I remembered something else of note from the last couple weeks we have definitely found our hangout and our crowd here in Hyderabad.

There is a watering hole near the Banjara Hills office called the Easy Rider. Pretty typical food and beverage for a gathering point in Hyderabad, but instead of ear splittingly loud techno and trance music there is ear splitting Rock and Roll (mostly classic rock, but it varies a fair bit).

Our normal partners in this outing are a great couple we met about 4 months ago, Patrick and Maudri. He is from the U.S. and she is from India (although she spent a huge chunk of her life in the U.S. where they met). They lived in the U.S. for a couple years after getting married, and decided after the elections in 04' that they would come here to wait out the Bush Regime (their words not mine).

Patrick's history is in IT systems for libraries or something like that, but it has been way more fun hearing his experiences looking for jobs here in Hyderabad. Quite different trying to get hired as a foreigner, but not in the classic expat arrangement.

Maudri is working as a reporter for the Decaan Cronicle, one of the papers here in HYD. I have been a source for her in a couple of articles about expats here in the city and it is kind of fun to here some of the behind the scenes things at the paper.

They have done a really great job of introducing us to other people, some foreigners and some Hyderbadi's, but all pretty open and interesting. We have met, on a social level, Cliare's assistant teacher from the ISH, an cool Indian guy with an Australian accent, guy from a rock band (that personally loves Bryan Adams), another couple from Chicago that quit their jobs to come here and do consulting without really knowing who they were working for before they landed.

We really enjoy getting together with them, sometimes we see each other a couple times a week, other times we will go a month or 2. That is the way things go, and no one gets all worked up if things don't work out.

Patrick has a blog that is worth checking out right now, because he recently added a bunch of pics of the women in his family in their new sari's for a wedding. Very cool. Check it out at http://soids.blogspot.com/


That is all for now. Have a good one, and look for more on Friday.