Day 3 in Mumbai

I had such a great day yesterday that I thought the jet lag was mostly behind me.  Nope.  Woke at 3 am.  Could not get back to sleep – unpacked, emailed, called home, read.  The van was supposed to pick me up at 9am to go to FRRO – Foreign something Registration Office.  The van was pretty late and it took a long time to get there.  The registration process was weird.  First we had to go to a computer and type all this information in then print it out.  Then we went to a desk where a person took that information and filled it out on a piece of paper, then they gave us a registration booklet and we had to write the information AGAIN! So crazy!  Good news is I know my address and phone number now… I think J Got to use to my first “squatty potty” today at the FRRO.  Wasn’t too disastrous J  Need to practice deep squatting though!!

A few of our people have gotten Bombay Belly already L  not horribly ill just needing the bathroom a lot.  My stomach felt a little weird today – not sick, but weird so I am going to start brushing my teeth with bottled water to be safe. 

I will probably mention the traffic in just about every blog.  Holy cow.  It is just so unbelievable.  Cars and rickshaws  are just going everywhere – along with cows and people.  There aren’t lanes and people just squeeze in wherever they can.  There are pedestrian walkways but they don’t mean anything.  It is scary crossing the road.  I will get better at it, but for right now I just find an Indian trying to cross the same road and go when they go!  Saw some interesting signs on the back of cars.  One said “good luck”  in huge letters across the back windshield.  Ha!  One had a bumper sticker that said “stop TB:don’t spit”   and in the FRRO office there were a lot of “don’t spit “signs.

                                                                                                              

                      

                                                                                                                                                                                                  

I walked around my neighborhood for about an hour, trying to get my bearings.  Takes about 15 minutes  (probably a lot less when it isn’t monsoon season)  to get to the Arabian Sea!  How crazy is that!  We live in Bandra which is nice area of Mumbai that has lots of shopping and dining places.  I went to Pali market again today. I Got a broom, mop, other cleaning supplies including food cleaner.  I love that they will deliver everything!  You can shop at a store and not have to lug it around in all this rain to the other stores.  We went to Nature’s basket and got some groceries – I got a mix of Indian and western brand stuff.  You never know if the western stuff is going to taste the way you think it will anyway.  The school left oreos in our apartments and they don’t taste the same! Got some cereal today but I am afraid to use the boxed milk.  A woman who drank it a lot in Brazil said it doesn’t taste the same as regular milk but it didn’t bother her too much.  She recommended not drinking it by itself – put a little in cereal etc and build up your tolerance.  Sounds like a lot of work!!!!  I love cereal and hope this milk doesn’t ruin it!  A different woman drank it today and had a really bad experience.  Not sure when I am going to venture into the boxed milk!  But I have some cereal that is dying to be eaten!

Tonight the 2^nd group is going to the Superintendent’s house for dinner – that is me!  The group that went last night said the food was amazing (his wife cooks Indian food) and that his apartment is amazing too. I am looking forward to it. I have never been invited to dinner at a Superintendent’s house!!