Home Again!

As I expected, it was a quiet week in Bangalore. I had breakfast at the hotel and walked over to Nina and Mahesh's place around mid-morning. I hung out there, knitting, reading and visiting, and Mahesh drove me back to the hotel after dinner in the evenings. We thought we might go shopping, but I really didn't need or want to buy anything.

Here is a picture of one of the streets I walked along. There were goats out every day foraging. I'm not sure where they actually belonged. I don't have any pictures of the many dogs. They were quite frightening, especially as they barked ferociously at my walking sticks. I kept my eyes open to see them before they saw me and held the sticks close to my body to avoid offending them.

Signs like this one painted on a wall are common. This area has been built up a lot over the last ten years. Developers and homebuilders are eager for any property they can find. 

Dan returned Friday morning after taking an overnight train from Nagercoil in the south. He had a great visit to three orphanages and a nursing school. The sisters who are in charge took great care of him and especially enjoyed how much he liked the food they served him. He brought back several gifts of cashews and some cloths.

Sunday we returned to the Barbeque Nation restaurant I've written about before. Skewers of shrimp, chicken, fish, mushrooms, paneer and veggies are brought and laid over a small charcoal burner in the center of each table. They are all delicious and filling. Then there is a full buffet of veg and non-veg Indian food. The dessert table included delicious mango ice cream. Needless to say, we all stuffed ourselves and had a great time. The day was finished out with the third ODI cricket match between India and New Zealand. However, we were quite exhausted and stuffed, so went back to the hotel at the break around 6:30. Dhruv isn't very interested in cricket, but he was very involved in the book he was reading all afternoon.

Nina and Mahesh joined us for lunch at our hotel on Monday just before we took a cab to the airport. It turned out to be a good thing that we got there quite early. We were sitting in the lounge when an Air India employee came to us and said there was a phone charger in our suitcase and I needed to come take it out. She escorted me down, around, and into the back corridors of the airport. There was a small room where a man was supervising multiple people (all men) who were coming in and removing chargers from their checked bags. My escort left me there and went to get my bag, some distance away. When I opened it, I realized it was the bag that didn't have any of our electronic items in it, but she was definite that this one failed the scanner. So I went through it all and the only thing I could find was my travel alarm, that has a small battery. She took the bag back and ran it through the scanner again. Then she returned and said it was all right now. From there we had to go back to checkin to get me a new boarding pass (mine had been cancelled), then through security. At least this time we got to go through a special short line. A very interesting experience!

The rest of our travels went well. We had almost 4 hours to wait to transfer in Delhi. Our Air Canada flight departed at 12:10 AM. Both Dan and I slept almost immediately, and for a good 7+ hours. In Toronto we went through US immigration and customs. We were fortunate to get our bags quickly in Chicago and catch the bus to Michigan City. We were home by 3:00. A few groceries, some unpacking, and preparing our kitchen for some work that starts tomorrow will keep us from falling into bed too terribly early. 

Thanks for following. Next up, Spokane for Christmas and Thailand for the winter.