop there and the variety of greenery. It was a nice change from the usual hustle of the city. And then we headed to Tipu Sultan's palace, a small stone structure completed in 1791, with a little photo gallery inside now as well. I hadn't been to any of these places yet (although I was meant to be the guide!), and so had a lot of fun with both the sights and the guests. Unfortunately, I did a terrible job of taking any photos...but a couple at Lalbagh.
We had lunch at Sunny's - yum and the increasingly jet-lagged visitors began to look tired. So after lunch our next stop was Coffee Day. We shopped at Bombay Store and waited out a small shower before headed to do some more shopping. It was a lot of fun and somewhat successful (I even bought an elephant).After a full day, about half the guests headed back to the hotel while some were up for the Dandiya night at Palm Meadows. Heather and I waited in the bar and had a really nice visit (another plus with visitors - you get to meet cool new people). Then we headed out, with a brief stop at Shopper Stop to get some more "sparkly" clothes for the festival. The store was a complete zoo, with everyone out to take advantage of the festival offer. Caden and Wade decided to sit it out as it was getting late when we got home. (Caden's owie on his chin was a mishap from the pool the week before - resulting in his first stitch (just one).)
Dandiya at Palm Meadows was a fun dance with music and neat to see. But the all vegetarian festival food left a little to be desired, so we ended a fun day with a good meal at the club house.All in all, the week was also fun, a whirlwind of meetings and presentations, followed by dinners and drinks. And a mountain of goodies "leftover" from the visitors at the end - thank you again guys. I am thoroughly enjoying every snack you left behind (and sharing a little). I hope everyone enjoyed the visit as much as I did.
And at the end of the week, Tracy came home - hooray!
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