So far, so good!

I've been here for exactly two weeks now, and things are great. I came prepared for an exhausting month of butting heads with the Indian bureaucracy (both governmental and commercial), but the company has done most of the work for me. I'm staying with a Columbia grad in a sweet two-bedroom apartment in Santacruz, a suburb of Bombay. We've got a guy who cooks and cleans for us, and a driver takes us to work every morning in one of the monster SUVs that the company manufactures. There are two other overseas recruits from Columbia and Wisconsin, and the four of us have gone through a frantic week-and-a-half orientation that included long hours on both Saturday and Sunday. Luckily for me the IT industry here does not follow the common Indian practice of working on Saturday, so once I get started I'll have normal weekends. The weekend work hasn't cramped our social life, thank goodness -- I feel like we've hit most of the top clubs in Bombay already. The overseas recruits that started last year are tight with a guy who owns restaurants in Bombay, and he gets us in VIP at every club we go to. It's nice.

I move to Pune on Sunday, and work starts Monday. Can't wait. Seriously. Our orientation ended Wednesday, and we haven't had a huge amount to do since then. If I were staying in Bombay I would have loved the opportunity to settle in, decorate, etc. but as it is I just feel like I'm biding my time till Pune. I've kept busy, of course, with important activities like shopping, seeing movies, and going out. Indians, by the way, are crazy with their cellphones -- EVERYONE answered their phone during the movie, and some held pretty lengthy conversations. I'd have been surprised if I hadn't already seen the same behavior during meetings -- by the guy presenting.