It's beginning to look a lot like Christmas, but with belly dancers....

"We three ex-pats from India are,
Bearing gifts, we travel so far,
Gulf Air, Northwest, KL & M,
On to Minnesota's stars...."

Our adventure back to Minnesota began with a lay-over in Bahrain. As soon as we stepped from the plane, things began to start looking a lot like Christmas. The airport in Bahrain was really decked out for the holidays and one would have thought that they had stepped into a mall in the US, except that the snow had a desert tint to it, and the stores were Gucci, Prada and Rolex, ...and you could pick up a Bentley in the Duty Free shop (I wonder how that works with the carry-on restrictions).
The Santa display was robotic and very elaborate.

Our next stop took us to Cairo, Egypt, and the holiday spirit was in full swing there with Christmas music on the radio and decorations everywhere.
We took a dinner cruise on the Nile, complete with entertainment.
Caden's reaction to the belly dancer was summed up in just one word, "Wow!"
The tour of the Museum of Antiquities was quite good, but with so much to exhibit, if one took just one minute to look at each of the items on display, they would be there for 30 years (that doesn't include the 2/3 of the exhibit that was out of the rotation at the time of our visit). We had to settle for the highlights, but it was well worth the visit.

A trip to the Citadel and, of course the pyramids..

"Um, Ma'am, when I said the Holy Family stayed here, I meant Jesus, Mary and Joseph"
Cairo was a very fun town to visit and we would highly recommend the trip.
Of course what trip wouldn't be complete without a Hookah cafe stop?

Cricket Anyone?

Cricket is, to say, an obsession in India. I'm not promoting any nuisance behavior here; but if one wanted to "get away" with something in India, one need only wait for a cricket match (if the behavior is particularly offensive, wait until it is an India-Pakistan game). It seems that every spare piece of open field has a cricket game going on and we even have a 10-year old neighbor who is going to a professional cricket camp. So there you have it, Cricket is a little more than the national pass-time here.
Recently, Tracy and Angela were wrangled in to supporting one of the Target India teams during an annual challenge. Their team didn't win, but everyone seemed to have fun. Even the kids got into the spirit and now tennis balls are cricket balls in their eyes.

"I won't be home for Christmas...we're going home"

HOORAY!!!!! A couple weeks ago, I'd been sad thinking of missing my first family Christmas at home, and what to do with Caden (I assume Santa can make it to India but) and my mom kept talking about canceling Christmas... when all the signs started to come together. My backfill started at work, goal-setting season is upon us and I needed to take a business trip to MN...before the end of January. I can imagine mom's dismay if I showed up on the 29th...what if I took a week off before the business trip? And so my trip to MN was decided. After a little deliberation (the tickets cost HOW much?!?!?!?!), Wade and I decided to just do it and buy tickets for him and Caden. It's only money, and Christmas is priceless.
Then the conversation turned to how to get there...should we stop somewhere along the way to break up the journey? It was cheaper to negligibly more expensive to stop someplace in Europe...let's check the globe, what place are "on the way" between Bangalore and Minneapolis? Huh, you should fly right over Cairo...And so also decided, what the heck, if you're going for broke...let's make a stop in Cairo our Christmas present to each other. And so not only are we going to be in MN for Christmas, we get to stop in Egypt along the way!! It seems surreal. On our flight to Port Blair last week Caden asked if we were going to Egypt now..."no honey, that's next week" was the bemusing reply. :)
I feel incredibly lucky and happy to be going home...and Egpyt. WOW. But Christmas has snuck up on me (maybe because it's 80 and there are no holiday displays to be found). And I'm not ready. And it's that sort of college days strange when people ask you if you'll be "home" for Christmas...uh, which home?? I'm going to miss everyone here (and oddly perhaps, being here/home for Christmas) and it's just a short trip.. seems this place is more home than I thought. Yet, the dreams of family, and food and driving have started...I can't wait to see everyone and am truly blessed.
Happy Holidays everyone, and wish you all the best in the New Year!

A little R&R…Finally

we finally made it to Havelock Island (Via Ferry) and were one of the very few visitors not on our honeymoon. Apparently, with the wedding season in full swing in India, the Andaman Islands is the honeymoon haven. The stay here was nothing but fun in the sun (with lots of sunscreen), good food and playing on the beach.

Although the Andamans boast some of the best diving in the world, we were not able to partake as we had left our certification cards behind; so we decided to get the fish to come to us – with a little hook, line and sinker action. Caden had been looking forward to fishing with Grandpa Bill for months and could hardly control himself. We were rewarded with a variety of fish, including mackerel and barracuda. Angela would like to have it on the record that she caught the first barracuda using a hand-line: although we won't discuss who caught the biggest barracuda...

Fishing poles are unfamiliar in India and the boat guides watched in bemusement as a mackerel stripped off all of my 6 lb line through the drag (the fact that they kept the boat moving in the opposite direction probably didn't help either) – the fish is getting bigger by the day….

Port Blair

Angela caught up to us the evening prior to leaving for Port Blair and we all went off the Indian mainland for the first time since arriving in February. Port Blair is a formal penal port with the Cellular Jail comprising the most significant historical landmark. However, the island's government has done a good job in paying tribute to the island's more indigenous inhabitants, who appear to be of a more Indonesian decent. Today, a fair number of the islands are restricted to both Foreigners and Indian Nationals, with the later having access to a few more islands than we did based on our complexions. Port Blair is located on South Andaman Island and is the largest city in the Andaman Nicobar islands, an archipelago of 572 islands in the Bay of Bengal. Although our trip was altered at the last minute because the ferry decided not to run on the day of our arrival, we managed to find a beach by the Peerless Resort to get our feet wet. Having an afternoon, we made use of a tour and saw the museums, port and cellular jail. Caden decided that jails were not for him and was pretty much ready to go as soon as we set foot there.

Mamallapuram, Round II

Our return from Ooty had only about 12 hours recovery time before our next adventure: Chennai and Mamallapuram before heading off to the islands. This time I chased Caden while a guide took the elder Millers around the ruins. The history of the area is tremendous, but with so much time spanning it, there does seem to be some gaps in the story. One can spend their whole life on the history of this continent as long and diverse as it is, and still only really scratch the surface. Part of the challenge also seems to be the intertwining of religion, culture and history so that because the history was passed down orally through the Brahmans (religious leaders), and because some of the context changed (not to mention the shear unfamiliarity with us coming from the West), the explanations tend to leave one's head spinning trying to tie everything together to make sense of this historical collage.

We also had to stop to do some bartering with the local vendors and enjoyed some competitiveness in collecting small elephants. It's a good thing so many people had elephants on their Christmas lists….

Ooty-Chocolates Anyone?

We had been told by the Loud Americans that Ooty was someplace that needed to be checked out, so we embarked on the long journey south to the Queen of the Hill Stations. We stayed at a place called Kingscliff where we enjoyed a very colonial setting. Caden was excited about going for a pony ride (when your kid is already climbing into the saddle, it is a little hard to negotiate price or say no). Other points of interest included the tea factory, a train ride and the Raj’s summer palace. Ooty was a bit chilly, but comparatively warmer than either Idaho or Minnesota this time of year.

On the way home, we made the stop in Mysore to visit the Palace (and have an elephant ride) as well as the Bird Sanctuary. The elder Millers got their first taste of the haggling of the vendors (but fortunately it is the X-mas season, so everyone made out). Luckily, there were no casualties at the Bird Sanctuary because the crocodiles weren’t nearly as aggressive as the market vendors.

Planes, Trains, Automobiles…. Rickshaws, Boats, Busses….

The Miller clan enjoyed a visit to India over the past couple weeks (which is why anyone trying to reach us was probably unsuccessful). This Blog will be in four parts to provide pictures, but generally falls into: Our Native Village (Part II), Ooty, Port Blair and Havelock Island.

Our trip to Hampi didn't quite pan out due to timing, so we decided to call upon a friend of mine, C.B. Ramkumar, to visit his eco-resort, Our Native Village to start things off. This turned out to be a very good idea as Ramkumar is a wealth of information on Indian culture and tradition and was happy to share. Of course Caden was all about his vendetta with the frogs in the natural swimming pool at the resort; but he also availed of the opportunity to learn how to milk a cow (something that he had been squeamish of before).

I had the pleasure of experiencing my first Indian massage. The table was pretty hard and the steam room was also traditional Kerala heritage (see the wood box in the back). It was everything described to me, but I did feel a little roughed up from having every muscle in my body straightened out.

Caden had fun chasing all the ducks and chickens around – until he came across a turkey who turned the tables on him.

SOS Children's Village

The team I'm on turned "2" last Friday. We commemorated the occasion with some recognition of where we've been and what we've accomplished as a team (amazing!), and of course some cake. And then set off for the SOS Children's village, a NGO on the south side of town dedicated to helping abandoned children. It was an awesome team event. We didn't even fit into one bus, so split a bit...We got to tour the village and into some of the homes, where one "mother" looks after ten children at a time. It was really interesting and touching to see how these children were able to have a family despite really tough circumstances. Both of the houses we went into had cabinets for special things that included the Target dog...It was also interesting to see the standard of living, which really depended on your perspective. Compared to the heart-retching poverty on the street and the awful reality of seeing children begging, it was fantastic. But for me, it is still a reminder of how blessed our family is, and for right or wrong, sometimes so materialistic.
Just two days before this when I was getting Caden ready for school, I asked him if he had had good dreams "yep" and what he dreamed about "oh, my life" he replied. It's hard...I both want to shelter him from the poverty that surrounds us and show him it I suppose, that he might really appreciate later in life.On a lighter note, we had a good time playing with the kids. It was fun to watch the team interacting, and see how happy the kids seemed to play.After a group picture , the kids were fascinated by seeing their pictures and it was fun to take close up shots of each of them...some of my favorites... The classroom was cool too... neat to see how the kids were learning. The afternoon was a great capstone to two years of growth, innovation and impact. Congratulations FP&A Team! It's been a great journey so far, and I look forward to all that is yet to come!