A Few Suspicions Confirmed

All right, so I didn't leave the hotel today. That's standard for the beginnings of our trips, since we're usually busy with business. But today, it was also because I woke up with a migraine, and so I spent the afternoon and evening sleeping it off and resting. I didn't even get to the spa today as I'd hoped! So I'll have to check that out late tomorrow or on Wednesday afternoon and report back. But I did manage to confirm a few suspicions that I had. #1 - the hotel is totally incompetent, although I must say that the woman we're working with now is really nice and quite funny. Our meeting started this morning with them being late (of course). I then found out that none of the emails I had sent with the details of our events here had meant anything. i.e. they did not have note of the menus we had chosen or the number of people that we had attending. And they were planning to check the rooming list and get back to me, which didn't happen. So not a good start. But I'm still keeping my fingers crossed. We walked around the hotel this morning to see the various venues, and our meeting room is lovely. We also looked in at the Island Bar, where we will have our welcome cocktails, which is a very hip-looking bar, home to a wine cellar that is not in the basement and circles around a cigar bar. In the evenings, they have a jazz singer, who sells her cds to sentimental drunk patrons as the night wears on. We also visited, and later dined in, 19, Oriental Avenue, where we will have our welcome dinner. The restaurant is actually three in one - a Japanese, Chinese and Thai restaurant, each separated by unobtrusive screens and varying in their decor and costume. We ate in the Thai part of the restaurant, but you can order from any of the menus. Our hotel escort, Rachna, was dressed in a sari, but chattered much in the style of an American teenager. And shops like one too, apparently, telling us that she returned to India after four months in the US with $120 in excess baggage! She insisted that I try the sushi (vegetarian) and that's when I confirmed suspicion #2: I don't like sushi. Even though it's vegetarian, it's covered in that horrible seaweed stuff, which tasted so fishy to me it was all I could do to swallow it! I did try, and mostly like, this local papaya salad, which looked like noodles but was actually shredded papaya with a spicy sauce. Not bad. For lunch, I ordered from the Chinese menu (though I think I should have had the tom ka gai, which is a VERY spicy Thai coconut milk & chicken soup, which I loved in Bangkok) and had the crisp chicken. It was okay, but not top of my list. In an effort to avoid Delhi belly, I made sure to have some Pringles and Three Musketeers when I returned to my room. However, I realized when I woke up at nine-thirty that to keep my migraine away, I do have to eat a real meal at some point. Confirming yet an additional suspicion (#3), which is that I'm not actually that fancy, I ordered pizza, a strawberry milkshake, and a giant chocolate chip cookie. And I'm off to eat it now - let's see if it's as good as home. Man, I could kill for a real Pepsi right about now! Tomorrow, off to Agra and the Taj Mahal!