Day Four: Routine

Not the most flashing of titles, not the most flashing of days. As I sit once again appreciating a 700rp Johnny Walker neat I think back to my day and for the first time was not overwhelmed by anything in particular. I’ve now made six successful journey’s from my hotel to work and today and the routine is starting to get, well, ordinary.

The poverty, the insane driving, the accents, the hospitality, it’s all starting to become part of my daily, well, routine. I operate in 12 hour cycles, one that includes breakfast, Johnny Walker, typing and sleeping and the other that includes “The Felix”, car ride and working. I have my first weekend coming up and I’m hoping that the god of fate helps me break out of the routine for at least a couple of hours. Don’t get me wrong, the routine is part of why I was hesitant to make this journey and now I find the old adage of wherever you go, you’ll find routine.

Once I have enough pictures I will make a couple of single issue posts, but depending on traffic it’s hard to grab the right shot at the right mph or km/h, but for now the rundown of the day and the highlight only really included one event…my first real Indian Cuisine.

2330 UTC 02.05.07

Lunch around here is a little more difficult than I’m used to. During a typical American workday after 11am it’s pretty much a given that you can find food anywhere, in a variety of colors, shapes and sizes. Not so much with my Mumbai lifestyle. 2300 is the hour of reckoning, where you must commit to either a) hitting up a local to call in you a delivery from a local joint (cross-fingers) or b) make the decision to get by with some mixed nuts and bananas from the hotel until you get back in the morning. Today offered up a little variety.

One of the imported Americans helped gather a group of people to visit a local establishment located about 150 steps from the entrance of our work area. This is also the first time I attempted to cross four lanes of road, and even at 2330 at night this became the real life Frogger. I plan on returning to the states and selling my idea to Fox for the next big reality series involving 10 contestants that must cross 100 lanes of rush hour Indian traffic without being maimed or slaughtered, the prize, a 2001 Ford Clair with 150,000 Indian traffic miles on it.

After successfully crossing my first four, (only 96 to go), we entered an establishment that had a fish tank. Yeah…that’s the best description I can use. Le Fish Tank was a little put out by our late arrival, but committed to serving the group and did so with at least a pleasant grimace. The eating experience of the night will go down as one of the top three oddest/greatest, dinner/lunch outings/festivas that I’ve ever experienced.

I’m playing the strategy with meals here that I’m going to go until I find something that I simply can’t tolerate or that can’t tolerate me. My only danger has come from American style hotel cuisine, so I’m throwing caution into the wind and leaving me fate in the hands of the locals. Am I crazy? Stupid? Mel Gibson?...maybe, but after this experience I’m going to stick with it for a while.

I apologize for not gathering photos of the experience or memorizing what it was exactly that I ingested, but it broke down something like this:

*4-5 plates of curry ranging in color from dark red, to medium red, to light red to green.
*containing chicken, fish, prawns and cottage cheese, which is by far the best. Yes, I’m serious.
*Three different flavors of Non, all unbelievable
*Two different combinations of rice including vegetables and chicken.
*And finally a licorice-herb combination that surprisingly did finish off the meal quite nicely and left a pleasant flavor in my mouth, so there.

Final total for meal in US dollars for 7 people: $32.57 (that sound you hear is Train booking a flight) and yes…for two dollars a day you can feed a hungry American in India.

The rest of the day was quite uneventful, (SPOILER ALERT) especially from a Devil fan that would’ve paid $10 to watch a drubbing at the hands of a team that shouldn’t even be allowed to play in the Champions League. In all honesty, I blame myself, I believe my absence from the Lodge dressed to the nine’s in red jeopardized my teams chance at a treble, even though I sport the following for all those who enter my Lodge East domain.

The good news is that the Manchester Derby will be on the tele on Saturday and India is in the perfect time zone for all the matches. Unfortunately, this makes the FA Cup Final even bigger, with both teams ready to extract blood from the other to bid for at least a double.

My congrats go to the Scouse and the Ultra’s, may the Greek police never sleep in your presence. It must be nice to sit around with nothing domestically to play for and rest your squad for Europe. The sounds of bitter Devil echoed the Le Meridian.

That’s it for now…(don’t worry Duke I’m still working on the Z post, need more photos though).

Recommendations:

Food:

*Le Meridian buffet breakfast, Japanese, Indian and Quasi-American cuisine all for the right price if you know the right people. Apparently, the Japanese are really ok with the buffet thing.