Day Two and Onward

When I opened my eyes on day two in the house, things seemed immediately brighter. I could hear birds singing and ca-cooing, something we never heard in the apartment. Michael went to work and I unpacked.

The mattress guy came to the house and sure enough each mattress was 3” too long for the bed. He said that there used to be different size beds, length and width, but now they are standard size. I guess the beds we bought were older designs and they should have told us that they wouldn’t support the new mattress size. But, the mattress guy said he would have new ones made and exchange them. A week later, we are still sleeping on the mattresses on the floor.
Yes, it’s been almost a week now since we moved in. We all really like the house. It is spacious and airy. We have flowering bushes, potted plants, palm trees, banana trees and a papaya tree with about 12 papayas ripening a little more each day.
We have filtered water to wash fruit and vegetables and we have drinking water delivered. We don’t have a phone or cable or the internet yet but hopefully within another week we will.

Our house is situated conveniently between two huge extravagances. One is the clubhouse which is less than a minute walk from our front door. There is badminton, ping pong, tennis, a yoga room, a restaurant, a fitness room, a spa and a lovely outdoor pool. OK, I’m obviously from Canada, having to mention that it’s an outdoor pool – in India.

The second extravagance – did I say huge – is a brand new mall right outside the gate of our complex. Apparently they started building it two years ago when the previous owners of our house moved in. And the mall opened just as we moved in. Thank goodness we don’t have to listen to all that construction noise. The bad part is that we see the parkade from our backyard. But I can live with it, the house next to us blocks most of it. I just would never have envisioned being able to see a 10-storey high parkade from my backyard in India.

So far I would have to say that I like the area around the apartment better. We could walk to great little restaurants and grocery stores. It was a busy little area with lots going on in the evenings. Here we have a few shops and a grocery store a little further away. But outside the “gates” it’s not really a residential area. Of course there’s the mall which has an Italian restaurant (fabulous pizza and Caesar salad), lots of shops, a chocolate lounge (!!), coffee shops and some western fast food places that are not open yet. Oh, and it has a cinema which should be opening up in the next week. We’re hoping Harry Potter will be playing, otherwise we’ll have to make the 45 min. drive to another cinema.

One month in Bangalore, one week in our house and life is good. The weather is breezy and warm 24 hours a day. Not too hot, little rain and never a goose bump – not once in a month. Which begs the question – why is there a closet full of winter coats, rain pants, and hoodies upstairs? Oh ya, we’re from Canada, eh!