Getting Ready

Fair Lawn, New Jersey, USA

With less than a week until our departure, we are frantically trying to get everything in order before we go. We spent most of the morning yesterday in line at the travisa center in Manhattan. This is the outfit to which the India consulate has outsourced its visa application process (ironic isn't it?). Despite a longish wait in line, we managed to get visas, and made some friends in the process. One of them was a Princeton student writing his thesis on the son of the king who built the Taj Mahal. This guy was an outstanding source of information on Indian history. Who knew the architects and builders of the giant white tomb were subsequently maimed so they could never repeat the feat. We also met an Indian gentleman who told us all about the traumatic India/Pakistan partition. We will certainly have a lot to learn in a few short days when we get there.