bye bye pune

well, here we are. welcome to my last day & post on "next stop: india". in roughly two hours, a driver will pick me up at 'rolling hills apartments, phase-2' and take me to mumbai airport (chhatrapati shivaji intl airport, to be precise).

I am looking back at three wonderful months in incredible india. not only did I explore the city of pune extensively but also did I get to go to new delhi twice, went on a night hike in maharashtra's mountains,... and this all on top of 13 exciting and sometimes challenging weeks of controlling ground work at our development centre.

how do I best close this blog? perhaps the following list of positives and negatives will do. in fact I do not really think I could turn last weeks' experiences and impressions into a few paragraphs. if you followed this blog closely since the begin of march, then you will have gotten the best overall impression anyway.

things I will not miss
- day temperatures peaking at around 45°c
- the air conditioner in my room
- the attendant's daily question before I take off to work: "dinner?!"
- the mostly dusty streets in pune
- the often prevailing 'principle: chaos' nobody bothers tackling (drives you nuts sometimes)

things I will certainly miss
- the indian food
- the people I got to know and friends I have made
- an incredibly positive working atmosphere
- those crazy rickshaw rides (except for the "add a premium for the white nose" ones)
- the colourful daily life, e.g. manifested in those beautiful traditional clothes
- the indian smile
- indianised english
- the often prevailing 'principle: chaos' nobody bothers tackling (does have something refreshing to it at times)

thank you, india. you are definitely different but certainly not as awful as often perceived in other parts of the world. I will come back, be it as tourist or on a company's assignment.

ti-bob