Last day of school

Today was our last day at the SSS offices and I feel a bit sad -- kind of like the last day of school. We spent the day meeting with everyone and wrapping things up. Santosh took us for a lovely lunch at a Thai/Chinese restaurant called All Stir Fry in the Gordon House boutique hotel. Actually, I think the restaurant name is e.e.cummings-ish, so it's 'all stir fry'.

The hotel is in the same building as a huge multiplex movie theatre that has lounge areas and many fast food places, much like the Famous Players at John and Richmond. They were playing both English and Indian movies. There was a separate box office for men and women. The Irish guys (who are now on their way back to Ireland) thought that the seating in the theatre was segregated as well, but actually it's just the line-up. Santosh told me that the lines are separate because it's not good for them to be mixed when it's busy and crowded. He didn't say it explicitly, but I assume that this means that as a woman you wouldn't be jostled or bothered by strange men, which I think is nice. I'm totally making an assumption, so if I'm wrong, someone please tell me.

The restaurant interior was lovely (I know, I need a new word). The entire ceiling was a huge skylight and there was water cascading over it continuously like a fountain. I had a nice veggie dumpling and noodle soup, some steamed dumplings, and eggplant curry. You know, at every restaurant we have been to here, one of the waiters always gives me a comment card so I can rate the restaurant. They never give it to Marcelo. Today, I said that the pieces of eggplant could have been bigger. I wonder if they will change it just for me? The fortune cookies were really buttery and delicious (unlike the ones at home). My fortune was: Depend on the predictability and steadiness of life to support you. I've never gotten that one before. Marcelo and Santosh's fortunes were new to me too. I think Canadian fortune cookies include only a small subset of possible fortunes. I always get the same ones.

Something cool that Santosh told us was that people who belong to the Jain religion are vegan. They do not eat any animal products and at certain times of the year, they also abstain from foods like onion and garlic. Trina, these are your people! Trina, an old friend of Darcy's, is allergic to garlic and is vegetarian.

We lingered for a long time over lunch, so we didn't get back until about 3:30. Once back at the office, Santosh gave us some awesome-looking Indian snacks and sweets. The sweets are in the shape of little fruits that have been cut open. We're not sure what fruit they are mimicking, but they are beautiful! Almost too pretty to eat. Afterwards we had a wrap-up meeting with Santosh and Madhukar to talk about what the team has accomplished this month and how we feel about the project. Marcelo and I both think the automation is going full steam ahead and they have done so much in a short period of time. You will all be amazed when you see these scripts run. This is my first experience being on the client side of a client-vendor relationship, so these kinds of meetings and conversations about how they can make the project better for us are very foreign to me. Whenever I travel anywhere, I always feel like I am the vendor.

Madhukar and Santosh said that they have both been reading my blog. We agreed that it is a great way to share pictures and stories. Madhukar does a lot of travelling in remote areas in the Himalayas and takes lots of photographs, so I think that he is inspired to make his own travel blog. And Madhukar, when you do, you have to send me the link!

After the meeting, Shirish demonstrated our new test management system, TestLink, for us. This is an open source tool that SSS has customized and enhanced. Marcelo has decided to start using it to store and edit our test cases because it has more robust versioning, sorting, searching, and approval capabilities. We are going to put the cleaned up test cases in TestLink and the guys will be able to pick them up and automate them. Should be really cool. After the demo we said goodbye for now. My impulse is always to hug people, but I don't think anyone does that in India. Marcelo says that handshaking isn't popular either. If that's the case, then I assaulted a lot of people today.

Before we left, Sonia came up and gave us some beautiful parting gifts. She gave us each a framed piece of Dhokra art, which is a form of metal casting. It's so interesting and I'd never heard of this technique before. I took a picture of it to show all of you, but it doesn't do it justice. If you want to see it, let me know and I'll bring it in to the office.

We left at around 7pm and decided to go to Le Meridien for our last dinner in Pune. This is the fanciest hotel in town, so we thought it would be fun to see it. And all the hype is true; it is very fancy. Marcelo had to have a cell phone conference call with Santosh and Matt (Milberry) so while he was doing that I went to one of the hotel shops that specialized in Kashmir products, including (you guessed it) pashminas. My original intent was to see how much they were in comparison to the ones I bought already. They were of comparable price, which made me feel good. The man there was so sweet so I broke down and bought two. That brings the grand pashmina total to 11. Most of these are gifts, but I haven't decided which one is going to whom. I love them all in different ways. At one point, I went through a really greedy phase and decided to keep them all for myself, but that passed so entire my family will be ensconced in pashmina this Christmas. They are so warm, soft, and out-of-this-world. I haven't been so attached to an object since I had stuffed animals (well, I still do but you know what I mean).

We were supposed to meet the travel agent who arranged our weekend at 9:30PM back at the hotel, so we didn't have much time for dinner. But, we did go to one of the hotel's nice restaurants anyways. We went to their Thai/Chinese place called Spice Island (lots of Chinese for us today). We started with a green papaya salad that was actually much too salty and I couldn't eat it. The mains were good though. We had lamb and eggplant curry, phad thai, and rice. One appetizer and two mains -- it was the right amount of food. We learned our lesson.

We rushed out of there, but we were miserably late getting to the hotel. The travel agent was very sweet and the trip looks amazing. I think I should be able to blog this weekend from the hotels, so I'll tell you about it in detail then. For now, let me just say that we are going to tour the Amber Fort ON AN ELEPHANT! Darcy is all worried because before I left we saw one of those 'when elephants go crazy' type shows where a zoo elephant threw its trainer into a wall and tried to crush him with her knees. I'm sure, like trail ride horses, these elephants have done this many times. And I used to ride horses as a kid, so I think I'll be fine.

I cashed the rest of my travelers' cheques to pay the deposit on the trip. It was lucky that I did because I discovered that the exchange rate was wrong on the board (manual thing; not electronic) today, so the cheques I cashed this morning had a USD rate of 34 instead of 44. So, thankfully the manager realized the mistake and gave me the money I was missing. I never pay attention to those things.

So, we leave tomorrow at noon for Mumbai. We're driving there, staying the night, and then flying to Jaipur at the crack of dawn. I'm so excited. Pradeep is taking us to Mumbai, so we should be there in 2 hours. :) He's the best.

Well, goodnight to everyone. If anyone from Symphony is reading this, thank you so much for your hospitality. We had a wonderful time in Pune and we hope to be back in the future. I have plans to continue blogging, but on life in Toronto, so maybe you'd find that interesting. Thank you again. Namaste. :)

For more pictures from today, please click here.