Destroy All Onions!

So I made it to India, and was delighted to find that my case had arrived too, thought not until after quite a long wait – I don’t think I’ve ever seen so much luggage come off a single plane. I was also pleased to find a bank machine in the airport, since I was unable to get many Indian Rupees before I arrived, since it is a closed currency and it’s illegal to take it out of the country, or bring it back in.

I was met at the airport by a nice man from the hotel who knew my name, who brought me to my taxi and sent me off on my long drive to the hotel. It was long, and I was sitting in the back seat, so felt a bit travel sick, but made it to the hotel dignity intact.

After a short nap, fought with the hotels network, and was able get my laptop talking to home again, and do a good half-days work without ever having to put shoes on. A nice meal in the hotel’s restaurant with my colleague, and I was tired enough to sleep all night, with or without jetlag.

This morning, I got up at around my usual time, and made it into the office not long after 9:00. This is early for India, as the tendency here is to work late because it matches up better with the UK. As we found out when we left the office, at 8:45. But at least this way we missed the rush hour and the mosquitoes (said Norwin, stuggling to find a bright side). By the time we got back to the hotel, it was too late to do much other than eat in the hotel again, but at least we chose to try the other restaurant this time. It was also very nice. The highlight this evening was the buttered naan, which is not completely unlike hot buttered toast, which led me to believe that some things are so good that they evolve in parallel in different places. Or perhaps God creates them that way. Anyway, very nice.

And now it’s late, so I’m off to bed.

Goodnight world.

I’m off on my travels again, once again exiled from Belfast by the powers that be at work, and not allowed back until I have participated in a design workshop in Bangalore, and visited the development teams in Pune and Calcutta.

So although not quite like Dallas last year, it sounds like an opportunity for some blogging, as there’ll probably be plenty to talk about.

So this morning instead of heading for church, I headed to Belfast City airport to fly to Heathrow. The City Airport is once again different to the last time I was there, though this might be the final configuration by the looks of it.

At Heathrow I was able to get checked in and have lunch with plenty of time to spare. Went to TGI Fridays for one of their excellent milkshakes and some chicken bits. I ended up in the very last row of the plane, 88D, but it wasn’t a problem at all. Emirates are very civilised to fly with – the same sophisticated entertainment system as Air New Zealand last year, with touch screens allowing pause and what have you, even in economy. Watched District 9 and The Princess and the Frog – both excellent films. And some Armstrong and Miller, who I think are very funny. But I can’t report on the food, as I felt a bit sick for the first part of the journey, so I skipped it and slept a bit instead. I didn’t expect to feel that way so early in the trip, but fortunately I felt much better when I woke up, so that’s good news.

Now sitting in Dubai International Airport, which is huge and impressive, and has plenty of free wi-fi. I had a gorgeous rhubarb tartlet, and a very grown up hot-chocolate from Paul (not nearly as sweet as usual, and made from a darker chocolate I think). Was delighted to be able to pay in pictures of the Queen, even in these foreign parts. Also discovered on facebook that my cousin has got himself engaged – isn’t modern communication kind of amazing!

Not too long before my next flight, to India itself.
Y’all have fun now, y’hear.

American food!

Since there was a large group of travellers, and one of them was celebrating their birthday, we went to an expensive restaurant on Wednesday, and I had a really good steak.

Last night I had tea on my own, and went to the IHOP. I think the IHOP is fabulous, as it represents a genuinely American cuisine that I’ve never seen anywhere else. Their pancakes are really, really yummy, and my omelette was spotty dog too.

So then this evening, my dining companion is only in Texas for one night, so he wanted to do something really Texan. So I had a chicken fried steak, which turns out to be a steak that has been treated like southern fried chicken by being battered and fried. It was rather good. And then pecan pie for dessert.

I like food. And when I get home, I’m going to have to diet for a long time…

What a cool day!

I went out to the same church as last week, which once again impressed me. Then I had lunch in Sweet Tomatoes, the soup and salad place where I had lunch on Friday, and as on Friday I really enjoyed it. I never thought I would choose to eat in a salad buffet, but there you go – it’s a funny old world!

Then I headed for White Rock Lake Park for a Sunday afternoon stroll. It was a lovely sunny day, and the park was full of people enjoying themselves doing their thing, whether it be cycling, jogging, sailing, canoeing, canoodling, or just watching the world go by. It was a great place to be. Though I have to admit I was very jealous of the many cyclists, and it took all of my determination to resist mugging a passing cyclist and riding off at high speed on their bike. Except of course that they were going past very quickly on their nice bikes, and I was only walking, so I’d never have caught one to mug anyway.

But walking brought its own benefits. I stopped and had a long chat with Roderick, who has been there every Sunday for the last 14 years with a sign saying “free advice”. We didn’t quite talk “of shoes and ships and sealing wax, of cabbages and kings”, but we certainly talked about a lot of different subjects. As for the advice, “people aren’t short of facts – they just need to think about the possibilities”. Roderick is clearly very well-read, and just happy to spend time with people. Good for him I say!

Then, on the way back I met Captain Smokey, sailing and driving his amphicar around and in the lake. Needless to say he attracted a crowd, and I have to say his vehicle looked looked much cooler than the Belfast equivalent.

The Amphicar!

At this point, I thought my day was complete. But then on the way back to the hotel, I saw the biggest second-hand book shop I have ever seen. Due to the strong gravitation pull of that many second-hand books, the car practically steered itself into the car park – I had no choice. And the shop is just enormous – big enough to have it’s own coffee shop, fish tank, help desk (with 3 people at it), and about 6 tills. It turns out that this isn’t just a “they’re bigger in Texas” thing – it’s the flagship store of a second-hand book shop chain. And they have a very simple pricing method – the books are half the original price, so everything is really good value (since older books are cheaper to begingwith). I managed to get out with only 2 books (for less than $7!!), but if I hadn’t been limited by my suitcase space it could easily have been a dozen.

Then I went to the cinema, and watched Bruce Willis’ new movie “The Surrogates”, which wasn’t bad.

So a great day in Dallas.

I didn’t go to the gym on Thursday night, as I got distracted by the TV. When I finally decided to go out, I was going to go out to the House of Pancakes, but then decided to carry on with the non-repetition rule, and try somewhere different. So I went to the Steak and Shake, where I had the most amazing milkshake – the left half of the glass was banana flavoured, and the right half was strawberry flavoured. It was pretty fantastic.

On Friday we had a fantastic lunch – we went to Sweet Tomatoes, a salad and soup buffet. I am not traditionally a fan of the salad, but I have to admit this place impressed me. The salads were fresh, with interesting ingredients (like strawberries), and they were all good to look at. The soups were fantastic too. We’ll be back there, repeat rule or not!

Saturday saw us off to Fort Worth, the other half of the Dallas-Fort Worth Metroplex. Where Dallas has the whole JFK thing, Fort Worth instead makes a big deal of its cowboy heritage. And so we saw cattle, horses and cowboys, and heard country and western music at the Fort Worth Stockyard area. C&W isn’t particularly my scene, and so I was able to resist buying a cowboy hat and cowboy boots, but it was a cool place to visit. We then headed off to the outlet mall at Allen in the evening, which was full of shops and bargains. However, it reminded me that I am not really into clothes shopping, so I bought nothing and now don’t want to see another shop for a month.

I also managed to successfully buy petrol, which is always an achievement when I’m away from home. Three-quarters of a tank cost $26.38, which is probably just under £20, so that turned out to be the bargain of the day, rather than the outlets!

When we went out for lunch today, we nearly went back to somewhere we’d been before. But a last minute change of plan took us to a different deli instead, keeping our unbroken run of a different place to eat every lunchtime and teatime.

That’s pretty impressive, and we’re not showing any signs of running out of places yet. Mexican has been popular (3 different ones), as has Indian (also 3) and the Deli (3).

Roll on the next mealtime 🙂

Hmmm. To take the bad look off this post, let me point out that I’ve been to the gym twice this week. Not for very long admittedly, but I did go.

Shopping in America can sometimes be a great thing.

I went into a card shop last night. “Hi! Can I help you” the shop assistant said. “I need a birthday card… for twins”. Without a trace of hesitation, she asked “What age are they? A boy and a girl, or 2 boys, or 2 girls?”. She then pointed me straight to the section for twins cards, and pointed out the ones for first birthday and for mixed twins. Now that’s impressive!

Less impressive is the fact that the card won’t arrive on time, but that’s kind of my fault…

Okay – I’m sorry about this, but there is no justice.

I raced out of work at 6:30 across to the hotel to grab my dirty clothes, and take them to the cleaners around the corner. The guy in the cleaners asked me if I was enjoying Texas, and we chatted. He asked where I was from, and I said I was from Ireland. He said he had two free tickets for the U2 concert tonight that he couldn’t use, and U2 were from Ireland, and maybe I would like to go and see them. I was lightly stunned. But he insisted I should take them, since he couldn’t use them.

So I raced back to the office to confer with the rest of the guys to see who would use the other ticket. Then Prashant and I raced off to the all-new Cowboys Stadium, and an hour and a half later, the car was parked, and we were going in! The tickets turned out to be completely legit, and we watched U2 for the best part of two hours.

That is Little Bono on the tiny stage, and Big Bono on the big screen

It was a good concert. The stadium is vast and amazing, with a lot of clever features like large glass or open areas, instead of walls, so you can see and hear what’s going on when you’re outside the main arena. U2 rocked. They played a lot of newer stuff that I have to admit I don’t know, but also lots of old favourites. And while Bono did his bit to save the world, I have to say it was well done, and I respect him for it. “Walk On” was dedicated to Aung San Suu Kyi, who featured heavily on their magic video wall, and Amnesty International were name-checked. “One” was introduced by a video from Desmond Tutu, who I have a great fondness for. And since it was Texas, George Bush even got a mention, for his investment in Aids work in Africa (which needless to say went down very well with the home crowd).

So wow. What a night. And sorry to all the folks who are bigger U2 fans than me. It was just a bizarre case of being in the right place at the right time. And the guy in the cleaners deserves a great tip!

Today, we visited the Texas State Fair, which is (I think) the second biggest state fair in America. So it’s a big deal.

In some ways, it reminded me of the Oktoberfest in Munich, in that it is a local funfair for local people, unlike Disneyland which is very glossy, and pretty much geared towards tourists. And the fair had something for everyone – there was a car show with some nice shiny toys to drool over, lots of home improvement stalls for people who like that sort of thing, crazy rides and games, animals, and a lot of food.

The thing that surprised me most was the amount of frying going on – fried butter, fried peaches and cream, fried cheesecake, fried pecan pie, and even good old fried snickers. Now I don’t object to any of those things, having enjoyed a battered Mars bar or two myself, but I was surprised at the sheer variety and enthusiasm of the frying going on.

They like their frying!

I’ll also add at this point that I didn’t indulge too badly – I had a corn on the cob, some fried pork chips (nominated for a taste award), and a funnel cake (a local delicacy it seems – very nice – quite doughnut-ish).

The wierdest point of the Fair was without doubt the “Dancing with the Dogs” show, a demonstration of “the fastest growing sport in America – canine freestyling”. Yes, that was a real quote – she did say sport. No, I am not making this up! Look!

We only stayed for a couple of the performers. The dogs were completely cool, but I couldn’t deal with their dancing partners. I was also a bit disappointed that we’d missed the pig racing (yes, really). But the chance to sit down for a few minutes was great.

And there were some real cowboys at the fair too, wearing their cowboy hats in a completely non-ironic way.

Unfortunately, just as we were deciding to leave, it started to rain heavily. A coat and umbrella from my rucksack sorted us out, so we were okay, but there were a lot of very wet people out there, and it was a bit horrible for a while.

But I really enjoyed the fair. It was an unmissable slice of American (perhaps Texan) life, and I’m gad the hotel receptionist recommended it.

The evening of day 5 was spent in the hotel – after a really good lunch at a Mexican restaurant (On the Border), I couldn’t face food for the rest of the day. But I did catch some of the new Stargate Universe. I couldn’t say it set my world on fire, but it is only new, and I missed the big first episode, so it was unlikely to.

On Saturday morning (day 6), I headed out to do some shopping. I mainly wanted a bottle of root beer for the hotel fridge, and some warmer clothes, since the weather is getting colder in Dallas. Colder than I was really prepared for. So off I headed to Walmart. Mission was eventually accomplished after unsuccessful visits to TJ Max (my sister would be proud of me), Ross’s and Target. I liked Target.

I then met up with some more guys from work who are also staying here for a few weeks (hence the “we” for a while), and we headed into Dallas. We had some disagreements with the Sat Nav Lady, who kept telling us about turnoffs either too early or too late. It took most of the day for us to come to an understanding and a position of mutual respect. Suffice it to say that our journeys into Dallas and back out again were non-optimal, but we’re on speaking terms again now.

Anyway, we really only visited the historical section of the city, since without guide books that was the only area we had a handle on. This is dominated by the JFK assassination. I have to say, I was surprised that the former Texas Book Depository houses the JFK museum, and you can look out through the window that the bullet (allegedly) came from. The comedy highlight of the trip was definitely the sign on the door:

Since it was bringing firearms into the building that caused the problem in the first place, it seems a bit late to have rules about it now…

We also noted the difference between the cost of things. The JFK Museum costs $13.50, and their car park is a further $5. They do not permit any photography once inside. That seems expensive, and fairly ungracious to not allow photos. Conversely, the nearby Reunion Tower offers great views over the city, and costs nothing to enter except the cost of food or drink in the restaurant. One coke was $5, we stayed for a full revolution of the restaurant (which took an hour) and we took lots of pictures. That seems like great value. Interesting comparison.

The plan for today (day 7), is to go to the Texas State Fair. I’ll let y’all know how we get on.