No wonder VA and I get stares for being in the same room together. And I was really excited about going to the zoo this weekend. My favorite part is about the ugly scene in the jungle area.
Speaking of restaurants, we tried to go to Patna's new revolving restaurant tonight, but were turned away because of the crowds at the door. It sounds pretty cool, but from what we could see it didn't look like it was actually revolving. It probably has nice views of the Ganges. Bihar's morality police report:
Instead we went to the Rajasthan, a hotel restaurant on busy Fraser Rd. Hotel restaurants are usually the nicest in a mid-sized Indian city like Patna. Seven of us altogether, and we ate a lot, including specialty drinks and dessert. The bill came to Rs 1200. Pretty standard. I still have to get it into my mind that although that may not be much by US standards, it's about as much as I make in a day.
Although I have been spending most of my time in my apartment (the date for the office move-in keeps being pushed back by the renovators), I frequently find myself in unexpected places. Last weekend we were invited to dinner by an Ecuadorian who works at a Jesuit botanical garden/environmental education center on the outskirts of Patna. This place was pretty cool. Solar ovens, tree houses, and gardens full of rare plants. Then earlier this week I visited some cable operators. These guys provide literally all the cable connections for the city of Patna (about 3 lakhs= 300,000), and they do it all from their homes: obtaining national channels from satellites on the roof and local channels from fixed lines to nearby news stations, using a couple of DVD players to throw in some advertisements, and sending their lines out to surrounding localities. And today I visited the offices of a major Indian newspaper to talk with a top executive about my need for a project assistant. Like, shouldn't this guy be doing something else, something more important than meeting with some rando RA about his translation needs? It's interesting to see the doors that are opened to you despite, and maybe even because of, not knowing Hindi.
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