I'm back

I'm back from Mumbai, I hope you didn't miss me too much. I like to live in this world where I imagine that everyone checks my blog daily desperately excited to see an update and are devastated when there isn't one. The nice thing about blogging is that you have no idea how many people actually read it so you can imagine yourself to be exceedingly important.
Anyway, I digress. I have many thoughts on Mumbai but I will spread them over a few postings so as not to ramble on. My first thought is that while there I kept being reminded of the first line from "A Tale of Two Cities"..."it was the best of times, it was the worst of times". I thought of this because Mumbai is a city of extremes, it has the best and the worst and not much in between. You really notice while you are there, even for a few days, that there is so much money in that city; everything costs more than in Delhi; there are great opportunities for shopping too; I drove past one area with amazingly beautiful dresses; if I wasn't so hot and sweaty I definitely would have stopped to shop. I haven't seen shopping that nice here. And then you have the super super poor. I decided not to do the slum tour; one of those things that is a good idea in theory, but when I arrived I realized it would be too tough for me to continue living here if I saw up close and personal how people in the slums lived. Living in a country with such a poverty problem you need to be a bit blind to it in order to go about my daily life. My guilt over seeing such poverty meant that I just gave every taxi driver really big tips (read: $1 tip on a 30 minute drive that cost $4) and wished them a happy Diwali (super big holiday here next week, the Hindu Christmas if you will). They all looked very happy because people don't really tip here. It isn't much but it is something.
All in all I had a pleasant time but I still don't think I would want to live there. It is too intense of a city; from the traffic to the number of people it is difficult to really relax; it is like the intensity of Manhattan with three times the people and a few goats, cows and chickens thrown in for good measure. I spent my afternoons at the hotel pool (it was crazy hot so I could only sightsee for half days before becoming too exhausted) and that was the only place in the city where I could really fully relax. And boy did I relax :)
Total Aside #1: my pilots both ways were American. That was random, getting on a plane in India and having an American voice greet me. It kind of made me wonder; how good of a pilot are they if they have to come to India to get a job? So I made up back stories where they were in the Air Force and came through India, fell in love and stayed here. Did I mention that I'm a nervous flyer and things that are not completely normal really freak me out.
Total Aside #2: I found the NFL on TV here!!! I was so excited to watch the Pats, especially since they were winning. I get the Sunday night and Monday night games. Of course it starts at around 5:30 my time, but I usually wake up at 8 here so can catch the end.