I'm back in my hotel now. For some reason they decided to move me from the first floor to the fifth floor; the only difference in rooms is that this one takes longer to get to in the elevator, and had a bathtub instead of just a shower. It also came with a plate of cookies, with compliments from the manager. I don't have any idea what that's about.
However, I called the president of my company this afternoon to give him an update, and then he casually asked how my five-star hotel, Le Meridien, was treating me. "They have me at a Comfort Inn, actually," I told him, and when I convinced him that I wasn't kidding, he got all righteously angry and told me to go out and demand I be moved to the better hotel, because he "won't have [me] staying in that Comfort Inn shithole," end quote. (In its defense, it's really a perfectly nice hotel. Just less nice when you have some Le meridien something something dangled in front of you instead.) Happily, right as I was walking out of my office from the call, a guy THERE was like, so how's the Meridien? and I told him I was at the Comfort Inn, and incidentally could they please look into getting me moved. Yes, I know that makes me the high-maintenance snobby American, but if I can get my work to pay fr a five star hotel, then I want my extra two stars, damn it.
I haven't even had a chance to look around or go anywhere yet; I was at work all day and I'm too exhausted to do anything but type and eat room service tonight. However, two of the extraordinarily nice people from the office are going to take me shopping and stuff tomorrow evening. It's fantastically nice of them, but the place they had in mind is called The Bombay Store, which if I'm not mistaken, has a branch in your local mall. I think they don't think I can handle anything else. I told them I could totally deal, so hopefully they can just show me around the city so I can figure places I want to go on Sunday and after work the rest of the week. Not that I have any idea what I'll be doing; in addition to the getting-lost thing, there's the trying-to-not-be-killed-by-crazy-drivers thing. So we'll see how that goes.
FuN FaCt! Pune apparently has the highest number of two-wheeled vehicles (i.e., scooters/motorcycles/bicycles) per capita of all of Asia. Which would explain why I have seen, to date, approximately nine billion of them.
I also found out they ordered me Pizza Hut for lunch because they didn't think I could handle eating Indian food. So Monday I'm going to their corporate cafeteria with them. Again, we'll see how that goes. Wish me luck!
Additionally, I have an unshakeable mission to take lots and lots of pictures over the weekend. At present, I have a total of six photographs in my camera. One is of my office, one is the view from my office, three are arms-length shots of myself taken against the wall in various airports around the world to show how my cute hair can stand up to the intense rigors of travel, and one is of my traveling companion, Blue Bear. Not exactly slide show material, here, people. It's okay, though. I have a week. And it will be awesome.