Comings & Goings...

Post by: Beth

Hi Everyone!

We hope you’re all doing well and life is treating you well. J Summer is winding up for most of you, and so many of you have kids traipsing back to or starting school and we’ve loved keeping up with everyone via your own blogs, picture updates, and emails. For us, our time in St. Louis is coming to a close and it’s a mixture of excitement and a bit of sadness as well. Raja really grew to like this city and what it offers – professional sports teams, plenty of outdoor activities in the summer, a wide range of really good restaurants, and constant events being held in different parts of the city. For me, I grew to love the people I worked with and the friends I made here. I was surprised to grow so close to people in 6 short months, and they created so many of the memories I’ll take with me from St. Louis. For both Raja and myself, St. Louis has been very much a learning experience, and in some capacity it will be a place to which we’ll be tied to for a long time.

Next up for us is our move to Manhattan for Raja’s team project challenge. (I think that’s what it’s called anyway…) We’ll be flying to New York Sunday, August 24th and will be moving into an apartment called Oakwood, which is at the intersection of 6th Avenue and 32nd Street. (That means nothing to me but it’s what the website says). Apparently, it is close to Madison Square Gardens, Chelsea, and the Garment District (again.. I know nothing). We will stay there for 5 weeks while Raja works on a team project… I’m really excited about New York because I really enjoyed all the visits I made there while Raja lived there for 6 months prior to our move to STL, and we’re both looking forward to exploring another section of Manhattan.

At the very end of September, we will be moving from Manhattan to Bombay, India. This is Raja’s first site on his international leg of the Citi rotation program, and should definitely be a different experience. Since Raja’s family is from India, they’ve been able to offer some pieces of advice and some knowledge as far as what to expect in other parts of India, but we’re still pretty unsure of what Bombay will hold for us. We’re doing a lot of research and are excited about some things, nervous about others… Bombay seems to be a bit more Westernized than many parts on India, but still is going to be a bit of a culture shock. I’ve been trying to learn a little bit of Hindi so I can understand what’s going on sometimes and communicate as best as possible, but most people in Bombay can also speak some English, so hopefully I’ll be able to function on a very basic level communication-wise. I’ll hopefully be able to learn much more in the next 6 weeks before we go and Raja is getting to brush up and learning new things as well, so we’re hoping to make it a bit easier on ourselves by being able to understand and speak the native language. In the meantime, we’ll keep doing research and trying to piece together information that can help us prepare… Thank you already to those who have answered some of our questions (omg what do I wear in India?!?!!?!) and given us feedback, and we hope you’re ready for more questions… ;)

That’s a bit of an update on where we are right now and we’re excited to see what comes next for us… We’ll make sure we post pictures of our transition from St. Louis to Birmingham for a few days, back up to NYC and of our new home when we arrive. We hope things are going great for each of you, and keep sending us updates and emails and pictures!

Love,
Beth & Raja