January 24, 2012

Today we bought our furniture!!! I am so excited!!! It is a funny experience to buy furniture in India. We bought it from an independent store, not a chain. The sales guy kept saying: I give you best price, but he would not disclose the price to us until Robert basically pulled it out of him :)

So everything will be delivered on Friday and hopefully we'll move in on Saturday. Tomorrow we still have to buy all appliances (fridge, stove etc.)

Here are some more pictures of our new palace at Aparna Sarovar

This is our building

Mikey at the playground

Our front door

When you come inside, there is the entertainment center on your direct left.

This is the family room area (with the front door)

Another picture of the family room area with our master bedroom on the left.

the dining area with a nice balcony; on the left is Mikey's room

The dining room area again with on the right the entrance to the kitchen

The kitchen. When you walk outside the kitchen on the right side, you have another half enclosed balcony where you can put a washer/dryer.

The master bedroom with all built in cabinets and a little area to put a computer

Mikey's room.

Mikey's bathroom. Every bedroom has it's own bathroom.

The guest bedroom/Rob's office

The view from our balcony

As soon as everything is delivered, I will update with more pictures :)

January 23, 2012

This weekend was fun!! We spent Saturday with our friend Manjusha and her husband Ravi and kids Jay (8) and Veer (4). Mikey LOVED playing with kids and we spent almost all day in the pool area (Rob and the kids went in the water, it was a little too cold for the rest of us).

Sunday's, most hotels have a Sunday Brunch and they have live music and loads of entertainment for children. Mikey absolutely loved it. He had his face painted, they had a clown who made balloons and he played in the children's area for a few hours while I spent the morning in the spa for a hot stone massage, body wrap and facial. Heaven!!!!!

Later that afternoon we decided to go to the mall in the Tuktuk and people are staring at us and laughing out loud!!! In the mall we went to the grocery store and I was worried about nothing! They have everything you can possibly think of in the store and more!!!

I still feel somewhat like a circus attraction. People constantly staring at us, touching Mikey all the time. I guess I have to get used to it, but I am not so comfortable with it yet. Robert decided to walk towards the Hotel's tuktuk when it wasn't at the appointed place at the mall yet and I got so overwhelmed!! People yelling at us, trying to get us in their tuktuks and taxi's, people begging and then the endless honking of the cars. I was so happy to get back into the bubble of our hotel!!!

Today we went furniture shopping again and we made some decisions. Robert only has a few hours in the morning to go with us. He works most of the afternoons and nights. Tomorrow I think we will actually purchase some things. We are supposed to move into our apartment on Saturday!! I will miss my hotel bubble, but am also excited to start making our new home.

This afternoon Mikey and I are just hanging out in our hotel room. Maybe tomorrow afternoon I will be brave and go to the mall without Robert. I would feel more comfortable if I had a cell phone but they haven't been able to jailbreak my iphone yet. Hopefully later this week :)

January 21, 2012

Wow, It has been over a week ago we left the USA. It already feels like a few weeks. So far I LOVE it here!!! It is such a different culture. People are really constantly trying to please you. Not just in the hotel, but where ever you go, the level of service is amazing! I am a little uncomfortable at times because I feel that I am constantly being stared at, probably because I am so white :)

The people here are so beautiful!! I feel like they should all be models or bollywood stars :)

The first few days we were just getting adjusted to the time change (Mikey still wakes up every night several times, or is up half the night!) Our 11 suitcases took 2 days to get here because of a mix up with the airlines, so we had to get some things laundered in the hotel (they like to reject your clothing for whatever reason they can find, it is somewhat comedical)

I had taken some pictures, but it took me a few days to find the plug to transfer them from the camera. So here they are:

Friday, January 13th, 2010

Our Journey started with loads of suitcases!!! Good thing we were able to borrow David's Ford explorer. It would not have fit in our car. We left the car at the airport since my brother Ron was arriving from Holland and would drive the car back home. That worked out, but if was unfortunate I didn't get to see him before we left.

On the flight from London to Hyderabad we travelled business class: so comfy!!!!

This is our gorgeous room (executive suite) in The Westin Hotel. Rob has spent so much time at this hotel, that Mikey recognized the flower behind the bed from our Skype sessions when Rob was here and we were still back in Florida. The first thing he said when he walked into the room was: That's Daddy's flower!!!

Right outside our hotel you have the slums. They are not just outside the hotel, they are everywhere. The ones in the picture actually look like 'upscale' slums. Some along the road look pretty bad. The people living there must be so cold at night, since it does get chilly at night. The ironic part is that the new buildings next to them are basically empty.

This week we went to see our apartment. I loved it!!!! Not as fancy as the hotel, but it is new and we will make it into our home. I am super excited to move in!!! Every morning this week we went furniture shopping and haven't bought anything yet, but we know approximately what we want. One night Mikey was so tired (since he doesn't sleep at night), but he insisted to wait for Robert in the Lobby. It didn't last long: he fell asleep :)

Here are Robert and Mikey in the Tuktuk (auto ricksha) on our way to the mall. I also got in. It must have looked hilarious :)

Mikey loves all the tuktuks and there are a LOT of them :) This one is a fancy one from the hotel.

Of course I had to take a picture of the cows walking in the middle of the streets!!! Traffic just goes around them. It's so funny to see!!!

Most of the main roads in Hyderabad are good, but even though there are three lanes, people are just all over the place and I don't even know why they bothered painting lanes on the road :)

I think the rule of the road is that there are no rules

Most of Hyderabad is pretty congested. A lot of buildings built on top of each other. So it is pretty amazing that we have such a wonderful few from our apartment (see picture below). It is a piece of protected land, so we don't think it will be built out like the rest of the city. I love it!!!!

This is the pool of our apartment complex with our building on the left side in the background.

More pictures will follow soon. Many hugs from India!!! Namaste :)

January 15, 2012

We are here!! It took us about 30 hours of traveling, and we are exhausted, but I am so glad we are here!!!

The flight to London was great. Mikey played with the truck my friend Kathy gave him and he slept for about 2 hours. In Heathrow we had a few hours we spent in the lounge and then we flew business class (thanks to Rob's work) to India. Wow, once you fly business class you don't ever want to fly coach again :) The food was wonderful and the seats turn into beds, so we all slept for a few hours.

We had 11 checked suitcases which were supposed to be redirected to Hyderabad but unfortunately that didn't happen because Delta and British airways don't communicate. It took a long time to get all the paperwork done at the Hyderabad airport and while we were waiting I had 3 people starting a conversation with me: where are we from; where are we going. People really seem interested. Our luggage should arrive in 2 days: we'll see

The airport was very modern (only 3 years old) and I loved seeing all the signs in Hindi!! Especially the McDonald's sign!! I can't believe they have McDonald's!!! When we walked outside a crowd of people were waiting and they were all bundled up because this is the cold season: it was 11 degrees Celsius. It felt really good to me :)
We were picked up by a hotel car and within a few seconds of getting on the road we saw the first tuktuk!! Mikey was so excited!! Rob had brought him a play tuktuk on a previous trip and mikey plays with it daily. The hotel is absolutely amazing!!! What a beautiful and modern room!! Of course we went straight to bed (we arrived to the hotel about 7am) and when we woke up at about 5.15pm, I was finally able to see outside. It seems that Hyderabad is booming!!! They are building everywhere and they look like nice modern buildings. All buildings seem to have a wall around them. Then you look on the other side of the wall and you see the slums. It really is weird to see such a huge contrast between rich and poor!!

Tonight we took our first tuktuk (or auto ricksha) ride to the mall. Mikey was in heaven!! I'm sure it was funny for the Indians to see two huge westerners sit in a tiny three wheeler :) with a child stuck between us!! Haha!!

The mall was super modern!! We actually had dinner at Chili's!! Everywhere we went people are touching Mikey's hair for some reason... Tomorrow we will probably start looking for some furniture and hopefully on Tuesday we can go look at our apartment. Can't wait!!

Now I have to go back to sleep!! So tired :( I'll try to upload some pics tomorrow. I only took some pics of the food in business class. Did I mention how good it was?! ;)

Moving to India!!!

Hello again!!!!

I haven't been blogging for a while!! Life just goes by way too fast :) Mikey is growing rapidly and he is a mini Robert (read: he's super stubborn, haha!) I can't believe he'll be 5 next month!! Mikey that is... ;)

My sister just spent 6 months with us; talking about time going by too fast!! Can't believe how fast those 6 months went!!!

So when Robert asked me in November 2011 if we want to move with him to India for a year, I said 'yes' right away!!! How awesome of an experience will that be?! And I am convinced a year will fly by!!

So this week is the big day: moving day!!! Mikey and I got all our shots; today we started our Malaria pill regimen. Every week one pill for the next 13 months!

Mikey's friend Nikhil is from India and him and his mom still got Malaria last summer when they went to India it visit family. I don't want to take that chance.

I am still packing and emptying our house; it's a lot of work :)

Our friend Blanca will rent our house while we are gone and they will take care of our dog Shiva. Mikey's teacher Mrs Cassie suggested he would need an extra year of pre-School, so I think everything is falling into place!!

We found a great place to live and Mikey's pre-school will be on the premises of our apartment!

I will update as soon as possible, but now I have to get back to packing :)