India - Day 7 (Monday)

Today is the first day that I won't be the only Hillsboro person here at EDC. Suzy, one of my big bosses, came in this morning at about 1:30 AM and we are going to be at the office at 9:00 AM this morning. She gets the same sleep, or lack there of, that I got on my first night in Bangalore.

To the left is a cow walking the streets of Bangalore that I saw from my hotel room window.

Getting to the office was the easy part. Getting back to the hotel was the challenging part. The average time to go from the hotel to the office was about 20 minutes, when there were no special events or cricket matches. Today, there was a cricket match in town. It took us 2 hours to get back to the hotel from the office. And we even left a little earlier than normal; if we left at the normal time, I think it could have taken 3 hours. I don't think this was exactly the experience that Suzy was expecting.

Up to this point, my visit to India was uneventful when it came to health. All was good. Until late this morning. I did not do anything out of the ordinary for me. I ate breakfast - and the only thing that I tried new from any of the other days was an apricot danish. A custodial crew came walking through the office spraying an air freshener today and it was overpowering. By 10 AM I was starting to feel miserable. I was hot and nauseous. The watermelon juice that I had at breakfast was the only thing I could taste. The boss at the office took Suzy and I out for lunch, but I could not eat more than a couple of bites. The waiter brought cool towels for us to wipe ourselves down, but came by to pick up the towel before I was ready for him to take it back. I had to ask for another cool towel so I could keep myself in check. I was able to make it through lunch without tossing my cookies.

I got back to the office and the air freshener smell was still strong, and I started to feel bad again. We had a meeting in a different room a few minutes later and the lack of smell in that room made me feel a little better. Lucky for me, jet lag started hitting Suzy and she was ready to leave early.

I got back to the hotel and food was not sounding appealing at all. I went back to my room and laid down to try to shake this feeling. I kept going between hot and cold and used the shower to try to regulate my temperature.

I was never so happy to see the end of a day as I was today.

Make someone's day and perform a random act of kindness. It could be as simple as providing a cold towel.