What Waiting Around Sounds Like
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Originally I scribbled that to get my font straight, but since it's a fair assessment of my mood it stands undeleted. As Josh blogs in his own exile, "the clickity clack therapy of a blog."
I've had a pretty decent week, including an eventful weekend trip to Pushkar in Rajasthan, but My God am I ever seized by wanderlust and dreams of mountains. Delhi, in the stiffling heat and the ubiquitous McDonalds and Pizza Huts, comes into a backpacker's heart with a "BEST BEFORE" date, and is good for a few days - a week tops.
So I need a plan to not go stir-crazy, and I think I have one. I've finally figured out what they're stalling on - they're confirming my date of arrival in India from the airline - which the Canadian Embassy was able to do in twenty minutes when it needed the information. So if the Indians can't get that information and resolve my visa issues today, I'm going to get an exit permit and fly to Kathmandu. I was talking with this poor guy from Ghana whose mother had passed away and he was trapped in India with a similar problem. He thinks they're waiting for a bribe in his case, and although I'm skeptical (we're not exactly in a tinpot banana republic, after all,) it's starting to seem conceivable.
But 'tis best to focus on the fun things. At least I've been meeting all sorts of interesting people, and just as important, people who will play chess with me. I wandered around Connaught Place all morning yesterday with an English/Irish pair arguing about the nature of luck and intuition. For the weekend I visited an English friend of mine, Jesse, in Pushkar. The train ride was a little expensive, (well, if $15 is expensive by any standard..) but it was my first experience of Indian first-class - waited on with tea, breakfast, tea, lunch, tea in air-conditioned infinite-leg-stretch comfort. The nightlife there was fun in its own right, filled with hippies and eccentrics of Indian and foreign variety, but it also doubles as a holy city with the only temple to Brahma in all of India. I took a puja or holy ceremony from a brahmin priest (whose authenticity may be questionable, but still...) which really did arouse feelings of devotion and piety in me for a few brief minutes. I also had a refreshing avocado milkshake there, something I had never seen before, which is something that Peters should really try to emulate in Calgary.
And second-lastly, a quote from biscuit packaging that could surely only be found in India: "89.9% fat-free"
Actually, lastly, since I just got the decision of the Vancouver-Dallas game: my congratulations to those Vancouver readers of this blog! But someday soon you will have to face Detroit in Detroit, who are ferocious and bloodlusted in ways you cannot even contemplate. :)
Originally I scribbled that to get my font straight, but since it's a fair assessment of my mood it stands undeleted. As Josh blogs in his own exile, "the clickity clack therapy of a blog."
I've had a pretty decent week, including an eventful weekend trip to Pushkar in Rajasthan, but My God am I ever seized by wanderlust and dreams of mountains. Delhi, in the stiffling heat and the ubiquitous McDonalds and Pizza Huts, comes into a backpacker's heart with a "BEST BEFORE" date, and is good for a few days - a week tops.
So I need a plan to not go stir-crazy, and I think I have one. I've finally figured out what they're stalling on - they're confirming my date of arrival in India from the airline - which the Canadian Embassy was able to do in twenty minutes when it needed the information. So if the Indians can't get that information and resolve my visa issues today, I'm going to get an exit permit and fly to Kathmandu. I was talking with this poor guy from Ghana whose mother had passed away and he was trapped in India with a similar problem. He thinks they're waiting for a bribe in his case, and although I'm skeptical (we're not exactly in a tinpot banana republic, after all,) it's starting to seem conceivable.
But 'tis best to focus on the fun things. At least I've been meeting all sorts of interesting people, and just as important, people who will play chess with me. I wandered around Connaught Place all morning yesterday with an English/Irish pair arguing about the nature of luck and intuition. For the weekend I visited an English friend of mine, Jesse, in Pushkar. The train ride was a little expensive, (well, if $15 is expensive by any standard..) but it was my first experience of Indian first-class - waited on with tea, breakfast, tea, lunch, tea in air-conditioned infinite-leg-stretch comfort. The nightlife there was fun in its own right, filled with hippies and eccentrics of Indian and foreign variety, but it also doubles as a holy city with the only temple to Brahma in all of India. I took a puja or holy ceremony from a brahmin priest (whose authenticity may be questionable, but still...) which really did arouse feelings of devotion and piety in me for a few brief minutes. I also had a refreshing avocado milkshake there, something I had never seen before, which is something that Peters should really try to emulate in Calgary.
And second-lastly, a quote from biscuit packaging that could surely only be found in India: "89.9% fat-free"
Actually, lastly, since I just got the decision of the Vancouver-Dallas game: my congratulations to those Vancouver readers of this blog! But someday soon you will have to face Detroit in Detroit, who are ferocious and bloodlusted in ways you cannot even contemplate. :)
posted by Steve C at 8:33 PM
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