You mean I have to work while I'm here??

Yes, today was my first day in the office, so it's back to business as usual...at least for the most part :)

The office is very close to the guest house where I'm staying - just about a 5 minute walk. That being said, the traffic still continues to terrify me. Perhaps tomorrow I'll take a video of it so you can all see what I'm talking about. There are cars, buses, motorcycles with anywhere from 1-3 people on them (with women sometimes riding side saddle), and tons of auto rickshaws crowding the roads - all honking incessantly and paying no mind to lanes. Luckily, there are also a lot of pedestrians walking along the sides of the roads, so I figure there's safety in numbers.

The office itself is quite nice, and similar in many ways to other Google offices I've been in. A few interesting observations:

- Many of the doors that don't require you to scan your badge do require you to press a small button off to the righthand side of the door to open them, which continues to trip me up.

- After you drop your dishes off to be washed in the cafeteria, there is a hand washing station with around 10 sinks, and everyone washes their hands with soap and water. Perhaps this is because they eat more food with their hands here than we do at home.

- Most of the food available in the cafeteria is Indian. I ate Indian food for both breakfast and lunch, and everything I had was pretty tasty! Some of it was pretty spicy, but not unbearably so. Also, many people take a serving of unflavored yogurt to stir into their food to quell some of the spiciness. A lot of the food is stew-like, either served over rice or with varying types of Indian style breads that you use to dip with.

- At the gym all of the machines use the metric system...this made it very hard to judge how fast to set the treadmill!

Aside from that, work was pretty standard. All of the people on the team here are extremely friendly and welcoming. They talk and joke amongst themselves just as much as we do (sometimes perhaps more!). It's actually really nice working during North America's night, because it allows me to be super productive. I kept instinctively checking my inbox, expecting the client email to pile up like it usually does, but it didn't! Perhaps my goal of completely clearing out my inbox while I'm here will be achieved after all :)