My jet lag has almost worn off, and the craving for lasagne for breakfast is slowly subsiding. (Though the fact that there WAS lasagne available for breakfast this morning didn’t help). I’m so happy to be home, and not just because it took more than a day to get here.
The flight was easier than I expected, in fact, it was sort of like a mini-vacation on its own. Austrian Airlines was just lovely – the food was amazing, and my brother never eats his desserts. What more could a girl ask for? Oh yeah, the really great free red wine (free) that came around every ½ hour (free) and made the flight infinitely easier. (free.)
Vienna looked like Saskatchewan, but with castles, and Mozart and Strauss’ face on everything from shot glasses to bathroom tiles. The majority of their exports seem to be in truffles and liquor, which is ok with me. We had this amazing breakfast in the sunshine – eggs and bread with jam and marmalade and fresh squeezed orange juice, and the best cup of coffee that I’ve ever had in my life. Upon commenting that everyone also appeared to be drinking beer at 9 in the morning (pish) my brother brought me back to earth (and humility) by saying he too was thinking of having one – and honestly, so was I. Unfortunately, since they still allow smoking.. well… everywhere, we couldn’t stand it long enough. They have these great “smoking zones” in little corners with a circle around it and a slow moving fan. Yeah. Considering those little corners are filled with a microcosm of Eastern European habitants (see: Russian woman in Gold Lame, Chanel purse and Prada heels, Russian man in wrinkles, empty pockets and leather jacket, French woman in navy and gold and well plucked eyebrows, Austrian in non-existent blond eyebrows and ski jacket…) all of whom smoke – we passed on the beer.
Our waitress was the sweetest – the menu was in.. Austrian?... for everything but dinner, so we begged a translation off of her. It was quite endearing, if not helpful. “It’s English breakfast, you know, with farfenkuckle, sorry, I don’t know English word, and squeezed ormenlageren, you know, with cofelensmacken, and…eggs.” Oh excellent. Can I have extra butter? (sidebar – don’t use my translation either. I was on my umpteenth glass of red wine at this point – not included, sadly, in the breakfast menu).
We arrived in Delhi.. gosh.. 2 nights ago now. It’s just as I remember it in the winter – smoky and cold, which luckily dissipates the smell of shit quite effectively. Though the fact remains that the smoke around the slums smells decidedly un-burning tire or paper like. Reduce Reuse and Recycle India.
My family is well – it seems like the older I get, the less I’m home.. the smaller my parents seem to get. It gets easier and easier to just wrap my mother in my arms, my brother can lift her up now. My mother stayed up late with my time-addled brother and I to catch up and chat – I’ve missed her so much. Problems and discussions I’ve been wanting to have for months get taken care of in a few words, she’s so wonderful. I was up late, the effect of too many coffees, too much red wine, or just plain excitement.
We traveled into Old Delhi early the next day – I love it so much there. I find the longer that I’m here, the more often I visit…the harder it is to look India in the eye. I find that I look above India, into the windows, or down, into the dirt…Because if I look everyone in the face, I want to cry – for what I can’t do, for what I won’t do, and for what will never be done for this place. I’ve been here long enough to see it limpingly change – more women drive, more blue jeans, more short hair – and I laud these things like honest indicators of change and evolution. But really – there are just as many poor and broken and sick people as their always was – they’re just wearing more cast off blue jeans. But it helps, right? To tell yourself that somebody else must be changing things. I think that if I don’t do that, I might have to learn that nothing is changing. And I’m too much of a coward to do that.
Old Delhi, as usual, was teeming with a million (or what always seems like the entire 1.4 billion population of India) people, everyone apparently deciding that the street was going the wrong way. We walked in from Canary Bazaar across from Red Fort. I’m always surprised that we don’t get horribly lost (or murdered, raped and pillaged) in the millions of alleys and shops and men constantly farting and readjusting their packages. I’m decidedly a shorter person in Canada, I feel like a giant here, a giant just enough at boob level to ask “Are you trying to look me in the eye and this is as high as you can get?” To which the answer is invariably no, they’re just looking at my boobs and readjusting their packages.
I’m spending the day today with my little sister, shopping and exploring. I never get to visit the Museum of Modern Art while I’m here, so I’m going to steal the driver this afternoon and run away there for a couple hours. The time is going so quickly – ten days will never be enough here. A lifetime would never be enough. Off for some cofelensmacken. Love you all.
