Thursday

Hello, and good morning (evening) to you all!

It's 5;30 am as I type this morning here, and I am the first one up today. Hopefully the kids will sleep a bit longer, as we were up a little later last night.

So I will tell you about our day yesterday. Brian went to work once again, but we picked him up around 10:30 so I could go to my Oversea Women's Club meeting at the Leela Palace. Every Thursday morning they meet, and today the group was 5 times larger (over 100 people, I'd guess) than when I attended on our 'look-see' trip. Apparently it was because everyone was back from travels, now that school has started up again, and summer is ending. Summer in Bangalore is actually not the hot season, but rather cooler because of the monsoons. Being further inland, we don't get the terrible monsoons that you read about other places, just usually a good rain every day or so. It hasn't really affected our plans at all. It is coming to the end of the rainy season. Anyhow, back to the meeting! It is held at a beautiful (spendy- think $600/night) hotel that is only 10 years old, see http://www.theleela.com/hotel-bangalore.html for pictures. Brian walked around with the kids in the beautiful gardens and mall area so I could talk with others there (kids are very much discouraged from being there, especially toddlers).

Bangalore is known as the Silicon Valley of Asia (Southern Asia perhaps?), so there are so many international companies located here. Most of the women at the meeting have working husbands, but some are working here themselves. Their stays mostly are around 1 or 2 years, though some are here indefinitely. They come from all over the world. Most that I met yesterday were European, from Germany, Switzerland, Finland, Sweden, England. It's a fabulous place to meet people from all over! I was definitely one of the newer people there, but I feel very good knowing that I really have done my 'homework' on Bangalore for the past 4 months before coming. Several were surprised how much I did know already.

After the meeting, we went to get a treat at a coffee shop there, and once again waited forever for the chocolate desserts and shakes and apple cake to arrive. Very yummy though, and for all 5 of us, the total was 15$, not bad for us, but very expensive for here.

We dropped Brian back at work, and we headed back to the apartment, where Zach (and I :) caught a nice nap after our Pizza Hut cheese pizza lunch (the girls weren't too hungry after our Leela treat...). The girls watched cartoons so we could have some quiet, then we went down to the main areas outside to wait for children coming home from school. Ella has been so very lonely, and was very anxious to meet other kids her age to play with. After an hour or more, many children had walked by, but were headed home and couldn't stop to play. The girls had their fairy dolls and Zach had his 'vroom vrooms' (cars) to play with on the edge of the walkways. There was one boy playing there, but he didn' t have too much interest in playing dolls, but they did talk a bit. He was maybe 2 inches taller than Sacia, and her small build also, but 12 years old.

It looked like the rain was coming, so we were about to head in, when we decided to follow a young child and mother to the play area/small park near the clubhouse/grocery store. That was a great move! There were 30+ children playing there of all ages, and Ella met 5 her age and played very happily for quite some time. Sacia and Zach borrowed some sand toys and had fun digging alongside little Indian children. We stayed there until around 6:30 when the rain finally did start.

We ordered a mix of Chinese and Indian food, had a late dinner, which Brian joined as he got home after his calls at work, then put the kids to bed. Brian joined another call at 8 pm here, right when I was putting very tired kids to bed. I am already so tired of the calls, but I know we'll get on some good rhythm so I don't have to do it all alone.

So I finally did some laundry today! I filled the machine with clothes, turned it on, added some Tide (Rose&Jasmine scented - 11 rupees small packet (25cents)), then watched the water come out nicely for 10 seconds and then just drip. So I turned the faucet each way, checked other things, then went to ask the neighbor, who said to just wait for it to come... Well I didn't want to wait, so I used the big buckets in our bathrooms to fill it up until it ran. When I came back up from outside, it was still trying to fill for the rinse cycle so I filled it again. Clean clothes! Well, there isn't a dryer here (but I think we'll have one at Palm Meadows), so I hung all the clothes out to dry on the rack on our patio. Hopefully they're dry this morning so I can hang the next load up.

Speaking of Palm Meadows, it seems we'll be here almost another week. But that's okay, I guess. Could be worse. There are 2 landlords, and one is located abroad somewhere, so the lease has to be sent to him, then back to IBM, then ... then... !! Things take quite a long time here. But since we don't yet have a cook or maid or driver, we'll do fine here a bit longer with the daily allowances for food. Our car will be delivered to us when we move there as well. We'll just use this rental one until then.

Oh, also yesterday at the Leela, I saw someone I had met the previous time. A friendly tall blonde woman from Holland, who has a 1 1/2 year old, and lives in Kormangala. So when the girls are at school next week, I'll have someone to meet with, IF I can figure out her # after incorrectly storing it on my phone. oops.

So, if in the news you've been hearing about the Hyderabad blasts and the Agra riots, don't worry about us, we're just fine! And we're not going to see the Taj Majal any time soon. But it definitely is a bit scary. Security has beefed up here after the blasts, checking under and in cars before you can enter public places.

Sooo, today we bring the girls to see their school and meet teachers and all that fun stuff! I hope it goes very well, so they're excited to go on Monday. I really think they'll love it, but it is new for them... and will be Sacia's first time at school. I'm a little (LOT?!) nervous for her, but will stay positive!!

We need to get another cell phone soon. I've been keeping the one we have, but we really need another one. Going anywhere and having a driver really requires it! Now that we're officially registered, and have our passports back too, we can get one.

More tomorrow! It will be interesting how things change once it's just Zach and I for the days... I'll be so much more comfortable going places I think!

That's all for now! See the pictures at www.ellaanne.com, and send us an email!! We'd love to hear from you!

Heather & the other Vanderpool blondies in Bangalore