Small Planes

We're  on the plane to Chennai to see the fam and the wedding. Also I'll finally have internet there and be able to talk to you :) Alritey, so yesterday

I finally got to run. Though there's a gym, we've been leaving so early and coming home so late that it's been really hard to run. i went 5 and felt pretty good but I've already slowed down a bit. Part of this fancy hotel means having this creepy gym trainer hovering to the side as you workout... I was only going a little under an 8 minute pace, and at the end of the workout the guy walked over and gave me a lecture about how it was unhealthy to run that speed for that long at 17. I thought I was gonna start laughing, Indian gym trainer be crazy/wimpy... Part of it's probably cuz there's almost no emphasis on fitness for kids here so it's really rare for a teenager to have any endurance. But I still didn't imagine a gym trainer telling me a run was unhealthy. Oh well, I was glad I finally got to  :) I'll try to run in Chennai but it could be real sucky. We did a lot of quick sightseeing yesterday. We started with Vijay Chowk Road. It's just a long up-hill road that ends with Rashtrapati Bhavan, the president's house. It's kinda sad that I didn't know, but apparently the current president, Pratibha Patel, is India's first woman president. Leading up to the building along the road are parliament, the ministry buildings and a few other government offices. Anyone can drive around and look at all the buildings but I don't think there's anyway to enter like the White House tours. It was kinda intimidating; India's a little less subtle with security so most of the time, the guards and soldiers would be staring us down as we walked the road. The area kinda resembles Capitol hill since the India Gate (it's a war memorial) sits at the base of the hill like the Washington monument and looks onto the Bhavan. The area was  cool to see, we walked over there again this morning but couldn't stay cuz some Navy chief was arriving and the section was cordoned off. The Delhi airport isn't too far so we'd see planes flying nearby regularly which was wierd considering the White House's no-fly-zone. 

After that we spent some time at the Red Fort. It was built by Shah Jahan and resembled the Agra fort but we still wanted to see it since it's generally viewed as an emblem of India and is partly used as a military base. We drove by one of the less sketchy black markets after :) There were tons of shoes cuz some temples don't have guards so when people leave their shoes outside, the shoes get stolen. It was pretty great. The rest of the morning we spent at Gandhi's memorial and where he was shot, the Qutub Minar (which is the highest point in Delhi and has cool ruins surrounding it) and a few other places. We also went to the Lotus temple in the afternoon. I dunno if you've seen pictures of it but it's pretty, it looks like a big white lotus and  has pools of water on every side since lotuses grow on the surface of pools of water. It's sposed to be a calm quiet place for people to meditate so it was relaxing to just sit inside for a while. 

Afterwards we had a real late lunch at Evergreen. For as much as I hate rice and most South Indian dishes in general, I really enjoy North Indian food. We had pani poori and aloo tikka which are delicious but a bit spicy. So when I take you to India, we're gonna have to train your tastes buds a bit. Plus if your mom were there for any reason, she'd rub in your face how good it'd be and that she could take the spice :) Btw say hi to your family for me it's been a while. They also had some great Indian sweets. I'll try to bring some sweets from Kerala or Madras before we leave, you might like em. The rest of the evening we spent following my mom and sister around Sarojini market. I don't think I've ever seen quite so many shoes and clothes, and they pretty cuhray$zy since everything's a lot cheaper than in the US. We went shopping again this morning since we only had a few hours. Delhi Haat was cool since they had a lot of traditional handicrafts and even the clothes were locally made and fancier.

This plane is kinda small so it's constantly movin around even if only a bit... tis annoying but oh well. That was about it before we packed up for our flight. We had to say bye to our driver which was sad. He's taken us around for the past three days sp we [retty much know his life story, and him ours. It's sad he only gets to see his family once every six months... Living in Delhi's comparatively expensive so a lot of low wage workers live here for cheap and send most of their paychecks back home. Plus they pay workers so damn little... Jagdish said he gets 5500 rupees a month and we spent 10000 for just the car for the day we went to Agra... Je was a really nice guy :-/ Plus we ad some adventures driving with him. I should have a section just for Indian driving stories. Lines on roads don't really serve a purpose cuz cars just kinda zig-zag around. And a couple of times we saw cars going the wrong way on the roads. And sometimes cars just decide not to yield and cut into traffic; the driver just puts his/her hand up casually motioning the other cars to wait up a sec. I shouldn't say sometimes, it happens often. India's pretty great :) I think that's about it... I'll letcha know if I think of anything else :)

-Sanj