I’m sitting in a coffee shop on Green Park Extension in Delhi; no wireless, unfortunately, but I’m doing a blog entry I can put up next time I’ve got access to the Internet. Two days ago we set out from Northampton to NYC in a snowstorm, which fortunately turned to rain somewhere south of New Haven, for our final day in the U.S. for some time. Arrived at Tova and Harris’s apartment in Park Slope around noon, enjoyed seeing how much better it looked since they had painted and furnished it then under the previous owner’s decor, and then went up to Harris’s parents’ apartment on E. 58^th St. for a Chanukah meal and farewell. They have huge windows looking out on the 59^th St. bridge and the cable car to Roosevelt Island – it’s a bit like being in the middle of a children’s train set-up grown giant, all kinds of interesting activity to look at right outside. Pebbles plied us with delicious food and we met Harris’s brother and sister-in-law and adorable niece Bryn, and then at 5 we left for Newark Airport and our 8:40 plane to Delhi. Although advertised until the last minute as being on schedule, in fact at the last minute it was late, and we didn’t leave until almost 10 p.m. After the endless journey, a great deal of which I slept through (I had, after all, been up all night the previous night trying frantically to finish many things I had left to do until the last possible minute – from work to house preparations – it was an extremely embarrassing illustration of how bad my procrastination problem has become, and one New Year’s resolution for 2009 has to be doing something about that!), we arrived in Delhi around 11 p.m. (that’s the next day we’re talking about) and were met by a driver from USEFI who was to take us to our hotel, the Green Meadows Guest House. Even as jet-lagged and generally exhausted as we were by that point, when we drove by the same landmarks for the third time we realized the driver was completely lost, and despite his several cell phone conversations with the guest house owner (whose number we fortunately had), he continued to drive us in circles for some time longer, until finally, as it was approaching the point where my weariness and increasing car-sickness (and I never, normally, get car-sick) were close to driving me to throttle the guy, he somehow stumbled on the right street and location. Hooray!! I was so happy to be welcomed by the very nice owner and to plop down on the very comfortable bed and drift off to much-needed sleep.

This morning I awoke remarkably refreshed at 8 or so, and after a quick breakfast at the guest house, we took a cab to the Fulbright headquarters downtown, where we met with Girish Kaul and the young and very personable new director of USEFI, Adam. Then I called Jane Shukoske, the former USEFI director who’s a friend of my friend Peggy’s, and she both gave us a recommendation for a lunch place and arranged to meet us for dinner about 6 p.m. The lunch was at the Oxford Book Shop, a very nice (and western( bookshop/café right outside of Connaught Circle that we could walk to from USEFI – perfect for relaxing as a second wave of tiredness began to sweep over. And the book selection was terrific – I ended up with two, one of environmentalists and leftists, and another on women and militarism. After lunch we went back to the hotel and I promptly slipped into a nap as soon as I lay down. When Jane came I was alert again, and she took us to a lovely South Indian restaurant near a deer park – we even saw the deer pacing around out back. It’s in a section of Delhi called Haus , which Jane said has origins as a village going back to the 11^th or 12^th century, and is now gentrified with antique shops – we met the proprietor of one, Mrs. Jain, a friend of Jane’s, and since she was closing up, we might go back to see her shop tomorrow. Or not, depending on how tired we are. By three tomorrow we need to head back to the airport for our flight to Vadodara – both Bob and I are actually quite eager to get to Anand and get settled into our new digs – we’ll come back and explore Delhi further later, I’m sure