Sleep – shop – argh!

Our driver has taken a few days off to spend with his family. He arranged for another driver from the cab company to ferry us around for the duration. The new driver has advised us that he will be taking us around until Tuesday, when Mr. Kumar returns to work.

We returned to Commercial Street in the early evening and I purchased a replacement suitcase. Anand assures me it will survive the trip (it’s Samsonite with a 3 year warranty and I’ve already warned him that if it breaks on the way home, I’m holding him responsible) and despite being the same size (30 inches) as the suitcase I originally arrived with, it seems to be deeper. In the store – far away from my hotel room and the broken suitcase – it definitely looks like it will hold more than its’ predecessor. This is a very good thing, since I’m leaving with more things than I had when I arrived. The sarees alone account for over 13 meters of fabric that I now need to pack! I’m so worried about not having enough space in my luggage that I decide to pick up a cabin bag as well. Since I flew out with a laptop bag only, I’m allowed another piece of carry on and fully intend to use it. In the spirit of Diwali, the store offers a discount rate from the ticketed prices and offers to hold the bags at the store while we continue our shopping.

Luggage secured, we wandered in and out of a number of shops before Anand found what he was looking for. Unfortunately, the embroidered Kurties he was interested in didn’t come in the shorter length and he had difficulty deciding if which of the Kurties he wanted to purchase – if any. After some colossal waffling, Anand decided on three great Kurties. However, he didn’t want to wear the pajama bottoms and wanted the Kurties cut down so that they would appear more like North American clothing. *Sigh* I’m sooooo disappointed in him. After much haggling with the clerk, he finally agreed to keep one of the Kurties exactly as it should be (pants and all) and had the remaining 2 altered. We’ll be heading back to Commercial Street sometime next week to pick them up.

After tossing around a few ideas – Chinese, Tandoori, etc. – we decided to try a Tandoori restaurant that Manish had mentioned to me a few weeks ago. When we arrived at the restaurant, it was closed for Diwali and we were back to square one. We then considered going to the Royal Afghan in the Sheraton, since the tandoori was wonderful at that restaurant, but the new driver wasn’t familiar with it’s location and we didn’t know the exact address. In the end, we gave up and headed back to the hotel for dinner.

After dinner, I attempted to pack most of my things in the new bags to ensure I had enough space to fit everything. Surprisingly enough, I have room to spare in all of my bags now. Granted, I haven’t tried to pack my monster makeup and toiletries bag yet, so that could soon change.

I logged into the internet to chat with Drew and Virginia and flipped channels on the TV (this is only the second time I’ve turned on the TV since I arrived) while I was waiting. After 4-5 hours of chatting with friends from home, I toddled off to bed.

You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.