In Edmonton

Currently i am in edmonton in canada giving training to customer. I will be here till next week.
The last week went off with work and preparing for the training. In the end it turned out to be one-day batting all along the whole weekend and monday,tuesday this week. The training was hectic. I did not get much time to roam around. I have more coming next week as well. Preparing over the long weekend here.

On way to edmonton, i transited via vancouver. It was good to see vancouver again. I had nice long chat with stefan and i went to house of dosas. i had a nice dosa with idly , vada and ended with gajar ka halwa. Stefan's girlfriend also joined us and we explained all the different items and she liked the food. Then the next day i was off to edmonton.

I liked edmonton from the first glance itself. It is little far from the rockies (4-5 hrs drive). It is completely FLAT. Nothing close by to stop the chilly winds. The weather was sunny when i landed. I am staying in delta edmonton city center , the hotel room is awesome. The city center which is in heart of downtown and has lots of shops and food court, closes at 5:30 PM - can you believe it .. 530 is too early .. But it is a cold place. People tend to go home early. People in customer's office tend to leave around 4/430. Nice work habits. I like it this way :-)

Coming to the place, the roads are wide. The city is divided into avenues and streets (direction also used). So everything is carefully planned. There is train service which runs on one single path. There are buses which can take you anywhere. The bus shelters are built to give protection form chilly winds. About the weather, it gets damn cold in winter at times.

Also as the weather was dry, i had nose bleeding. I initially thought it was due to cold. Then i read and found out that it is not due to cold but due to the internal heating and due to the dryness. I have a humidifier in my room to take care of it.

On wednesday, i met Mranal. He is staying with his wife. Both are studying and working. we had a long chat and then we had home made dinner. I was just talking while mranal made two curries and some naan. Being pampered !! then on thursday, we went to a close by indian restaurant called Haweli. It was ok. The navratan korma just had mushroom .. why only mushroom and matar. we cud not understand it. Then we walked for a while in the chilled wind. we dropped in at mranal's friends house and gave bday bumps to ananth and headed back to hotel. then to sleep.

What else .. I went to my manager's house yesterdat. While we were talking, i told him that i was brought up in guntur. He told me he knew about the place. I wondered how come a delhiite knows about Guntur. Then he told that he studied in RECW. What !!?! .. i was surprised .. i have been interacting with him over the past week and before that over email/phone. We talked about college friends and other stuff. Still the actual college name did not figure out in conversation. To my surprise, he is my super super super senior.. he passed out in 1993. And by the way, K Kishan Rao (DOSA) taught them DSP it seems and he was a very good teacher. He has a very nice house in Millwoods area.

Prateeksha - cute little kid of my manager/senior. she has been coloring the drawings her father made. He father paints very well. She showed me all the drawings. She will soon be into painting. Currently she is learning how to dance , play piano and skating. Busy girl besides going to school for 3 hours. I never did any of these at that age. :-) She has a nice question too -- "why dont i have holidays in weekend like papa does ?". Any answers which she will accept ?? I played cards and hide-n-seek with a doll after dinner with her. It was a very nice evening.

It was raining and the whole sky was filled with black clouds when we left for his home. When i came out of his house in the night, the sky was crystal clear .. no trace of clouds .. clear sky .. no stars and the moon was shining bright. Ever changing weather in edmonton. It is cloudy again in the morning now. There is snow expected today. Let us see how it goes.

What else has happened .. i like the new google reader. It is like bloglines and sage (but online). Also i like this interface because i can select what i want to read from a number of blogs i subscribe to or i can go through all the items at once like the old google reader. I like the change.

I forgot about the Ped-Way. I go to office (around 13 min walk) through underground. I dont step out on the road and face the wind. In the downtown area, buildings are connected and you can just keep walking through without ever getting on the road. I liked this.

It is already a very long post. I am going to west edmonton mall.. one of the biggest (used to be the biggest) mall in North america.