Holy Cow! Litterally!!

Alright, so first off, the very best time to fly is at night. Both of our flights ended up being over nighters, and therefore we were able to sleep for most of them. Gravol realy helps with that too! :P After two 8 1/2 hour flights, one from Vancouver to London, England, and the other from the latter to New Delhi, we hooked up with Dave and Anna, who were convinced they had totally missed us in the airport and lost us already. Thanks to their patience we found them after waiting nearly half an hour for our luggage to come around. Apperently the secerity is pretty tight and they scan everything before putting it on the moving round about thingy... I know it has a proper name, but forgive me my brain feels like jello at the moment. We made our way to the car, fending off the porter guys who take the liberty to just take your bags right out of your hands and expect you to yeild to let them carry them for you. Then they of course want money. But really, I'm pretty sure we had it under control, there were four of us and only two large suitcases. yikes. Anyhow, Jumping in the car was our first introduction, and subsequent culture shock to life in India. Since they were once a Brittish Colony, the cars are right hand drive, and one drives on the left hand side of the road, when one feels like it. Seriously. Unless there is a barrier in the center of the road dividing it, anywhere is pretty much fair game. Let's just say the rules are loose. There are lane lines, kinda like home, but not quite so even... Mostly everyone sticks to the left, but definately mot always. You'll inevitably have a couple motorcycles, rickshaws or cars driving straight at you in a five minute period. But hey, given that there are over 15 000 000 people living in this city alone, and that a lot of them are walking, all over the place, or riding a motorcycle, or rickshaw, or bike, and that mixed up with all of the above are a bunch of cars, your top speed on a smaller street, if you are lucky will reach 30km/hr. Oh yeah, and there are cows, goats and dogs, EVERYWHERE. On the larger roads, there are less people randomly driving the wrong way, but the mayhem is pretty much the same. No one, and I shall emphasise NO ONE staqys within the lanes. It is unheard of, and simply stupid to do because you will get nowhere. You have to squeese in wherever you possibly can, and unlike home, where the horn is used as something for admonishing bad drivers, it is used in series of short bursts just to let other drivers know where you are on the road. However if you really lay on it for a good few seconds, that is the equivalent to swearing your head off at the idiot driver who nearly just took off your mirror. Shockingly, though we drove around to various places nearly all day, we saw no accidents. Partially because they don't stop for the small ones. if nobody is injured, and nothing is falling of the car and it still runs, meh, good to go. Almost al cars have some sort of dent somewhere on them. It's a wonder really, that there are not more bad ones. I guess that although for our standards they are all positively atrotious drivers, they are keenly aware of what's going on around them, and they look out for eachothers back halfs. your job as a driver apperently is to make sure the front half of your car doesn't hit anything, and the back half is other drivers around you's responsability. It's madness I tell you, pure madness. Thank Heaven that Dave does it well, and that Marc and I are laid back. Otherwise I think my nberves would be shot completely.

Anyway, enough about the driving. We went to see the Bakery thus far, to check on the Project manager dude, and see how things were progressing.... or in the case we found, digressing. SOme shelves had been made wrong, so they were re-doing them. For no real apparent reason the air conditioners had been moved up and over a few inches exposing nasty holes in the drywall. Why? no clue. Whatever, could be worse. Still don't have power, so they are working with whay light the widows bring, and there are no such things as power tools. It's all hand saws and chissles boy and girls, but that's probably for the best, cuz I'm not convinces I'd let any of those fellas opperate power tools... I could be mistaken, but probably not. Heck, they wear flipflops doing construction. There are no safety codes anywhere to speak of, and that's just normal. This place is going to take some getting used to.

Before we went to the Bakery we dropped our stuff off at home here, (very nice little place, quaint i dare say :) then grabbed some bread and eggs from the local grocer. (a 10 x 12 foot room with shelves lining all walls, and a large window where you tell the fella inside what you want. Kinda cute, I like it, and it's right around the corner. Has nearly everyhting too! Not fresh vegies or meat though. you buy that from venders on the side of the road. Breakfast was toast and eggs, cheers to Anna and her cooking skills for that! We then proceeded to their friends house for their usual thursday morning prayer meeting. We sang a bunch of songs, almost all familliar, and met some wonderful people. We'll see them around a bunch while wer're here.

After the Bakery, we went to another city in another state, called Noida (the city, don't know the name of the state) to inspect a bunch of stainless steel stuff they had fabricated. Counters, work surfaces, sinks and such. They were all up to specs, so we went from there to the local gigantic, no, freakin' HUGE mall. Still under construction too. I dare say it's as big as metrotown or bigger. And there is another just as big being built accross the street, and another beside that one. It's crazy I tell you. They've caught the consumerism bug almost worse than North Americans. After Dinner at a noodleish type place that had good food, but the hotness scale was higher than even Dave and Anna are used to. Oy.

Now we're back home. I passed out on the couch for an hour or more, and now want to go back to dreamland. I'm exhausted. So over and out for now, I may write tomorrow, but it looks as though it will mostly be spent getting me some clothes. :D So I may just wait till Saturday.

See ya!