Calgary

Today it is two weeks since I came to Calgary. This place will last in my mind for a few reasons. First was the shocker of sorts admit from ISB which I got immediately after I landed here. The next thing is the biggest thermal shock I got in life. In spite of the fact that I lived three winters in Kansas the cold here was at a different level. I landed here to face a -23ºC for around three days with continuous snow. Work started slowly but with this kinda low weather I started feeling low myself.

But bang came the Chinook wind, another fantastic new phenomenon I learnt and the temperature came up to +2ºC. I read about these winds in Wikipedia and came to know that these moisture laden winds can bring up the temperature by even 40ºC.

Then came the weekend. Yours truly still has a valid US drivers license. So me and my roomie here rented a car each and drove the eight member team to the Canadian Rocky Mountains. . It was a scenic 2 hour from Calgary and the view of the snow capped mountains was really scintillating. We went up the Sulphur mountains in a Gondola and then hiked (board walked) from Sulphur mountain to Sanson's peak. It was bitterly cold and to add to the misery we played with the snow and my lips totally froze. It took a while for me to recover but all in all it was fun.

On the way back we stopped at Lake Louis. In fact we walked on the frozen lake. Watching kids play ice hockey was a real treat. We wrote our names on the snow and clicked our cameras.

These two weeks have been one of the most intense professional learning periods in my stint with Infosys. Well Infy probably realizes that these are the last few days I'll be dating her and she wants to treat me well !!! As we get into the last week of the due diligence work gets out of proportion. I just hope that I can squeeze in a few hours and catch a glimpse of the Polar bear at the Calgary zoo...