last weekend in Bangalore

Friday night started out with the gang at work taking me out to dinner.  We went to a place called BBQ Nation.  Of course the first thing I think about when I hear BBQ is meat, but being in India and quite a lot of the population being vegetarian, there was a lot more than just meat available at this restaurant.  There was so much food that kept coming to the table and then after that, there was the buffet... I am still not able to eat that much, so I was completely stuffed after the first round and there were many more rounds that kept coming.  It was all very good, but I wish I could have taken better advantage of all that good food.

This weekend there are local elections going on and for some odd reason, no one is able to purchase any alcohol from 5:00 pm on Friday until the end of Sunday.  So at dinner all you could get were mocktails.   All liquor stores are closed and all restaurants and hotels are strict about serving because they could be subject to heavy fines.   Although I did read in the papers today that there are some candidates that go around and offer voters 200 rupees and a bottle of beer to vote for them!

On Saturday night a few of us at the hotel organized dinner outside by the pool and some wine, gin and vodka was smuggled out in water bottles so that we could have drinks with our dinner.  Considering we are not able to vote, I don't see what the big deal was,  but some of the hotel staff really did not like the fact that we were doing this but we were allowed to none the less.   It was earth hour, so we had dinner by candlelight which helped us keep our contraband from being too obvious.

This morning I actually went for a bike round around the area.  Jimmy who has been here for five weeks has been riding every weekend.  I did not even know that the hotel had bikes available!  So when I found out that he was going I made him take me this morning.  Being Sunday and a voting day there was very little traffic and it was actually a pleasant ride.  I would never go out otherwise because the traffic is just crazy.  We went out for about an hour and it was so great to be able to go out and ride around.  The other thing I did today which has been on my list to do before I left was to take an auto-rickshaw.  I only took it from the mall - about 5K from the hotel, but now I can say I was in one.  I was able to bargain them down to 50 rupees which is about 1/4 of what they try to get from westerners for that distance, so I was pretty happy and proud of myself about that.

I also went back to Lal Bagh and Commercial Street this weekend.  Bought a few souvenirs and walked around the park, which was on my list of things to do again before I leave.

Only three more days and then I am done work and on vacation!