Things you don’t share: Strep Throat

Adam is indomitable – until he gets strep throat. Which is precisely what happened this week, throwing a spanner into our schedule (including me sticking around at home for a couple of days to take care of him, and make sure he took his meds)… we’re pending my test results now. It did give him a chance to do some advance planning for classes, as well as for me to put some projects in order and get started on other things. While he starts a film club at the school sometime soon, I’ll be working with a friend on a knitting club. We’re going to focus on making baby hats, booties and jumpers to donate to Landour Community Hospital (LCH), as very few of the women who are pregnant and deliver there are sent home with anything – and the new OB/GYN wants to see that change.

We also managed to finish watching “The West Wing”, an American political drama that ran until 2006. It’s taken us several months to get through all 7 seasons, but we’ve finished, and loved it. It’s a show that handles a lot of interesting political issues – and still has bearing on relevant questions for political issues today. I’m not sure what we’ll start watching next – we tend to like crime dramas (Castle, Criminal Minds, and Person of Interest), but I’m thinking that “Fringe” might be our next option, since it requires use of the brain to follow, rather than some kind of mindlessness.

Hindi classes are moving swimmingly for me; they’re trying to convince me to take the exams (which I really see no need for), but I’m officially at the intermediate stage, which isn’t so bad for 4 months. Evidently my pronunciation is fine – when I told my teacher that’s what I wanted to work on, she told me there was no need. Adam’s Hindi classes will resume on Wednesday, as long as he’s feeling  better – fingers crossed.

The weather has generally been pretty good: it’s warming nicely, and we’ve had rain over this past weekend, and earlier in the month. Rain is critical for the farmers, as well as for making sure we don’t suffer a major drought in April, May and June before monsoon comes. We’ve had water rationing the past couple of years, and I would be ecstatic if that wasn’t necessary this year.

We’re back – and vacation on the brain already.

The first days of classes are done – including three days of monotonous downpours (last Monday, Tuesday and Wednesday were nothing but rain!). This is a good thing – we’re a little less likely to have forest fires in April, May and June; we’re also a little less likely to see water rationing crop up on campus. It’s happened the past few years, and hasn’t generally been a big deal except in dorms (water is turned off for certain portions of the day). The weather’s also on a slight warming trend, so the frigid nights of winter are almost over – I hope! It doesn’t help that Adam came down with a hundred degree fever on Thursday.

Classes resume today for me twofold: tutoring staff spouses in English before lunch, and then Hindi at Landour Language School after lunch. Adam’s Hindi classes will resume this week as well, so we will see how things proceed. We also have to remember to ensure we have all our tax information ready for next month, as well as getting Adam’s Hindi lessons reimbursed before we get our travel booked for quarter break!  We’re also waiting on the final reimbursements for some medical bills from last year that we’ve been assured will be paid… it’s simply a matter of when.

In fine Woodstock tradition, we’ve already planned out our summer holiday (Egypt, Jordan and Turkey!) – but we’re hammering out ideas for quarter break, which falls this year in early April. We have three places we’re considering right now:

• Srinagar, Kashmir
• Mumbai, Maharashtra (Bombay)
• Jim Corbett National Park, Uttarakhand (right next door!).

All of them will be cost equivalent – a jeep safari will run between Rs3500-7000, and usually you do two a day (one in the morning, one in the evening); Rs7000 is also slightly less than airfare to Mumbai for one person, and is about Rs3000 less than flying to Srinagar. We could leave Friday and overnight in the park, and safari on Saturday twice in the more expensive sections of the park (the Rs7000 ones), and then Sunday in the cheaper (Rs3500) sections… but that’s not even factored the hotel in. I’ve emailed some staffers and friends to see where they recommend staying. One day with two of the expensive safaris would be the equivalent in airfare for both us to fly to Mumbai, but wouldn’t get both of us to Srinagar… so it’s a very sticky set of running numbers.

Of course – there’s also the idea of staying home. We’re not extremely keen on it (we want to get linoleum laid in the main room, plus have the walls repaired and the main room repainted)… but it would save us money, and give us more for the summer holiday.

Why I Don’t Like “How To Travel The World On $50 A Day”.

I didn’t realize I had this blog  linked to my Amazon profile (eek!), but I’ve been seeing more traffic since I posted a 2-star review of a new book by Matt Kepnes (Nomadic Matt): “How To Travel The World On $50 A Day”. My review on Amazon pretty concise: you can get everything he talks about in the book on his blog or on other blogs for free. There’s nothing new or groundbreaking in it, and to someone who’s on our budget, $10 for the book is a cheap dinner out, movie tickets, or an hour and a half of Hindi lessons. I returned the book so I can’t cite exact page numbers or the like, but I did take quick notes as I was reading it. Since I’ve been contacted by a couple people already…

Here are my three biggest issues:

• There’s no Table of Contents in the Amazon writeup – another reviewer has posted one. This would tell you there’s no description of Africa, the Middle East, North America, or that India isn’t covered in Southeast Asia. Sometimes India is, sometimes it isn’t, so that’s okay. I’m not sure who writes the product descriptions, but the TOC should have been included. What I need is India, Africa, Southeast Asia, and the Middle East, plus China and some of the -stans (all places I want to travel). SEA in the book covers Laos, Thailand, Cambodia, Vietnam, Indonesia, and I think one more place. I also would have liked to know that there’s an entire chapter dedicated to credit cards; I don’t have the USD income to sign up and cancel and sign up and cancel (long or short term) with a variety of cards just to collect miles. 
• I can find everything mentioned in the book for free, online. If you’re going to be as passionate with hunting where to find cheap hostels, comparing credit cards for collecting frequent flier miles, and comparing fares as Nomadic Matt thinks you’ll be – and writes this book for — you should be equally as willing to do your research for free resources. If you’re so budget-focused, the book may save you time, but it won’t save you money. If you’re going to plan budget travel, a round-the-world trip, or any extended holiday, it’s worth it to do your research, and there’s nothing in this book I haven’t read for free somewhere else.
• This book is written for an American/Canadian-based USD/CAD-earning audience, which is fine. I’m not that audience: I’m an expatriate on a local budget. While there are chapters on useful things like buying a backpack, and saving money while travelling, the former is painfully short and the latter is broken in to one or two page blurbs that are common sense, easily researchable, or are irrelevant for chunks of the parts of the world. It is so strongly focused on that USD-earner that a lot of it cannot be translated into different currencies (what I’d hoped for – general tips, tricks and advice for cost savings).

 

 Now, Nomadic Matt knows what he’s doing – he’s done well for his brand and he’s well-known, and I’m sure if I was living in the USA, a lot more would be relevant and useful for me. But I’m not – I’m an American expat, married to a Canadian expat, living in India and making a middle-class Indian wage. The majority of the book is neither relevant nor useful to someone in my situation, and for anyone in a similar situation, I just can’t encourage them to get the book. For a certain audience, it’s great – but I’m not part of that audience. 

Back To The Grind

Coming back home after a vacation is always tough; there’s always the would-have, could-have, should-have moments. How much did you regret (not) doing, forget to do, or forget to bring back? For Adam and I, we managed to do most of the things we wanted to do, couldn’t bring everything back we wanted to, saw the vast majority of the friends we wanted to. It was nice to be back, but there were still changes that made it vacation: food we couldn’t get at home (India), different customs, different clothing, different weather…

Then, back to India we came, and we’ve already started falling into the old routines. We called for groceries, got the wood stove working, scoured the house searching for spiders, started our laundry. We arrived safe and sound in Mussoorie, avoiding the snowfall that had given some of our friends a hard time, and then the week of professional development kicked in. There are a lot of nice changes coming, ones we’re both quite enthusiastic about: the master’s program through the University of London, the PASSAGE program that will work in concert with the International Award for Young Persons (focuses on service learning and extracurricular exploration), and new schedules that will keep us at Woodstock for less time during the winter and monsoon, and more time on campus during the more desirable weather!

It does mean that we’re already missing things, though: central heating first and foremost, followed in short order by food variety (fruits and veg out of normal growing season!). I want to make lemon pound cake with real lemons, get lettuce and add avocado to it for a nice green salad, and have some beef for boeuf bourgignon or for a nice hearty stew. Mutton (aka goat) just doesn’t quite cut it – and while someone found real lemons, it was one crate, and the first time in their 5.5 years here that they found them. As we continue to work on improving our health and diet, it’s times like this that we both feel the pangs of not being able to get certain things, because we both feel that it impacts our health.

Coming back also means cultural adjustment: no more holding hands or public displays of affection (because in India, if you have to touch your woman or hold onto her, she’s flighty and that means she’d go off with anyone!), jeans and t-shirts become jeans and kurtas and dupattas, and head-bobs don’t mean no, but “Maybe”, or “keep talking”; you drop something off to get a battery replaced or to pick up some clothes, and are invited for tea or told that the phone will be dropped off tomorrow at your house, new battery inside.

So here we sit – me at the laptop writing, Adam dissecting another one for tweaks and upgrades, and this sitting in the crock pot for dinner!

Winter Holidays: A General Update Plus PHOTOS!

We’re back, the house is still standing (and the cracks have only gotten a little bigger), and trying to put the apartment to rights. More than anything, we’re excited by the fact that there is construction going on outside to repair (read: rebuild) the wall!

Adam and I had an amazing vacation – it was almost one of those that you need a vacation from, with all the sightseeing, friend-visiting, and other keeping busy. We started our holiday with ten days on Saba, returned to Toronto for a night and then up to Miners’ Bay for family Christmas, then back to Toronto.

Saba was an… interesting trip. We did a lot of diving (16 dives including 2 night dives), saw sharks on about 14 of those 16 dives, and had the chance to see where Adam’s sister has been going to medical school and meeting some of her friends. We learned some interesting tidbits about Saba, including the fact that there are guppies in the water cisterns – those help eat some waste that gets in, as well as the mosquito  larvae. If there are mosquitos around, someone’s guppies need to be checked!

We were up twice to Miners’ Bay, once for Christmas and another time just to go up to the cottage. I got to go snowshoeing – my very first time, and I didn’t fall flat on my face! I was expecting to do that, but managed not to. I didn’t get to go cross-country skiing though (one of the things I do remember doing with my father and enjoying); it’s on my to-do list for the future, as is tracking down someone with sled dogs and learning to mush. We received many generous gifts, and I got a pair of down slippers that mean my feet are not going to turn into icicles. There was a fair amount of snow (about 6-8″) at the cottage when we were there in January, but with warming weather the paths turned to ice and the snow started to melt, and it rained on the last day we were up.

Most of our vacation in Toronto was a mix of going out and staying in. We saw a lot of friends, including catching up with two students of Adam’s; we also had a friend from Minnesota fly up to visit us (she had been a student teacher at Woodstock in the autumn term of 2011). Two of our friends are moving to California (husband got a job with Google!) so we were very lucky to have caught up with them when we did. Adam also ate sushi, which is an experience going down into the history books (and, of course, leave it to him to like the salmon and tuna okay – but prefer the eel!).

We went to the ROM and the AGO, seeing the dinosaur exhibit at the ROM, and both the Diego & Frieda exhibit at the AGO as well as the Evan Penny exhibit, which had been extended. We didn’t get to the zoo; that will have to be saved for the next trip. We also made an unexpected trip to the MUSEUM in Kitchener, which is well worth a visit: a family museum, and right now they have an exhibit of rock carvings from Dazu, China.

A lionfish, a very pretty – but VERY invasive! – species in the Caribbean.

I love this photo – by Andrew Raak of Raak Bottom Imaging.

Photo by Andrew Raak; this is, I think, at the dive site called Babylon.

Photo by Andrew Raak; this is one of the critters we saw diving – octopus!

Photo by Andrew Raak; this is one of the critters we saw diving – a cryptic teardrop crab.

Photo by Andrew Raak; this is somewhere we didn’t dive, but is representative of what we saw.

Photo by Andrew Raak; this is one of the critters we saw diving.

This is sunset, as seen from the dive boat before our first night dive (Tent Reef).

St. Eustatus, St Kitts, and Nevis, in order from closest to furthest.

Part of Cove Bay, near the airport, on Saba.

This is a terrible picture of the airport.

These are the dive sites to ask fro! Diamond Rock on the left, and Man Of War Shoals on the right.

This is the cargo ship that brings food from off-island to Saba; it arrives every Wednesday.

This is a look from Windwardside up to Mount Scenery from the Cottage Club, on Saba.

Tarpon in the harbor at Saba.

A barracuda that was hanging out under the dive boat when we surfaced.

Panorama shot from St. Maarten hotel.

Boats in Simpson Bay, St. Maarten

View from the Villas at Simpson Bay, St. Maarten (we overnighted here).

Houses on St. Maarten

Clear Lake at Christmas, 2012

 

Travel… again!

This semester has been terrible for blogging. Every week is something new! different! stressful! time-consuming! and leaves me with no drive, and Adam with no time whatsoever. I think over the winter holiday I may just write up a “schedule” of topics, if nothing else, to really keep updating for our friends at home, and the occasional visitor who finds us searching a variety of topics.

This winter – Canada and Saba. We’re looking forward to seeing friends and family again, albeit in freezing temperatures (and I have no idea how to dress for “20 at the airport on one end, 0 at the other”); I’m bound and determined to get out and enjoy the snow and cold just because in Canada, we’ll have the magical ability to go back inside where it is warm. Which does not happen at Woodstock (we love you, concrete house). We’re eager  to enjoy some snow, do the things we didn’t get to do on the trip back this summer (ROM, AGO), and relax. We’re also looking forward to Saba and diving and a bit of walking/trekking, what can be done there, as a change of pace.

However, we had been scheming to take a road trip to Ottawa (so I could go skate on the Rideau Canal), maybe up to Montreal and Quebec City. That is going to have to get put on the sidelines, because we were just handed an amazing opportunity that we can’t quibble with at all:

We had thought we would go to Thailand, Cambodia and Laos next summer – maybe dive, but go play tourist over there. We have to travel somewhere or we lose our home leave benefit, so… we’d go hop to Southeast Asia. And instead, a conversation about the past winter’s diving in the Andamans with a friend yielded up the info that they’re going to Egypt, and might we want to join them?

So now, Egypt is suddenly in the cards, staring us in the face. Cairo and Aswan and Luxor, the Sinai Peninsula and diving (or snorkelling) in the Red Sea. Ottawa, Montreal and QC are off the list, and our quarter break plan for Kashmir is wobbly, because, really, how can you turn down Egypt?

Now, there’s replanning, reprioritizing, exploring TripAdvisor, the Lonely Planet forums, and this nifty website called Viator (which lets you see tours/activities in areas, and create a wish list). If four or five of us go, can we bargain down the costs for some of the tours, hotel rooms, and the like? Can we manage to get the cash together to do a side-trip to Abu Simbel, to the UNESCO World Heritage site of Petra in Jordan? We want our week on a beach to snorkel or dive, but can we arrange to go to Mt. Sinai and St Catherine’s Monastery and do a sunrise trek? How long do we spend where – how important is it to do a trip up the Nile on a felucca (one of the small sailing ships), or would paying about 1/8 the price to take a hot air balloon ride over the Nile, and then paying for a train or taxi to take us from Aswan to Edfu, Kom Ombo, and Luxor do?

Just around six months to do it – and thankfully it’s the low season in Egypt – and so we’re starting the plans and budgeting and scheming now, because this would be an amazing trip. And, needless to say, an escape from monsoon!

So – no one tell Adam what the temperature is in Aswan in June-July, okay? Please?

American Thanksgiving

Today is American Thanksgiving (the Canadian holiday being October 8th, this past year). Today has also just been a really good day, and I decided to come up with a list of things I’m thankful for. This is by no means exhaustive!

• A husband who is taking time out of his already-busy week to practice tabla, and sit with our Indian music teacher once a week for about 30 minutes to learn more.
• A very generous set of in-laws (mother, father, aunt, uncle and so on!), who help get me sewing machines so I can do projects, and go to language school, and equip our kitchen, and…
• The facility for languages that mean I can speak three of them interchangeably during a conversation, and have a few more in my metaphorical back pocket.
• My mother who sends me USPS boxes full of Stuff. (And no, Alice isn’t here as of this morning!)
• Friends that feed me food I can’t always identify, but is without fail delicious. And then they talk about using me as their giant dress-up doll “because you’d look so goooooood dressed like” whatever.
• Views like these: