Infidels in Outer Space

Today was better than yesterday for me since I feel much better, but unfortunately now Mark is the one under the weather. He's off to sleep (or at least eyes closed and under the blanket), so blog time is especially quiet tonight.

Today I spent the first half of the day at a restaurant called the Copper Chimney, where we listened to a talk about the importance of client consulting and presentations for a couple of recent papers that were presented at a client conference. Lunch was an Indian buffet, and I ate a pretty small amount because my appetite is not at full force due to residual jet lag, and it also became a lot of work to tear my bread using only my right hand (an Indian custom) and use it to pick up the other parts of my meal, which was comprised as usual of various spicy-sauce-and-veggie combinations. This way of eating is not terribly compatible with my long fingernails, which are a total mess afterward. It was tasty, though, especially after the mediocre fast food "Chinese" we got yesterday -- typically, single women still live at home with their families and so they have lunches packed for them each day, while the men order in lunch from one of the various restaurants whose menus they have in the office, laminated and encased in a binder. Since my family isn't here and wouldn't prepare me lunch every day anyway, I order with the guys. Yesterday's guys-plus-Whitney order-in choice was Chinese, and I selected something called "American Chop Suey" -- which was something like spicier sweet & sour sauce with a few veggies and some crunchy noodles. The others who ordered the same were also not big fans.

A few additional detail observations from the past few days...

• If you ever meet someone whose last name is Banerjee or Mookherjee or some other ______jee, they are likely Bengali (from near Calcutta).
• I saw an actual crosswalk today, which I thought was strange since everyone crosses wherever they want across as many lanes of traffic as they like, and cars don't seem to regard the crosswalk differently from any other strip of road. The sign has a burly-looking silhouette in full stride on it, so maybe what it's really indicating is that some particularly large people live in the area and will do some serious damage to your car if you don't let them pass...
• A couple of store names that I've enjoyed: Wotever (not sure what they sell since they're pretty non-descriptively named), Body Soup (also not sure what they sell, but it sounds kinda icky)
• Churches here are similar to those in the Midwest in their affinity for posting slogans on signs outside their doors -- one that I saw said, "WHEN LOOKING FOR FAULTS USE A MIRROR NOT A TELESCOPE," and it made me feel a little more at home in a strange way. And confused, too, because telescope seems a little extreme unless you're looking for sinners on Mars -- maybe binoculars? Maybe that's just too creepy for a church sign.
• Today was the first truly rainy day since we've been here, which is unusual since it's monsoon season, and it typically rains every day this time of year. It was nice.
• It's hard to write down tidbits like this to try to capture some pieces of this place...I think the way that I feel about it was aptly put by one of my coworkers when we were talking the other day about places to see in Mumbai -- she said, "There's nothing to see, really, it's more about experiencing it." I mean, of course there are things that I would like to see, but the feel, smell, and tone of it is really not something I can convey effectively. I think I have a few more wrinkles in my brain now, and hopefully I'll have more before I come home. So you should all visit this great city sometime if you ever have the chance!