I cannot believe as I sit here to write this that I have not posted for 16 days!  Where has the time gone?? So I guess it is time for a couple of observations on my reentry back into the US and a couple of other comments.

Re-entry

I have traveled enough across the globe to know that there would be a period of adjustment as I came back to the states. What I did not expect was how difficult it was going to be this time. I guess I should of seen it coming, but it certainly caught me off guard.

In my other trips, I had been gone for the most three weeks. This allow's you to dip a toe into the culture of the country that you are visiting. However, you are never more than a tourist. You are not required to change you way of life or your way of thinking to blend in. The six months in India made me re-examine many parts of myself and my relationships with others and, according to my wife, caused me to change in a number of subtle ways. The next couple of paragraphs will explain some of these changes and a few other surprises that were uncovered (much to my surprise).

What is this??  - A day or so after returning, my wife and I went out to dinner. As I had not been home long, Ruth suggested we try a new place in Snellville. This restaurant is based upon an old 50's diner and serves typical diner food. Because I was missing traditional American fare, I ordered the meatloaf. Ruth settled on the Chicken pot-pie. When the meal was delivered, I went into system wide shock. The meal served to me was the size of a small Indian village and could of fed as many people. I could not believe the size of the thing or even believe that anyone could eat all of it.  My loving bride, with a smile on her face, reminded me that not too long ago I would of devoured it and then looked for dessert! This leads directly to my second observation...

Americans are Huge! - I know this is not as shock to many of you, but as a nation, we are HUGE! I do not mean just weight (although, we could stand to lose some collective weight!), I mean we are physically HUGE.  During my time in India I came to gradually accept that I was a head and shoulders above most people around me. I also came to accept that I was at least three times their mass. Stopping in London on the way home did not really do anything about than opinion either as most of the folks I met there were on the slender side as well.

Coming back to the states and realizing that I was about average for a male here made quite the impact on me. I do not stand out here near as much as I did in either London or Hyderabad. I do not know if is our diet or what, but we certainly have a LOT of us around.

The U.S. is huge! - Spending as much time as I did in Hyderabad and it's surrounding area also showed me how large and diverse the United States is. At dinner one evening prior to leaving Hyderabad, one the gentlemen mentioned that he had read that over 70% of Americans did not have a passport. As we continued our conversation, he mentioned that he could understand why. With the size of our country and the geographic diversity from coast to coast there is really no reason to leave the country to find something new. In Europe or India, in order to find some of the diversity we have you, you need to travel. I guess that makes sense, but I still come back to one of my favorite quotes from St. Augustine..... "the world is a book and those who do not travel read only a single page".

The world has so much more to offer than just one country. It is not until you are reduced to pantomime to ask for a loaf of bread and a soft-drink that you rally understand how big the world is!

Poverty and diversity - One of the conversations I got into upon my arrival home was that the US was undergoing a diversity movement and that they were afraid that this was going to fracture our society. I had to chuckle at this after living in India for the last 6 months and seeing just how diverse that country is. There is great diversity in India and this is both a good thing and a bad thing. There is much more acceptance of the differences of people and their way of life in India than there is here. But the down side is the economic diversity that exists. While this gap is big in the US, it is nothing like it is in India.

One of the best things I heard while in India that I think we could learn from in the US is "offense is not given, it is taken". In the US, we spend a lot of time and energy making sure that we do not offend those around us. We watch what we say, how we say it, and what we do all in the attempt not to offend those around us. In India, you do not worry about what those around you might think or feel to what you say or what you do. There is a great amount of freedom in this. How many times do we look for offense around us instead of the grace to forgive it?  I am still struggling with this one.

Closing thoughts - I have gone on a lot longer and a lot shorter than I meant to. There are many other things I want to comment on, but if I do, this blog will go on for hours. So I will save those observations for another time.

I do, however, want to leave with a couple of photos I have taken since I have been home along with a little explanation of them. First and foremost is that there are not as many of these as there might be. I had forgotten it was winter in the US and the difference between 30 degree days and 90 degree days has be bundled up like the Michelin man. I am one cold dude nowadays, BRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRR!

Above is a picture of two of the more interesting inhabitants of Brookhill Way. These are Hardy and Dale. Hardy thinks he is king of the abode and Dale is fond of imitating the carpets around the house. I present them here to you in their natural habitats. While the dogs were glad I was home, after 5 minutes it was like, "Oh, it's you.... Yawn!"  Oh well, at least I got a warm welcome home from Ruth.

The photos above are the harbingers of spring in this neck of the woods. The flower on the far left is a camellia and it blooms here at the end of the winter and just before spring. We have a couple of bushes around the yard and when they start to bloom we know spring is near. The flower in the center is a hibiscus and it sits in our sun room. It also starts it summer blooming about the end of February and will continue to bloom throughout the summer. About April, Ruth will take this plant outside and let it decorate our backyard.

The last photo is an American Robin. We get these towards the end of the winter as well as they start their migration northward. Even before the flowers start their color show, the Robins show up and bring their own color into a drab winter landscape.

So I guess I really only have a couple of more weeks left of being cold before spring and summer set in!

Well, after a week at home, I am almost ready to start sharing about my re-entry into life in the United States, but not quite yet. My sojourn back to the US finally came to completion on the 7th of Feb when Chicago finally decided to let me go. I arrived back in Atlanta just short of the afternoon rush hour and was back in my house by 4pm to be greeted by two very excited dogs.

Later that evening I had a chance to meet up with friends for a quick hamburger and story telling. Although they were not quite sure what to make of the outfit I was wearing. I decided it was a good time to wear the Kurta I bought in Hyderabad and to share some Kajli Katli deserts with them.  It was a very nice welcome home.

Going into the weekend was a chance to tour the city a little bit and to go see an English language movie (National Treasure II, a very good movie) and do a little shopping for my new office.

Monday and Tuesday was spent trying to acclimate to the new time zone and taking care of a few personal items (like going to see the doctor).  However, all in all, a very nice return to normalcy. Today will tell the entire story as I start to return to the home office and to work on the new role. I am excited about it, but also a little saddened that the past 6 months seems to be fading fast.

A Rather interesting find

Friday afternoon as Ruth and I were running around the city taking care of some items (such as finding a lens cap for my camera and getting the camera cleaned) Ruth started to laugh. I did not know what was so funny so she made me do a u-turn and go back the way we had come. On the side of the road was the sign on the left.  I had eaten at the Hyderabad House in Hyderabad and it serves some great biryani. What I did not expect was to find one of these restaurants in Lilburn, Georgia.  I will make an effort to get over there for a meal one day and check it out and report back.  But it was rather humorous!!

Well, I am finally on my way home. But this is certainly the trip that keeps on giving... My flight today was supposed to leave at 12:30, but because of snow in Chicago, the flight I was scheduled for was cancelled. So this entailed another 3.5 hour delay in the start of my journey home. Of course, this means that I am going to miss my connecting flight to Atlanta. I just hope that does not mean that I will get stuck in the airport in Chicago over night.

It certainly seems that this trip does not want me to ever finish it. The good news is that I am in an airplane jetting towards the US. Once I arrive there, getting from where-ever I find myself to Atlanta should be easier. Even if that means an overnight layover somewhere. I am also glad that I had planned to take some time off once I arrived home. I think after this trip home I am certainly going to need it. (Of course, with this company, taking time off means that I have limited meetings during this time frame. Just one on Thursday and another one on Monday.....)

Update

So, after landing in Chicago and being informed that my flight to Atlanta had been cancelled, I endeavored to find a hotel room. Fortunately British Airways was quite a bit ahead of me.  They are putting me up in the Marriot Springhill Suites. A very nice hotel that I have stayed at before in other cities. The bad news was that they asked me to wait outside, in the snow, for the hotel shuttle to pick us up. After 10 minutes of freezing important bits off of my body, I decided just to take a cab. So here I am toasty warm in the hotel room and looking forward to 11:20 tomorrow morning to complete my journey. I guess some things never change as I tend to have these types of  episodes about half the time. Oh well, welcome back to the US Mike!

So here I am sitting in a hotel room across the street from Buckingham palace.  So what do you think I did on Sunday??

If you guessed walk over and tour the palace, you would be right. I spent about 4 hours scrambling around the different parts along the outside of the security perimeter. As you can see from the photo, I was not the only one. Many of these tourists were from eastern Europe and were here on holiday. I engaged a couple in conversation and asked what brought them to England in February?  They stated that they wanted to come somewhere warm to vacation!!  I told them that I was in the process of freezing because I had just left a place that was in the 30's (centigrade) at which point the entire crowd around me laughed.  I was informed that in certain parts of Russia (where they had just left) the temps were in the -10 to -20's....  BRRRRRR.

Below are a couple of the photos I took during the day. I took many more of St. James park and the gardens around the palace, but that is not what you want to see!

A few thoughts on re-entry

I have traveled enough world-wide to understand that there will be a period of re-adjustment upon coming back to the United States. What I did not expect was to have that same issue upon coming to London. Yesterday as I was walking about the castle, I was uneasy and nervous. I could not figure out why that was the case, so I found a little bench and started watching the people and pondering my feelings. I finally came to the conclusion that was was making me uneasy was that I was not the center of attention of those around me. In India when I went to the tourists places, chances were that I would be the only westerner there. This caused quite a bit of staring and in many cases folks coming up just wanting to talk with me or shake my hand. In London, I am just another face in the crowd. This also led to the second observation. While I was in India, most everyone around me was Indian. Yesterday was a cultural mix. With people from all over the globe coming to this one spot. While it was unsettling, I think I can now deal with this change. Today as I take the tube to the office will tell if I am right.

The other thing I noticed is that after my time in India I am better able to understand people from these different cultures as they talk with me. Being a normally gregarious person, I engaged many different people in conversation yesterday. These included the Russian tourists mentioned above, a young couple who were on their honeymoon from South Korea and even the taxi driver from Pakistan who was talking his tea break at a coffee house I stopped at. It was during the conversation with one of the Russian tourists that he mentioned he was surprised that I was having no trouble understanding him when all the rest of the city keeps asking him to repeat things. I wonder if my hearing has changed or that because of the immersion for the last 6 months, I have learned to pay more attention to what is being said?  I guess it really does not matter, it is just another aspect of my personality that has changed.

Is this a steak?

Last nights dinner was a great disappointment to me. During the last 30 days I had in my mind that my first meal back in a western country was going to be a steak and baked potato. I held that up internally as the sign that I was going home and every time I thought about it, my mouth would water. So keeping true to my word, I went to the local Scottish Steak House last night and ordered a small filet and a potato.  As I sat in the place, my mouth was watering and the smells were wonderful. After 20 minutes, the dish was placed in front of me and it looked fantastic. Now for the down side. I found the meal absolutely dismal. The steak was tough and flavorless and the potato was micro-waved. The only saving grace from the entire meal was the fresh baked bread. This lead to my next observation, my palette has changed. In India, all of the food has some spice to it. It does not matter if it is a Pizza Hut pizza or Hyderabadi biryani or Punjabi Dal. All of the food has a definite unique taste that I have grown accustomed to. I suspect it is going to take a couple of weeks before I again become used to the normal bland American diet.

First of all let me say that I am safe and sound in London after a very tiring day yesterday. I should of know that the day was going to be challenging as it appeared that India did not want to let me go. I guess that this was also representative of the way that I felt inside as well. While I am excited to be on my way home, there was also a small part of me that was said to leave. I had made so many friends and had gotten so used to the city that coming home feels like traveling to a foreign land.

However, let me get back to the story of yesterday. The day started rough with a wake up call at 4 am to finish packing. I was supposed to meet my driver at 6am to be taken to the airport. Unfortunately, Sidhar had been kept up late the night before and when I called at 6:15 he was still in bed. Fortunately, he made it to the hotel by 6:30 and I was off to the airport. The hotel staff gave me quite the send off as the staff that was on duty lined the walk out to shake my hand (and a few hugs) to tell me goodbye and hurry back. Arriving at the airport, I had to say goodbye to Sidhar who started to cry that his friends of the last 6 months are now all gone. Sidhar had seen Jason, then Gulshan and now me leave. It was a sad time as I have spent a fair amount of time with him and I had finally gotten through the barrier that he had set up at the start of our relationship. Every time I hear the song "Jil Jil Jinga" I will think of Sidhar.

Arriving at the airport was a pain as well as I was checking into my flight to Mumbai. First of all, they told me I was overweight on my baggage at 48 kilos. Apparently London has a 20kg limit on the bag size. So we went back and forth on the cost of the extra kilos until she asked the all important question "are you going to stay in London?"  I then informed her that my stay in London was only for a couple of days. Then the baggage limit was removed and I was allowed to continue on to the check-in.

This next sentence is not going to surprise anyone who has ever flown out of Hyderabad. My departure was delayed by more than an hour. I was not too concerned because I had a 5 hour layover in Mumbai prior to my next flight. Arriving at my destination proved to be the next challenge. In Mumbai the airport is split in half. One side is the domestic terminal and the other side is the international terminal. The airport provides a shuttle between the two sides. Now for the interesting part, the shuttle runs only when there is enough passengers to fill it. This led to a 90 minute wait and a 30 minute ride to get to the other terminal. So, because of the delay in leaving Hyderabad and this wait, I have burned 3 of the 5 hours I had in hand. So, how is India going to burn the next 90 minutes, you might ask? Well, the shuttle picked us up from a secure area, but dropped us of at the terminal entrance at the international side. This meant having to go through security again as well as immigration to depart India. This took a fair amount of time because I had to turn in my residency permit and then wait in a line that was about 200 people long. All this means that I had to run through the airport to be able to board my flight on time. I can honestly say that the $1,000 I saved taking the flight through Mumbai was not worth it. I will recommend to everyone that they ensure that their first stop out of Hyderabad is somewhere out of India.

The last challenge of the night is that I had arranged an auto service to pick me up from Heathrow airport. Now the flight I was on was delayed on landing by 30 minutes, but I had arranged the car for 18:45. I walked out of the arrival terminal at 18:40 and no car. I called the cab company and they stated that the driver mis-understood when he was to be there. So, I had an hour wait at the airport to have the driver finally arrive. I had also paid for a arrival gate pickup so I did not have to go outside any more than necessary. But because the driver was arriving after 7:30, Heathrow does not allow that type of pickup after this time. Calling the driver, he informed me that I had to wait curbside for him to collect me. This meant I was standing outside in the 30 degree temps for 10 minutes (brrrr, it has not been under 90 in my entire stay in Hyderabad). Then the driver did not know where my hotel was. That took an additional 15 minutes showing him my confirmation and the address. He did not want to leave until he could find it in his GPS.... and it was not there. I finally got across that it was near Buckingham palace and to please go. 

Finally at 9:30, I arrived at the hotel. I will say that the check-in at the hotel was smooth. I had hoped to have dinner last night at the hotel because I expected to arrive here about 7:30. Oh well, as I said earlier, if it could go wrong, it did.

One last parting gift from last evening was discovered this morning. The Hyderabad airport put a strap around the middle of my bag and British airways put a cable tie through my zippers. Which meant when I got up this morning, I could not get into my luggage.... Will this trip ever stop leaving these little gifts?

180 days ago I climbed onto an airplane to make the long journey to a foreign destination. At that time, the team I was going to come work with consisted of 3 associates and a manager. Over the course of my stay here, two things happened. The first is that the staff swelled to 22 bright and eager associates. The second is that Hyderabad is no longer a foreign destination. It is now my second home.

The staff pictured above threw me a going away pizza party on Thursday. These associates started out as strangers and quickly became friends. They shared with me their joys and their sadness as life progressed for each of them. I am deeply saddened to be leaving them behind as I head home. To them is the future of the organization that we helped build together and I wish each of them all of the best.

So, 90 minutes from now, as I start my journey home via London, I will have time to contemplate all that we accomplished here and what is left to do. The future of this project is in good hands as Rick and Michael (left) take over where Jason, Gulshan and I left off. I will also have time to contemplate how India and it's people have changed me. I hope to be able to share more over the coming days and weeks in this space. So for now, this is Mike "Signing off from Hyderabad" for the last time.