Alex and Rory: Hot Hot HOT

It has been ages and ages since we have writen/updated. This post is really mostly an email I sent out- really more of a listing of activities up to the time we reached Nepal- connection probably won't allow me to upload pictures right now though I will try.

Kid news: Alex knows his letters and is really into phonics and sounding out letters and words now. So excited about it- random shouts of "c-c-c- cee!" He is also really into airplanes- do you recall his fish-pier obsession? Well, now he carries around planes, flies them everywhere and makes us all fasten and unfasten our seatbelts as well. Everyday he wakes up and wants to know if we are going to get on an airplane- why? Because flying on airplanes is so much fun, his head "kex-splodes". Alex is really good at saying no thank you, we don't want that, we don't don't need that or sometimes during negotiations, he'll shout out, ten rupees! haha.

Rory- loves to "walk walk" she does this hysterical thing where she scrunches up an eye and says eye- looks like a little pirate. She's picked up more words, jooce, wawa, shooooose.... She too enjoys flying planes around going "vrrrrr, vrrrr" also loves cars- really into drawing these days. She also likes jewelry, shoes and bags... we walked by a shoe store at a mall, Rory was "walk walk" ing around and stopped, pressed her face up against the glass and said,
"wow!". She also does that with food... 8) Last night, our sodas came and her binky (last one) dropped out of her mouth as she said, "wow" and then opened her mouth indicating she wanted a taste. Also funny, but hopefully, not a long term thing... she has learned to throw temper tantrums, too. She lays down on the floor and cries, "I want mama"- which is not what she actually wants, just what she's heard alex crying. She will also cry, "monkey...!"- it's pretty funny actually. Btw, her lion was lost early in the trip!

Anyway, so much has happened. we have thousands of pictures...

The India quickie update:
Delhi was nice, we stayed at the guesthouse for Max health- there was a cook there so all of our meals were included if we ate at the guesthouse. It was really quite fancy... we arrived around 9 pm and he asked if we were hungry and then set about making us dinner. In the mornings there was plenty of breakfast and Peter, Makiko and the kids would usually have lunch at the guesthouse while I was at work.

Delhi was amazingly hot... Peter, Makiko and kids went to some gardens during the morning/afternoon. Though Peter worked a lot during the day and it was so hot out, Makiko was often playing inside with the kids. In the evenings we would all try to go somewhere, a few times we went to western style indoor malls because it was so hot outside we wanted to stay in air-conditioning. We went to a temple- Akshanbar (sp?)- huge with giant carvings and a moat-like area/fountain that contained water from over 186 (?) major rivers/waters around the world. One of the volunteer guides took us around a section of the temple and had us all pouring water from the holy ganges on the statue of i forget the name now. (it's been a while and i can't look at my notes b/c it's dark). We did go to the B'hai temple- shaped like a lotus representing major religions of the world coming together and stayed for a service of sorts, people got up and gave readings from different religions in different languages. Afterward we went to dinner at a restaurant near our guesthouse- invited the fellows to come- lots of confusion and being lost- made it eventually, there was live music which Alex and Rory both enjoyed. On another day we went to Connaught Place and to a market- did a little shopping, ate at Pizza Hut of all places. The last day in Delhi, we made it to Red Fort- again amazingly hot- so hot we didn't go through the entire place- which was okay because we also had to make it to the airport to go to Kolkata.

Kolkata- well, what can we say about Kolkata... it was unbelievably hot and humid there. It was extremely crowded, traffic was pretty intense. Kolkata was a tough city for us- it was harder to get around- fewer people spoke English in Kolkata and we were so far from the center of the the city that it was always an expensive taxi ride to get anywhere. To top it off the apartment we were in had problems- the hot water didn't work, it was filthy with lots of bugs, internet wasn't really working- somehow something got screwed and the place wasn't opened and cleaned before we arrived and really, not much happened while we were there. Despite this we tried to explore the city as best we cold. The first day I worked, Peter, Makiko and kids went to the New Market and wandered around there. We met up and had lunch at the mall by the apartment and did some grocery shopping and supply shopping (we had to clean the filthy apartment). Peter and I went out for my birthday to a not fancy place at all with good food (cafeteria ambiance). The next day we cleaned the apartment for much of the free time and went to the nearby mall to pick up still more supplies (laundry soap- there was no laundry facility so we washed things in the shower with cold water b/c the hot water wasn't working, nothing dried well in the humidity and all our clothes smelled TERRIBLE).

We tried to go to Victoria Memorial but by the time we arrived, it was closed. There was a huge fountain that had colors and changing sprays and the water spray would come out of the fountain- the kids LOVED running around in the water spray! And it cooled everyone off nicely. Afterwards we had dinner at Mocambo- god food. The next night we pretty much just went out for dinner- went to Peter Cat restaurant and then picked up desserts at Flurries- supposed to be a great dessert place- we think it is HIGHLY over-rated. Peter and Alex went to Science City- Alex had such an amazing time- Alex went on rides, saw some animatronic dinosaurs which he RAVES about, Rory got some sort of GI bug- fine now. We went to Mother Theresa's house, had some KFC (pretty good!! can't believe I ate KFC in India).

The hospital usually provides ac car and all sorts of services for visiting faculty (like a clean apartment and hot water) but a car- but for some reason there was no car- I wound up taking taxis to the hospital and around- eventually I wound up hiring a car and driver each day because the taxi rides were ridiculously expensive. Actually the hospital arranged it for me but I had to pay for it. Have to remember to get that receipt from them for reimbursement...! Interestingly, to get to the airport, the hospital was able to provide transportation- they provided us with an ambulance to take us to the airport. Interesting.

We happily left Kolkata to go to Nepal... we had a tough time at the airport b/c we didn't have our passport photos with us (required for entry visa) so had a hassle at the airport arriving. However- once we made it through that painful ordeal- we were greatly relieved and happy to see the nicest baggage handler who had collected all of our bags and walked us through customs, the tour company was waiting for us. They started with a Namaste, welcome to Nepal and put these white scarves around our necks for good-luck and hustled us into an AC van... and we were so happy to see them.

Nepal has been great- though it's been really freaking hot. We were given some crazy gear list and we brought cold weather gear with us (ha ha ha) and it's been hot hot hot- I've cut off pants tow ear- we sweat through our clothes- Peter was able to wring out his t-shirt and make a nasty sweat puddle on one of our hikes. Actually- there is so much to tell in Nepal! Will, write more again as I can... here are some pics:

Alex and Rory both say Tuk Tuk (Alex calls it an autorickshaw too)