Still Cannot Sleep

I woke up this morning at around 5:30am and could not fall back asleep. So I decided to check out the fitness center and walk around city. As soon as I crossed into the street I became a target of endless solitors (everything from touring, women, beer, or whatever else I wanted). I politely asked the cab driver to leave me alone.

I ended up meeting another restless colleague and we walked to the Gateway to India. The Gateway to India is equivalent to Ellis Island in New York. The gateway (picture shown) was built by the British as a sign of their arrogance (or so the story goes). I took pictures, but they were foggy due to the condensation on the lense from the intense humidity. Charlotte, NC humidity pales in comparison.

From there, we were targets of other locals looking to hustle and make a buck. I was asked by one man if I wanted to act in his movie. My first reply was, "how much does it pay?" He was very criptive about it, but did present a script and he wanted me to the be the hero in the movie. However, I think he really just wanted money so he could start it the film. I kindly declined before being circled by several other Indians. It is the equivalent to throwing a piece of bread on the beach and having hundreds of seagulls flock to get whatever they could (that is part of the experience here). Three young men wanted to get photos with us because they thought we were in the movie business (I did not correct them :)). They were extremely polite, shook our hand, and left us alone. AND YES, I did check my pockets immediately afterwords in case they were pickpockets, but nothing was taken.

I also was pleased to see the Detroit Redwings are going to the Stanley Cup and the Detroit Pistons will be facing Boston (D-TROIT BASKETBALLLLLL!!!!!).

I am currently watching cricket and have no idea what is going on. We are killing some time this morning and will be off to our first company visit of the morning, The Tata Group. Tata is a major conglomerate corporation that owns business in Auto, Financial Services, Coffee, Tea, Consumer products, and many other industries. Some of you may be familiar with 8 O'Clock Coffee in the U.S....Tata Coffee owns it. The Tata Motor company also just purchased Landrover and Jaguar from Ford Motor company a couple of months ago. In addition, they currently deployed an automobile that runs on compressed air. The car can run for 110 miles before needing a "fill up".

Our suits get delivered tonight and if all goes well, I may look like an official movie star tonight (Georgio Armani suits for less....I love it). If we could only negotiate everything in the U.S. as they do here.....

That is it for now.

Cheers

P.S. The second photo is the outside of our hotel (The Taj Hotel and Towers).

GB