Ahmedabad, here I am!

Friday February 3 is THE Day! I’m travelling to India for the SAP Social Sabbatical program and so I’ll be one month in Ahmedabad.

After more than 24h between home and Ahmedabad (I know very well Istanbul and Mumbai/Bombay airports), I finally land in Sardar Vallabhbhai Patel International Airport on Saturday around noon, local time.

On the way to the hotel, it takes less than 5 minutes to see my first cow crossing the high speed road and to have a sense of the crazy driving Indian habits: don’t look behind, honk every 2 seconds or so and, above all, never stop!

After unpacking my stuff and a 2h rest, I’m meeting my teammates for dinner. As expected, the food and all the typical colors, flavors and tastes will be a great part of this trip!

Even if I have a lot of images in mind and still a lot of spices in the mouth, it takes me only a few minutes to get asleep after 36h without being in a bed.

When I wake up, I can see the view from my window and I can’t be believe it’s only a small part of Ahmedabad!

After a short gym session, it’s time for breakfast.

With the amount of available food, it will take me a month to try everything!

Even if it’s Sunday, we have a team meeting event and we spend the day in playing different games and doing various activities to know each other. And with only 12 SAP employees, it’s amazing the differences that we share: people from Brazil, Norway, Germany, Canada, Tunisia, Ireland, France, US and Colombia; SAP employees for very long time and others for only a few years, people recently graduated from school, brand new dad and one teammate who is already grandfather twice!

To finish the 1st week-end, we go for a diner and eat wonderful, tasty and reasonably spicy vegetarian food which is the traditional Ahmedabad cuisine. Interesting enough, there’s no alcohol since it’s strictly forbidden in Gujarat state, where Ahmedabad is located.

Tomorrow we’ll start working on our projects with a kick-off meeting with our organizations and we’ll have a real sense of why we’re here.

The fun will really start!!!