Taj mahal and beyond

So...we finally saw it. All I have to say is...WOW. It really is
everything you hear about...a true wonder. It is made out of semi
translucent white marble and is covered with designs of semi precious
stones and black onyx. It is built on a platform so that whenever you
take pictures of it you only get sky in the background. Its just
breathtaking...as I said to my dad - "its a diamond in a big dump". He
responded very wisely saying "Diamonds usually hidden in the places
like that, aren't they? :)"

As we go through India, I sometimes start to feel like were mix
between celebrities and a freak show. We constantly have indian men,
women, and children asking us to take pictures with them. I have no
problems with this natural curiosity, but I have to wonder...what do
they do with these pictures? Are we going to be standing, framed in a
picture on the night stand (or whatever) of some rural indian boy?

Our Taj tour guide experienced a similar curiosity and took advantage
of his time with us to ask us all sorts of questions. The big one he
had was "do all Americans work out?" He was particularly impressed
with Predator, the movie, which seemed to give him the impression that
america was a country of people who have giant pecs who work out non
stop. Other questions revolved around what we like to eat, racial
discrimination in the us, what kind of housing people live in,
american punctuality, even what salaries we made (we respectively
declined to answer that question)

On a less exciting note, did you know how lucky we were to have
consistently running hot water? In our current hotel, which is for the
most part pretty clean, we have exactly 2.3 minutes to take a shower.
Forget shampooing and conditioning, you are forced to prioritize what
part of you you'd like to wash. You have to go in there with a
concrete and well thought out strategy or else you'll be stuck soapy,
with no hot water left.

On another note, we went to an Indian McDonalds. In case you were
wondering what they served instead of beef...they have McVeggie and
McChicken burgers.

-Ellen

--
Sent from my mobile device