I left Brazil on July 3, and have been in transit for two weeks, spending a few days in SF (catching up with people, updating a conference paper, getting a visa to India), a few in Sunnyvale (a Yahoo! event), then in NY (American Sociological Association meeting). I am now waiting in NY until I go to Bangalore, while trying to process some of my impressions from Brazil from the previous 5 months. A few disjointed notes on all of this.

First, this blog isn’t nearly popular enough for this to work, but I might as well try: I am going to spend a week in Bangalore, and am looking to talk to people working in software there. Any one who is there or can suggest people, please write (qaramazov at gmail.com).

Second, cultural immersion begins before the actual trip. A few days ago I was looking for cheap tickets within India. I first when to the sites of what I heard to be reliable airlines but thought that the tickets were a bit overpriced. I then found people on Indian blogs suggesting makemytrip.co.in, so I went there and bought my tickets from Delhi to Bangalore and from Bangalore to Calcutta, at a 40% discount. Something interesting that I came across while buying the ticket:

Note that this form asks for “Last name or initial”, which would of course be strange by the Western standards, where last name is never optional. Those who find this topic interesting can read more in the Wikipedia article called Indian Name.