Rockin' it to Brian Adams!

Picture: Akanksha, who is fantastic!

Location: Koregan Park, Pune, India
Place: Kiva, Native American themed bar/restaurant
Company: Matt's work cronies, American + Indian + Meg

It's Saturday night and we're going out! Officially one week into our adventures here, its finally the weekend, and Matt and I can enjoy going out together!

It was mid afternoon and Matt and I had a few hours to kill before meeting up with his work friends around the 7:30 at this cool Naive American themed restaurant called Kiva. Earlier this week I had made some new friends who, in a gesture of cultural courtesy took me to a place called "Burger Barn." The cute red bricked menus featured items such as the "Barn Barn Burger" and the "Giant Garth Brooks." In case you were wondering, a "Barn, Barn Burger" is constructed as follows: 1) lentil and chicken patty 1) slice of salami 1) fried egg 4)slices of raw carrots & approximately 30)tsp of mayonaise. The hotel in which we are staying has a to die for Indian menu with an occasional "John Wayne Special" (a harmony of all the meats offered on the menue folded together on salad) thrown in for good measure. With these little tidbits of American culture floating around in my head, I was unsure, but very excited to see what we would find at the Native American themed eatery. To my great suprise and in total honesty psuedo disapointment, Kiva is a tastfully decorated tapas bar. The ceiling has details of knotted wooden tembers in the Hopi tradition, with antique photos of Sitting Bull surrounded by woven handicrafts and earthen wares. The furniture was modern and simple, and from a critical desing eye, I have to say, it worked.

Picture Above: Rui, Anil and Akanksha (I may have spelled all of those wrong, to be corrected later :)

The irony of the night, came later. It had not been twenty minutes after we and the other parts of our party arrived when the music kicked on, we noticed our dinner coasters annnnnnnnndddddddd, it was ALL BRIAN ADAMS ALL THE TIME. Now, for those of you, like myself, who would likely fail a "Who wants to be a Millionaire" quiz of exactly who Brain Adams is, here is what I now know about Brian Adams.

Brian Adams made it big with two songs, "Have you every love a woman?" and "In the summer of '69," both quinessential to the Classic Rock Station genre. So, as luck would have it, Brian Adams is coming to Pune!!!!!! WOW! So, as the night followed, we rocked it out to the alternating 5 Brian Adam's songs that the DJ had until Matt's colleague Akanksha asked it there would be willing to "change it up a bit." From there, it was urban techno, paired with buckets (not an expression, an actual bucket) of the local beer, KingFisher. (Incidental side note: to my knowledge, KingFisher owns a large and fantastic brewery and an Airplane company. Matt and I have tried them both and we approve). As the night  moved on, the place was crowded, and memories become warm and hazy. At the stiffing hour of 11:30, Kiva closed down for the night. We stumbled out, wandered over to a "late bar" who served us til midnight, and then it was off to Peter's. Peter is a friend of Matt's from ZS who is fantastic. Peter has taken the leap of transferring to the Pune office here to work and live. I adore Peter. He is quirky, open, and excited about life. I applaud and envy and entirely understand his moving here. For my jokes of Brian Adams, and the issues between cultures, dress, language, ect, I have not met a more sweet, open and fun-loving group of people than we spent  our Brain Adams marathon Saturday with. Below are a few pics form Peter's house. We are all sitting on the floor because his furniture is being held in customs in Mumbai for the past month.

Above: Meg and Matt, (Matt is either: playing the sitar or dj-ing, there was a lot of that)
Below: Meg, Matt, Rui and Ron all packed into a Rickshaw at 2am heading back to the hotel. For middle-of-the-night-other-side-of-the-world, it felt so much like high school.

Peter, who is awesome.