Moving On ...

The last month or so has been pretty hectic over at Chez Axe. Several days after the Lady & I returned to US shores was spent pounding the pavements looking at apartments. For some weird reason, we couldn't find any 2-bedroom apartments in our price range ... well, that's not strictly true. We found a "2-bedroom" (i.e.: 1-1/2 bedroom) 2nd floor walkup in an really old brownstone). We had a lot of criteria, which I suppose contributed to the narrow range of apartments we had to work with.

Ultimately. we ended up taking a 1-bedroom apartment in the upper 90's, pretty close to the subway. A 19th-floor, south-facing apartment in a luxury building (totally swanky lobby, gym & swimming pool, and so on).

The weeks since signing the paperwork have been spent packing and throwing out a ton of stuff ... mostly old clothes that I don't wear much anymore (hopefully someone finds it purchase-worthy at the Salvation Army store), old notes & case studies from my MBA, and such like. I'm selling all my old JLA trade paperbacks, but refuse to give up my Hellboys, Sandmans, and such. I even bough a little binder and pouch set to store all the comic books I'm currently reading.

The discussion is slowly turning to what purchases we need to buy after moving in ... We've gotten a ton of gift cards and other presents for the new home (thanks, guys!) so we're slowly compiling a list ... coffee table, side tables, flatscreen TV, an espresso machine, a blender, and so on. I need to get a good NAS to combine the Lady's photos & music, and mine.

Of course there have been some items that have been approved that I've insisted upon.

Ready ... Set ... Wed!

We (as in, the groom's side) had our Devara Samaradhane yesterday. Its meant to invoke the blessings of the Gods upon the wedding. The puja itself started and ended pretty late, but it was good to meet family that I hadn't met in a while ... and to eat the "traditional" lunch!

I got to use Dad's Nikon D40 Digital SLR camera. I'm not very familiar with SLRs in general, but Kartik gave me a crash course in it's use. I plan to take it to the Maldives, and photograph some good desktop wallpapers (at the very least!). I've yet to organize the photos from yesterday, and figure out what I'd upload. Indeed, I'm anticipating that most of the sorting would be done here in Bangalore, but the final sharing & uploading would be done when we get back to the US ... mostly because of bandwidth & connectivity issues.

I've only a bit of shopping left now, probably finish it off today.

Creature Comforts

One of the nice things about my parents' new apartment (well, I say "new" ... they moved here about 2 years ago) is that the bathrooms are equipped with showers. Now, in India, running hot water is a rarity, and my parents had the design foresight to hook each bathroom's water heater to the showers and taps.

Only problem is that the heaters' capacities affords about 15 minutes of hot water at a trickle, which means one has to really, really ration the usage through the order of the bath. I was just thinking to myself this morning that upon my return to NYC, I'm going to spend 15 minutes just soaking in a massage shower.

Yes, maybe I'm spoilt. But of such luxuries are the the halls of civilization built!

Touristy recommendations?

A colleague of mine is attending my wedding, and is spending about a week in all in Bangalore.
This is the first time he's traveling to Bangalore ... well, the first time he's traveling to India. I'd anticipate that he'd be on his own (or at least with a car & driver) for significant amounts of time.

Where would you, my patient, knowledgeable & exasperated readers (not necessarily in that order), recommend he visit as a tourist (in Bangalore only, he's not looking to do any day trips), and as a shopper? He loves photography, and would be looking to get some good pics of town.

To get you started, here are some places I thought of ...

• Vidhan Soudha
• Lal Bagh
• Commercial Street
• Brigade Road/ MG Road

Updates

I'm leaving for Bangalore in a little over a week, and back in NYC around Jan 10th. Let's see, how might I best sum up my trip? Hmm ...

1. Wedding Shopping
2. Wedding Panic
3. Wedding Partying
4. Wedding Hangover
5. Wedding
6. Wedding Gifts (Gods Dammit, there better be some gifts! This is my only chance to make out like a bandit)
7. Wedding Pilgrimage
8. Honeymoon

In between, I hope I get the time to meet friends, hang out a little bit, and so on.

I doubt it.

But that's OK.