the amazing race

lately, trips to delhi have been frought with adventure. not the kind you ask for, but the kind that appears like flaming shit on your doorstep. not that i've ever had that experience. but you could imagine...

the first incident was brian's song of a lost passport 2 days prior to indian departure. i played the role of an agent well, i believe. the most recent incident, operation GRE, occurred just yesterday. why i believed that simply hiring a AC car for the day and having my travel agent give my driver directions would be sufficient is beyond me. i planned 3 hours for navigation. how right i was. after calling the testing center 5 times from the roads of gurgaon (a suburb of delhi) i pleaded with a man on the street, only 15 minutes before my GRE was to begin, to get in the car with me and the driver who couldn't find his way out of an open door. after running around an unmarked strip mall i found the testing center with 10 minutes to spare. drenched in delhi sweat, i was floored by the heat in the room in which i was to sit for the exam. i would rather be stuck in a polar icecap taking a test than in a room with no AC.

but, it's all over now, friends. i write from leh, whose beauty nearly brought me to tears this morning. maybe it was my 1 hour of sleep last night. but i think it's something more... of course i do. i am that GRE word that i once learned that means "overly sentimental..." i think it starts with an m...