better late than never-lacks detail

So this is about a month late, but I wanted to get it down for reading later on in life. We’ll pick where I left off, the details are less because I have less time and a lot of pictures:

Well a lot has happened since I last wrote. Its going to be hard to catch up but ill have a go. The last few days of my internship I spent working and hanging out with marielle and jake. Jake was a new American from yale stayin at the house with me, cool guy. One night I had coffee with the head of marketing for the taj hotels, the taj hotels are really nice. She showed me around the place and it was amazing. I didn’t go into the office at all the last week of work because the power was going out so much, it was kind of nice to work from home. I had a lot of stuff to do to get ready for my travels.

On Friday everyone from peakalpha headed out to palagot, kerala for the wedding. It was an over night bus, I must have been more tired than I realized b/c I slept the whole ride. We got there around 8 am and changed into our dotis, traditional hindu Indian wear. It was really fun, dotis are like a long dress and u wear a kurta over it, there pictures on facebook. We walked to the wedding hall and had a southern Indian breakfast on a banana leaf. I stuffed my face, they wouldn’t stop brining me food because everyone loves to see the white kid eat with his hands. I love the food ovr here, I cant get enough. The wedding ceremony was toootally different than in the us. They had some hindu band up there at first and close to 1000 ppl in the crowd. The actual ceremony is really long, 3-4 hours, and no one really watches or knows whats going on. People talk amongst themselves during the ceremony, I had a hard time with that. I had about 5 little kids come and take pictures with me and we just messed around in the audience. Normal hindu wedding end after the man ties a necklace around the girl, but they didn’t do that in this one so no one knew when it was over. We just went and had lunch, southern Indian style again. I ate like 3 pounds of rice that day. It was a really cool experience to get to fo the wedding, I have a good amount of it on film. Everyone knows how much I love costumes so that mde it that much better. After the wedding we went to visit a reservoir nearby. Electricity is run through reservoirs so it was cool to see that, we took a tug boat ride through the lake. It poured on us and all my clothes got ruined, it was reallyfun though and there were fisherman sitting in tires all over the lake. Kerala is a beautiful state, I hope to go back one day. After the reservoir we went back to the hotel and chilled out the rest of the day. Indians are so different than Americans in so many ways and it is difficult to be so out numbered. They tend to very concerned with the feelings of their guest and being bombarded with sensitivity isn’t my idea of fun, I had a hard time keeping it together that night. There are so many things about Indians that just clash with the American way, it makes it hard to deal with when im so outnumbered and overwhelmed with the differences. Slept 3 in a 1 person bed thatnight, didn’t sleep to well.
The next morning they all headed off to visit some waterfall and I went to catch a plane to bombey, financial capital of india. Our car broke down on the way there and I got to look like a car genius b/c I knew how to pop the hood. Haha, the extent of my automobile knowledge. I got to the airport way early so I read and slept for a while, got some lunch. The flight there was nice, ive always really enjoyed flying. When we were about to land we flew over the biggest slum in asia and that was crazy to see. It was miles of rolling hills with 2-3 story slums packed in. it was crazy, ivenever seen anything like that before. I had just missed a huge storm, I don’t know how places like that survive the monsoon rains. . and is married with 2 kids. There family was awesome, I clicjed with them all right away. First and I went to visit his wifes after school program nearby. It was honestly the most eyeopening and terrifying thing I have seen. Indian education in general is pretty week, but some of the private programs, like this one, are absolutely stellar. It was a program for 6-12 yr olds and they were designing robots, programming computers, building video games, etc. I was shocked and terrieified to be competeting with these kids in 15 years. My world has exploded during my time here, im looking forward to returning and starting to learn some more technical stuff. Im going to start by relearning calculus, and then move to other math stuff and computer and science related stuff. Theres just so much other stuff that I have no idea about, im excited about it. After that the family and I took a walk on the beach of the Arabian see and got to know eachother. We hit it off right away, returned for dinner, and then watched the wimbeldon finals. It was a fun night, I hope to see them again.
The next morning I went jogging with the older boy on the beach, it was pretty cool. The beaches here are pretty polluted so it wasn’t the romantic jog ud think itd be on the coast of the Arabian sea, still nice though. I came back and got all ready to go in my new tailored suit, looking good. After and I headed off, the drive there was pretty crazy. Bombay is insane, kind of has a ny feel to it. I spent the morning in 30 minute meetings with all the heads of diff departments in just learning about the Indian markets and getting their advice on random things. I was pretty cool to get a look at the macro stuff after working for a micro company for the month before. Some even had lectures prepared and just taught me about the exchanges or about the company. It was very cool and I am very grateful for setting that up. At night I stayed with a jain family and it was pretty crazy. Jains are a type of hindus that don’t believe in killing anything at all. They don’t eat anything except fresh fruit and veggies that grow above ground. I went to dinner with a guy named and his wife at a really great place and then they took me to a really legit dessert place. Consistent to Indian form they wouldn’t stop feeding me until I was borderline aggressive. Seriously I would tell them I was full an about to throw up and they would keep offering me food. Ugh. There apartment was nice, the whole extended family was there. They had a little boy who was really cute. I went for a jog along the Arabian see in the am and they made me a traditional breakfast. I ate with the grandfather who I found out actually spoke English right before I left, we sat there in sildence for 30 minutes because I didn’t think he spoke English. The next day I got a city tour of. This is the city where the bombings were in the fall and they are all still really affected by it. I saw all the hotels where the terrorist were but everyone was really hesistant to talk about it. Apparently everyone had to stay in their houses for like 3 days when it happened. There are still a lot of question marks surrounding the attacks, all I can know for sure is that, like most things to India, it was pakistans fault. After the tour I went back to and had a few more meetings. I got to talk with for a while, it was really nice. He really did a lot for me on the trip, I was trying to be careful to take full advantage of knowing such a well connected and generous family without being annoying. It was kind of hard but he handled me very well.

After the meetings I headed to the airport. Again, always an experience driving through cities in india. From all kinds of animals, to beggars, to slums, to anarchic driving. I was headed to delhi to meet my parents. Here is where the detail stops, mainly because we have tons of pictures and video from our time together. It was really good to see them again, I felt like I could finally turn off after 2 months of always having to be on my toes. We spent a few days in delhi, spent most of the time visiting religious temples and such. It was cool to see how they responded to things I had already gotten used to. I liked teaching them all I had learned and trying to break through some of their prejudices like some of mine had been broken through. After delhi we went to agra to see the taj mahal and for agra. Of course this was crazy. I had really high expectations for the taj and it still blew them out of the water. It really is emotional to look at because of how great it is and the love story behind it. We took a donkey drawn carriage through the slums of agra to the taj, you could see the taj from our hotel room, and fort aggra was pretty awesome as well. After agra we took the long drive through rural india to jaipur, the gem city. The ride was pretty crazy, you really can absorb india through those drives. You see some real india, it’s pretty crazy. Everytime we stopped we got swarmed with hawkers. In jaipur we stayed in a really traditional hotel. We rode elephants to castlses, visited a cool astrology center that used to be tell horoscopes for arranged marriages, saw snake charmers, bought gems, got a cooking lesson from a local family, beth got a henna tattoo, we shopped for clothes, danced traditional dances, saw the palace on the water, and a few other things. I was most excited about jaipur for this part of the trip, it was pretty crazy. After jaipur we went back to Bangalore to reunite with shoba, and the girls. I showed my family where I stayed, worked, and hung out. We visited mysore palace one day, easily the most impressive palace I have ever seen. It blows Windsor castle out of the water. I would have loved to see it in its hay day. My dad, and I vitied Infosys campus and met with the cfo, board member, and training team. Infosys started the tech rush in india and is a huge company, reciving well over a million applicants per year. The campus was amazing, pools, malls, work out rooms, basketball courts, restaurants. We also got to have go to a lunch with about 10 of the top economists in india and here them talk about emerging markets and what they thought the future would hold. It was one of those times where u step back and ask urself how u got to do this, that question popped in my head about 30 times on this trip.
We had a big goodbye dinner our last night with my family and all the friends I had made. There were about 20 there in all, about 15-20 people were on vacation, this was right in the middle of vacation season. We headed out late Friday. It was pretty crazy. I love india but im ready to go home. America, here I come. It was very lifechanging, to lifechaning to record on this blog. Theres just to much stuff to say. We’ll talk. Looking forward to seeing you all again,

Love,
matt