December 2

It's December? How did that happen?

All's well here; I've decided it's quite un-holiday like here. No turkey on Thanksgiving, weather was in the 80's in Goa, Delhi is cooler but not much; there are no lights, Xmas lamp post decorations, holiday shopping billboards etc. Let's hope Santa makes it.

By the way, I did note as we landed in Delhi (after absorbing the beauty and cleanliness of Goa) the smell of pollution wafting into the plane. A haze greeted us upon exiting. No doubt cellophane fires here and there aren't helping the old lungs.

I digress...

Yesterday we traipsed down to the National Railway Museum to check out trainage. (is that a word? well, why not?)

When we pulled into the parking lot I had a moment of doubt...dozens of uniformed children were lined up and marching toward the entry gate. Dozens as in several busloads. However, the kids were teed up to check out the trains so on we went.

Thankfully the place is huge -- big indoor museum and several acres of engines, cars, a small train that actually runs, auditorium, train car bookstore, etc.

The museum housed railway maps, lots of model trains, roadkill (track kill?) -- actually the skull of an elephant that got nailed by a train way back when -- and various other historical data.

As we were meandering through 300 girls (7th grade) dressed in brown filtered in(more like pushed/shoved). We then became more of a spectacle for them than the trains.

Anyway, their teachers encouraged us to cut to the front of the line for our train ride around the place, which was Ava's sole motivation for visiting the museum. After our spin around we climbed aboard a variety of engines and cars, which included:

- the world's oldest working engine
- the Patiala State Monorail Train -- built to run on a single rail along one side of a road (originally pulled by 500 mules)
- the White Saloon of the Prince of Wales and Mysore Mharaja's Saloon (with gold ceiling) -- both were quite fancy

and a wide array of other railway relics.

Today we spent some time w/ our Gurgaon ex-pat group and got whisked off to lunch by our friend Margie, who is managing construction of a home nearby. One of her more recent tales of frustration was a crew that showed up on a Friday and did nothing all day because they forgot to bring tools. Maybe when I return to the U.S. I'll borrow a chapter from their book...I couldn't make dinner because I forgot to turn on the stove?