I'm actually sad to be leaving Chennai. Things turned out much better than expected, the work went well, and everyone seemed to enjoy meeting me and talking with me. Keval was great, and did everything possible to make my stay enjoyable. I owe him a huge thanks.
Today we went to Pizza Hut of all places for lunch, although it had an Indian twist to it. I get a kick out of how even the most low brow of fast food restaurants here have wait staff to take your orders and bring your food. Labor here is plentiful and cheap. Every restaurant and bar has more than enough people on staff to keep you taken care of.
I finished up when we got back to the office by leading everyone through fixing a bug from the bug hunt queue. I managed to work through a full example and fix a bug in just under an hour. I was pretty pleased with myself. I hope the stuff I worked through with them will come in handy at some point.
We finished up at 16:30 and had one last cup of tea on the balcony and said my good-byes to everyone and told them to look me up the next time they were in Eugene. They asked me what my favorite part of India was and I had to say it was the crazy streets and all the traffic. I just couldn't get over it, every ride was a harrowing adventure for me.
After work Keval and Hussain took me out shopping. First we hit Ricky Road, full of electronics shops and in a basement we found the DVD shop. We had to wait for a bit while a couple inspectors were assured that they didn't have any DVDs in the shop left, and then the shop keeper busted out the catalogs. I picked out 17 that looked good at 150 rupees a pop. Keval haggled the guy down to 130 apiece which is about $3.25. Not bad. He took my list and sent his runners off to collect copies from his hidden store and they came back a short time later and packaged up my purchases. I paid the man and headed out with my bag of goodies.
From there we went to the massive Spencer's mall. Its like 5 gaint malls in one spread across 4 floors. There were tons of little shops in here, and I was a little overwhelmed. I was on a mission for new shoes and some shawls so we got right down to it. I found some decent shoes but couldn't get them in my size after hitting 5 different shoe stores so I gave up. The first shawl store was trying to overcharge me, but we eventually found a place with a decent starting price that we could haggle down on. Keval once again worked his magic and haggled them down from 450 a piece to 350. It was fun to watch "I was here last week and you charged me 300" "No sir, 300 is impossible, this is a difficult business" "These shawls are low quality and we are buying so many" "I cannot go lower than 400, sir, it is a complicated market" "350 and that is more than they are worth!". After haggling there were no hard feelings and everyone was friends. I think we are missing out in the U.S. on this rich and rewarding tradition. There isn't enough haggling going on. After that we were all getting tired of shopping so we headed out.
We dropped Hussain off so he could meet up with some friends and I said good-bye. Keval took me out for a few drinks at Sparks and we sat and chatted. I had a great time and worked my way through 3 blue lagoons. After that he dropped me off at the hotel around 10:30 and I shook his hand one last time. I confirmed my ride for 1:00 and headed up to the room.
Its time to take a quick shower and pack before my ride gets here in half an hour. I probably won't get a chance to post again until I am in Eugene. Hope everyone is well and I will talk to you all again soon. Ciao.
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