First Day of School
This morning before our first day working at the Symphony Services office, Marcelo and I enjoyed a delicious complimentary breakfast outdoors beside the pool. The cutest little dirty kitten was sneaking underneath tables despite the staff's best efforts to shoo her away (people like me have probably been feeding her). As for the breakfast, alongside the typical Western tourist fare (eggs, sausages, toast, etc.), there were many yummy Indian choices (well, in my case they weren't "choices" because I ate one of everything). It turned out to be an all-carb all-Indian breakfast for me, including: paneer paratha (flaky flatbread with cheese inside), poha (rice with herbs, veg, and peanuts), medu wada (deep-fried, dense little doughnut), onion uttapa (pancake with onion), and palak idli (airy, spherical, couscousy thing with spinach in it). Everything was amazing.

The drive to the Symphony offices was more entertaining than TV. It was a nonstop stream of humanity and activity. Tonnes of people out in beautiful, colourful clothes, millions of little shops side by side that were no bigger than one of our cubicles, ladies in saris sitting sidesaddle on mopeds, perfectly balanced despite the rough road. I took several videos of the ride and I'll let you know if I figure out a way to post them.

When we arrived at the office, there was a placard greeting us by name. I always wanted to see my name in lights (hee hee). We met Santosh, the manager of our group in India. He led me to my air-conditioned office that was stocked with notepads, pens, pencils, erasers, bottled water, and a Diet Coke (how did they know?). At first we thought we'd both be in the same little room, but then Santosh brought Marcelo to the much nicer office next door. After the 'woman's grotto' in Mumbai, I was suspicious that he got the 'men's office'. But, then again Marcelo is the manager, so I'll let this one slide (insert emoticon here).

Later on he took us on a tour of the building, which houses 400 employees. Most work areas were very similar to the typical open concept we're used to. The best part was the open air cafeteria on the top floor that had spectacular views on all sides. The atmosphere up there was really fun -- lots of people chatting and having a good time. Pretty much everyone who works there looks like they are in their 20's, so the feeling is similar to a university campus. Most of the employees were men, but there were a good number of women too -- some in traditional Indian dress and some in jeans and baby tees.

After the tour, we met the team who will be working using Quick Test Pro to automate our test cases. The team consists of Shirish G. Kabade (team lead), Bhaskaran Jayakodi (analyst), and ChandraShekar Pallerla (analyst). We gave everyone AudienceView t-shirts and pens (thanks, Eggy! And btw, Sonia is very small so that shirt will fit her fine). Then we demonstrated the installation and online setup processes. Everyone was very keen, smart, and quick to learn (I'm going to have to study hard to keep up).

At lunchtime, Santos drove us to a fancy resort-type restaurant where we had a feast of Indian dishes. I learned that Marcelo is quite the expert on Indian food. I don't think we've had anything yet that he hasn't tasted before. We started with an enormous plate of vegetarian appetizers (paneer, baby corn, cauliflower, mushrooms, green peppers, and potatoes all encrusted with a spicy marinade). Then we had daal, kofta (vegetarian meatball-like thing), raita with a cherry on top, curry with green beans, roti, and the BEST BUTTERED NAAN BREAD IN THE WORLD. It was so good I could have fainted. I learned from watching Santosh that you're supposed to break it up using only your right hand. Needless to say, I was pathetic at it. We spent 2 hours at lunch and came back to the office wanting to do nothing other than crawl under our desks and sleep.

In the afternoon, we toured them through the Online functionality. By the way, the Star Trek bundle preload doesn't have any payment methods available when you try to buy it, but all the payment methods are selected on the bundle and at least Visa is accesible to all roles including Internet (any ideas, anyone?). We cut the afternoon short and took the wild ride again back to the hotel. We were still so full from lunch that we skipped dinner altogether and have been tucked into our rooms all evening. I hope I can sleep more than 4 hours tonight.

Tomorrow we start Desktop functionality. I really should do some prep, but I'm about to drop. Goodnight everyone.