Travel weary

Ah, yes, I'm sure that my tales of being "sick of travel" will evoke feelings of sympathy from you all. Actually, it's more about being too busy. It's my own fault that I'm traveling three weekends in a row, and each trip has been fun, but this week I've been feeling a bit, well . . . crabby. Any of you who know me well know how UNUSUAL such a mood would be for me.

Part of this is being tired - staying up too late to read and then getting up early (some things never change); part of this is that it's the end of the quarter and yes, I need to finish grading work for my 75 students ("shut up," says Mike Roddy).

And there's the issue of homesickness - more for friends and family than for my house or Edina High School. Reading the EHS emails keeps me from missing that world TOO much (or should I say Too! Much!), although I miss some students and my friendly colleagues. My mind wanders, remembering the people I love.


My daughters, those lovely and elegant creatures . . .
















My friends from the old neighborhood . . .

Great people, though they do get a little too into watching the "Golden Girls" reruns on TV (ha, ha, gals - remember karaoke?). But they have remained my friends for years, despite the ups and downs of life - Sherrie, does this count as an email?? Pat is holding up the walls at EHS this year, Diane (front and center) has been such a good friend to me through thick and thin, and Theresa has managed to extract information from me so successfully that she might as well have injected me with truth serum (my life is much more exciting through her eyes, I'm sure).
Then there's Melody, my buddy since Augsburg days . . .

and of course my students , those politically incorrect dears -






And, of course, last but far from least, my extended family -







Some of my male relatives relaxing in St. Petersburg (Russia) after a day of black market trading.

Witness the eating theme that denotes "Guerin"



Some might think it surprising that so much ice cream could be consumed at one sitting . . . not a Guerin.
The amazing thing about the photo on the left is that there is food available and Rich is NOT eating :). All in fun, Rich, all in fun. But Connie and Mike are so busy chowing down that they don't even have time to say "cheese."

As the flattering pose on the right demonstrates, I can hold my own with the best of the Guerin food-scarfers. Thank you, Anna, for always knowing when to take the best pictures.
Yes, friends and family - and then, of course, there's the mean lady in yoga class who told me to move my mat because she was there first.

So enough of this sad dwelling on far-away people. Want to hear about the trip to Mussoorie? It's about a six-hour train ride away. Train travel, it turns out, is not like the scene in "Gandhi" where everyone sits on top of the train. Instead, we took the 1st class AC "chair car," which is one step lower than the "Executive class AC car" (that's where you only have to look at a few other people, while the "chair car" is like a regular commuter train car - it was, to my surprise, better than any Northwest (oops, Delta) flight that I've taken in recent memory.

They served hot tea and "biscuits" right after we left Delhi, then breakfast, then a snack, then more tea, then a juice box. They handed us water bottles near the beginning of the trip, but you would have thought they were hand grenades - the announcement was repeated often, "Drink all of the water or DESTROY the bottles to avoid improper use." At first I thought this was some kind of weird threatening "Recycle or die" message, but I realized that they didn't want to get sued after some entrepreneur collected water bottles saying "India rail," refilled them with sewage water, and sold them to unsuspecting tourists.

The train was also incredibly cold, and loud. Apparently there is infinite tolerance here (or at least on that train) for out-of-control pre-adolescent boys. As they ran up and down the aisles screaming, people smiled as if this were actually PLEASANT! When I say screaming, I don't mean talking loudly or even yelling. I mean the banshee kind of "AAAAAAAAAH" So it was a bit hard to sleep. Sarah let me use her shawl to get warm enough to fall "asleep" (I tried) - but as I drifted in and out of nightmares about the movie "Alien," I heard another loud sound - newspaper being crumpled loudly. And it continued. Finally I opened my eyes and there was this newspaper-covered homeless person sitting next to me - no, wait, it was Sarah! Rather than wake me up to get her shawl back, she decided to put her Girl Scout " survival in the city" badge to good use. It looked pretty funny, though a bit passive-aggressive.

Oh, I forgot to mention the Delhi train station - the least pleasant part of our trip. When we got there, there was a huge board with the train names and times - wait, train names? Whatever happened to the old "Train to Wherever, leaves at X o'clock." In India, trains have names and accompanying personalities, I suppose. Anyway, we couldn't find our train's name on the list, so we decided to go out into the station - a mistake, we soon discovered, as the stench was unbelievable. It was like barrel-aged feces. And people were in all stages of washing, eating, cooking, and sleeping, all around, including between the tracks. I wondered if anyone there was actually going to take a train. Eventually, after trying not to breathe for about 20 minutes, I heard them announce our train, and it turned out that we had walked much further than we had to - I suppose that allowed us to determine that the stench was universal. So the air conditioned luxury of the train was a nice shock.

Mussoorie was great - the first place I've been to here where I actually felt cold (not including the train there and back). A taxi driver picked us up at the train station and we drove up and down and around on roads that felt like the "Octopus" ride at most amusement parks - hand me the barf bag, please. The town of Dehradun, where we arrived, seemed a little sketchy . . .













Step right up and buy your gun - notice that he doesn't just sell them, he makes them! Then there's good ol' "Homeo Hall" - every town should have one. Indian and . . . German? Dan Baron - you're going to have to check out the German connection here.

But the views were beautiful, as we climbed the mountain,and the cool air felt - hey, it's cold! Can we turn down the air conditioning in this car, driver? I never thought I would hear myself saying that in India. But the whole evening I felt cold - we even asked the waiter to turn on the space heater in the hotel dining room. Sarah felt sick as soon as we sat down to dinner, so when the soup came she dashed to the room, while I sat there feeling a bit uncomfortable in this hotel dining room, alone. Fortunately, after being away from Americans for several entire hours, we encountered five teachers from our school staying at the same hotel, and so they joined me in the dining room, where we had a lively conversation, filled with raucous laughter, that I'm sure the several couples sitting near us at this "Most Romantic" award-winning hotel appreciated. Why not keep the "Ugly American" image alive?

OK, so Mussoorie - the view disappeared into fog the next day and did not return, but hiking in the cool air was great. Sarah and I walked down quiet roads and up a deserted path, past a few makeshift houses with women chopping wood or doing the wash while the men . . . watched?
We stopped at a site labeled "Wishing Well," but I thought a more apt title would be "Washing Well."
There were two females there pulling up buckets of well water to scrub and rinse clothing with - and I assumed that they were the mothers of the two young boys who immediately came up to us and, in a manner reminiscent of numerous young Edinans' sales pitches, showed us their pledge card for contributions to help the aged. I had a lot of sympathy for their cause, especially after my first hike in weeks, so I fished out a 100-rupee note (about $2) for one of the boys, and Sarah gave the other boy the same amount. This, apparently, converted them into our disciples, as they followed us the remaining mile or so up the trail, occasionally asking us if we wanted to contribute more.
Finally we reached the "George Everest House," yes, the home of the person after whom Mt. Everest was named. Some British guy, I guess, because all evidence of this being an historic site was gone. The building was deteriorating, no signs, and nothing was inside except piles of cow dung. Yet here, in this deserted place, others had come before us . . . speaking of Mt. Everest, it was like reaching the top, planting the American flag, and discovering -
Yes, hundreds of people already there, grilling outside of the historic home - I asked one young man what was going on, and he said, "It's just a get-together," so I said, "You mean no one here knew each other before today?" - which he thought was very funny. Apparently it was a picnic, "just because," of the Institute for the Education of Administrators (in other words, bureaucracy school). They had taken the "short route" to this site, and here we thought we were the first visitors since Everest moved out.

On our way back down the hill, we ran into a little girl who was hanging out with our two "friends," the pledge card boys. She had a pledge card too, and while she was asking for a pledge, I realized that she was the "woman" I had seen doing the family wash. I gave her 100 rupees also, and I noticed that she had another pledge, this one for 5 rupees. No wonder that the boys had followed us so hopefully; we had apparently given them enough to get the "cricket pin;" another 100 rupees would get them the hat. (What is a "cricket hat?")

We also stopped at the "Municipal Garden," kind of like a combination of Como Park Zoo (without the animals) and the food court at the Mall of America. But we didn't stay long, since, according to the signs, we were being "watched obviously thro' the close circuit cameras!" We also ran into a major monkey neighborhood - white monkeys (large ones) were swinging across a two-way road on branches. I took a picture of a tree after one monkey jumped into it, and then I realized, with a combination of excitement and monkey-anxiety, that the tree was filled with large monkeys!

Other interesting sites in Mussoorie, one of the "hill stations," as the British referred to these places close to the Himalayas, included
boy reading newspaper intently while holding rifles for shooting at balloons. He wasn't getting much business, but he happily allowed me to take his picture.

And, of course, the best workout opportunity for miles, peddling the ferris wheel.








Yes, look closely folks, there's a man in the middle, peddling away. Isn't there some OSHA regulation that would apply? Oh, right, wrong country.

OK, so I was going to upload a few more pictures of funny signs, but this website has taken on a life of its own, and it is refusing to allow me to add more pictures, so I guess this is the cyber-equivalent of the comment "wordy." Or maybe "picture-y."

I miss you all, friends at home! And I hope that this blog will prepare you for any visits to India that you may plan - though I imagine that with each entry, fewer and fewer of you have such plans.