Final days in Hyderabad

It's Sunday, May 13th....only 3 days left in India. I can't believe it! These last 6 weeks have flown by. I decided to stick around Hyderabad for my last 2 weekends because I wanted to make sure I maximized my time here and there were some things I still wanted to do....like buy a saree. So, Swathi and Soumya took Rhonda, Hyun and I to help us buy a saree. We went to a store called Kalanikethan. It is an all-in-one wedding/saree store. Since Indians wear sarees on special occassions, including brides, this store is a one-stop-shop for everything. We gave them our price range and they showed us lots of different materials. Most of them were flashy and bright with lots of beading.....and lots of pink! So, it was hard for me to pick something! With the help of the other girls, I finally settled on a blue and black one with minimal beading. Unlike the Indian women, us white girls don't look too great in most of the bright colors offered.
After a material was picked, we had to take it upstairs to pick out a slip that goes underneath. Then it was back downstairs to get measured for the "top" (it's more like a skin-tight half shirt) that you wear underneath. Two days later, the sarees were picked up (thanks to Soumya & Hyun!). Then we decided to wear them 2 days later while some of the leaders from our offices were in Hyderabad. Here is a picture of Rhonda (a co-worker here also from the SD office), Larry (our SD office managing partner for tax) and I:

I heard putting the saree on is quite a complicated process and takes lots of practice. So, I took my saree with me to the office and had a few of the girls help me put it on. The funny part is that not all girls know how to put it on -- only a few. Most of them have their mothers help them, or if they don't know, maybe a neighbor. The reason it is so hard is because the saree is just one long, rectangular-shaped piece of material, and you just have to wrap it and tuck it and pin it all around you. Luckily I came prepared with a box of saftey pins! By the end of the day, I think I had about 10 of them holding me together. Here are a few of the girls that helped me get dressed that day:

In order for us (US expats) to feel comfortable in our fancy sarees, the other girls in the office also wore their sarees. They all look much better and more natural than I did!!

Most of my time over the past few weeks has been taken up by work, but when I'm not doing that, I hang out with the other US people who are here and also our great Indian co-workers. One Sunday, we went to brunch at a nice hotel and decided that it was time to see how many American girls we could fit in one rickshaw -- definitely not as many as the Indians can fit! We only got 6 of us in one.

One day after work, we went to happy hour at a local "pub". Funny thing about pubs here is that they are mostly disco-techs that serve one kind of Indian beer that gives you a brutal headache after 1 round.

And one night at a "pub" I tried Hookah for the first time. Very strange. I was having a hard time with it (as you can tell by my face) because you are not supposed to inhale, but it's hard to get the smoke and flavor without sucking in hard.