Funny story of the week (pretty embarrassing but had to share):
Basically, my team has learned just how absurd I am. One day after eating a very large dinner, I thought it'd be nice to walk on the treadmill at a slow pace to help with not feeling so full. [Side note, apparently you shouldn't exercise after dinner as you need all the energy/blood you have to help with digestion.] I brought a good book along to read while on the treadmill and over an hour had passed before I finished my workout. By this time, it was around 10pm and the fitness center was completely empty except for me. I had just witnessed the maid coming to clean the area and close the door behind her and was ready to leave the gym myself. I grabbed my stuff and headed toward the doors. There were two large glass doors. I went to one and started pulling and pushing with no luck. I thought how strange it was that the door was locked and proceeded to the next door to pull and push, again with no luck at actually opening the door. Afraid I was going to break the door had I pushed or pulled any harder, I looked around frantically for a phone and could not find one. At this point, I was getting a bit mad and started swearing like a sailor, thinking how absolutely ridiculous it was that the staff would lock the gym doors with me inside. Luckily, the hotel restaurant looked right into the gym, so I pulled up one of the curtains and started tapping furiously at the window toward people at the restaurant and/or anybody who could see me. I waved my arms around like a crazy person, all the while basically swearing towards the hotel/hotel staff. This carried on for five minutes until a hotel guest left his dinner and walked to the gym doors and so very easily just pulled the door open. Yeah...needless to say, I felt like an idiot.
So aside from embarrassing stories, work has been good. It's been pretty busy as I'm wrapping up any loose ends before I leave, since surely no one will care to respond to me after I'm gone.
This past Friday, I went to the Kingdom of Dreams to watch a Magic Show (ironically with an American magician). It had to have been one of the worst shows I've ever seen...the magician showed mostly promotional 80's/90's videos of himself performing huge tricks and had very obvious slight of hand tricks. I think my mind could actually figure out what he was doing half the time (yes, it was truly that bad). Apparently, you can watch him in Atlantic City...though I would highly recommend against wasting an hour and a half of your life. On the bright side, I did get to ride a camel in the middle of the street for two bucks.
Aside from the camel riding, my team and I found this great ex-pat brewery where they brewed their own beer. The beer is pretty light and fragrant, just my type of beer. It tastes a lot like a Sam Adams...it's yummy! We had our fair share of beers and shots on Friday night, all leading me to head to bed at 2:30am....
Yeah, a little over two hours later, I was up again for my trip to the Taj Mahal. Totally hungover, for sure! It's interesting that even though the roads in Gurgaon are pretty modern with highways and interstates, etc, just a ten minute ride away from the city, you get pretty bumpy dirt roads with tons of potholes. However, in the middle of the fields, we managed to find smooth paved highways...does this make any sense? No, not much in India makes much sense to me. Four hours later on the road, we reach Agra, the city where the Taj Mahal is located.
It's funny that herds of cows and goats in the middle of the road are no longer shocking to me. After almost being scammed by our driver (he said his friend could help us - for no charge - navigate the Taj Mahal lines as it's not safe and yada yada yada to which we said no thanks...note, do not ever accept 'free' services in Asia...nothing is free in Asia...the tip you will have to pay will likely be much higher than the cost if you had paid for the services elsewhere), we headed to breakfast at the ITC Mughal and then to the Taj Mahal. 
It's a beautiful site indeed, probably more beautiful had I not been so stubborn and turned down every "guide" that approached us, thinking I should be able to find an even better guide inside the gates. Epic fail, we had to go without a guide due to my stubbornness. My co-workers were not too impressed with the Taj, but I thought it was pretty cool! It's symmetry is incredible! The area that surrounds the mausoleum is gigantic (probably a bit excessive for a dead person's resting place). Here's my fave picture of the Taj (we found an awesome bench under a tree with a great view!):
After the Taj, we went to the Red Fort (another cool Agra site) and the Oberoi Hotel for lunch. From the hotel, you could see a great view of the Taj...actually, you could see the Taj from basically most places in Agra...that's to give you an idea of how massive the Taj Mahal is! So to finish up my weekend, I was able to bargain my way through Dalihaad, an "international" market (read, a market where every stall had the same trinkets/scarves, etc.). Afterwards, I met up with an old friend and teammate, Kiran, from a class I took while in Holland on Indian culture/business world. We hung out in a park in Delhi center-city. How crazy is it that I was in Delhi literally at the same time that she happened to be in Delhi for just five days!
Now back to the real world...and onto Singapore next weekend!
