July 21, 2010

My Week in India

No Hannah updates this week because I'm out of town on a business trip to India (although all reports are positive from home). It's my first time in Asia and it's been a fascinating week so far - the trip (including travel) is ten days and I'm half-way through. I won't be posting photos until I get home, but wanted to share some thoughts on my experience so far.

puneMap.jpg
TomTom has an office in Pune, a city a few hours inland from Mumbai. It's not as big as the major Indian cities but at 4.5 million people it's still pretty big.

I flew from Boston to London and London to Mumbai and then had a 3-hour taxi ride from the airport to the hotel in Pune. The taxi ride was a great way to get to see a little of Mumbai (formerly Bombay) and since it was a Sunday afternoon the streets weren't nearly as crowded as they would be during the week. It was a good way to ease me into my first trip to a congested Asian city because it still seemed overcrowded to my eyes.

The three things that have struck me most in my days here are the people, the security, and the traffic. The people have been wonderful. From the hotel to restaurants to colleagues in the office, the overall atmosphere is incredibly welcoming and accommodating. There is such an abundance of labor that most places we go have a ridiculously high ratio of employees to guests/customers. (Clearly I'm seeing a fraction of the city and the places frequented by western visitors are going to be more customer-friendly than others, but still it's striking).

When checking into the hotel, there were three bellhops to help with my one bag. At the front desk, while one employee took my information, another got my key and gave an overview of the hotel while another ensured the baggage was being cared for. And every person was super friendly and helpful. It's almost uncommon to have to wait more than a minute when walking into a restaurant or store before an employee offers to help. It's a whole different definition of a service economy when the service is so good and so many people are employed to make your visit to their business a positive one. It can feel a little overwhelming when an employee follows you around a store, but it's just part of the service.

The security has been interesting to see, and is a reminder that I'm in a part of the world that has to deal with the real threat of terrorist attacks. The February bombing of a popular bakery didn't get the international attention that the Mumbai attacks have, but I think it really brought the threat home to Pune. And if the largest segment of the economy is service, the second largest seems to be security (these are just my impressions).

Every hotel, restaurant, office, shopping center, and other place that could be a target has security part of it's operations. And I don't just mean a rent-a-cop like in an American mall. Every time I get back to the hotel, I go through a metal detector and my bags are x-rayed. The taxi in the morning has to stop outside the office building to have it's trunk examined and a mirror run underneath the car. Going into a shopping mall required a metal-detector and a wanding. Everyone just seems to accept that this is part of life, but to an outsider it's striking how pervasive security has become. And it's a huge employer: my hotel employees two men to man the gate and two others to operate the metal detector/x-ray. The office has three at the gate, two inside the gate, one in the parking lot, and one on each floor outside the elevators. It's been a huge boost to the economy and added thousands (millions?) of jobs to a county with an endless supply of cheap labor. I'm not sure I feel any more or less safe, but it's certainly ever-present.

The traffic has also been fascinating to see. The biggest difference I've seen is the variety of vehicles on the roads. In America we have cars, trucks, buses, motorcycles, and more; but they are all capable of going roughly the same speeds. It may take a truck longer to accelerate, but you just don't see vehicles on the roads not capable of driving the speed limit.

Here, there is such a wide variety of vehicles with so many different engine sizes that the traffic is completely different. Add in the ever-present pedestrians who (seemingly) risk life each time they cross the street (without any concepts of real cross-walks) the streets are filled with a huge variety. From smallest to largest, these are what I've seen on the roads:


  • Child - Lots of boys running along the streets

  • Dog - Mutts of all kinds

  • Adult - People walk all over the sidewalk, shoulder, roads, medians

  • Bicycle - Not too many, but I hear 20 years Pune was a huge bike city

  • Motorbike - These have replaced the bicycles

  • Motorcycle - I saw a family of 4 squeezed onto a normal-sized Honda

  • Ox - Picture a divided road (a la Route 9 in Boston) with plants in the median that were lunch for a wandering ox

  • Auto rickshaw - Slightly larger than a golf cart, they are ubiquitous and despite their slow speeds they travel vie for space in the fast lanes

  • Compact car - Not as many Smart cars as in Europe, but you see some tiny cars

  • Car - From all sorts of brands, many of which I'd never heard of

  • 3-wheel truck - I need to get a picture, but these mini-pickups have three wheels with a
    cargo bed in back and go slowly

  • Small truck - Of many varieties

  • Large truck - Cargo trucks supplying the ever-present construction sites (many are brightly painted)

  • City bus - Often overflowing during rush hour

Now picture all of these getting to an intersection and instead of staying in their lane each car piles up waiting to cross the road in the way pedestrians in Manhattan bunch up at an intersection. Lane markers in general seem to be only suggestions and at intersections they are totally ignored. On a four lane road (two in each direction), an intersection will have at least 3 cars/trucks, 2 rickshaws, and 3 motorcycles all vying for space meant for two lanes of traffic. They immediately have to merge on the other side of the intersection, but that doesn't stop everyone for jockeying for position at every stop. It's amazing there aren't more accidents, but it somehow all seems to work.

Lots more to share (I'm really starting to like cricket!) later in the week or when I get home next week.

July 13, 2010

3 Year Old Princess

Happy Birthday, Hannah! Sunday was Hannah's 3rd birthday and we now have a 3-year-old princess. I was amazed watching her open presents that while she was happy to see toys, she was excited about clothes (especially dress-up ones). As much as I try to include soccer (and other sports) in her life, I have come to terms with Hannah being a princess of a little girl. Not to say she can't balance both, but it's no contest these days on her preference.

It was great to have family and friends over to celebrate with us, they have been so important in our lives in the past three years and it's fun to see how connected she has become to everyone. Thank you to everyone for great presents and, more importantly, for all your love and support!

Here are some photos from the party:

Happy Birthday, Hannah!

July 8, 2010

Swimming and Dancing

With the recent heat wave in New England, we have spent as much time as possible in the water. Over the weekend we were in the lake and since then we've been swimming in the pool at our apartment in the evenings. Hannah has been making huge progress and it's amazing to see how comfortable she is in the water now.

She wears a swim vest (pictured here) which provides enough flotation while allowing her good range of motion for her arms. She is now comfortable enough to want to "swim all by myself" and so we let go (keeping our hands inches away) and she flails her arms and kicks her legs and kind of propels herself through the water in an exaggerated treading of water. She often swallows a mouthful or two (which led to a stomach ache after one evening of swimming) but is getting more comfortable with the water splashing in her face.Swim Vest

After starting off swimming a foot or two to the railing she has expanded her range incredibly. The culmination (so far) of this was her being able to swim all the way from the railing to the rope that divides the pool in half, about 30 feet! As she continues to improve, it's fun to watch her enjoy herself more and more and will soon be zooming around underwater like all the big kids she watches.

Unfortunately I haven't gotten any recent videos of her swimming, but I did capture one of her other activities: a recent dance performance. Almost every time she puts on a dress or skirt she get up and twirls to see how well it spins. She has expanded the twirling to including some skipping and hopping and all sorts of other moves. As you can get a brief sense of here:

July 6, 2010

Happy 4th of July

Instead of fulfilling our national obligation to have a relaxing 4th of July weekend, we decided it would be more fun to spend it racing around New England seeing as many friends as we could. It was a great time, but it wasn't quite the relaxing sit by the pool weekend we planned. And of course Hannah took all the travel in stride and had a great time.

We spent Friday night in Quechee where we had planned to spend the entire weekend. After lunch with Solly (and parents) we spent the afternoon at Billings farm in Woodstock where the kids got to pet the cows and horses (the sheep were too hot and tired to come over to say hi).

After a change of plans that sounded like fun, we then got in the car and drove over to Lake Winnipesaukee where our friends Andrew and Jess had us over to Andrew's parents' cabin for Saturday night and Sunday. It was great to be on an island in the lake, and felt like we were totally removed from everything. Hannah enjoyed playing with baby Tyler (four months) and the two dogs. And she got her first rides in both a sailboat and a motor boat. We were trying to figure out which she liked more, but all she would say was the sail boat "didn't go as fast".

Sunday evening we continued our trip 45 minutes south in Laconia and spent the night with other friends including their16-month old. He wasn't so sure about this big girl who came in and wanted to play with his toys, but Hannah was able to pick out toys that were acceptable to both (and move faster than him) and the two seemed to coexist in that way that kids do.

Sunday we drove back to Massachusetts and spent the afternoon in Belmont with my parents. Hannah got to see the room that is going to be hers when we move to that house in a month and she got to play with Nana and Grandpma (and her cat Ella) for a while. We returned home Monday evening tired but having had a really full weekend with friends and family. Three nights sleeping in three different places with two different sets of friends. Now if only we could have a weekend to recover from all the hard work.

Here are some photos from the weekend:

(Credit to Andrew for some of the better photos on here)