Around the world in 11 days

I recently flew to Sydney, Australia and then to Bangalore, India on a business trip. The total trip was about 11 days and I literally flew "around the world," from Philadelphia to San Francisco to Sydney to Kuala Lumpur to Frankfurt back to Philadelphia. I only stopped in Sydney and Bangalore and here are some random, and very trivial, thoughts:

In Sydney:

• I ordered lemon ade twice and got Sprite. The one time it actually said "lemon ade" on the menu. But that's my only complaint about the place.
  
  
• Man, they take making coffee seriously. Even for a simple cup, they use these big contraptions and foam the milk and grind the beans and do other things. I am not a big coffee drinker, so maybe this goes on somewhere in the US, but my guess is it pales in comparison to the love of coffee preparation they have here.
  
  
• They spell curb, "kerb."
  
  
• The time is 14 hours ahead from home, which is just ridiculous.
  
  
• I heard about these bats at the Royal Botanical Gardens. One my last day, I finally saw them. They are huge - the size of large, fat cats. And there are hundreds of them. Unfortunately I didn't have my camera with me that day.

In Bangalore:

• I didn't get to spend much time here (compared to Syndey). I got in very late Sunday night (well, technically Monday morning around 1:30) and flew out Tuesday night (well again technically Wednesday morning; the flight left at 1:55 am). The Bangalore airport flies planes to Europe almost every hour 24/7.
  
  
• We went to two restuarants and both asked us to fill out a survey. The rating for each criteria was average, good, and excellent. No poor. No below average. The lowest you can give is "average." Remember this the next time you prepare a survey for your customers.
  
  
• I thought I left my iPod in my hotel room when I got to the airport. My cell phone didn't work in Bangalore (nor did it work in Sydney). I saw a guy next to a rather large telephone contraption. I asked if he would take US currency (I gave my last ruppee to the taxi driver). He said sure. When I was done the call, he said "Four ruppee." I asked, "Did you say four dollars." He laughed and said "four ruppee" again. That is like 8 cents. I only had a dollar so that guy got a helluva tip.
  
  
• The traffic is just nuts. The traffic consists of a few cars, but many mopeds and these three-wheel taxi vehicles they call "auto riksha." There is not much respect for the pedestrian. In fact, if the road is crowded, the moped drivers will actually swerve up onto the sidewalk and beep their horns at you to get out of their way.
  
  
• Our hosts in India were extremely hospitable.
  

I posted some photos on Flickr: Sydney and Bangalore.