December 28th: Day 2 in India

I woke up at 3:30 a.m. to find Jeff with a high fever, and ended up calling my dad's room. My sister came by and Jeff was her very first patient! He has survived, I am happy to say.

At 8:30 a.m., we had breakfast at the guest house and then left for the airport to pick up Madelyn. She landed at 10:15ish and she was out within an hour and a half. We added her luggage to our pile and headed for my hometown, Ludhiana.





We had 8 people in the car, my uncle up front with the driver, my dad with me and Jeff in he middle and Nate, Madelyn and my sister in the back:



On the way home, we stopped at Haveli, a really cool restaurant where they have depicted the rural Punjabi life. I have to mention how much cheaper it is to eat Indian food at a very nice restaurant here; e paid about 800 Rupees for the 7 of us to eat (that's a little over $18 for us in America).



We had a long drive to Ludhiana, amidst a lot of diesel fumes and traffic. When we arrived at my parents' house, the place was all lit up and my mom was waiting with a ceremonial plate. Except, as soon as Jeff stepped out, he almost fell. My sister had to call the Doctor who lives next door who suggested we get antibiotics for him. After eating Chinese food (chicken manchurian, chow mein, fried rice, crispy tangy noodles and much much more), we put this long and tiring day to bed. Oh, Prakash, Madelyn's friend from Dubai, had also arrived in Ludhiana before we got there.

December 27th: Day 1 in India

We landed in one piece!!! We met our first friend, Nate from CA, at the baggage claim within 10 minutes!!! We got all our luggage!!! We did not get hassled at customs!!! We found my dad, sister and uncle as soon as we stepped outside the airport!!!

Whew! Long flight. It wasn't too bad. We slept as well as we could, we were well fed and we landed safely. What else could we want?

We put our gazillion suitcases in the car and tied on top. We got yelled at by a cop because the driver parked in front of the police station. But, no arrests. On the way to the International Council of Agricultural Research's (ICAR) International Guest House, the driver got on an on ramp where he was supposed to follow the road on the left. Now, in the U.S., we'd go on and find the next off ramp and find our way back. Not in India. The driver just backed up off the ramp and wet the right way.

By the way, they have driving lanes and traffic lights but nobody follows any of the rules.

We stayed the night at the ICAR guest house in the VIP Suite (Jeff and I had one, Nate had one and my family had one).

- 1 till takeoff

So, my next post will be from India, just thought I'd tell y'all that. We flew from BWI to Burbank, CA on the 23rd, and have been enjoying wonderful weather, the family and pets (2 puppies, 2 cats and a newt). Had an enormous Christmas Eve dinner last night with an amazing keilbasa soup that Jeff's mom cooks and pork chops and fish and mushrooms and slaw and oh my too much food. Then, we woke up and opened gifts, and ate too much yet again at breakfast. Now, we are all packed, our big siutcases are in the back of Jeff's dad's car and tomorrow, we'll be getting on our trans-atlantic flight to New Delhi, via Chicago.

Hasta la vista! Talk to you from India, folks.

Games I've played

Via Ms. Noor

Childhood: Carom, badminton, chess, scrabble, chinese checkers, hangman, cricket
Schoolyard: basketball, volleyball, dodgeball
When I discovered computers: Alleycat, pacman, billiards, various card games on Yahoo!, bricks, tetris
Now that I have video games: Area 51, DDR, Karoake Revolution, Tony Hawk, Soul Caliber, Call of Duty
Board games: Monopoly, Cranium, Taboo, UNO

There have to be more but I cannot remember!

Apocalypto

So, why do people have a problem with this movie? Is it really worse than let's say, the Saw movies? Where, in the first movie, we had somebody saw his foot off to get out of shackles? Or, in the second one, we saw a woman thrust into a pit full of dirty syringes. And, that was mostly fiction. What Mel tried doing is portraying what might have happened historically. Yes, there was violence, and yes, we saw people killing people. What are we doing in Iraq? Is it really different because then, they used hands and knives and got right up to each other's faces when killing the other; versus now, when we have long range guns and missiles and we can kill others without ever seeing their face?

So, bottom line, I enjoyed the movie except for the ending. Will talk about that a few weeks from now when I might have a better chance of not spoiling it for somebody out there.

Holiday party and exotic animals

Chalk up another busy weekend for the Williamses in Baltimore. This weekend (Saturday to be exact) was my company's holiday party at the swanky Renaissance Harborplace Hotel.

Jeff and I even dressed up swanky. So did my boss and her fiance.

See the rest of the pics from the dance at my Yahoo Album.

Sunday, Jeff and I went to the National Aquarium in Baltimore. They had a really cool movie on Australia and how a certain region floods half the year and has drought and wild fires the other half. Then, we saw cool fauna from Australia. We also saw dolphins being trained. We didn't see half of the aquarium because of hunger issues but we have free tickets to go back. Check out the cool animals in the Aquarium photos on my Yahoo!

We also ventured out to Historic Fells Point after the aquarium. It's a really quaint little area, with small shops and cobblestone roads. We had lunch there at a place called Burritos en Fuego. I have to agree with Jeff that that was the best Mexican food we've had since we moved out of CA.

Oooh what's she going to call herself

At the gym yesterday, I caught a big analysis of the political climate and the possibility of Senator Rodham-Clinton running for President. I didn't atcht he analyst's name but his biggest oncern was that as soon as Hilary gets elected President, she'll ask to be called President Rodham, not President Clinton.

Wow, what a big issue for the people of this country.

The FEDEX conspiracy against me

In 2004, Jeff and I packed up all my belongings into 8 pieces of luggage and 4 boxes. The luggage was going to fly with us from Oakland, CA to Detroit, MI. The boxes were shipped via FEDEX.

The luggage made it. The boxes didn't. The boxes had all my important documents, files, gifts from people. FEDEX had to refund me the shipping money. The boxes resurfaced 2 weeks later at another apartment building 2 blocks down from my apartment building. Some things were broken. FEDEX had to further pay me for my broken stuff.

Fast forward to 2006. I bought a garment bag from Oerstock.com that was shipped via FEDEX. Online tracking system says it was delivered to an alternate address and signed for by LLEASING. Nobody in my leasing office saw the FEDEX guy yesterday.

You decide: incompetency, coincidences or a conspiracy against me?