Today was not a good day

I'd always wondered how with all this crazy traffic around that I didn't ever see any accidents.  Well, today I got to see my first one.

I was in the van with our driver today, headed to an errand, and about a mile from my apartment we hit a guy on a motorcycle in the middle of an intersection while going about 30 mph.  I saw the whole thing coming, and yelled three times for him to watch out, but between the language barrier and the closure rate, it didn't help.  We basically t-boned the guy, and he flew up and hit the windshield right in front of me, from which he then flew about 15 feet. I always thought it was hyperbole when people say someone looked "like a rag doll" but that's exactly what it looked like.  Remarkably after he landed he got up and limped over to the median.  He didn't have any visible injuries, but his leg was obviously hurt, and he was holding the back of his head, which I'm sure he hit on the car, as he wasn't wearing a helmet.

A little background info here.  Street justice is a thing in this country, and it happens a lot.  The events in that link happened just last week.  Often crowds can get violent when there is a perceived injustice, and there's little the police can do about it.

So, after the impact of the collision, my driver got out to see if the guy was ok, at which point a large crowd began to gather.  It wasn't long before they had basically surrounded the van that I was sitting in, yelling at me.  I wasn't driving, of course, but the guy in the car with the phone that costs more than they make in 6 months was an easy outlet for them, I guess.

At this point, the driver got back in to move our van out of the flow of traffic, whereupon he gave me the most unnecessary bit of advice I've ever received, stating "stay in the car, sir."  Once again it wasn't long before the van was surrounded by the mob, and it was starting to look like it was going to escalate. I got on the phone with one of my teammates at that point, to give him the details of where we were, and what was going on, just in case things got worse.  Thankfully, a police officer showed up, and he prudently jumped into the back of our van and we got the hell out of there.  We got to the police station so my driver could go through the formalities and reports, and I found a rickshaw to take me back to my apartment.  We later found out that the guy on the motorcycle was at fault (basically he ran the light), and his only major injury was a broken arm.  I honestly thought he was going to be dead.

Can't say I ever want to go through this again.

On a lighter note, they're redoing the sidewalk in front of our building with these interlocking paver bricks that are EVERYWHERE here, so they've brought in this big metal box thing and filled it with water.  I guess they'll use it to mix mortar with.  Anyway, it wasn't even there 12 hours before this happened:

Well, the sign does say "green Mumbai clean Mumbai..."

As I've mentioned before, there are a lot of issues with people's access to clean water here, and these kids were taking full advantage of this opportunity.  They were having a blast, laughing and splashing around, but they'd also thought to bring/find some soap with them, and you can see the guy in the t-shirt washing some clothes.  They later washed themselves with it too, and dunked back into the water to rinse off.  There's no way to know how long they'd been able to clean up like that, but from the way they acted it seemed like it had been a while.  I think the bricklayers are going to be in for a surprise when they try to mix mortar with that soapy water.  

We also finally got clear of another of the last couple remaining requirements for documentation for our residency here.  As I'm told other countries do as well, even though you have a visa allowing you to be in the country you still have to obtain a residency authorization.  I won't bore you here with the labyrinthine process, but just know that it was an enormous pain in the ass, even though we'd hired a specialist to help us through the process.  I don't think it would even be possible otherwise.  We had to visit this dank office on the 4th floor of a British era building, which was staffed by people along the lines of what you'd find at the local BMV attitude-wise, but adding in the language barrier.  We managed to get through it without causing an international incident, which was about as well as we could have hoped.  

The one good thing about it was that we had to go to south Mumbai, where you can actually see some interesting architecture.  We were driving, so I wasn't able to get many pictures but this one came out ok:

Try to imagine it without the taxi in the foreground

That is the Chhatrapati Shivaji Terminus, the largest train station in the city.  Two of the three local train lines terminate here, as well as trains to/from other cities, so as you can imagine it sees an alarming number of people every day.  I'll try to get more pictures of the interesting buildings the next time I'm in that area.

I'll leave you with this:

Number of people I've seen actively shitting outdoors, in broad daylight, while living in Columbus:  0

Number of people I've seen actively shitting outdoors, in broad daylight, the month that I've been here:  2

I hope to not need to update this statistic, but the trend is not promising.

There is no why...

We've officially given up on asking any question that starts with the word "why."  There either is no answer, or the only one available just makes your head hurt.  For example, you might find yourself walking down the street on a Sunday afternoon, and notice a little boy about 8 months old, sitting by himself in the middle of the sidewalk, screaming for some sort of attention as everyone walks past him. Being a reasonable person, you might start to say "why is there a baby...." before you remember where you are.

Last weekend I went to the mall that's a little bit up the road from here, so I could watch a movie.  They do things a little different here (obviously). First of all they start off with a rousing group rendition of the Indian national anthem "Jana Gana Mana" (Thout art the ruler of the minds of all people), carried out with the same sort of enthusiasm you get from such compulsory patriotism at home.  The movie also has an intermission about halfway through, which occurs without fanfare or announcement.  One moment you're sitting there watching a chase scene...the camera zooms in on the protagonist, as he steadies his aim to shoot at the bad guys, and then BAM the screen goes black, and the lights come up.  

We saw our first funeral procession this week.  We were driving in bumper to bumper traffic on an 8 lane highway during morning rush hour when we saw a large group of people walking mostly on the shoulder, walking against traffic.  They carried the body out in the open, on a stretcher, being carried on the shoulders of 4 men.  It was covered in all sorts of flowers, save the feet and the face. It was strange more for the location than anything.  It was the last thing I expected to see, but from what my driver told us, it's pretty common. 

I've been slowly getting introduced to other unique things about India as well.  The client company here has daily flights to a city called Jamnagar to the north of here.  The pilots told us that they were known for their peanut plantations up there, so they were kind enough to bring us some.  They were really, really good.  I may try to bring some home at some point, but I worry that the agriculture folks in the USA will confiscate them.  

Delicious!

We also got treated to some extremely fresh cashews from Goa, along the coast to our south.  I'm hoping to take a weekend trip down there at some point in the time that I'm here.  Not only do they grow cashews, but they also have plantations where they grow a large number of the spices that you find in your grocery stores.  That would be fun to go check out.

There does seem to be an abundance of fruit and vegetables available, and it's pretty easy to just find them for sale right out on the street.  We went to a neighborhood near mine to the south called Bandra last weekend, and I got this picture of one of the street vendors:

The drive to/from work almost always affords the ability to get a glimpse of the lives of the people here.  As I've mentioned in a previous post, there really is no water distribution infrastructure here, so they rely on trucks to bring the water from reservoirs that then fill up the holding tanks in people's buildings.  Because so many people live in such terrible poverty here, access to clean water is a major issue.  Often on the way to work the trucks haven't began their rounds yet, and opportunists go crack the taps on the back to gain access to water for drinking, or just to clean up a bit.  The drivers don't lock the taps, so I guess they just have some kind of agreement about it.

I found out that the pool here in my apartment complex, while free, is not too great.  For one thing, there's about a million pigeons splashing around in it on the edges at any given time.  They've hilariously hired some chap to go around and shoo them off, but they just come right back once he's moved a bit away.  Furthermore, the Indian culture is pretty modest, and it's uncommon for them to just hang out at the pool in their swimsuits.  They pretty much get in with clothes on, splash around a bit, and leave.  We got clued into a better place, however, that's more in line with what we have back home.  We went last weekend, and it's really nice.  There were expats there from all over the place, and you can lay out in the sun without any disapproving looks.  It's right on the beach too, so you can listen to the waves instead of the car horns, and feel like a human again.  The beach is filthy, mind you, and the water is not something you'd want to dip your toes into, but the pool is nice at least.

This will be great until the monsoon starts.  The rains are forecast to begin next week, and start sporadically, building eventually to daily periods of rain, then slowly tapering off again in late September.  Last year Mumbai got 5 FEET of rain for that same period of time, which is just insane.  Different events are referred to in relationship to the monsoon, and you'll hear people say things like "by next monsoon."  Evidently during some of the heavier rains the roads just plain become impassable, which should be fun.  The businesses here can be seen preparing for the rain, which for many of them entails putting up a temporary thatched roof, that they make from bamboo:

They make good use of the bamboo here, even making construction scaffolding from it on the outside of buildings.  They do this to insane heights, often over 20 stories tall, and they don't appear to bother with tethering themselves to it as they work.  They must have been at this for some time though, as they go about it without much consternation, and they work really efficiently at it.  

This weekend's goal:  find an umbrella!

Home...is where I want to be

But I guess I'm already there.

Today is probably the most difficult I've had here.  Emily graduates from law school today, which was an event that I sincerely wish I was there for. She's been in law school since we met, and it just feels wrong not to be there.  I knew when I agreed to come on this journey that I'd be missing some things, like birthdays, or weddings, or such things, but this one hurts.  I guess I've had it pretty good considering that I work in the aviation industry.  A lot of people have it much worse than I do.

Work continues to be somewhat frustrating.  It's a combination of high level ambiguous concepts for goals, with no clearly defined tasks (up to us to just figure it out) combined with super high expectations for success. Awesome.  The last member of our team arrived today, so hopefully we can get things moving.

The food, water, or something finally caught up to me this week as well.  Let's just say I'm staying home a lot, and leave it at that.  I guess I'm lucky it took this long to happen.  Long car rides are certainly more exciting.

Several of my friends mentioned this week that they wanted to see my place a little better, so I made this video today:

Some also asked about what I've been cooking.  As you can see in the video above, the kitchen is definitely not set up for the kind of cooking I do when I'm at home.  This is further complicated by the fact that many of the ingredients that I normally use are not available here.  We get lunch served to us at work (almost always Indian food), and the client company is picking up our Monday-Friday dinners on an expense account, so during the week there's no reason to make anything. By the time the weekend comes around the idea of making more Indian food isn't too appealing.  I'm sure I'll get into more of a groove as time goes on. Chicken is the most widely available meat, followed by lamb. India has always been mostly against eating beef, but you could still find it. Hell, there's a TGI Friday's in the mall next door.  Wouldn't you know it then that two days before I got here, this happened. Simple possession of beef is now punishable by up to one year in jail, even if you didn't get it here in India.  That seems reasonable.  There are what looks like 3 year old kids living under the highway overpass that we go under every day, which is also the busiest intersection we encounter.  They are completely without any adults present, at least from what I've seen, and in some cases they're carrying around their infant (what I assume is) sibling, caring for it.  Better make sure those cows are ok though.  Those of you that know me enough to be familiar with religion imposing its views on everyone (especially by law) probably know how much this annoys me.

Another of the challenges I've been dealing with is how different my spare time is spent.  At home I didn't have much trouble staying busy, but here things are different, which I mostly anticipated.  I've mostly been exercising and getting to know the area, but I also decided to learn to play a classical Indian drum called the Tabla.  I searched around, and finally found an instructor that would answer my messages, and had my first lesson today.  I've never played a percussion instrument before, because they always seemed a little one-dimensional to me, but this one is pretty different, with many different sounds you can create depending on how and where you hit it.  I'm taking lessons from this lady, and her assistant:

She's been playing for YEARS to get this good at it, and performs regularly, so I'm hoping to pick up as much as I can in the year that I'm here.  The thing I hadn't realized before, and you can see if you look closely in the video, is your wrist isn't really involved in the striking motion on the drum. It's all in the fingers, and it's far from a natural motion for me.  I think this will be a good challenge for me, and I'm really looking forward to it.  The lessons are only $5 USD each, so what the hell.  

Guess I must be having fun

This must be the place.  

Stranger in a strange land

Successfully negotiated the Mumbai local train system today.  Given how irrevocably jacked up most of the things around here are, the train system is actually quite efficient, and inexpensive.  There are 3 main north to south train lines in the city, of which the Western is the closest to me.  I did a BUNCH of reading about how to go about it before I tried, and I'm glad I did.  During the week the train system in the city carries on average 8 million passengers PER DAY.  So basically 8 times the population of Columbus, OH gets on that thing.  Every day.  Sometimes it's as high as 10 million.  Unbelievable.

First I had to get to the train station, which was further than I'd want to walk (especially given today's 116 degree heat index), so I had to take a rickshaw from my place to the station.  It took me a couple tries to find one that knew what the hell I was saying, but I finally managed.  From there I made it to Andheri station.  Andheri is the name of the neighborhood I live in, and all the stops on the train are named after the neighborhood where they are located.

Inside, looking toward the ticket counters.  Not sure why the overhead sign looks like that in the picture.

I had a little language barrier here as well, as not only were the usual challenges present, but added to that was the fact that the guy I was trying to talk to was behind a glass partition with a little hole cutout, and it took me a few tries go figure out what he was saying.  Round trip ticket to my destination of Lower Parel was 140 Rupees, or $2.20, which seems insanely cheap, but I guess if 8 million people a day are paying that, it can be.  I even splurged for the "first class" ticket, which basically just means it costs more, so the cars wind up being less full.  It was worth it, as some of the regular cars looked pretty crowded, even though it was a Sunday afternoon.

Happy Journey!

From there you have to figure out where the train is that you want to go.  It wound up being pretty easy.  There is a train coming through that is going your way every 3 minutes, so you just have to make sure you get on the ones that stop at all the stations, rather than the "fast" trains that only stop at the major ones.  Even better is that someone developed an app for the iphone that makes it even easier to find where you need to be to get on the right train.  Once over that hurdle, it's down to the platform.

In that picture you can see the sign showing when the next train will be coming, and all you need to know about it.  It says BO 02:36 S :10 which means the originating station is Borivali, it leaves at 2:36 PM, it's a Slow train (stops at every station), and it will be here in 10 seconds.  And when they say 10 seconds, they mean it!  The trains run like clockwork.  They seem to be really proud of keeping an on-time schedule. Each train only stops for 30 seconds at each station, so you don't have time to stand around and figure things out, otherwise you'll be watching it leave and have to wait on the next one.

From there you have to locate the right car to get onto. They sporadically post signs and paint things the corresponding colors, but you can't count on it reliably, so you just have to look at the train cars themselves.  First class, in my case, had a section of the car painted with red/white diagonal stripes.  They also paint markings on the ground or poles at the station that match the car classes, so you know where to stand while you're waiting on the train.

See how close together those overhead grab handles are? Now imagine a person holding onto each one. The entire train is filled with them.

The car in the above picture is marked to indicate that it is a women's only regular class car.  They also have women's only first class, although as a woman you can ride whatever car you purchased a ticket for.  The issue is that, as I think I've mentioned to some of you, Indian men can get a little grabby when the trains are crowded, and rather than try to fix that problem they just ignore it and let women have their own space if they want it.  I've read that you don't want to get on one of these by accident, as they'll quickly remind you you're in the wrong place.

Total cost for the trip, including the rickshaw rides to/from the station:  300 Rupees/$4.71. Crazy.

Lastly, here's a little video clip I made of my ride today.  Sorry about the bars on the window.  In the tradition of twisted Indian logic they put bars on the windows, but you can hang all the way out of open doors while the train is moving to your heart's content, which you'll see in the video:

I took this trip so I could go locate a place to buy some belts that I mistakenly left at home.  There's a mall closer to me that I could have gone to, but this provided an excuse to go explore the trains.  I went to a place called the Palladium mall, which we were told is the nicest in town.  It certainly was that, as it's probably the fanciest one I've been to anywhere.  There was almost every luxury brand you could think of, like Armai, Burberry, and many others that I'd not heard of before.  It seemed strange to have such a high class place inside, where just outside there are people so poor they can't even afford shoes to wear, let alone a place to live.  It's hard to figure out how a population of people that is so in touch with spirituality and kindness seems powerless to help alleviate the depth of the poverty, but then I guess you can say the same thing about home.  I read yesterday that 65% of this city's population lives on less than $55 US.  A month.

On a happier note, I was in my apartment yesterday afternoon and heard what I at first thought was thunder, but quickly realized was drums of some sort.  The club in our complex can be rented for wedding receptions, and I had noticed that they'd done some decoration for one, so I realized I was hearing the band leading the wedding party.  In Hindu culture it's customary for the groom to ride a white horse to the ceremonies.  The groom's family can just be seen in the video ahead of the horse, and they were dancing like loons to the music.  They looked like they were having the best time, smiling and laughing while they danced.  The drums were LOUD...they were really banging on those things.

And finally, today's WTF I can't believe people here think this is acceptable adult behavior, I bring you this guy:

He's got this....probably....

One Week Down

Made it through the first week without contracting dysentery, getting hit by a car/taxi/rickshaw, or falling through an open sewer access.

I've eaten more rice this week than I have the rest of the year, but it's just a large part of their diet, and can't really be avoided.  There are US chains here nearby, such as a Domino's and Burger King in the building next door, but I just can't bring myself to do that.  I've decided that I really love biryani dishes, which are in plentiful supply.  They're usually not too spicy, and come in all kinds of variations.  There are numerous restaurants around that serve what is generally considered to be American (they refer to it as 'continental') food.  It's strange to be in a place where someone might say "hey, let's go get some American food tonight!" much like we would say about a foreign cuisine back home.

Speaking of food, the office where I work has been an interesting experience. Evidently it's common here to have food and beverage service in office environments.  Two guys in uniforms with bow ties come around throughout the day with coffee/tea, or you can call them if you want more.  On top of that, the food/beverage manager for the inflight catering brings us lunch every day. On the first day he asked what we wanted, and we told him Indian food, so he's been bringing us different regional dishes every day, which is just awesome.

Typical lunch in the office.  We told him to bring about half that from now on.

Um, waiter, my cup appears to be empty

I have been trying to stay entertained in my down time.  Indian TV is mostly unwatchable for me.  Even the international CNN channel focuses almost exclusively Indian news, so I lose interest pretty quickly.  Thankfully I can access NetFlix and similar services back home, although I'm hoping to get my internet connection here upgraded so it works better.  Speaking of Indian TV, they play the same few commercials RELENTLESSLY, which does not help the experience.  This one played about every 5 minutes since I've been here, but luckily it cracks me up every time I watch it.  It's almost like they're making fun of themselves:

They do this head shake thing here when you talk to them.  It's kind of hard to describe, but if you could imagine you're tracing a figure 8 pattern with the tip of your nose, you'd be pretty close.  

It's usually not this creepy

The meaning of this movement is kind of situational.  It can be anything from "yeah, ok" or "I understand."  I'm still getting used to it, as sometimes you're not entirely sure what they're meaning to convey.  

We got a chance to drive around a bit this week.  My employer arranged for a neighborhood familiarization trip, so we could know where the essentials are located, such as hospitals, police stations, etc.  Along the way, we got to stop and see the sights a bit, for what it's worth.  First we stoped at the Mount Mary Basilica, which is the oldest Christian church in Mumbai, founded in 1570.

Notice you can see the reflection of the church in the glass?

From there we went to the Castella de Aguada just south of the church, which was also established in about the same time frame. I didn't take as many pictures there, as it was fairly underwhelming as far as attractions go, but it was right on a point of land overlooking Mahim bay, so I did get this one:

You probably shouldn't get in that water

Heading back towards home, we stopped in a neighborhood called Bandra West for lunch, at a place called Lucky's, which is known for it's Biryani.  It's an old, but well maintained place, with no air conditioning, but the food was really good. Our guide was from Mumbai, so he helped us negotiate the menu.  

There was a protest outside the gate of our complex the other day after we got home from work.  Not sure what it was about, but they were out there chanting for a couple hours before the police finally came and broke it up.  

We're extremely dissatisfied!

According to their banners, it was the RPI(A), or Republican Party of India.  I passed along that they'd been out there to our company security guy back home, and he didn't seem to happy about the fact that this was going on. He'd probably be even more bothered by the fact that I was down there taking a picture of them, but it was a fairly small group.  What I don't know at all is why they were here.  I'm hoping to find out more about that soon.  

Tomorrow I'm going to attempt to negotiate the extensive Mumbai train system to go to the south end of town. I managed to leave town without a couple of my belts that I wear with my office dress clothes, so I'm going down to what is supposedly the best mall in the city to see if I can find some replacements.  Shopping for things here is still somewhat of a challenge.  I went to 5 different places that had home goods before I finally found a stupid trash can for my apartment.  I still haven't managed to find a cutting board for my kitchen.  It makes no sense, but then a lot of things don't.  

  

Did I mention it's hot?

So today, it was 93 degrees.  With the humidity factored in, the heat index was 110.  As you can imagine, this is unpleasant.  Once you're out in it for about 10 minutes, any recent showers or bathing you've done quickly becomes irrelevant.  That being said, I wind up looking like I did just bathe, but with my clothes on.  Oddly enough, the locals seem to completely unaffected by this.  Almost nobody wears shorts, instead wearing either jeans or slacks, and they don't seem to be sweating at all.  It stands to reason that any outdoor activity is out of the question.  They've told me that May and June are the hottest months of the year, so that's something to look forward to, however mid-June brings with it the beginning of the monsoon season.  We're told that some days you just can't even really get to work, as the flooding is too much for what meager sewer system they have can handle.  Furthermore, being a coastal city, the water table isn't far from the surface, so any heavy rains turn to flooding pretty quickly.  I can't wait to see what happens to all the trash and dirt in the street when that happens.  Hip waders may be an option to explore.

The traffic continues to be a source of amusement, and occasional consternation.  It backs up without much warning or common sense, and quickly becomes a snarled mess.  This, for example:

That was taken right out in front of my building, at 4pm on a Sunday.  Not even rush hour at all.  As mentioned before, the horn honking is a little ridiculous.  That being said, I think I figured out one aspect of it today.  The cars drive on the left here (opposite of the U.S.).  As I've seen in other countries, they prefer to have cars pass them on the driver's side (right side of the car).  When passing on the left side, it's some sort of courtesy/custom to signal that you're doing so by beeping the horn.  Almost every vehicle here that's not a motorcycle or regular passenger vehicle has some form of this painted on the back to emphasize this:

Horn OK Please.  At least they're polite about it, I guess.

All the rest of the honking appears to have no purpose, yet it's something everyone does.  It all fits in with the occasional moment's that I have begun referring to as the "Indian cluster."  For example, yesterday one of my co-workers decided to purchase a coffee maker for his apartment.  What would be a non-event back home turns into this sort of labyrinthine process that defies understanding.  First, he found the machine he liked, so an employee had to go check and see if it was in stock.  Upon returning to state that it was, in fact, in stock, it had to be repeated that yes, indeed, he did want it.  From there the employee goes over to a computer, and produces a sales invoice, which he brings back.  That invoice then had to be carried over to the cashier counter.  There another employee is summoned, who went to fetch the item out of inventory.  Once he returned with the item, the cashier proceeded to completely unpack and unwrap it, I guess to determine if all the parts were there.  From there, they proceeded to unsuccessfully re-wrap and package it the way it was before they messed with it.  Once it was finally handed over, he had to stop and talk to ANOTHER employee at the exit, show the receipt and coffee maker, before he was allowed to leave with it.  All that for a $30 coffee maker.  I can only imagine what going to the BMV would be like.

Getting adjusted

At last we have arrived in India to begin working.

Yesterday was a difficult, long day for me.  Difficult because I had to leave Emily for the next 4 months, long because, well...it took over 24 hours just to travel here.  My route was from Columbus to JFK, sit for 5 hours, then nonstop to Abu Dhabi on a 12.5 hour flight.  I'm not sure I could do that kind of flying all the time.  I watched two movies before I checked the time remaining, and we were barely halfway.  I'm very fortunate though to have been booked in business class, so I was really very comfortable.

After arriving, getting through customs and immigration, and collecting our bags, we met up with our drivers and made the trek to our apartments.  On arrival, we got our phones and wifi cards issued to us, so I was able to call home once I got everything working.  By that time it was 11pm here, and I was exhausted, so it was off to bed.  I took some melatonin, which seemed to help, as I did sleep through the night, although I was freezing for part of it, as the air conditioning was evidently set to the "meat locker" setting.  My apartment is on the 10th floor of this building, which I'd hoped would make me immune to the inexorable honking of the car horns on the streets below, but unfortunately that's not the case.

Today I met up with my cohorts from NJA, and we found some breakfast at the Starbucks next door, and then did some shopping for things we need.  Our apartments, although furnished, are still lacking some things, so we're trying to go out and find them where we can.  My apartment, for instance, has zero coat hangars.  I'd have packed some to bring with me, but I was completely out of space in my suitcases.  The bourbon I brought wasn't getting left behind for coat hangars, I have priorities.

We start work on Monday, so we're trying to get all of these things done now, and get used to the time difference, which for me is proving to be a challenge.  Even though I slept through the night, I'm still feeling pretty groggy.  I know it will just take time though.  The climate itself is going to take longer to get used to, I think.  Right now, for instance, it is 91 degrees outside, however with the humidity the heat index is 108.  Hot and humid is probably my least favorite climate, so I'm likely to be grumpy about it for a while, especially since I see that it's 73 degrees at home today.  I should probably quit looking at that.

Abut Dhabi seems like an interesting place, at least what I saw of it from the plane.  It looks like there are some nice beaches, so maybe it would be worth going over for a weekend visit if I can find a cheap ticket over there.  I've been in deserts before, but the one there is really different.  It is just nothing but bare earth and sand, and has almost no vegetation of any kind.  It's hard to believe how anyone can live there.

Our first trip to the grocery store was something of an adventure.  There's a small one in the mall right next door, so we went there to get some of the immediately needed items.  It's very (very) tightly packed compared to what I'm used to in the USA.  Add in the throngs of people and it quickly resembles a rugby scrum. I'm still trying to pick up on the nuances so I don't look like a dumb ass, but that's going to take time.  For instance, I picked up a package of pears to buy, but evidently you're supposed to weigh them and get a sticker so that the cashier knows how much to charge you.  Since I wasn't aware of that, this evidently caused some consternation on the part of the cashier, but the language barrier prevented me from really understanding it.

Speaking of cultural differences, I've spoken here before about the male-dominated culture here.  Unfortunately this is in the news again here, as this happened recently.  It's a wonder that women travel anywhere alone in this place.