On the road again...

We have landed in the Lone Star State to spend some time with friends and family. This past weekend, the boys and I were lucky to get away to west Texas with some of our best friends. There is nothing like driving through the countryside--open space and big sky. I'm amazed by the flatness and beauty of it all. Here are some photos from our drive:

  

Cleaning house...

We are lucky that our apartment in Delhi has air conditioning in the living room and bedrooms. I can't really imagine living there during the hot months without it. I (naively) thought they had to be serviced only every six months. How wrong I was! The a/c guys showed up, took one look at the filter in the living room  unit and asked when I had it cleaned last....umm...I asked them how often I should have it clean....they said every three months...oops. No wonder we had been all coughing and unhealthy.  Then, I saw what came out of the filter. I am definitely never forgetting to have the a/c serviced!

He was smiling before the cleaning started:

This is what came out the backside:

 For the boys' room, they took the whole thing out of the wall and outside for a good washing:

Again, never forgetting the three-month cleaning...

Sunday outing...

A very sweet friend of ours invited us out to a restaurant last Sunday. The rendez vous point was at a metro stop in another neighborhood, so logically we thought we'd take the metro. You may remember that D and X took the metro a few months ago: An outing, but I never had. There is a metro stop just near our neighborhood and although it's just about a 5 minutes walk, the heat was oppressive. Luckily, the metro cars are air-conditioned. Here are some things I noticed:
--the Delhi metro is completely modern and very clean
--for 3 of us to take it one-way, it cost 48 rupees ($1.07)
--you must pass through a metal detector (like at airports or any Delhi mall or hotel) before passing the turnstile to get to the trains
--there's a sign that says spitting is prohibited and if caught you'll get a 200 rupee fine
--there is a separate car on each train for women passengers
--we were the only westerners on the two lines we took, everyone stared
--so many of the signs were in Hindi only, this is yet another reason I'm starting Hindi classes when we get back from summer vacation

Memories and moving on...

After having my mobile phone for almost 2 years, I finally figured out that I had a cord to hook up to my computer to quickly upload photos. Before I had been emailing them. But with this easy upload, it was like reliving the past 2 years in a few minutes' time as I watched the photos appear on the computer screen. Talk about walking down memory lane, lots of photos from our first days here. And, I came across a few photos that I had completely forgotten, like an October afternoon of duck-feeding and playing in Lodi garden with some good friends:

Now, these good friends are moving on from Delhi and shifting to a new life in a new city. I'm so thankful for these memories of good times spent with them and, while I'm excited that they are off to new experiences, I know that Delhi just won't be the same without them. We will miss them terribly!

Street scenes...

School, home, play date, pool, market, home...this is how we spend our day, in the car from place to place. And, here are some photos of what we see along the way:

Front bumper fire extinguishers, side-attached red shovel...jeep firetruck?

 Buses loading up goods and passengers:

 Drying clothes:

 Back ends:

 Cows:

 I just don't know what this is:

 Bad picture, but it says "my car is safe cat":