So, we arrived in New Delhi, yesterday morning around 530 am. We got to our hotel soon after and then waited 4 hours until a room was available. This was not fun, but I guess since we have only not gotten into our room 8 hours before check-in one other time, this was deserved. They let us have the free breakfast, which although it was nothing to write home about, it at least filled our tummies and prevented us from having to go out to eat. We got in our room and Ale immediately went to bed while I immediately showered. We each have priorities. I then took a nap, and an hour later we had a knock at the door. Ale was completely out cold, so I had to get all the way out of bed and go to the door. And guess who it was!?!
Vishal! With our Norah Jones tickets!
Me: "oh my goodness! Did you come all the way here to deliver our Norah Jones tickets!?
Well, of course he didn't. He had an interview for MBA school that very day that he had scheduled the week before. How serendipitous! Vishal then went back to his room and studied for his interview, while we took another nap. We met him at noon and he brought us to a delicious restaurant. There was so much meat! And it was soooooo good. We had chicken kabobs and mutton skewers and paneer tikka, black Dahl, more chicken, this fluffy delicious roti, and rice kheer. Mmmmmm so good. And obviously it was made even better by the company.
After lunch, Ale went back to bed (she couldn't sleep-in in Mussoorie like I could) and Vishal and I went to his interview. Well, I didn't actually go to the interview with him, there just so happened to be a Tibetan market in Janputh right next to his interview spot, so I hitched a ride with him (and used his driver.) After we dropped off Vishal, the driver bright me to the auditorium where Norah Jones was being held because I had to trade in the piece of paper that came in the mail for actual tickets (I don't make this stuff up.) It was a decent distance away (30 minutes) so I only ended up with an hour to shop by the time I got back to Janputh.
This market was ridiculous, though. Every single stall/store owner was begging me to come inside to "just look" and practically throwing stuff in my hands to bargain down and buy. I actually got a lot of things I didn't need bargained down, but I didn't need them so I somehow had enough self-control to not buy anything. Each time I would leave, I was practically being dragged back inside. It was the worst I've experienced in India and it got old real fast.
The highlight of the market was meeting this really nice middle aged man. He didn't force me into his store, so I already liked him. We got to chatting as he was curious what country I was from and then long story short he asked me for medical advice for his epileptic son. It was really sad, because when I told him I was just a student going into Obgyn, he asked me if I could find a neurologist and have him write him. I obviously don't know about his son's medical history nor had I examined him, and in our country we don't just give medical advice by mail, but I really wished I could have. This man wanted a second opinion and I couldn't give it to him. I guess we have the same problem in the US, if you can't afford it/don't have insurance, you don't get a second opinion let alone a first opinion.
By the time Vishal was done with his interview, I was more than ready to leave. Don't worry, it wasn't a complete waste as I got 4 pairs of earrings out of the experience. Vishal and I went back to the hotel. We woke up sleeping beauty and Vishal packed and was off to the airport to go back to Bangalore. We said our good byes and by this time, it was Norah time!!!!!
Ale and I got a rickshaw over to the auditorium. It ended up taking more than an hour to get there because of traffic. That part was not fun. I had also read online that we had to be in the gates by 730 so I was having a mild panic attack. What if I don't get to see Norah!? Luckily, they let us in and Norah hadn't even started (Indian Standard Time.)
Norah was pretty much amazing. She has a gorgeous voice and she's cute and she plays the piano and guitar and I love her. We couldn't bring in a camera, which was super sad, but I guess that meant I could actually be in the moment.
Vishal's driver picked us up after the concert (he was busy dropping Vishal off at the airport during the concert) and we got back to our hotel by 11. The ride home was luckily less trafficky. When we got back to the hotel, we asked them where we could order in food (room service!!!!) and how to get to Agra the next afternoon. The man at the desk told us there was only 2 trains that left at 6 am. And it was too late to book one for the next morning. Buses? Not safe. What?! This was not going to work with our plans. We were supposed to stay over Wednesday night and get up early for a sunrise at the Taj (when less people are there and we can therefore get better pictures). The taj is closed on Fridays for Muslim prayers, so we couldn't see the sunrise if we left Thursday morning. And besides, 6 am is way to early to be taking a train.
We decided to go onto makemytrip.com (after ordering aloo paranthas) and found a bajillion trains leaving the next day. So we went back downstairs to ask the guy at the desk if these were safe and he said they were fine. Hmm, so why did you tell us we could only leave at 6 am? Since makemytrip no longer takes international credit cards (probably after we were the first foreigners using international credit cards 10 times), we decided we would just go to the train station the next day to buy our tickets, since we could see there were at least 134 spots available.
And so we fell asleep in our fancy hotel room stuffed with aloo paranthas singing Norah and excited for the adventures of the next day!
Since we couldn't take pictures at Norah, here is us in the hotel room.
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