So we’ve been home a few weeks and things are pretty much back to normal. Ben and I are both completely over whatever nastiness the “Indian Death Flu” really was, our businesses are back in order, and our bank accounts are recovering.

On a happy note, my (soon-to-be) horse waited for me to get home to have her foal! We were lucky enough to be there within a few minutes of her birth. She was born July 25th. Below is short video:

That’s it for for now! We’ll post more soon.

We’ll be on a flight to the US tomorrow night. I’ll be sad to say goodbye to Mumbai – it’s a very interesting place, and I’d love to explore it more. Hopefully we’ll be back someday. I had to send Ben off to do some shopping someday so that we had enough time to get everything done.

Tomorrow we will visit the parents of one of Ben’s former students and then head to the airport. We’ll be seeing everyone soon!

On a very sad note, beloved professor Michael Collins has passed away. He has been a huge influence on my life, both professionally, theatrically, personally. I will miss the late nights of drunken revelry in the pubs of London and Russell’s in Bloom with him and the gang. My thoughts are with Cindy, Quinn and Kit. Bloom will never be the same.

This is the man that taught me about the passion and playfulness of Shakespeare, Guiness beer, how casts should be picked and how politics influences it, how to pick your battles and win them and a million other things I could list here. Cheers to you, Michael – I’ll think of you with every beer.

I’m finally better after being felled by a nasty case of “Indian Death Flu,” otherwise known as “Delhi Belly.” Ben’s had a lesser bout with the little devil, but is holding up better than I did.

Luce and Bob finished their trip to India and headed home. We were terribly sorry to see them go as they’ve been lovely company! We email and call a lot though, so that helps. On the other hand, without their company, we’ve been spending a lot more time working on the computers and are around on Skype more (hint, hint). I also posted new pics.

In other news: WE SAW JIMMI SIMPSON ON INDIAN TV! I was so excited I started hollering and probably annoyed our hotel neighbors. (Sorry about that.) Very cool to see someone you’ve actually worked with on TV on the other side of the world. Jimmi would probably be very cool about it though – he would probably say something like, “Oh yeah. It’s licensed like that.” He’s an amazing actor, and I feel very privileged to have met him at all.

Also on Indian TV: a great ad about a necklace that wards off the evil eye (complete with eye-laser-shooting bad people and crying babies), MJ coverage, and lots of soap operas. We also watch the National Geographic channel a lot.

We still have water, at least for the moment. The rain is falling here in the city, but not near the reservoirs where it’s really needed for the city. Twenty days until the reserves are gone. Tick, tick.

Andy has been feeling a bit under the weather lately. Yesterday, she had a fever but improved after some Tylenol. In this photo, I’m taking her temperature while she contemplates violence against me.

In other news, it looks like monsoon is finally here. We’ve been having a lot of wind and some heavy rains today. This may be a good thing since Mumbai was considering shutting off water on alternating days due to weak rainfall.

We’re getting settled into the area here in Churchgate (Mumbai). We’ve had a few food adventures here – someone tell Mario at Playa Cancun that we’ve tried Mexican food here, and no es bueno!

We went to a cute little cafe which we had hoped would be a replacement for the Leopold Cafe in Colaba, but alas, their version of Mexican food resembled casseroles and the main ingredient was barbeque sauce, so it didn’t pass muster. It did however, pass back up later.

Ben and I hit the Mocha cafe today (have I mentioned that I miss my horse?) and we had lovely coffee drinks. Well, okay, I had a masala chai tea which was warm and sweet and just right. We’ll definitely be back – there was a really cool gift there that I may pick up for my sister…

Dinner tonight with Bob and Luce very nearly kicked our butts. We went back to Gaylord’s (make fun of the name all you want, Jack) and I ordered an Indian chickpea dish. Ben ordered a spicy dal curry with green chilies. What they brought him was actually Fire On A Plate, and proceeded to share it with my plate as well. Ben says he cannot recall a hotter dish in his culinary lifetime. I wanted to dive into the nearby ocean (dirty as it is) to stop the pain.

It was good – don’t get me wrong – but painful. And, like crazy people, we’ll be probably go back tomorrow.

We’ve finally settled on a hotel! It’s quite a bit nicer than the last one (although that pains us to say since they were so awfully nice there). I even have a desk to work from. Our friend Luce is staying here now too, which makes things even better.

We’ve been here a week and we haven’t even taken you on a tour of our room! We’re terrible virtual hosts.

Our hotel can be reached by ducking through a handmade shoe store, up a flight of stairs, and into a 1920s elevator. The very polite and friendly bellhop, who seems to work 24/7, will run the lift up to the right floor, then off to the left, and get the room key from the front desk (which is maybe 15 feet from our door). The custom here is to leave your key with the front desk. Presumably, they don’t have master key technology here. Our friend’s key at her hotel controls all the electricity for the room, so when she leaves, all of the power is off. Kind of brilliant, I think.

Inside, our room is about ten feet square, has two single beds with wool blankets, a small bedside table, a coffee table, TV and fridge. The beds are kind of like long coffee tables with padding. The pillows are pretty comfy though. We don’t get a lot of sleep though – it’s very loud here, and there are many things that go bump in the night.

Our bathroom is…interesting. The sink is smaller than a bar sink, tucked in a corner, with a mirror on each wall of that corner. It’s very hard to look straight at yourself. The toilet has a squishy seat and doesn’t flush well, so the bucket catching drips from the shower comes in handy. The shower, remarkably, is in the center of the room and the bathroom is meant to get soaked when you shower. On the downside, using the bathroom after someone showers means wading through 1/4″ of water on the floor.

The staff here are very nice, and the motto is “Stay in Luxury and Comfort.” By our standards, it’s about on par with a low-rent apartment, but there are people sleeping on the concrete right outside, so it’s not so bad, I guess.

We’re still looking for other hotels though.

We’ve made a new friend, Luce, and we’ve been spending time hanging out with her and laughing a lot. More on that later (she’s insanely interesting!). But just wanted to let you all know that we’re still fine, and we finally got to post some pictures. They’re to the left of this post – I think clicking on one will take you to our flickr page. And Bess, we “geo-tagged” the photos so you can see where we have been. Enjoy!

…of internet, that is. And today being Sunday, the Tata store is not open. Sooo, we’ll try again tomorrow as we learn to navigate these waters.

We’ve landed in Mumbai after a wonderful and pleasant time in Austria (Zurich, not as much). Here’s the catchup. Warning: this post might be on the long side!

Ben white-knuckled and green-faced the first plane ride over. It was awful. He took various medicines to combat various things and got very sick as a result. (This is a lesson to you kids – never mix your meds!) After seven hours and no sleep, we arrived at Zurich Airport in Switzerland. Everything was going peachy until we realized that we could not figure out the train schedules by ourselves, and there was very little help to be had at the Zurich Hauptbahnhof (Main Station). After wandering around for a good hour or so, we finally discovered a help station, exchanged the tickets we had erroneously purchased and proceeded to get the heck out of there.

We were almost to Feldkirch (Austria), exhausted, when I got up to get off the train. Unforunately, my bag was blocking my view of the yellow warning tape telling me there was a step down, and I missed it in a dramatic fashion. I careened off the seating area, swung around to catch myself and whacked into a metal pole full force, right below my tailbone. The bruise that is there now is scary – similar to the ones I got during my bike accident. I’m not showing you a picture.

Once we got to Feldkirch, I took the only two Euros we had (thanks Grandma and Grandpa!) and tried to call my family. No luck. We had the wrong number, and they don’t believe in phone books near public phones in Europe. I called Grandma, waking her up (sorry about that!) and she called Gerhard (my first cousin, once removed). He came to pick us up, and all was well thereafter…

Our stay in Austria was lovely and pleasant and Tante Maya (my great-aunt) speaks fairly good English – I found out too late that my German is no longer up to par. I’ll put up some photos after I finish this post.

Tante Maya showed me a few ancient and beautiful churches in Schnifis (the town she lives in) and we ate at a beautiful old Gasthaus (Guest House) nearby. The next day, after finally getting some rest, we headed into Feldkirch for shopping, postcards and toothpaste. Up into the mountains we went for lunch, eating al fresco at the Fohrenburger brewery. I didn’t get many pictures, but the ones I did take are here [coming soon].

After lunch, it was time to meet my nemesis – the giant, looming, deadly cactus that caused me so much pain the last time I was here – the “Pillow Cactus.” Unfortunately, the greenhouse was closed for lunch.

We had a wonderful dinner of coldcuts, veggies and cheese, took some pictures and went to bed. We had to get up at 3 a.m. to make the 4:46 a.m. train to Zurich (I hope Gerhard got more sleep after he dropped us off at the train station).

Ben was better on the ride to India – we figured out the real dosage needed for him, and kept him drugged the whole way. On the other hand, he started acting like a fruit loop, so that made things more interesting. I had to re-fill his immigration papers for him since his were illegible, inaccurate and didn’t follow the rules.

After shuffling Ben through security (everyone thought he was drunk), immigration and customs, we changed some money and got a cab. The flight attendant had told us before getting off the plane:

Mumbai’s airport is very well organized. After that, it’s a little more chaotic. Maybe I shouldn’t have told you that.

And she’s sooooo right. This place is Chaos Central. And to top off the day? My flipflop broke sometime during our 900mph taxi ride to the hotel. Luckily, the hotel is just behind a shoe store.

Culture shock doesn’t begin to explain this place – it’s a lot to take in, absorb and sort out in your mind. I stayed in bed yesterday and my feet didn’t even hit the floor until nightfall – I just couldn’t deal with it yet. Better today.

Tomorrow’s agenda: getting Skype working, email and getting some work done (finally!). Comment, post, repeat! Miss you all very much.