#2 - The first month

It's been a while since my last update, but it doesn't seem like all that much happened since then. It's hard to find time to write updates like these. We get off work at about 5:00, and then I play badminton or something from about 6 to 7, then I have dinner, and by the time that's over and I'm done hanging out with people, I don't have much time before I go to bed. It's kinda tough since dinner starts at 7:30 - it's right in the middle of the evening.

So the photos for this update can be found here.
I fixed the comments; you can now post comments without having to register.

Getting Sick
Right after I wrote the first update (in which I mentioned that I had not gotten sick) I got sick. The next day I had to leave work at 11 am, I was sitting in the room just sweating profusely and feeling terrible. I spent the rest of the day in bed except to go to the clinic. They gave me some fever drugs and such, since it was more flu-like than food-poisoning. The next day, my fever was gone, but it was more like food poisoning. I went to the clinic again before work, they gave me more drugs. I felt sick the whole day, but it wasn't as bad as the previous day. The day after (Friday), I felt much, much better. I didn't go into Mysore that weekend for fear of getting sick again. But I've been mostly fine since then. My stomach's been a little weird, but I think that's just adjusting to the food here, rather than actually being sick.

Food on campus
I've stopped eating at the Floating Restaurant. They started charging us, and it costs 2-3 times the price of the food courts for not-much-better food. So I've been eating at the food courts. It's all Indian and Chinese (or rather the Indian version of Chinese) food. There are 3 food courts, all with different foods. It took me a while to figure out how they work, since you pay at a table and get a ticket, then have to figure out where in the complex they're actually serving that meal, but now I've got it down. There's also Domino's. The Domino's here is slightly different than that in the States; it's got more flavor. They make 6" personal, 10" medium, and 12" large. They get pretty expensive if you want any kind of topping on them. I like to get the medium cheese. It's a good amount of food, and it's way better than cheese pizza in the US. The crust has all sorts of spices and things in it.
Also, I don't know if it's because they're made with real sugar or because of the pesticides, but the pop here is mighty tasty. They've got this stuff called Appy Fizz. It's carbonated apple juice, and it's way better than it sounds.

Mysore
That's just food on campus. I've been to the city several times, maybe 2 or 3 times each week. The taxi ride is pretty cheap, less than 100 Rupees ($2) per person, and food usually comes to about 300 Rupees. So going out a lot is no problem. There are a lot of places around to get food. Apparently Kingfisher beer is really good, but since all beer tastes nasty, I refrain from making a judgement. I'm thinking of getting some clothes made, maybe a suit. There's a couple places in town to get nice clothes. Oh, and silk! There's a silk factory here, so I'm going to look for ties.
But yeah, although I've been out several times, there's not much specifically to report about that. No super exciting adventures or anything.

Work
Work's been going fine. I guess we were just starting real classes when I wrote my last update. We've have two modules since then, and we're about to finish a third. The first was "Programming Fundamentals", which was just sort of a refresher and "This is how we do things at Infosys". The second was RDBMS, which stands for 'Relational Database Management Systems". It's all SQL and such, which I've done before, so it was easy. Now we're doing a three-part module that's basically about the design process. On Thursday we have our first comprehensive exam. After that, we've got a couple interim sessions, and then we move on to Java and J2EE.
So far everything has been pretty easy, and I've always gotten my assignments finished before the end of the day. I think that'll change soon, when we start doing real programming in a language that I have no experience in.

Bandipur and Mudumalai [pics]
This past weekend four of us visited Bandipur and Mudumalai. This is the most exciting thing that I've done this on trip by far.
Four of us, Peter, Mike, Jake, and myself [pic] left at noon on Saturday, travelling to Bandipur National Park, with the intention of riding elephants and then going on to Mudumalai for the night, going on a hike in the morning, and returning to campus Sunday afternoon.
So the ride up to Bandipur was mostly uneventful. It was a bit cramped in the Ambassador cab, but it was ok. We saw dozens of coconut sellers along the roadside [pic].
Bandipur [pics]
Eventually we entered into Bandipur National Park. Then, even before we got to the visitor center, we came across a herd of elephants! [pic1 pic2] It was amazing. They were right by the car! I took a video with my camera:

It was really cool. But so then we travelled up to the visitor center. There were so many monkeys! They weren't afraid at all. When we had the trunk open, one of them creeped up towards us [pic], but we shut it before he could jump in. So then we walked around, trying to find the elephant place. Eventually we found it, right by the car. We couldn't understand the guy in there, but he said something about 3:00, and it was 2:30 at the time. So we wandered around the area around the visitor center [pic1 pic2]. Jake was eating some little cake-bread things, so all the monkeys were eyeing him. All of a sudden, one of them charged him! Before the monkey could jump on him or do whatever he was planning, Jake threw the food to the side. That was one smart monkey [pic].
As we were wandering around, we met Martha [pic] and Manuel [pic]. Martha was from Spain, Manuel from Italy. They said they wanted to go on a jeep safari, but they needed four more people to make it worth the money. We said no thanks, we were going to ride elephants. Long story short, the elephants aren't a sure thing, and if they're there it's at 5:00, so we decided to take them up on the jeep thing.
It wasn't that exciting. We saw a lot of deer [pic1 pic2], and one mongoose. But that was it. The scenery was really pretty, though [pic1 pic2].
The jeep ride itself was kind of exciting. The jeep was pretty sturdy [pic] The trail was really rough [pic1 pic2]. I took a video while driving:

We stopped and took some pictures, and there's this one of me: [pic].
So after we got back [pic], we got back in cab and took off...and saw a tiger! Ok, I didn't actually see it, and neither did Jake. The cab driver suddenly slammed on the brakes, and began backing up - "Tiger!" Mike and Peter saw it, but it was walking into the forest and Jake and I couldn't see it. But it was very exciting.
We saw two more groups of elephants, and a buffalo. One of the groups of elephants was blocking the road [pic], but I didn't mind so much.
Mudumalai [pics]
So, we get to Mudumalai, which is a ways past Bandipur [pic1 pic2]. We stayed at the Jungle Retreat, a really nice, comfortable, laid-back place. We had dinner [pic] and then went to bed.
So we woke up at 6 in the morning. We met our guide [pic] who was going to take us trekking up to a tea plantation high above us. We met Simone, an Australian woman (also staying at the Jungle Retreat) who was coming on the trek as well [pic]. At 6:30, we set out [pic].
It was a long, hard hike, five and a half hours. We must have gone up 1,000 feet. We carried breakfast with us. It was all in the forest [pic]. We saw a good amount of wildlife, including a small herd of buffalo, which were definitely more wild than the one we saw in Bandipur - they ran when they saw us [pic]. Some langurs, some beautiful birds. But the best wildlife we saw were real wild elephants. The elephants in Bandipur weren't timid - they were comfortable around humans. The elephants we saw in Mudumalai we only saw from afar, thanks to the keen eyes of our guide [pic1 pic2]. I was amazed that they could get way up on these steep ridges.
We stopped a couple times on rocky outcroppings with breaktaking views [pic1 pic2], and there's a couple of pictures of me from one of them, too [pic1 pic2]. We stopped for lunch at this neat little stone bridge over a small creek [pic]. It was a really exhausting trek; we were all soaked in sweat. About 10:00 we got to the top [pic], to the tea plantation [pic1 pic2]. I don't know exactly what to say about it. I really liked it; the air was refreshing, especially compared to Mysore. The trek up there was definitely worth it for the plantation alone, even though it was difficult. I got some nice shots of the scenery on the way down, too [pic], but I didn't get a good one of how you could see the clouds all the way from the horizon up to where they collided with the peaks [pic1 pic2].
Once we got back (about noon), we packed up, ate lunch, and headed home, almost uneventfully. When we were passing back through Bandipur, we saw a truck that was stopped for inspection. Monkeys were coming up to the truck and stealing fruit out of the back of the truck! But other than that, we didn't see much.

So that's what's been going on here. After the big test this week, I imagine I'll do something fun on the weekend. I'll try and write the next update in pieces so it doesn't take so long.