Blog 7: “they found a jackpot of trash”

Stupid. That is the single word that comes to mind when I think of driving in India. To be quite honest, I am hella-glad that my company was willing to pay for me to have a driver while I am out here. It makes me so glad, that I, in a rare act, used “hella-” to modify an adjective. Before I get on with this blog about what it is like to drive in India, I need to pull a Hilary Duff and come clean on something. At the end of the last blog, I said that I went to bed on my first night ready to begin my India adventure the following day. Well, for the sake of efficient story telling, that was a bit of a white lie. A white lie though, really isn't that bad, right? I mean, white is right, you know? Orrrr, uhh... Apparently I forgot to leave white supremacist Joe back in the States.

In all seriousness though, my first actual day here was spent trying to adjust to the ten and a half hour time difference. I pretty much had to reverse my entire sleep pattern because of it. The first night I was awake until about 6:30AM (8:00PM at home) and slept until about 4:30PM (6:00AM at home). I got up, checked out what was on the television, had some dinner, and then was right back in bed a little before 10:00PM (11:30AM at home). I woke up at 5:30AM (7:00PM at home) the next morning, ready to truly start my India adventure. I find that just adding 1.5 hours to my current time and flip-flopping the AM and PM works the best for converting back to Eastern Standard Time. It is way easier than subtracting ten and a half hours, for real. If I convert from AM to PM, I know it is still yesterday at home and if I convert from PM to AM, it is the same day here and home.

I met up with my co-worker for breakfast and we discussed what was on the schedule to be completed at work that day. We wrapped up eating, I headed back up to my room for a few, then it was time to go to work. We walked outside under the canopy and informed this man out at a podium of the room number our car was registered under. A white Ford Ikon pulled around under the canopy and a man dressed in all white got out and opened the doors for us and put our laptop bags in the trunk. The man in white hopped back into the driver seat and pulled around to the big metal gate at the exit of the hotel. A guard opened it and the stupidity began.

So, this car is coming down the road that the hotel is on. He is driving fast and... Our driver pulls out in front of the guy. Seriously!? This is where I wish my keyboard had the interrobang symbol. The interrobang, for those unaware of the grammar hispters who tried to make it an official punctuation mark in the 60's, is a marriage of the exclamation point and the question mark. Imagine that the exclamation point and the question mark were sharing the same dot and the rest of the symbol overlapped. Or you could not use your imagination and look at the picture at the end of the blog. I decided not to include the picture immediately after this paragraph so you would have to use your imagination when I said “Imagine” at the beginning of my sentence a little earlier. I, in a subtle way, just had mind control over you. I had mind control in the same way I think I have mind control over people when I am at a stop light and I inch forward a little bit. Then I glance in my rearview mirror and watch the person behind me begin to inch forward once I come to a stop. Pwned, sucker.

Right, so this guy is barreling down the road, coming straight at us, and our driver pulls out. The guy swerves and honks his horn a number of times, but nothing other than that. The guy didn't look at our driver and give him the whole hand, nor did he stare at him with his mouth agape. Nope, he just honked his horn a few times, didn't bother to look at the “idiot” that just cut him off, and continued on his merry way. I laughed nervously as I realized we had just avoided a car accident. Jeff, my traveling companion, was unfazed. I thought that was curious, but eventually I would learn there was nothing to be curious about.

We rounded a corner down a little alleyway and to a busier street. We turned left onto the next street that took us behind the hotel. This is where some of the slums/high-population housing is. It makes you amazed that people live this way – a way that I'll get to in another blog. I'm going to continue on with this blog for now about the Stupid. I call driving the Stupid in the same way I began calling this auxiliary piece of equipment to one of our pieces of equipment at the plant the Broken because, well, it was broken. It was so broken, that it was fixed once, we found out it was still broken, fixed it again, and it might be broken again as far as I know. Let me wrap up this portion of the story by saying that the Broken was by no means my or any of my co-worker's fault. I am pretty sure someone just decided it might be a good idea to hit it with a forklift while driving haphazardly around the plant.

If you have experienced the glaringly obvious difference in Ohio highways to Michigan highways (a perfect example being the drastic change on I-75 at the border), you have an idea of how jarring the sudden change can be. Here, road quality is just bad everywhere. It actually makes me realize just how much beating a car can take. We have hit potholes worse than anything I have ever seen back home. We have driven across medians to get to another road we needed to be on. Every time it sounds like the frame of the car just cracked, or surely at least the car bottomed out. But no, the car just keeps on chugging along like a trooper. Oh, and is that a tree growing out of the road? Yes, yes it is. At least they painted a black and white checker pattern around part of the trunk to make it more visible and help you avoid it.

Suddenly I hear what sounds like a cross between farting and the Hamster Dance. A small yellow rickshaw, called an auto, zooms up next to me. It is a three-wheeled little cart that steers like a scooter. The tailpipe is a measly three-quarters of an inch in diameter (this probably accounts for the farting while listening to the Hamster Dance effect). There is a backseat for passengers and a sticker reminding the driver that this auto runs on LPG (liquified petroleum gas) instead of diesel or regular gas. He doesn't have any passengers at the moment and I sure didn't want to be one in there. Who would? Have you seen the traffic out there? Of course, on another one of my adventures, I would get brave enough to become a passenger in one of the autos.

After driving down a street lined with autos, people walking around aimlessly, some of them brushing their teeth, and seeing a few dogs chase each other around, we made another quick left and returned to an intersection on the same road our hotel was on. It was time to make a right. Now, the only reason I knew this was the road our hotel was on was because I had a reasonable enough understanding of the area and the spatial ability to figure it out. If I would have been looking for a street sign to figure out that this was the same road, this quest would have ended in miserable failure. No street signs, no problem. At least not for the ridiculous number of people on the road.

The ridiculous number of people on the road, you say? Yeah, the ridiculous number of people on the road, I say. When you pull up to an intersection in India, forget about lanes. Sure, sometimes the good folks of IDOT (India Department of Transportation – I doubt it is actually called that to tell you the truth. Heck, I doubt there is even a remotely organized department dedicated to transportation here. Why? Because to have a remotely organized department of transportation, you should have a remotely organized set of roads to drive on. India does not) paint lines to try to make unwitting people from slightly more developed countries think there are rules to follow, but there aren't. I just included an entire paragraph's worth of information in a set of parentheses. What other blog can you find that in?

So you pull up to an intersection and suddenly it is a mad dash to try to find a spot to wait in. This road may technically be a six lane road (three going one way, three the other), but you are going to see a whole lot more than three cars jamming into those lanes on either side. One, two, three, sometimes four people all jammed on a motorcycle will navigate between cars in any open spots they can find to get the optimal starting position when the light turns green again. And that's another funny thing, the traffic lights. I still cannot figure out when it is and when it is not necessary to obey the traffic signals. My driver has gone through red lights, stopped at red lights, but has never stopped at green lights. Apparently stop lights here are like STOP signs that have white borders around them: they are optional. He has stopped for a traffic cop holding a wand with red blinking LEDs up and down the sides though.

Packed like sardines is the perfect phrase for sitting at a stop light on the roads. It's amazing how well these drivers know their vehicle dimensions. For example, my driver has his passenger side mirror turned in, so that means he is not using it. His rearview mirror is pointed right at his face. I am pretty sure he cannot see out the back window at all. Does it matter though? Not really. They say in America to always practice defensive driving and be aware of your surroundings. In India, they must tell you to practice offensive driving and if there is someone else near you, they will probably honk.

The honking, it's going to haunt me for years. Around 5:30AM you will hear a honk. Thirty seconds later, another honk. Eventually, 6:00AM rolls around and you hear a honk every two to three seconds. Wait until about 7:00AM and there's constant honking. Back home, honking is to let someone know they did something or are about to do something stupid and also to honk “hello” to Ricky when you see him on the sidewalk (that's a Mitch Hedberg reference if you are counting). Here, honking is to make people aware of their surroundings. If you are going to pass a dump truck, you honk. If you are going to pass someone and you are in their blind spot, you honk. If you have nothing better to do, you honk, because, well, if you weren't honking, it just wouldn't sound the same in India. Best I can tell, about half of the drivers here really care if a nearby driver is honking. They will take heed and get back into their “lane” (read: area of the road) if they hear you honk. Other people, they just cut you off. Usually this applies to buses and dump trucks because they are bigger than the cars. The car I was in was one time run off the road and into the grass by a dump truck that just didn't care.

Speaking of not caring, I'll drop the inevitable Fight Club reference again when Tyler Durden says “calm as Hindu cows.” That guy was not lying. Cows are pretty much allowed to do whatever they want here. They can also go wherever they want. Would you like to know where “wherever” is? Sure you would. “Wherever” could easily mean the street. Cows stand or sit in the road without a care in the world. Maybe they found a jackpot of trash that also happens to have some food in it. Or maybe they just found some paper that also seems to be delicious. Cows just don't care in India because they don't have to. You probably have a much better chance of being involved in a human vs. automobile car accident than you ever would a cow vs. automobile accident.

Let's pretend you are driving down the road at 50 km/h because that's about the fastest you will ever go. The average speed I probably drive home at is 20 km/h which is sluggishly slow. So, you are driving in India and then this group of cows with this blank look in their eyes just walk out onto the road. Cows ALWAYS have this blank look in their eyes. I have tried to examine their eyes as we pass them and I cannot make out any whites in their eyes. They are like a pit of black blankness. Oh, and their mouths NEVER stop chewing either. This group of cows with blank looks on their face walk out on the road chewing and chewing and chewing. You have three options: 1) stop, 2) swerve, or 3) honk. My guess, if you were Indian, you are going to do a combination of 1 and 3. Swerving likely isn't an option because there is still a good chance you could hit that cow.

Now, let's pretend you are no longer in that car. You are trying to cross the road in India. You are trying to cross four lanes of traffic and here comes six cars abreast down the road. What is going to happen? Well, three cars will ultimately win a game of chicken with the other cars and quickly zoom ahead to cut off the other drivers and swerve around you. Two of the cars just missed clipping you by two inches. The other three cars that lost the game of the Stupid chicken, will quickly slam on their brakes, begin to cut their wheel to make a move around you but have to stop completely. Next, you are gonna get glares and, you guessed it, a barrage of honks. A barrage of honks directed at you and only you. But really, this is all your fault in the first place because you decided to jaywalk in India. Bad idea, friend.

After a while, all the quick maneuvering, close calls, cutting people off, being cut off, and nearly being run off the road becomes commonplace in your mind. This is why I should not have found it curious that Jeff was unfazed by us pulling out in front of another car when first leaving the hotel. I have been privileged to have three different drivers out here and each has a slightly different profile of driving abilities. My main guy Ramesh Babu (who is the man, by the way) is very aggressive. He will find a way to magically fit his car anywhere it needs to be. Two buses with what appears to be four and a half feet between them. No problem at all, that car is going to fit. Now, my usual substitute driver is a little bit more cautious and a bit older. I've found after getting used to Ramesh's driving style that I was getting frustrated with the substitute's driving. Normally in America, I would be furious if I got cut off, plus I would never dream of cutting someone off. Here, I find myself rooting for our driver to cut people off. If I see a spot that I think the car may be just small enough to fit in, I'm thinking “Go for it! Who cares if we are trying not to get squished between a dump truck and large concrete barrier?”

The thing is, with all of the crazy driving here, there are a surprisingly low number of accidents. The Indian culture is just exceptionally good at seeing what is ahead of them in the road and avoiding it, even if it just so happens to be oncoming traffic. Yep, I have even been in the car driving straight into oncoming traffic for several kilometers and I have lived to tell about it. Needless to say, Indians are probably really good at the video games in the Burnout series. I guess they have been slightly helped by these random signs the Chennai Traffic Police have put in the road that say “Caution: Accident Prone Area.” Then again, these signs were placed right in the middle of the road and you must swerve to avoid them. Best I can figure out, these signs would cause more accidents than prevent them, but I digress.

To sum up: Driving in India, it's stupid.

Blog 7: “they found a jackpot of trash” Deleted Scenes:

I have seen signs that say “Wear Helmet to Avoid Death” here. That's good to know. If you see this guy coming,

just put on your helmet and you'll be A-okay.

Here is a video I took of driving in India. This video doesn't do it justice, you really need to be here to get it. There is certainly a lack of honking and swerving and general chaos that I was unable to capture.

Say hello to the interrobang.

Blog 6: “the two-handed credit card grab trick.”

It is 1:30 in the morning. Imagine hearing “na na na” repeated over and over and over again by 400 or 500 Indians. Some of them are holding signs with people's names and company names. Others are just standing there repeating “na na na.” Okay, so maybe they weren't just all standing there saying “na na na” on repeat but when there is a large gathering of people speaking a language you do not understand (or a broken version of your native language) it all starts to jumble together as “na na na.”

As I stood outside the automatic door, I was a little overwhelmed by this sight. I was separated from this massive crowd by a metal fence. The crowd was about 4 or 5 people deep and continued down the length of the fence about 200 feet. I began to walk along the fence while reading as many of the signs as I could. Finally, I located a man holding a sign with my name and the Courtyard by Marriott's logo neatly above it. My name was on a sign, I had finally made it in this world!

I pointed at the guy and then that guy and the guy behind him both pointed at themselves. They also both mouthed “ME?” at me. I redirected my eyesight to the guy behind my guy with the sign, waved my hand and said “No!” I then directed my eyesight back at the guy holding the sign with my name on it and said “You!” The guy behind my guy with the sign then looked at the ground, apparently upset that I was not his guy. The guy with my sign then pointed at himself again and smiled, I smiled, and he waved me towards the end of the metal fence to where the gaggle of Indians ended. Was that paragraph confusing enough?

We walked together, separated by the metal fencing. When I say metal fencing, picture queue lines at an amusement park. This was where I got my first look at what India was all about. India at night was now mine to behold. To my right was a large construction wall. The driver told me in broken English that some construction was going on behind that wall but I could not understand what he said it was they were building. Two armed guards with semi-automatics stood at the entrance of the construction wall. Along the curbs on our way to the parking lot, trash littered the drive. Something India could really benfit from is some kind of littering fine. You know how sometimes you will be walking down the street and used cigarette butts are in the road near the curb? Okay, now imagine that instead of cigarette butts, it is water bottles, wrappers, fruit rinds, and so on. We came to a crosswalk and the driver told me to wait there with my baggage while he went to get the car. The driver disappeared into the parking lot of about 150-200 cars.

The driver emerged from the parking lot with a silver Courtyard by Marriott minivan. The driver got out of the right side of the vehicle... Oh yeah, I thought, “They drive on the other side of the road here.” He grabbed my bag and tossed it in the back of the minivan and we were off.

The road out of the airport was congested with cars. All of them trying to leave at the same time. The concept of waiting in a line and staying in a lane is completely lost on the people here. I intend to upload a video in a future blog all about driving here so you can have a better idea of just how crazy it is. There is a single word that describes driving here, I'll let you in on that when I get to the driving blog. By my calculations, that should be the next one I do.

Every car that was trying to leave was jammed into this area big enough for what would normally allow four lanes of traffic. The only difference, there were about 9 cars across this road, all of them trying to get out of the airport. Finally, our driver was able to navigate out to the main road. In a stark contrast to the airport exit, the roads to the hotel were considerably empty.

I started the typical conversation starter with the driver that you use when you don't know someone. “So, the weather here is much warmer than it is back home.” Blah blah blah. Just then, I saw a giant tank to my left. Whoa! Oh wait, nevermind, that's just an army training center... With a tank out front! We continued and I got to see what Chennai was about at night. Chennai is a city that looks very nice at night. There are no tall skyscrapers here. The largest building I have seen is probably about 10 floors, the size of a modest business building. There is a lot of neon and rope lighting on the buildings that make things look quite exciting. That doesn't last during the day though. If you have ever been to downtown Las Vegas, you will know what I am talking about. During the day, downtown is pretty dumpy. At night though, the glowing neon cowboy and cowgirl are the backdrop to the glittering lights of the casinos. Of course, a better description of the city is for another blog.

A half hour or so after leaving the airport, we arrive at the hotel. The hotel has a large metal gate with three guards and a dog standing outside. A guard takes a look inside the minivan to make sure no shenanigans are going on. Meanwhile, another guard walks the dog all the way around the van. Don't forget about the third guard! He has a large mirror on a little push cart. He pushes the cart under the minivan to make sure there is nothing suspicious under the van. You know, like a bomb. That's comforting. I hand the driver 200 INR (approximatey $4.50 US) and thank him for the ride.

This is a view of the outside of the hotel (notice they don't show street level because it's not pretty - try to search chennai courtyard by marriott on Google and see what you get) and where I eat breakfast and dinner nearly everyday.

The canopy to the hotel has a nice glass window with water streaming down it. Fancy. I tote my rolling bag and laptop bag under the canopy and hand it off to one of the guys waiting. He tosses my bags onto an x-ray machine. I am then directed to a metal detector and promptly get wanded the guy waiting on the other side after proving I have no metal on me in the metal detector. The lady operating the x-ray machine looks over at me with a bit of concern on her face. Being a field service engineer means that you regularly carry tools in your luggage. Metallic tools. I quickly assured her that I only had my normal travel things and tools in the bag and she okayed my bag for entry into the hotel. That was easy. As I typed that, I heard the Easy Button voice in my head.

The man who wanded me opens the front door to the hotel and there is another cool water feature where water pours down the walls of the breezeway. Another hotel employee opens the next door for me and I proceed to the check-in desk.

After doing all the initial pleasantries and getting everything together, it was time to get my credit card on file. This is where I made my first Indian culture mistake. As I got my card out of my wallet and began to hand it to the clerk, I had only one hand on the card. He reached out both hands and grabbed the front two corners of the card, one in each hand. Oops, I forgot that when you hand things like that over, business cards, credit cards, you are supposed to use both your hands and “present” the card to the other party involved in the transaction. As the clerk handed the card back to me, I quickly adjusted to the culture and did the two-handed credit card grab trick. Good job, me.

I made my way to the three elevators and pressed the up arrow button. One of the elevators opened and I rode it to the fifth floor and headed out to room 532. I slid the keycard in the door and opened it up to try to see my home for the next few weeks. By this time it was just after two in the morning and I began fumbling around the room to find a light. What the hell? Do they not put light switches in rooms in India? After about what seemed like five minutes, but was in reality twenty seconds, looking for a light switch, I turned back to the door and opened it to let the light in from the hall. Just then, I saw this contraption about the size of a deck of playing cards on the wall with a slit in it. Under the slit, there was a small red arrow lit up and pointing downward. Well, at this point in time, I had an epiphany. That slit looks just big enough to fit my room keycard. And just like the cartoony light bulb that turns on when you have an epiphany, when I stuck my key into the slit, every single light in my room turned on.

As a celebrated in my discovery of how to work the lights, I also thought about how incredibly unnecessary it was for this thing to turn on every single light in my room. Next to the keycard holder, there was another deck of cards contraption. This one had buttons that said “Vestibule,” “TV Lamp,” “Bed Lamp,” and “Luggage Lamp.” I began pressing the buttons and lights in the room began to turn off and on. I put my luggage in the designated luggage area and plugged in my laptop with my international plug converter. I made a quick call to Krista on Skype and headed to bed. I found another deck of cards-sized light switch under my bed lamp that also controlled the lights. How convenient, I could climb into bed and at the touch of a button, kill all the lights in the room (and turn on a night light!). All the lights were out and I fell asleep, preparing to truly begin my India adventure the next day.

Blog 5: “but only near the walls.”

Neeeeeeee-eeeeeeewwwww errrrrttt errrt! That's onomatopoeia for an airplane landing on a runway. It's also the first sounds I heard as I landed in India. The second continent in this expedition that I had not stepped foot on is an Audio Daily Double. And the clue is: ASIA.

I put my shoes back on and began to get my things ready for deplaning. I grabbed my laptop bag from overhead storage and waved someone to go ahead and exit before me as I stepped to the aisle. It was 12:50 AM local time on January 27, 2010 as I stepped out onto the jetway. I had walked onto the jetway in Detroit at 6:30 PM on January 25, 2010. I looked down at my watch and saw that it was only 2:20 PM on January 26 back home. At this point, I was trying to figure out how much time I had lost and/or gained and how to get my body and mind adjusted to the time change. I mean, sure my body was only traveling for 20 hours but nearly a day and a half had passed since I boarded the plane. 4 8 15 16 23 42? I had traveled to the future. In time I would learn that my friends and family back home were only starting to see what the day had to offer as I was sitting down for dinner contemplating whether I would have garlic pickle or mango pickle to accompany my side of rice that night. Food is coming in another blog, promise.

Anyway, let me get back on track. I started to lose my train of thought there as I tried to make the Indian Standard Time ten and a half hour time zone change sound like I am a traveler of both time and space. By the way, have you picked up on the three pop culture references in this blog yet? I'll give you a hint: "One time I was in Culver City, California and found myself lost. Being in my predicament, I decided to try out for Celebrity Jeopardy; but since I am not famous, it went over about as well as a lead zeppelin."

Well, stepping out onto the jetway, it was immediately apparent that I was in a country that was completely different than what I was used to. There is this wetness in the air here that feels unlike any humidity I have ever felt. If you have been to Florida, that state just has this uncomfortable humidity that makes things much more uncomfortable during the day than they have to be. In India, it doesn't make it uncomfortable outside. It does, however, leave an odd musty smell. Let's put it this way: there is so much wetness in the air, that one day I checked weather.com for the forecast here and it said 100% humidity... and it wasn't raining. True story. I am not sure what the dew point was but you can imagine my dismay. I stepped out onto the jetway and this faint smell of old, wet newspaper hit me. It was strong at first but over time it subsides. I got out of the jetway and walked along what seemed to be a maze of halls even though I had only made a few turns and found the escalators that take you to the baggage claim.

The second thing I noticed about India is how dirty things are. The dirt on the walls in the airport alone blew my mind. It was like PigPen from The Peanuts was walking around this place the entire time - but only near the walls. You know how there is that small dirt cloud he kicks up? Well, from the floor to about a foot or two up on the walls, there was this just this off color about it, like it had a slight film of dirt on it. There were even small streaks moving through the dirt film where you could tell some water or cleaning agent had run down the wall and penetrated it.

I walked to the escalator to retrieve my luggage. As I rode the escalator down, the large baggage claim area opened up for me to see. On my right I saw a duty free store and currency exchange counter. For those counting, approximately 45 Indian Rupees make 1 US Dollar. I am sure I will reference that later. To the front, there were two metal detectors and two security guards. Off to the left were the baggage carousels. It's odd, India and all. The company I am working for out here required that I have the proper personal protection equipment for the times when I would be working with live circuits in our equipment cabinets and panels. This stuff is ridiculous. I have a full body suit, a pair of cloth gloves, a pair of rubber gloves that go on over the cloth gloves, a pair of leather gloves that go on over the cloth and rubber gloves, a face shield, and a head covering that goes on under the face shield. I am thinking about these things as two-thirds of the way down the escalator, I see the monstrosities of baggage carousels they have at the Chennai Airport. Now, if you want to see typical safety in India, check out the video at the end of the blog. The airport code, by the way, is MAA, likely because up until 1996, Chennai was called Madras. It was changed because Madras is of European origin and India is attempting to rename their cities with more traditional Indian names following their independence in 1947. Another example, Bombay changed to Mumbai.

So, I am pretty sure I have seen these baggage carousels in a Saw movie. Just like the usual carousels that you and I know, this one was essentially a large collection of overlapping metal plates that move in an oval. The big difference here was that there were zero guards in place around the moving metal plates, which I am sure is a fairly unsafe way of doing things. I could see inside the middle of the carousel and under it. I am not sure if that makes sense, but seeing the skeleton of the carousel without some kind of building covering all the innards was weird. Oh, and it had wheels too. I don't know why. I looked up and saw, on a sign with those letters like they have on fast food restaurant marquees, “Frankfurt” and my flight number above one of the two carousels. That's right, no digital signs or anything in this baggage claim.

I figured I would have a little time before my bags would get to the baggage carousel so I found the restroom. Let me begin by saying that I did not like this restroom. You know how when you meet some people, you have this inner dialogue with yourself while shaking his hand that says “I hate this guy.” Usually though, your inner dialogue was correct and the guy turns out to be a total douche. It was not the worst restroom I have ever been in, but there was just something I did not like about it. Namely, it felt dirty. Sensing a pattern here? Public restrooms are one of those things that typically feel dirty anyway. You know the kind, like the cheap gas station bathroom that you have to enter from outside with the key tied to the beating wand. They know that with their clientele, if the bathroom door was inside the convenience mart, it would reek of dirty diapers, syphilis, wet dog, and for some reason orange juice inside all the time.

Now even in those bathrooms back home, I feel gross when I walk in. I worry that if I stand too close to the urinal, I am going to see crabs carrying a backpack full of herpes parachuting off of it into my pubic hair. Here, same feeling, and remember that this is in the airport! I finished up, walked over to the sink, and found this odd contraption. It was sort of a teardrop-shaped container with a hole in the top hanging from the wall. I noticed that I could swing the container upside down and a bit of soap would be dispensed into my hand. Again, I really do not like touching things in a bathroom and for the same reason, I really did not like this. I am the guy who pre-dispenses his paper towels, washes his hands, grabs the paper towel with the water still running, and turns off the water with the paper towel in hand. One time, I had pre-dispensed a paper towel in a restroom and this guy saw me do it. Instead of using the other dispenser to get his own paper towel, he grabbed the one I had already dispensed! In my head, I was giving him hell. In real life, I just looked at him in the mirror, disappointed, and avoided eye contact because I am polite and rarely confrontational. I usually assess a bathroom immediately when walking in to make sure that the trashcan is near the door so I can open the door with the towel and hold the door open with my foot while I toss (hopefully successfully) my paper towel into the trash. I found the hand dryer hanging on the wall, plugged into an outlet, which was kind of an odd sight considering that normally all the electrical for a hand dryer is hidden behind it.

My restroom adventure was finished so I waited out by the baggage carousel for my bag. All of a sudden, without warning, the carousel starts moving. The metal plates began swinging around their predetermined oval path ready to cut at any moment. Lucky for me, I knew where each steel sheet o' death was going to be moving next so I easily avoided death. A fairly unstable looking bridge with metal chain link conveyor material began to carry across the baggage from our flight and toss it down onto the razor blade carousel. My bag, with the orange “PRIORITY” sticker (because I flew business class), came down fourth. I grabbed my bag, successfully avoiding having my arm chopped off by the carousel.

Next, I waited in line behind 4 people to exchange my US currency to Indian currency. I exchanged $200 US for about 8,000 INR, which wasn't the exact exchange rate but I am sure there was a fee and no one here seems that concerned with getting things right on when you are dealing with money anyway. Remind me to tell you about my trips to the grocery stores later and how they deal with not having the correct change in the cash drawer. I grabbed my currency, made my way to the security guards at the front of the terminal, showed any paperwork they needed to see, and exited to the front of the airport to be greeted by 400 or 500 Indians hanging out with signs and yelling. This should be interesting.

Blog 4: “…with his cube of a fist”

Okay, fourth blog, time to get this trip on the road in the air. Uhh… You know what I mean. As you might recall, seating in business class is 2-2-2. Lucky for me, no one sat next to me on this flight. That is a bonus when you are flying economy, but in business class, this was a one-way ticket to AwesomeTown.

Let me just say, during my flight while I was getting used to the comforts that Lufthansa had to offer me (Lufthansa in no way is paying me for my comments, but if they want to, my e-mail is joeba31@hotmail.com and we can work out a contract), I never lost a slight grin on my face. I felt like I was the mayor of AwesomeTown and everyone else flying with me were part of AwesomeTown’s city hall. Oddly, city hall did not appear to be as excited about this as I was. I find it hard to believe that someone could get jaded by this experience, but I will let it go.

I had just gotten my seat into a comfortable reclined position when a male flight attendant (yes, I feel the need to point out this flight attendant was male) asks me to put my seat in the upright position. I guess in all my excitement, I forgot that they prefer you seated that way during takeoff. He also took back the unfinished mini glass of white wine he had served me not two minutes prior. Nevertheless, I was not going to let this get me down.

On the monitor at the front of the aircraft and on the monitor in front of me, a video began playing welcoming me on the aircraft and explaining what to do if the plane ends up not faring so well in the sky. It reminded me of Fight Club when Tyler Durden points out to The Narrator that all of the people in the flight emergency card are “calm as Hindu cows.” It’s funny because I am heading to India, but anyway, this video basically took the human Hindu cows and made them animated. Never once did their facial expressions change. Again, another pop culture reference came to mind. Remember when 3-D graphics were just getting really cool in video games? Not like X-Box 360/PS3 cool, but like PS1/N64 cool. Remember when a guy would grab an item and his hand would never open to grab it? It just stayed this same blocky fist and the item magically went in. Sometimes the gun or whatever would clip awkwardly and unrealistically through his hand reminding you that you were just playing a video game. That was about the quality of this animation. A guy put his briefcase in the overhead storage bin with his cube of a fist and the handle clipped right through his hand and rested neatly in the overhead bin. Also, something I noticed during this little movie was that the guy in the video was using my mechwarrior cockpit the whole time. I wondered if they showed economy a different video. If not, those economy travelers have to feel like major jerks sitting in those chairs and seeing what I am rocking up front.

There is not a large language barrier between Germans and Americans but one does slightly exist. Being a German airliner, the attendants were all German as well. Shortly after takeoff, beverage service began. Immediately, I ordered a wodka (because the “w” is pronounced like a “v” in German) and Coca-Cola Light (because Diet Coke is called Coca-Cola Light in Germany). The flight attendant assumed I did not want these mixed together, but I did. Maybe this experience was not quite a language barrier as it was a difference in cultures? That was also a fairly pointless story.

Two beverages in and dinner service begins. My flight was right around 7:00 PM so the dinner was served in the earlier part of the flight. The flight attendants walk down the aisle and hand menus to each passenger. Menus on an airplane! Maybe I am oblivious to international business class travel but I was quite excited to have a decent choice of items to choose from. Anyone else who has traveled international business class reading this probably feels like a member of AwesomeTown city hall. Maybe I will feel that way when I read this sometime down the road. There were three choices in each the appetizer, dinner, and desert categories. I chose the Chicken Caesar Salad to start, Roasted Arctic Char (with parsley-horseradish sauce) as the main course, and a Lemon Mandeleine as my desert. All were quite delicious, plus I got a nice assortment of three different cheeses with the salad to om nom nom on with some bread and fruit.

Now, I had already had two bowls of That Pasta Stuff in the Lufthansa business lounge prior to the flight so after the dinner service, I was feeling incredibly stuffed. I tried to digest my food by reading a bit of my book, watching Surrogates, and playing a little Caveman and Who Wants to Be a Millionaire? (if you know trivia outside of America). Well, sitting in a chair really does not aide digestion. I was still stuffed. I figured if sitting doesn’t help, I could try sleeping. I grabbed my remote control, pressed the preprogrammed button to put the chair into a full sleep mode. The chair flattened all the way out allowing me room to stretch out completely. Other than not being a bed, the only thing keeping this from feeling like a real bed was that the bed was not fully parallel to the floor. It was probably on a 170° angle. So, still being stuffed, I unbuttoned my pants while I slept. Is that gross?

Two hours of sleep later, we landed in Frankfurt, Germany. Welcome to continent number 1 (Europe) I had never stepped on. I gathered my belongings, headed out of the plane, and took a short walk from my arrival gate to B26, my next departure gate. I hopped on the plane to Chennai, India with the same comforts my previous flight offered so I won't bore you with it. This time I decided to fall asleep immediately for five hours.

As I awoke, I saw one of the flight attendants walking through the aisle looking like she had to tell someone something. I looked up at her and she quickly walked over to me and told me to open the window. I woke up just in time to catch Burj Al Arab (sail boat hotel)

and the Palm Tree Islands

out my window in Dubai. They look absolutely incredible from 37,000 feet up. I imagine the picture above of the Islands is about 25-30,000 feet or so.

I occupied myself with my book and another meal (not as good as the first) for the rest of the flight and prepared for my descent into India.

Blog 3: “(if you know trivia outside of America).”

When you board a giant aircraft like the ones I flew on for this trip, they open up two different jetways for the passengers to board. Economy class boards one and the business and first class passengers board the other. I walked into the plane and a flight attendant directed me down the proper aisle to find seat 15A. I first walked through first class where the seats were arranged 1-2-1. Then I made it to business class where the seats are arranged 2-2-2. I have been told that those suckers back in economy class sit something like 3-4-3. Les Misérables.

My seat was gigantic. It looked like the cockpit to a mechwarrior. For real, a mechwarrior, if a mechwarrior cockpit also came with a pillow and blanket. I had a guesstimated (spell check apparently agrees that “guesstimated” is a word) 13” television in front of me. I had magazine storage next to the television. Down to the left there was a vented power supply for my laptop and under that was shoe storage. On the front of my armrest, there was a button that said “Table/Tisch.” Naturally, I pressed it and a spring-loaded table popped up about an inch from a compartment next to the armrest. I grabbed it, unfolded it, and slid it closer and further from me just to test it out. Did I mention my seat was like the cockpit to a mechwarrior? I folded up the table and put it away.

This could not be the end to how cool my seat was so I continued feeling around and fondling everything around me (except for people) that I could. I had three different windows to look out of and I, yes I, alone controlled whether or not the shades stayed up or down. Okay, so that’s not as impressive, but I did have control over three!

I looked behind me and to the left and there was a nice little cubbyhole that fit my book perfectly. The book I would be reading during this trip is called John Dies at the End. I have told this joke about seven times now but here it goes again: I bought this book because I figured that if it is no good half way through, I can just stop reading because I know how it ends. Hey-oh! Also in the cubbyhole is a grab bag of goodies. It had three Lufthansa golf tees, covers for the earphones I had not yet found, an extra pair of socks, an eye cover for sleeping, and a toothbrush and toothpaste. I was going to take this grab bag with me but I left it on the flight to Frankfurt. I did, however, take the one on the flight to Chennai.

The last things I found were the remote control, oh the magical remote control, and the headphones in a flap in the armrest. This was how I commanded every bit of comfort I requested on the flight. The remote controlled nearly every feature of my seat. It reclined back, moved my butt forward or backwards, and lifted my legs. I could increase and move the lumbar support and give my lower back a massage at the touch of a button. I had access to about 63 different movies and documentaries (I chose to watch Surrogates starring Bruce Willis, meh), flight information (about 37,000 feet in the air, the temperature is about -40°F. It just so happens that is also -40°C so if you didn't know, now you know the common point on those temperature scales), music, and video games. If I turned the remote over and on its side, it was essentially an elongated Super Nintendo controller. Think of it in the same way you do a sideways Wii controller looks like a Nintendo controller. I had nine different games to choose from – one of which was Who Wants to Be a Millionaire? (if you know trivia outside of America). In the first five questions, there was one about famous cricket players. I used my lifeline and the lifeline said, “I know this! It’s D, of course!” Oh, of course.

I call Krista to tell her of all the cool things my mechwarrior cockpit has to offer and over the intercom the attendant tells us it is time to take off. I hang up the phone and three blogs in I haven’t even left Detroit yet.