Arrival

After 22 hours of travel, three books, and several microwaved airplane meals, I have finally arrived in Bangalore.  I was greeted outside of the baggage claim by three ThoughtWorks India employees and escorted back to the corporate apartments along with two other Americans and ~7 TW China people.  I am safe.


First Impressions:
After Steven (a fellow Chicago employee) and I packed our things in the car, Steven called shotgun and we both walked around to get in when he realized, "Heeeey, this is the driver's side."  It was awesome.  Now, I'm not sure I could say the same about the actual car ride.  That was more of a suspense/thriller.  First off, driving in the middle of the road?  Totally fine.  At first, we came up behind a car that was in the middle of the road, and our driver honked the horn and flashed his brights.  The other car inched its way to the side and we passed.  I was thinking, "Okay, so not everyone stays between the lines.  That's cool.  At least our driver knows what he's doing."  Then we started drifting.  The roads were pretty clear since it was three in the morning, so it wasn't really a problem.  It was more intriguing than anything else really.  I would love to be able to drive like that.  No worries about hitting the side-railing all and two lanes to swerve around in.  Then I realized another aspect of driving in India.

Every once in a while, our driver would honk his horn as seemingly nothing.  At first, I thought he was accidentally tapping it and I ignored it.  But then something happened that made me realize what was going on.  A car was turning out of a side road onto our road, and it apparently didn't see us (or didn't look).  As it turned out in front of us, we moved into the right lane to avoid it.  This whole time, even before we saw the car come up, our driver had the horn blasting.  Then I realized what his random honking was doing.

There weren't really that many traffic lights (which makes sense considering we were on a highway-type road), but there was still the occasional intersection where cars might come out.  So in place of traffic lights, every time we came up to one of these roads our driver would blast his horn to warn any turning cars.  It was just a "Hey, I'm coming.  Don't kill us because I know you're not looking" honk.  Basically the most insane replacement for traffic lights there is.  On top of that, the drivers just seem more aggressive, but I haven't even seen rush hour traffic yet. 

Anywaaay, after about an hour driving we arrived around 4am to the apartment - really nice place.  We have a huge living area, kitchen, washer/dryer, balcony, A/C, and our own individual bathrooms with western toilets.  In our rooms we also have huge closets that lock to protect our belongings.  I'll try to get some pictures up later.  The internet wasn't working (I'm in the office now), but there's normally wifi for us to use.  I'll try to keep this updated every couple days - at least with a "I'm safe" line.

Also, on a side note, I tried the Indian version of Coke, Thumbs Up.  Meh.