in Houston

Howdy Folks! Well, I am in my favorite city in the world, enjoying A/C, family, friends and lots of great food. I think I am going to gain 5-10 pounds on this trip.

I never realized (until living in K) that Houston is a BEAUTIFUL city! It also has gorgeous blue skies, hardly any people and not much traffic. I love it here. And even though it is is in the low 90s and HUMID, it does not really bother us. However, there are not zillions of people milling around you, no stench of urine, no constant sound of horns honking, no cars about to run you over, no exhaust blowing in your face and no trash everywhere. That really makes a difference in how hot/uncomfortable you feel. So, I totally understand K's discomfort index of 150+ degrees in the summer.

Another thing that I did not realize I would appreciate about being back in the USA is air-conditioned bathrooms. In S Asia, residences do not have central A/C, so if you want A/C in your bathroom, you have to install a unit in there and that would be be sort of ridiculous. So, we end up sweating when we have to go potty or brush our teeth. Not so here! In fact, at my parents' house, the bathroom is the coolest place in the house in summer.

I had forgotten that my old room gets the hottest in summer, so our first night in Houston Jerry and I were sweating. I was thinking, "I did not come all the way to the US from K to sweat in my sleep!" But problem solved - my dad put in a fan the next day. And on a related note, we are back to sleeping in a twin bed for the duration our of time here.

One of our friends relocated to England for five years and is letting Jerry drive his Mini Cooper this week. Not only is the Mini one of Jerry's favorite cars, it is bigger than the car we drive in K!

More later...

in Frankfurt

I have always wanted to visit Germany and now I am here, but confined to the Frankfurt airport. However, it's been nice so far! We walked off the plane down the stairs to the airport buses and were greeted with cool, crisp, clean air as well as nice, clean, not-broken-down buses.

A little bit of reverse culture shock is setting in as I am having a hard time not staring at all the white people and pointing them out to Jerry. Speaking of Jerry, he feels that Germany is too sterile and the jury's still out on whether he prefers this kind of atmosphere to the more "colorful" one in S Asia.

Well, we will be back in S Asia soon enough, so for now, I will enjoy the German efficiency and delight I experience going into the bathrooms here. The one down side, we wanted to eat sausage and kraut during our layover, but alas...

I would also like to say, that so far, I recommend flying Lufthansa. The food is decent, the plane was MUCH nicer than British Airways and the inflight entertainment is the kind where you have a choice of lots of movies that you can start and stop at your leisure. We saw The Other Boleyn Girl, Dan in Real Life and Definitely Maybe. I liked TOBG the most. Juliette Binoche was miscast in DIRL (in my opinion, and therefore reduced my enjoyment of the film). I still have 15 minutes to go on DM. I will catch the rest on the flight from here to Houston - my favorite city in the world!!!

Rain Rain Rain

Monsoon season is here!!! Hooray!!!

Monsoon season in S Asia means cooler temps. The high this week is only 97 degrees!!