What I do on my "day off" ...if I manage to wake up!

There is only one bad thing about this job... that we have just one day off per week (we teach two three-day classes: Tue/Wed/Thu and Fri/Sat/Sun so Monday is free) and, because the local office keeps American business hours, we work 9:30 p.m. in the evening until 6:30 a.m. the next morning.

That means Monday is our day off. Well, actually Monday NIGHT is our "day off." Which means after work Monday morning I come back to the hotel, eat breakfast, check email, and go to bed. If you keep your body on the same schedule it's been on the rest of the week, you sleep all morning and afternoon and wake up around six in the evening. You shower (just like you would in the "morning" and go down to eat dinner, and go to work. No wait, it's my day off. That means I'm free... all night. Uh, not too many tourist attractions are open between 9:30 p.m. and 6:30 a.m.

For example, right now it is 11:03 a.m. on Tuesday morning. Yesterday was my day off. But after breakfast I slept all day clear through until late evening, and lost any chance to go sightseeing. But then again, my body was too wiped to WANT to do any sightseeing! :( So to keep from changing my body's internal clock, I stayed up all night, checking email, doing expense reports, reading the Orlando Sentinel newspaper online, etc. It is now Tuesday morning and time to go to sleep so I can get up for work tonight. No fun.

Oh well. Now I must say that I did go for a run this morning about 7:00 a.m. through the streets, and I do mean "streets" as Hyderabad doesn't really have sidewalks. At all. Anywhere. Which means you really are running IN the street. Pedestrians are supposed to walk facing the traffic, so you can see what's coming, and here it is even more important: trucks, busses, cars, bicycles, cows, "autos" ... all are barreling toward you. Are sometimes there is a vehicle coming up behind you AGAINST traffic, and against common sense too, I would say.

It is much better to run in the early morning, as there is much less traffic and much less pollution. The little autos aren't exactly clean green machines. And offices don't normally open until 9:00 a.m. or even later, so the streets are relatively free.

SIGHTS AND SOUNDS... AND SMELLS

This is a sight I see on my morning run down to Hussein Sagar lake: the local garbage truck depot. It smells as good as it looks, even from way up high on the railroad bridge that goes over it.

YOU ARE HERE!

On our day off that first week we were here, I forced my body to stay awake and I visited the India National Exhibition. I was pretty excited, because of the great world's fairs that are called "exhibitions" and because I spent the summer of 2000 working at EXPO 2000 World's Fair in Hannover, Germany. Well, this was a little bit different. It was large and spread out, but mostly all woven fabrics, saris, bedsheets, etc. Guess I was expecting pavilions, and machinery, and rides, and exotic things. It was very interesting and saw a lot of things I had never seen before, but just not what I was expecting.

GET YOUR POPCORN! GET YOUR FRESH-DRIED POPCORN!

This popcorn stand hadn't yet opened for the day. Good thing, because the popcorn was still being dried... using solar power.

ROGER GOES TO JAIL, SORT OF

Andra Pradesh is the name of the Indian state where the city of Hyderabad is located, and the A.P. Prisons had a small building at the India National Exhibition. Notice there an "IN" but no "OUT" ?

VENTRILOQUISTS and TALKING DOLLS

This picture is for my old housemate Tom, from Atlanta. He is a professional magician and I thought he would like to know that he could always find work here in Hyderabad if the market in Georgia "disappeared."

Well, that's all for today, Tuesday, February 28, 2006. Didn't really have a day off this week (that I was awake for anyway) so maybe next week.

President and Mrs. Bush are in India starting today and will actually be in Hyderabad on Friday. Maybe I'll have some live news for you then?

More new friends

Subramanian (or Subu, as some folks call him) is one of the trainers here at the call center. He was in our very first class, and is now responsible for teaching the software to new employees as they join the company. We will continue teaching the existing employees.

Durshyant Pandey was also in our first class. He really applied himself well and got a great score. He will be a big help to his teammates as they begin to use the new software we are teaching them.

Jhency is another one of our star students. He always says HI to me if he sees me in the hallway or in the lobby.

Mukesh is another one of the employees here. Here he is hard at work in the class, but see below for a picture of him smiling, and in better surroundings.

Most of the ladies in our classes wear the sari or other traditional dress. I snapped this picture in the little cafeteria on our floor, of Mukesh surrounded by four ladies from our class. He is one lucky guy!

Though most of the women like to wear saris, the guys nearly all wear jeans or slacks. But today was a special Hindu holiday and Jogesh decided to dress up for the occasion. He wore a long tunic-like top of a light material, over long pants. He looked great!

Every hotel has doormen to welcome you, and this is the doorman at the ITC Hotel Granda Kakatiya Sheraton and Towers. He is about six feet tall, and his uniform and hat make him seem even more imposing!

When staying at the Grand Kakatiya, I usually ate breakfast (after work and just before going to bed, at 7:00 in the morning) and dinner (just after waking up, at 7:00 in the evening) in the Deccan coffee shop. Here are my friends Johnson the steward, the head chef, the dining room hostess, and three of the other chefs. They make a REALLY good breakfast (dinner too) as I wrote about below, and included a picture too.

This is an "autorickshaw" or just an "auto." They can get you just about anywhere for very cheap. The average ride is 30 to 50 rupees, or just about one dollar.

Yesterday (or was it this morning?) because of "circumstances" I missed my ride back to the hotel with Brian so I had to catch a taxi home on my own. Hyderabad doesn't have taxicabs like we do in New York City and in the States, but their equivalent is still a bright yellow... probably so you can see them in the busy traffic here! They have a little engine that goes putt-putt up the hills. I always carry a card from the hotel so that if the driver doesn't understand my English he can at least read the address, or show it to someone nearby.

This auto slowed down as it saw me standing on the side of the road. His passenger got out of the back, and squeezed into the front seat with the driver. (Turns out he was friend just going along for the ride.) I asked what price it was to get me back to the hotel, and made an obvious show of writing down his auto number just in case there was any, uh, "disagreement" upon arrival. We took off and these two guys took me by way of roads and streets I had not been on before. After about twenty minutes I thought for sure we were lost, but the scenery was great so I just sat back, held on tight, and enjoyed the ride. And suddenly, we ended up right in front of the hotel! I gave them a nice tip, and asked if I could get their photo.

Training class graduates

I teach two three-night classes every week, on Tuesday/Wednesday/Thursday and Friday/Saturday/Sunday from 9:30 p.m. in the evening to 6:30 a.m. the next morning. Most classes average 35 people each.

On the last day of class there is an extra one-hour session for the Tier Two call center reps and other specialized job functions.

This is my co-trainer Brian from Knoxville, Tennessee, and Meena, Ram, Roshik, Vamshi, Raja, and me. They were in "Batch Two" of the trainees.

This picture is of Padmesh the Operations Manager, Shazia the Assistant Operations Manager, and the six guys in Batch Three who stayed for the advanced training.

This is KVS Chalapathi, one of our two local trainers from Hyderabad, Brian, and the nine guys from Batch Four.

Batch Five was a smaller class, of only eightteen people, so there were only two people who stayed for the advanced session: Venkatanarasimharao (a Tier Two), Sayed (our other local trainer from Hyderabad), and Ali (a Team Lead).

All In a Day’s Work

My workday starts at night. At 6:30 p.m. to be precise, because that is when I wake up after a long afternoon of sleep. I take a nice hot shower, dress, and go downstairs for breakfast. Well, actually the first meal of my day is dinner, at 7:00 p.m. (See previous message for description of breakfast, see this picture for image of breakfast.)

And something I learned yesterday: one evening I went to open my yogurt (“Fruit and Dahi”) only to find that the foil protective lid was peeled back. Ick, it was open! So I just put it down on my plate and finished breakfast. Then yesterday it happened again, so I brought it to the attention of the maitre d’. “Yes, of course, sir. Our chef does that.” I said incredulously, “He does?” “Why, certainly. He wants to make sure that the yogurt is OK, so he opens it. If it looks good, he folds the lid back down and you get it served to you. But don’t worry, sir, no one has touched your yogurt.” He must have noticed my misgiving look, because he brought me another, fresh and unsealed, yogurt. Such is personal attention to quality control in India!

Another breakfast factoid: the coffee steward always comes with three round pots of coffee: one regular, one decaffeinated, and one with hot milk. I mean, hey, who wants cold cream in their hot coffee?

Well, this work-themed message is turning out to be more about food than it is about work. Just one more food fact: Brian and I ate in the hotel’s Chinese restaurant the other night before work. Very exquisite, including the tea pot that the waitress used to pour our hot tea. It looked exactly like my grandmother’s long-spouted watering can.

Now, back to work. Breakfast/dinner/whatever is over, so I go upstairs to my room to brush my teeth (rinse with bottled water, NOT with tap water) grab my briefcase and ID badges, and get downstairs to be picked up by Osman. (Pictures of my hotel room next week?)

Osman is our driver. At first I had figured, “Driver? What do I need a driver for? I have driven in Paris; I can drive anywhere.” HA! Silly me. I am SO glad we have Osman. He is a Hertz employee and is contracted by BellSouth to drive the American employees to and from the building every day. He has been a driver for nineteen years and is a master at the art of squeezing between trucks and busses and cars and autotaxis and bicycles and people… and the occasional cow. He can maneuver quite well in the craziest of traffic.

He drops us off at the Cyber Pearl building just 20 minutes later. Some evenings I gave out the window of his little car at the passing scenery, and some evenings I lay my head back and try to relax on the way there. It’s amazing, what you can’t see hurtling toward you can’t hurt you!

We are contracted by IBM to work at a BellSouth call center that is managed by Nipuna Services. The employees are all young Indians, 20-30 years old. Few are married, and few are over 40, but all are excellent workers and desire to learn.

We teach eight-hour classes six days a week: Tues/Wed/Thu and Fri/Sat/Sun. The trick is that they run from 9:30 p.m. in the evening until 6:30 a.m. the next day. It is night when we arrive, and the sun is just coming up when we leave. After work, Osman picks us up, we go back to the hotel for breakfast, and then go to bed until it is time to get up in the late afternoon/early evening. Now doesn’t that just make sense?

:)

There are about 35 people in each class, and this message has several pictures of the first three “batches” as they call them. They are the folks who answer the phone when you call the 1-800 toll free number for BellSouth residential DSL problems. Their names are Praveen, Durshyant, Meena, Mukesh, Ram, Roshik, Vashmi, and Raja… but on the phone they use names that Americans can pronounce, like Peter, Bill, Ajax, Mary, Fred, Sherrie, Johnny, and Roger!

Even before the end of Day One we are good friends. We have lots of information to communicate, and do so by lecture, demonstration, hands-on exercises, and group activities. And we give out little prizes for the best answers. Everyone (including the trainers) has a great time.

The call center is on the fifth floor of a modernistic building in HITEC City, a high-tech center here in Hyderabad, a very large city in India that has proudly nicknamed itself “Cyberabad.” There are lots of call center employing lots of young college graduates. They take jobs here and are able to help support their nuclear families and build a better India for tomorrow’s children. And speaking of tomorrow, they just announced plans to build a microchip fabrication plant here, AND a sixty-story building downtown… the tallest in all of India. Hyderabad certainly has something to be proud of.

Well, that is enough for now. Food and work in one posting. What could be better?

My new friend, Mr. Syed Asad

Syed is from here in Hyderabad. He is a Seibel software specialist, and is Chief Executive of his own company: Pivotal Communications Pvt. Ltd. You can visit his website at http://www.pivotalcomm.biz/

Syed is learning the particular program we are teaching, and will be teaching it himself in other cities in India. Brian and I are doing a "Train The Trainer" as we teach the call center employees, and Syed observes us. Next we will co-train, and the week after he will teach by himself, and we will observe. I am sure we will learn lots of things from each other.

"No room in the inn..."

Thursday I only got four hours of sleep, between being awaked in the middle of my sleep cycle (11:00 a.m.) and four different telephone calls back to New York City to American Express Travel to try to resolve the situation. The people I talked to (at 2:30 a.m. in the morning their time back there) were quite helpful, but they still were unable to get me a room. This hotel was fully booked up, as were two other hotels in Hyderabad whose numbers they found.

What eventually happened was that I got a roll-away bed and shared a room here with my co-trainer Brian. Hotel management was not exactly apologetic Friday morning when I ran into them downstairs. They passed the buck, saying they got my reservation information from a person (with an Indian name, evidently someone local) so it sounds like they acted upon the information they were given, and that the miscommunication happened before the hotel's link in the chain. Still the fact that I have a paper with a guaranteed confirmation number, that no longer exists, is very disquieting.

:(

I taught class that night on four hours of sleep, and the Lord got me through it. Not much energy, but just enough. Friday I had my own room again, and I was so tired THAT day that I slept ten hours, from 10:00 a.m. Saturday morning (when we got back from the office, and after breakfast) until 8:00 Saturday evening, which was just barely enough time to grab a shower and get dressed and jump into our driver's car for the trip to work.

:)

No dinner of course, which is probably why I brought some granola bars along on this trip. Not a bad substitute for real dinner...

"Mr. Agness, what time will you be checking out?"

That was the phone call I just received.

Here I am sound asleep... at 11:00 a.m. because, of course we had been teaching class all night, from 9:30 p.m. last night to 6:30 a.m. this morning. Come back to the hotel, have breakfast, check email, and go to bed.

Ring, ring. Ring, ring.

"Why is there a phone ringing in my dream?" "Wait, that's not a dream. That's a real phone!"

It turned out to be the hotel front desk asking me what time I was checking out today. Well, I wasn't, because I had been told that I had a reservation through the 20th, next Monday. We would just come back to the hotel after work, eat a nice breakfast, and leisurely check out that morning and then transfer to another hotel in another part of the city.

Such was not to be the case. The hotel has me checking out today, and there are no rooms available. (Did you know that President Bush is coming to visit Hyderabad? And that THIS HOTEL is where they will be staying?) I very sleepily answer the nice gentleman's questions but No means No in any language.

There was "no room in the inn" but they would give me four hours. So I hung up and dug through my papers to find my travel itinerary. I found it and called the number only to find out it was not a working number. Hmm, it was printed on an official paper from American Express Travel only just nine days ago. Oh well, change happens fast in today's world.

I found another number for American Express Travel on another paper and dialed it. Who knows HOW much this call is going to cost? A very nice lady named Nina helped me and transferred me to Lynn, in Dearborn Michigan.

Well, it is now 1:02 in the afternoon and I've been up for two hours in the middle of what should be my nighttime sleep hours. Sheraton says my reservation has been canceled, but they don't know by whom. I have a printed paper from the website showing a reservation and a confirmation number through the 20th, but when you go to that website now there is nothing at all: no flight, no hotel, no nothing.

Lynn called me back and the hotel has no rooms for me tonight, but they do have rooms for tomorrow night through the 20th. "All I have to do" is find a room for tonight. Somewhere. Uh, sure.

:)

I'll keep you posted. As we say, "Details at eleven..."

Class is not gonna be pretty tonight.

:(

What's for breakfast?

Other than "Where's my bed?" the next most important question for a traveler is "What's to eat?" And the answer to that question is a good one in India!

IBM has reserved me a room at the ITC Hotel Kakatiya Sheraton & Towers, formerly the Grand Kakatiya Hotel. This is a picture of a "small" floral bouquet that greets you in the lobby:














The hotel is quite nice, with very friendly and helpful staff. These are my new friends at the hotel front desk, who help to arrange transportation, teach me new words, and much much more! There names are Vishal, Nishanth, Paul, Abhishek, Huma and Rosalin:














I'll tell you about dinner later, but here is as selection of what's available at the breakfast buffet:
- bacon and sausage
- veggie quiche and baked beans
- brioche, organic muffins, bread, donuts, and croissants, both plain and chocolate (a favorite from my days in France!)
- sliced pineapple, papaya, and quiche
- cheese: Swiss Emmenthaler, French Camembert, and Dutch Gouda
- chicken sausage
- cold fish
- chicken breast au jus
- strawberry dani and pineapple dani (yogurt)
- scrambled eggs and poached eggs
- juice: pineapple, watermelon, sweet lime, mango, tomato, and grape
- waffles

And actually there is a whole lot more; that is only about half of what is on the buffet, but I don't know how to describe the other choices. They have an Indian name, but I don't know what they are. Maybe I'll send some pictures if the chef will let me?

Oops, time to go to work. We have 35 eager students waiting to learn about their new computer systems. Goodbye for now!

The first graduating class

Here are the thirty graduates of the new Retail Trouble Management class at the BellSouth call center in Hyderabad, India. They worked and studied hard for three days, with classes from 9:30 p.m. to 5:30 a.m. the next morning, and all passed the final exam with flying colors.

Congratulations to everybody!

Can you see my smiling face there in the background?

This is me with Mukesh, Durshyant, Subramanian, and Jhency. They are Tier Two agents and thus handle higher level/more complicated calls than Tier One agents. They are very qualified and really know their stuff.

All four have been working at the call center for less than eighteen months, this is proof that hard work pays off, in promotions, more responsibility, and better pay!

Here I am standing in front of a mobile billboard mounted on a truck across the street. It reads: "Rights of admission reserved. Only IT guys are allowed to enter. The best IT jobs are here."

Information Technology is a respected career in India, and there is a lot of competition for jobs... and for the potential employees!




This is the other side of the billboard truck: "We don't believe in equality. To us, IT guys are more equal. The best IT jobs are here."

Companies want their potential employees to feel good about the company and themselves, and thus spend money on advertising in the neighborhood where our building is located, called "HITEC City."

Forget Waldo, where's Roger?

The flight over was long and the days on the ground are short. I left Orlando Tuesday afternoon at 2:35 p.m. (not even a week ago really) and arrived (via Detroit and Mumbai, formerly Bombay) the next day, though it was really 4:15 a.m. Thursday by the calendar. And, yes, the bed did feel nice.

On the last leg of my journey I remembered that there were four BellSouth employees on my plane too, so I made sure to look out for them when we got to the baggage claim area. As I walked up I saw three women and two guys with American accents, dressed like Americans. I was right! It was Team Lead Jim and his folks Jason, Valerie, Sherrie, and Debra. We traded stories, retrieved our luggage (my nice new bags were pretty well scuffed up and dirty, with one piece broken off already) and headed off to find the unknown and faceless person who was to be waiting for us. "Goodbye Dr. and Mrs. Reddy. Thank you for being my friends!"

As we walked outside into the darkness of pre-dawnHyderabad, we were greeted by a sea of smiling brown faces... and one smiling white face. It turned out to be Susan, the BellSouth manager in charge of this project. She had three drivers and their cars waiting for us, so we all piled in and headed off to the hotel.

It was a very nice hotel, not that I cared at that time of the morning. All I wanted was a bed where I could stretch out longer (and straighter) than an airline seat. I waved goodbye to my new friend Susan, the porter carried my bags upstairs, and I fell into bed... sound asleep.

Right now it is actually Monday night, very soon to be Tuesday morning and I need to get ready for the day. We have already had one class graduate and tomorrow starts a new class. The first days here were so very busy I did not get a chance to update this blog like I wanted to, so in the next few days (now that we know what is going on) I hope to tell you more about my first days here, going for a walk who-knows-where through the teeming streets of Hyderabad, meeting new friends at the BellSouth call center, teaching Siebel computer software, attending church with about 5000 English-speaking Indian Christians on Sunday morning, what happens when your "day off" is not really a day off, wandering through the bazaar/market in Old Hyderabad, and visiting the National Exhibition of India.

Till then, I posted a few pictures of my new friends.

"Please fasten your seat belts, ladies and gentlemen."

Flying is always such an adventure. Here are some pictures from my trip over...

We had just a little trouble getting off the ground in Orlando. I knew I shouldn't have brought that extra suitcase!
Schipol Airport in Amsterdam is very close to the seacoast. We saw the sand dunes on the shore as we arrived.

The airport in Mumbai is very close to the city. We had a good view as we prepared to land.

The saga begins...

On Monday morning I still had a list of things a mile long that needed to get done before I left on Tuesday afternoon... like get a visa! I had submitted it as per instructions but had not yet received it back from the Indian consulate in Houston. They had guaranteed that it would arrive Tuesday morning in plenty of time. Well, OK, I can wait. Also needed a confirmation on my airline ticket, and hotel too. My company was taking care of it, but the primary travel person was gone this week, and her assistant was helping out. Meanwhile, the clock is ticking away...

OK, run to the bank and get money, run to the Post Office and mail some stuff, run to the store and buy socks and underwear, run to the drugstore to buy hand sanitizer, etc. Then Tuesday morning came and the list is getting shorter. The airline ticket and hotel had been now confirmed but the visa hadn't come yet. Oh well, one more set of errands still to run, so we're off again.

Woo hoo! What do I see when I get back, but a FedEx envelope sitting on my doorstep! Open it up and there it is, my precious passport and the necessary visa permission inside. Now we're ready.

A quick last lunch and wait for the taxi. And wait. And wait. He is now fifteen minutes late and I'm starting to think about panicking. I call the taxi company and, "No, sir, we have no record of you having called to request a pick up." WHAT?! NO TAXI?! I have a plane to catch in 70 minutes!!

Fortunately one of my housemates was home that afternoon (he works nights) and he was in a good mood, and agreed to take me to the airport. (Thanks, Tim!) He dropped me off and I run inside with my two bags and briefcase... only to see twenty girls on a high school sports team step into the queue line right before me. Now I'll never make it!!

Fortunately (#2) the desk agent told them that Group Check-In was over there and I was able to go ahead to the counter and check in. Drop my bags off for the TSA and go to the security point in the main hall, only to see lines and lines of people waiting. The clock is ticking away as I start to sweat bullets. I'm calculating how long it will take to go through security, then take the monorail out to the satellite terminal, and IT'S NOT GONNA WORK. And of course the line I happen to eventually get assigned to is waaaay slow. Finally go through the magic gate, put your shoes back on, collect stuff from the plastic bins, and walk briskly to the monorail station. They pull in, I get on, they pull out.

And believe it or not, when the monorail arrives at the satellite terminal, they are actually making an announcement: "Mr. Roger Agness, you are delaying the plane. Please run or we will leave without you." :)

So I put it into gear and SPRINT clear through the terminal out to my gate, give a sheepish smile to the gate agent, and down the jetway to the waiting plane. I sit down at 2:19 pm, they close the doors immediately at 2:20 pm, and the plane leaves at 2:25 pm right on time. I was never so happy, and so relieved, to be on that plane. I had three connections to make before arriving in India, and any little slipup would have endangered the entire trip.

Sit back, relax, and take a deep breath...

First stop: Detroit. Lots of snow on the ground. Doesn't look good. Even the jetway is cold getting off. But they do have a cool bright red monorail running right through the middle of the airport terminals to take you to your correct gate. Pretty cool, for the Motor City! A brief layover, and we're off again...

Next stop: Schipol Airport, Amsterdam. A lonnnng flight, but I did get some sleep. No snow on the ground, but at 7:30 in the morning it is cloudy and gray. Not very inviting. Another cold jetway. Schipol Airport is very new with lots of high tech, lots of different languages, lots of things to look at. White people are starting to be in the minority, as everybody at this gate is going to India. Another brief layover, and we're off again...

Third stop: Mumbai Airport. Formerly known as the city of "Bombay" this airport was pretty old, and pretty low-tech compared to Amsterdam. Lots of marble, but it needed cleaning. Lots of people, even though it was 3:00 in the morning. And some mosquitos buzzing around too. Guess it's a good thing I had gotten that prescription for anti-malaria pills, even though it cost $150... ten dollars a pill! Ouch. That hurt almost as much as the shots did that I had to get for tetanus, typhoid, diptheria, and hepatitis.

One high point of the wait in Mumbai was meeting a family from Virginia who were traveling home for a wedding. Dr. P. Prabhakara Reddi is an Assistant Professor in the Department of Pathology at the University of Virginia. We talked, and they told me about their family and how even though they go back to India every two years, they see many changes as India modernizes. Even the airport terminal we were in (we had taken a bus from the International terminal to the Domestic terminal) had a brand new entry hall with soaring arches and a bamboo forest. Thank you, Dr. and Mrs. Reddi (and daughter) for being my traveling companions for a few hours.

One low point of the wait in Mumbai was that my luggage never came. At least the second bag didn't. The first bag took forever to come out on the belt, but the big one hadn't arrived by the time the belt stopped turning... and people started leaving. Finally I see one of the Indian baggage men wheeling my suitcase out. Boy, was I happy!

The meal on the plane was good. I got a vegetarian "Mutter Paneer" which was rice with two kinds of curry, salad (potatos, tomato wedge, lime wedge, garbanzo beans, and a sauce), yogurt with pineapple chunks and rye seeds (for flavor, they say), and a tasty dessert with a pastry crust on the bottom, thick pudding-like sauce, papaya chunks, and almond slices on top. Mmm good.

Fourth stop: Hyderabad Airport, in Hyderabad India! Arrive at 4:30 in the morning, pretty dazed by jet lag but surviving so far. The project manager was waiting outside the terminal with a driver who takes me to the hotel. (Nice place. More about it later!) I check in, get up to my room, and fall asleep... just as India is waking up for the day.

I left Orlando at 2:25 on Tuesday afternoon and got to Hyderabad early Thursday morning, with just a couple of hours of sleep in there. The bed is going to feel nice.

Another view, from the hotel hallway

This is the view out the window at the end of the hallway, looking to the southeast.

This is looking to the south, at a big lake in the background.

This is at the end of the other hallway, looking to the west at a building up on a hill.

This is looking down below, into a courtyard.

And these are two friends who like to sit outside my window and peek in!

The view from my hotel room

At the ITC Hotel Grand Kakatiya Sheraton & Towers, this is what I see out my hotel room window, looking to the southwest:

This is turning to the west:

This is turning to the northwest:

This is turning to the north:

And this is a little friend who surprised me one morning. I don't know HOW he/she got up here.

Welcome to India, Mr. Agness!

Wow, what an adventure! I made it, and I am in India!

This is just an initial first post to let you know that I survived. I will post more later this evening to tell you about the trip over, and the nice Indian people I met both before AND after I arrived.

But for now it is time to get a little sleep before work. Because my clients work on a US time schedule, classes are from 11:30 pm to 8:30 am. So that will make jet lag on top of jet lag!

:)

God bless you all, and thanks for your prayers for a safe trip. I survived that part, now I just need to survive daily life.

Sincerely

Roger Agness