Tired today. I've been having trouble sleeping the last few nights and it is catching up to me. Just the horrible horrible heat at night. And noise. And pollution. And I'm picky. But it's o.k. I have plans.

Today is my day off. A few of us will walk over to the old cemetery - I admit to loving cemeteries and visit them in any new city when I get a chance. I heard the one here is very quiet and very green and feels very ancient. I also admit to wanting to go alone. I like sitting in quiet places by myself, but couldn't say no to a woman who wanted to join. Perhaps I will try to go back later just to sit with my thoughts.

Later we will go shopping for Saris and to see some more of the puja pandels.

Last night after work I found that Anita had bought a guitar and she and the Seattleite were playing in the courtyard. Guess what they were playing. Your clue is "college." If your answer is "anything by Bob Marley," you are correct.

Later Felicity, Anita, Steffi and I went to go see one of the major Pandels (house for the Durga statues). It was insane. There are thousands upon thousands of pandels everywhere - all over the light-lined streets (really like christmas), but some of them apparently are the biggest and the best and people will stand in line for literal hours to get in to see them. It was an overwhelming throng of people, but luckily (or with unfair privilege which pricked our conscious as we thought about it in retrospect) we were ushered through the "V.I.P" line. And even there the throng of people was crushing.

We were ushered past an amazing statue of Durga - gold and glittering. And she is housed in this bamboo structure created with incredible details and covered in fabrics and sculpted until it looks really similar to a Disney-esque castle. And what is interesting is that after tomorrow, all of these structures and sculptures created with so much care will be tossed in the river only to be rebuilt and recreated the following year.

But I have to admit last night was a bit much for me. I'm not a fan of crowds in general, and usually go out of my way to avoid them- so to be surrounded, pressed on all sides by about 13 million people. yeah. Not my favorite time. Still I'm glad to have seen it and experienced it. And I'm even gladder (more glad?) that Anita was feeling done as well. We caught a taxi and headed home. Anita was a bit more freyed than I was, so I made her listen to soothing music on my ipod. After listening to the song twice she smiled and said, "thank you, I really needed that. I was getting really annoyed, but now I see it is fine. It is all dust in the wind. :)"

And so it is.

Guess what song I made her listen to? :)

Then we shared the headphones and drove home through the city listening in silence to our own private soundtrack.