yes!

we have moved in!!! our first guests are arriving now.

new friends. new apartment. new attitude.



all is basically good, except for the cockroach.


much more later.

not much

very little has happened in the past week. one thing we did NOT do was move into an apartment. !!! we signed the lease. the landlady signed the lease. we transferred the money. we have a confirmation that the money is transferring. but until it shows up in her account, she won't let us move in. we've offered her pretty much everything we can as collateral, and she's still unwilling to give us keys. an international money wire transfer can take up to TWO WEEKS! this hotel-living is getting old and expensive. we're both going a little nuts. i learned a hindi word that describes her perfectly. chuttia. if you're unfamiliar with hindi, use your imagination. it has something to do with seeing-you-next-tuesday.

erg.

so when i interviewed for the job last week, the boss said that the position he'd like to hire me for wasn't exactly created yet, but that he would work on making room in his staffing budget to fit me in. he wrote me today to say that he made space ... and is now interviewing a couple other people as well. double erg!!! i soooo have my sights on this job. it would really beef up the ol' resume. i should know for sure in a couple weeks. sigh. maybe i'll still get it...

on thanksgiving afternoon, i ran into a woman from mississippi who is an absolute doll. she took one look at me and instantly gave me her phone number ... said that there is no reason for me not to have close girlfriends here and that i needed to call her asap. she told me about these weekly coffee meetings of ex-pat women and indian women married to ex-pats (think well-heeled women with expensive hairdos and clothes, nice cars and perfect nails, they all have drivers and huge, amazing apartments). she picked me up this morning and personally introduced me to everyone there. they meet every week and they're not all the type i would normally seek out as friends, but they all moved here from other countries ... and they've all been through what i'm going through now, and just as importantly ... they all have husbands who are working here and just one of them might be my link to a job! i've found a buncha volunteer opportunities ... orphanages, the american school, dharavi ... so even if i'm not able to make money here, i should be able to do something with my time.

after the coffee meeting, a very sweet texan woman took me around and showed me where she gets her hair done (and where i might actually be able to buy aveda shampoo!!!), showed me where she buys her meats and poultry, and then insisted on buying me lunch and (more) coffee. totally made my day.

and now the really bad news. i have been a bad camera-owner and my lens is now jammed. when i get a new one, i'll resume posting pics. until then, your very active imagination will just have to do.

up and down. and around. again.

serious frustration has set in. i have no motivation to take any pictures, hardly any desire to even write here. everything has taken for-e-ver to do. the apartment should have happened by now, we were promised a lease by the weekend. it's wednesday, we're only now getting it, and the terms are ridiculous. we have to give them a ton of cash upfront, and if we have some sort of emergency and need to vacate the apartment or country (knock on wood, please), we lose it. all of it. they refuse to add any sort of clause into the lease that would protect our rights/investment. i found out that the rental, residential, and commercial real estate markets are all basically 100% unregulated. there are no licensing requirements, anyone can be a rental or sales broker, and brokers and landlords alike are increeeedibly greedy. we've been looking at MORE apartments, and still seeing a lot of crap. 5 steps forward, 8 back. ug.

moving on to a brighter topic ... tomorrow is thanksgiving and we are going to celebrate! at the hard rock cafe! it's not far from bandra and apparently the food is authentic. it supposedly tastes nothing like indian food, which is RAD because pretty much every other non-indian meal we've had so far has. our new friend darius will be meeting us. he's hilarious. he's indian and lives in a rent-controlled apartment that has been in his family since the '40s. it's downtown and he pays SIX DOLLARS A MONTH to live there. no shit. so not fair! there are tons of buildings like that, but nothing that we're eligible to live in. wow. look at that. i was going to stop talking about the housing situation and here i am, right back on the subject.

the interview went incredibly well. it lasted an hour and a half ... and 5 minutes into it, the interviewer was already talking as if i had the job. he's now in the states for thanksgiving and i'm supposed to hear something from him next week. this could be a very, very good thing. it would change a lot, and it would be extremely positive change... so send your good thoughts my way. pretty please. oh! and the office is located in a super posh hotel on the beach. i would have free access to the hotel gym! i have to get this job!

and to come full circle ... tomorrow we are viewing more apartments. sigh.

moving up

i have an interview today. i met a french girl at the ex-pat part the other night who put me in touch with a hotel real estate/developer here who is looking for help. amazingly, i managed to slap together an outfit that is somewhat professional-looking from my suitcase wardrobe. let's hope that pantyhose stockings are not required for a good impression because at this point, it would be a bit much! if all, and i mean all goes well, i may be working before m! there are a lot of ifs in that sentence, though. from what i understand, i'd have to head home and change my tourist visa to a work visa. i also have no idea what my rights as an employee are, and absoLUTEly no idea what i should be demanding for pay and benefits... no clue at all as to what the job market and comparable jobs look like! ... regardless, i'm excited to meet him and see how the conversation goes.

fud

food is strange here. there is a restaurant up the street from the hotel. it's very portland inside, quite pretty actually, modern and open with tall ceilings. it's called cafe basilico and serves italian-like fare with fresh breads and pastries. we were there today. i ordered a caesar salad (which if it had been a real caesar, would probably have been a reeeeally bad idea). it consisted of iceberg lettuce (!), corn, cherry tomatoes and chipotle vinaigrette. wtf?! that's not caesar! that's ALL wrong! this restaurant is also very expensive by indian standards. ... my salad cost the equivalent of $4.90 in us dollars.

i am beginning to believe that this country will never cease to amaze and befuddle me.

glory, glory hallelujah!

you know how when you're really sick you just can't imagine how it is to feel normal? (at least this is what happens to me...) well after 3.5 days down, i woke up this morning remembering exactly how it is to feel normal... and it is gah-looooorious. absolutely. unfortunately, m is now feeling murky.

... and sadly, this plague caused me to miss the much anticipated date of home-cooked dinner, margaritas and commiserating with the other americans, night before last. the wife is having a birthday bash tonight downtown though. i'll have full details later.

and now for the big guns. we got an apartment! it's on 'zig-zag road' in the same part of town as the hotel, has 2 bedrooms, is in a quiet spot on the 5th floor and is spacious and open and airy. all good things. we had to go downtown this morning to meet the owners in person to negotiate a lease. m rose from his haze, put on his game face and muscled his way with me. originally, we thought i'd have to go alone because yesterday he was suuuper sick. me, alone with the broker we don't know very well, traveling an hour in his car to a place i've never been before. not a good idea. not in india. i'm not kidding. none of our (3) friends were available to come with me, so he bucked up and was able to come. i'm very proud. the owners are an older couple and are very sweet, but were reeeeally unwilling to bend on much of anything. the rental and home sales market here is like the portland market of 2 years ago... on speed. lots of speed. prices have gone up 125% in the past year and a half and are not slowing down. both industries are incredibly under-regulated, and this city is going nuts. therefore they have no reason to compromise on anything, really. ... so. we plan to be moved in within a week from now.

tenacious

the 'cleansing' (thanks jj) continues. 30 or so hours, now.

bombay belly!!!

aiieeeeeeee. i KNEW while i was eating that friggin diner food that i would regret it later and sure enough, it's been at least 12 hours of sheer pain and utter unpleasantness. ug.

screwage

i braved the streets alone tonight. m is sick in bed. he's tired, achy and over it all for the time being. i went up the street to get some dinner from a little cafe called just around the corner. they have a bit of a '50s diner look and sell the same sort of food. there are posters on the wall featuring black n white photos of american film and music stars with super kitschy phrases on them. for example, there's one of bruce willis from die hard, and he's supposedly saying in to the telephone, "give me a salad/soup combo to go ... or you'll die hard for it." there's one of '90s madonna, saying, "i'm mad-on-a frozen orange creamsicle." and ah-nold from terminator saying, "you'll come back." you get the idea. anywho. it's cafeteria style, so i order and then advance down the counter to the cash register. the cashier added it all up on a calculator and told me the price. i handed him the money and noticed him pass the calculator to his buddy who was lurking next to him. i glanced back at the menu and sure enough, the bastard had totally overcharged me! i told him as much and asked for a receipt, which they usually give. he denied it and said he'd bring me the receipt after i sat down. i repeated what i had said and we had the same conversation again. defeated, i glared at him and simmered my way to a table, accepting that this is the indian way... the same, exact thing that everyone's warned us about. it was after all only 50 rupees, which is only a little more than a dollar. it seriously pissed me off. in the end, the manager returned the extra money and the cashier kept his life.

maybe our view?

we meet with the owner tomorrow, to negotiate a lease. it has FULL sea views, is on the top floor and is literally 2 streets up from the sea face. (i don't call it a beach for many reasons.) it needs ac units, a fridge, cooktop, washer and a new bathroom. everything's negotiable.

the fact that there is even a possibility for us in this location scares the hell outta me, frankly. what's the catch?!

OMG... m just found the simpsons on tv... IN ENGLISH!! bye!