So I have been on meetup.com for a few years an inactive member of two meetup groups in New York City. I rediscovered meetup.com thanks to Sagar so I updated my profile and found a few groups to join. I joined the cooking club started by a foodie and yesterday was the first meetup. Since I've never been to a meetup before I had no idea what to expect when I got on the bus to head to GVK Mall. All the times I have gone to Banjara Hills, I still didn't know exactly where GVK was even after passing it a few times heading to city center. I got to GVK and decided to trust the citibank ATM to withdraw funds I calculated semi correctly on conversion rate and fees but couldn't predict cost of withdrawal from an Indian ATM after first failed attempt at the bus stop in Chandanagar.

I met the co organizer of the club in the food court who was able to recognize me thanks to my profile pic. (Since I haven't asked for permission to use their names I am using initials in order to keep myself from getting confused) I didn't do my homework on who would be attending or who I was meeting. Silly me right. So after meeting S, a couple soon joined us. The conversation proceeded in a mix of English and Hindi with me zoning out when it switched to Hindi. I tried to keep up and try and figure out the gist of the conversations without luck until they switched back to English. The couple is cool, they are my age and have quite a story. T. invited all of us to get some Haleem and then cook at his place as long as none of us had work plans for the next morning. I was game after a few hours of chatting with them at the food court. 

So first stop ended being at an awesome ice cream shop where they have real fruit ice cream that was yummy. Second stop was More supermarket so we could all buy ingredients for the potluck. I was so excited when I spotted tim tams that I bought 2 packs, one for everyone to try and one for me to take home. We ended up with way to  much food for the 4 of us. I took the easy way out and made mixed veggies and mashed potato. S made chicken appetizers and then a chicken gravy for Japati. M who is T's wife made mackeral and japati. We then got Haleem to go and got all the ingredients for the dinner along with a bottle of whiskey. T and his wife M have an awesome apartment and a lovely dog who is shy of people. Every wall has a window or a door and they have a spacious terrace that is great for grilling. They opened up their home to S and I making us feel at home. We ended up eating, cooking, chatting and drinking until well passed 2 am when we called it a night. M had work in a few hours since she is a teacher. T was off today because his job gave him today instead of tomorrow off. Tomorrow is a holiday for the Muslims called Eid. M and I continued chatting until past 4 am sharing pictures, adding each other on instagram and facebook. Few hours later I was up at my usual 6 am but stayed in bed for I didn't want to provoke their dog who had a barking fit at like 5am. A few hours later we were all up with S and I hanging out waiting for T to come home from dropping M at work.  We spent a few hours chatting, I mapped out my bus route home before the power cut out.

We all went out for some chai and I tried puri and upma S and I ended up taking an auto to Hyderabad Central where I caught the bus. It's been raining on and off which made me glad that I had an umbrella with me after making the decision to carry it around yesterday even though it didn't rain. The bus ride back was about an hour and would have been twice as long if I started from M and T's place. I walked back to Aparna since the bus driver was still on lunch when I got to the bus stop. A kind lady stopped and offered me a ride which I gladly took as it was starting to rain a bit harder and I was past the point of catching an auto. 

Came home to see my spinach and methi seeds are germinating. Just waiting for the coriander now. Since it rained I didn't water them much.