Nor' Easting

So, since I have no useful time to write anymore. It has been suggested that I could at least throw some pictures of our trip up on the site. I agree.

We started the trip flying into Boston and promptly headed to Maine, not sure where we would end up. Our plan was to find a place early enough to walk around get some dinner and that led us to Portland for the first night. We found a hotel and went out and I had my first taste of lobster that night.

We spent the night trying to figure out our next day, basically where we would end up. We had heard from others that Acadia National Park was a place not to miss. I couldn't agree more. We drove up that morning and drove and walked around the park most of the day. The views were incredible. (Remember to click on the pics to see more detail).

We started by going through the park and continued to stop every chance we had to look at the views. We got out at the Sandy Beach, to check out the low tide that afternoon.

Then were off to get to the top of Cadillac Mountain. The road winded up the mountain and it offered an entire view of the park and truly as far as the eye could see.

We also stopped at the Thunder Hole which lived up to its name. As the waves come into the shore, it goes into this rock and creates a loud thundering sound. Pretty neat to check out. We stayed the night in Bar Harbor and enjoyed a lovely view from our room of the harbor. We had hoped to see the sunrise over the ocean, but we choose to sleep in a bit instead.

We had hoped to spend the next day at Mt Washington, to ride the cog railway and see the sites, but they were not running the train that day, so we ended up driving straight through that day to Norwich, Vermont. but not before stopping back at the park to see a few more sites.

We arrived at our inn and promptly went to get dinner across the border around the Dartmouth campus. Enjoyed the evening but wanted to get rested for the big baking class the next day. Since the class was not until 1 in the afternoon we went to see some sites in the morning and stopped at the Quechee gorge park.

We wandered back to Norwich and went to school. We worked hard and each made four loaves, which we then had to figure out what to do with all this bread we had made.


The next day we went to Boston, dumped the car and took the subway around town the next couple of days. Lots to see and lots to eat in Boston. We walked pretty much the entire town it seemed. We spent time eating the Italian food in the North District a couple of times. We went to see some historical sites, like Paul Revere's silversmith shop, the Old North Church and also went to the Science Museum for a couple of hours so we could play with all the educational equipment made for grade schoolers, but we still had fun with it.

That them there highlights.

India Part 2

Journal Entry....

I did get a couple of hours of sleep, which I wrote when I had last just gotten up to the business center. Not much of a center but at least we have something. Though, I could work out of it, it is decent enough.

Anyway, today after I went for breakfast we came back for an official welcome ceremony. We all got red spice stuff on our heads and then flower lei’s to wear. Then we had some sort of fruit drink and then lunch. Then they shoved us to a tour of the campus. It has interesting program. They have very high standards to get in, and our trying to grow the program to 800 - 1000 students. It is a one year program and you move on to the campus. They offer decent services, rec center, bank, some shopping on campus.

After this we went on a tour for different regions of the city Hyderabad. Years ago when some guy ruled and then somebody took it over, they basically divided the city into two halves. One side is Muslim, so you see Mosques in the middle of the street, the Hindu side you see temples in the middle of the street. So, we started getting out in one part of the Muslim side. We went and waded through the masses to see shops and other crap. Amazing no one was killed or even injured. You walk down the street which is about the size of our alley and cars, bikes, scooters and people are all going and crossing both ways at the same time. I tell you, one must have nerve to drive here. No hesitating, go and honk. Honking is nearly constant, my guess it basically allows people to know who is where without looking at their mirrors.

We ended up walking to a mosque. We were allowed in one part and they told us about some family that was a big deal or something, but we had to have our shoes off and then out of respect, I guess, we had to walk around the outside of it. Lots of bird shit, so these socks are not leaving this city.

We are quite the spectacle. While some of us went into the mosque, several people that did not want to remove their shoes, people with bare feet, stood outside. They were drawing quite a crowd of people that would just stare at them. Some people came and chased them away; meanwhile this happens everywhere we go.

Yeah, we get the beggars and the deformed kids that come to us for money and stuff, but just the spectacle of a bunch of non-Indians is quite the draw.

We then moved to Hindu side of town. Our bus got tangled in some electrical wires and we were stuck for a bit, everyone in town was directing our driver a different way to get out of the wires. The wires are there because people tie into the system to steal electricity, so the hang the wires where ever. We got out but it took awhile. We ended up at a temple, this area was middle class so the markets are a little nicer and the people are better dressed. We went into this temple for the three gods and too bad they would not let us take cameras, just the view was spectacular. We were going to go to craft show near the kite festival but we are all too tired and I am off to join everyone at dinner. The kite festival part that we saw was pretty cool; just people all over the city flying kites and battling each other.

That's about it. Tomorrow I have better computer access, so I will write more, I hope.

Hyderabad, the city I am in now, is a town built for 60,000 people that currently contains 7 million people, which gives you an idea how the infrastructure is around here. Today, Tuesday here, is New Years day, we celebrated with them last night. More on that later.

India Part 1

So the collection of posts comments are culled from my email journal, interspersed with comments about pictures, which may or may not be of value.

Journal, first morning...

Long travel day indeed. We are arrived in India 24 hours after we left. Trip was expected as to be long. First leg of the trip. We had fun things on the plane because they had seats with personalized videos games and movies. You could play trivia against people on the plane. I saw two moves Chicken Little and Casablanca. The layover in Amsterdam was tough very tired and tried to sleep on some lounge chairs with little success.

The plan to India was packed interesting, lots of families with little kids., weird thing right before we landed the disinfectant when off per regulations. SO the plane was briefly full of some spray.

Immigrations was very interesting, very thorough (ha!) more on that later, and then to our bus where we got to see lots of the city on to our place of rest, the India School of Business