India Trip Story 3

Well I am out of India and currently on a flight from Chicago to San Francisco… Tony Bennett will soon be crooning his famous song for me; I left my heart in San Francisco. I am not kidding here at all; it is about ready to go into my CD Walkman. I brought 2 Tony Bennett CD’s with me out of 25 total. I know some of ya’s are thinking yuck, why would you listen to Tony Bennett, especially, why would you bring two CD’s when you could only bring 25 total! The long drawn out reasoning is, Tony may have been one of those old farts some of your parents or in my case, friend’s parents (Teddy Heckman) made you listen to, while mumbling something like, and “this is real music". Meaning, your Twisted Sister and Boy George was crap… well all I can say is give him another chance now that you’re all ‘growns’ up, he still performs to sold out audiences, he did an MTV unplugged show as well, proving his cross-generational appeal… (Is cross-generational a word?). So I said all that to say this, I really can’t wait to be back in San Francisco at this point, and you will only find Boy George and Twisted Sister in VH1’s where the hell are they now file.

Well a lot of bizarre stuff happened in India right as I was leaving—I left early and decided to take some vacation in the UK. I may not be employed when I get back due to a miscommunication with my boss and my decision to take some comp time, but I have no regrets. England and Scotland are great, and I love all the little differences between there and the USA. Vincent Vega described some similar little differences in Pulp Fiction and I will point out a few others here as well. First things first, never complement someone on their pants. Pants are underwear, and trousers are pants. The next thing is chips and crisps. French fries can be chips in the USA, as in "fish and chips". But in the UK, they are always chips, even with burgers or just by themselves. So how do you get American chips? You say crisps, of course. I caught myself numerous times messing this up, but not the pant/trousers thing; I messed that up in the states with some Euro friends, so I was forewarned.

We will call this section the "Not my usual food description section", but none the less still about food. More stuff in the same spirit of Pulp fiction here, a conversation that I imagined happening when I got back to the states:

Mike: You know what they call a quarter pounder with cheese in India?

Derek: Let’s see, they are on the metric system there, right?

Mike: They call it McSacrilegious dude, Hindus don’t eat beef, and it is not even a filthy animal.

Mike: You know what they call a Big Mac?

Derek: I know this one, so I’ m telling you now, it is an Abu Mac.

Mike: No dude a Maharajah Mac… but it is made from water buffalo or ox or something.

Derek: Ox is a filthy animal.

Mike: You know what they call a veggie burger?

Derek: Mc I give up!! Dude, how long are we going to play this bit?

Mike: A McAloo Tikki Burger! I recommend to hold the special sauce cause they really do drowned em’ in that stuff.

McDonald's has never been better I do have to say. By the way, I coined a trip motto, which was then shared with the others. I think most everyone on the trip would agree that the secret to being happy with anything here is if, that ‘anything’… "Exceeds expectations!" The Golden Arches definitely exceeded mine, and the fries tasted like Ray Crock had made them himself. I will try to champion this saying in the states. I know that most of you have had movies/food ruined for you by someone over hyping it. Here is an example of how building things up can affect your own rating of something. "Dude, did you see Breakin’ 2: Electric Boogaloo? Oh man this is the best movie ever, better than Breakin’ and better than Roller Boogie, which, if you remember, we sneaked into and sat through twice." Having a friend’s critique like this obviously makes it hard for the movie to live up to ones expectations…. This is why from now on, when I really like something I am going to down play it for my friends. I will merely say, "Oh yes, The Slanted Door (Restaurant) it exceeded expectations.", no more no less from this guy. No more long babbling about delicious texture & taste rich foods. I am sure that I have actually been hurting the restaurant industry by hyping up every place I go. This is why I must preach my new motto everywhere I go and get the… oh forget it, I think I will always babble on about food.

So in Update I: India or Bust, I told everyone I was going to make the best of this trip so to speak, a Giant Lemon Drop. I hope that I have painted a positive picture of most things. To be most honest, this has been the most bizarre, physically and mentally draining, frustrating, scary, upsetting, defiant, two-month period in my life. I really don’t even want to touch the tip of the iceberg of all that negativity right now, so I won’t.

So, I am still working for Tele Atlas, and I don’t believe I am going to get fired for going somewhat AWOL (reason here withheld, but having to do with the negativity I said I would not go into) in England and Scotland (me at Loch Ness) for a week. I will have no regrets if I do get fired; I had a much-needed blast that last week in the UK, and it gave me some much-needed down time to deal with all the crazy stuffages. I even think that I will be giving the VP a piece of my mind rather soon… which shouldn’t take long J

I do have to add, not related to the aforementioned problems, but adding a whole new realm of the surreal to this trip, that one of my colleagues from Menlo Park was killed during our trip to the Taj Mahal a few weeks ago. He drifted away from our group for a few moments… and in my mind often I look for answers other than the brief explanation of him being struck by a large vehicle, but as the police said, " We know nothing more than he was struck by a large vehicle." I have never dedicated an update that I remember, but this last one goes to David Rose. I think he would have enjoyed it. David was not a talkative guy but he did say something that I thought was about as funny as they come, and it just so happen to be about food. I will try to do it justice in the next paragraph...

At a party at the guest house, the chef’s went on a fried appetizer spree. Fried battered vegetable things, kind of like battered falafel. Fried battered chicken, and of course one of America’s favorite, battered fried cheese! David pulled a limp piece of metly cheese not really worthy of the name cheese 'stick', off of the serving tray and took a bite. He kind of made a face and looked at the remaining portion in his hand. A pocket had developed and there was a little vat of oil in his remaining piece, which he then set down on his plate. In a delivery not unlike Steven Wright he said, "It tastes like deep fried… erh deep .. fry." Somehow, I knew what he meant. I hope all the deep fry is good where he is now. Here is the last picture taken of David, I hope to take the negatives back and get a better digital Image and give it to his parents someday if I can find them.

Mike out, until the next adventure.