On the train now.

So I realize now my entry above didn't truly convey what last night was like. I mean,
I wasn't nervous, until David and Sigrid were telling everyone to get off the bus, “we think we may be in a bad situation.” And then we're in a shady part of Jaipur, though that's relative... yeah. But anyway.

So today was busy, but fun. Woke up, waited forever to get a breakfast of a lemon banana crepe, spent some time online (ultimately probably worth the 80 rupees, although I apologize for not posting to the blog, I got caught up in other things.) We wrapped up packing, left our bags at the hotel, and headed off to the Palace of the Wind by rickshaw. One rickshaw was blasting music, especially Barbie Doll, and I was jealous.

And we got there... and one rickshaw is missing. Now, after last night, this is REALLY setting off everyone's alarms. Denny and Allen went to get a SIM card for our phone for India, we all sat around and got badgered by merchants. A few people actually got good deals, in retrospect, I probably could have picked up a nice gift there. Ah, well. About ten minutes later the last rickshaw showed up, then we waited 45 minutes or so for Denny and Allen to return. We were starting to get a little worried, but they finally showed up. One of the shopkeepers led us to the entrance, telling us the whole time that we should visit his shop when we're done, of course. Denny did his best to get the guy off our back, but y'know, that's life. We got there, thanked him for his help (same guy had helped Denny find the SIM card, and actually had us go in his shop for 5 minutes as a thank you), and into the Palace we went. It was beautiful, great architecture, I really enjoyed the little peepholes into the city... which shows in how many pictures I took that way. Under restoration, which led to some interesting effects, but well worth it. After that we went to the City Palace, which had a museum-style layout. Some cool stuff, more beautiful architecture, a great weapons hall that I'm sad I couldn't take pictures in. I finished, saw that the cafe there was overpriced (60 rupees for a coke), and sat quietly, half-dozing with Mike until it was time to go. Grabbed a bag of chips and a sprite from a vendor, and we walked over to the observatory. En route we saw a crazy guy covered in grey (ashes?) stick out his tongue and, according to John, vomit intentionally, and Denny bought us ice cream which was well needed. The observatory itself was very cool, great big sundials (one the largest in the world and accurate down to 2 seconds), astrolabe, and all sorts of cool stuff. A lot of zodiac-related things, too, I need to do some research. One man told us the Romans got the zodiac from India, which is why they're the same, but I'd like to verify that myself. After that Denny bought us some food and drinks, om nom pickle samosa, and we started the trek back to the hotel. A cow hip-bumped Nate, but nothing else really worth mentioning happened, it was just more walking through the city. Got back, took a break, rickshaws (we ordered 8, they sent 5), train station, DASHING because the platform changed, on the train, and eating train food now.

Saturday, February 6th, roughly 6-6:15 PM local time