Days like this are the reason I go on vacations. Got up early (as in 5 am) and had a leisurely breakfast. Love the thin, thin, thin little egg-and-potato omelets you get everywhere here….about millimeter thick, dripping in butter and with oversize salt crystals on them. Hit all my buttons! This place has the worst coffee I’ve ever drunk, though; I think they make it with salt syrup. I’d switch to tea, but I’m afraid what it’d taste like given the water obviously has salt in it and given that the hotel is obviously going to use that water. Still, love that salty omlete.
I spent a lot of the day just walking around the area here, doing chores like going to the pharmacy and changing money. Found a theater only a block away, and I expect to be there at least once before I leave; it looks like one of those old, big movie palaces. The big thing here is Spiderman 3 (which David and I saw the night before I left). If you haven’t seen it, I’d just wait for the DVD. Better yet, have a martini on the front porch and talk about towels. Spidy’s not that great.
Have Connaught about figured out. The inner and outer ring colonnades have nice places like my hotel and Pizza Hut, and the service road that circles between the two main roads is mostly parking, car repair, and tourist agencies. Changed money and made some inquiries in a few of these. Alas, my vision of a week on a houseboat on Lake Dal in Srinagar has been sunk. Just last week, a bomb went off in a market there, and that’s just the most recent of the usual in Kashmir. Every agent told me the same thing – they’d get me a ticket, but no Indian was going there as a tourist so why would I? I also checked on car rental information. If I can’t go to Srinagar, maybe I’ll rent one of those grand old Ambassadors and head up the Himalayas with it (well, in the plush back seat as my driver does the work). Dang, I earned SOMETHING after all the extra teaching this year.
And that was my day! It is as hot as hell here and, unsurprisingly, I sweat like a drowned rat. Even the occasional tout, looking for line to become my insta-buddy, says “Sure is hot, isn’t it?” (then where-are-you-from and do-you-want-to-see-my-carpet-shop) So far, my wisest pre-departure purchase has been the four handkerchiefs I got for a buck at the Dollar Store just down Moreland.
I spent a lot of the day just walking around the area here, doing chores like going to the pharmacy and changing money. Found a theater only a block away, and I expect to be there at least once before I leave; it looks like one of those old, big movie palaces. The big thing here is Spiderman 3 (which David and I saw the night before I left). If you haven’t seen it, I’d just wait for the DVD. Better yet, have a martini on the front porch and talk about towels. Spidy’s not that great.
Have Connaught about figured out. The inner and outer ring colonnades have nice places like my hotel and Pizza Hut, and the service road that circles between the two main roads is mostly parking, car repair, and tourist agencies. Changed money and made some inquiries in a few of these. Alas, my vision of a week on a houseboat on Lake Dal in Srinagar has been sunk. Just last week, a bomb went off in a market there, and that’s just the most recent of the usual in Kashmir. Every agent told me the same thing – they’d get me a ticket, but no Indian was going there as a tourist so why would I? I also checked on car rental information. If I can’t go to Srinagar, maybe I’ll rent one of those grand old Ambassadors and head up the Himalayas with it (well, in the plush back seat as my driver does the work). Dang, I earned SOMETHING after all the extra teaching this year.
And that was my day! It is as hot as hell here and, unsurprisingly, I sweat like a drowned rat. Even the occasional tout, looking for line to become my insta-buddy, says “Sure is hot, isn’t it?” (then where-are-you-from and do-you-want-to-see-my-carpet-shop) So far, my wisest pre-departure purchase has been the four handkerchiefs I got for a buck at the Dollar Store just down Moreland.
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