last.day

I got my appetite back a couple of days ago, so I've crammed about 12 days of near fasting into a two day 'leaving India' feast. What do you do on your last day in a country that has been your home, for better or worse, for the past 7 months? It has been a pretty basic day- didn't want to do anything too special because I know that I'll be returning to India soon- at least within 2-3 years if not sooner. This is the first place since New York, and special parts in California, that just pulls me. I feel a great connection to this country, so much so, that I don't really mind leaving because I know it's not the end. So tomorrow early morning, I'll hop on a plane, see my friend Lambert in Thessaloniki, then see my family in Santorini, and be stateside by June 29th... I will eat nothing but Boboli pizza and fake cheese, air-popped popcorn with butter and salt galore, and Whole Foods salads. I can't wait.

These 7 months have been something.. For the past few days, tons of people have asked me 'well, what was your favorite part of India'? I've answered this question so many times now that I think I can safely put together a little list. Here it is (in no order because that would be too hard)

1) Delhi Delhi Delhi- particularly the day I roamed around old Delhi, went to the Jama Masjid (biggest mosque in India) and Akshardam (biggest temple in the world), and bollywood danced till the late hours at a farmhouse outside the city

2) Day spent at the Golden Temple and Pakistani/Indian border at Amritsar

3) Birthday spent in Kanyakumari, the very tip of India- watching the sunrise, fullmoon lunar eclipse set, walking around all day just talking and meeting people.

4) Dancing in the Maharajah's Palace in Mysore

5) The Ellora Caves (jake did headstands and we got in trouble for climbing on top of the caves)

6) Walking past thousands of prayer flags strung across the mountains, on the way back from the Dalai Lama's temple in McLeod Ganj, realizing that a little bit of god is in everything and everyone, and sitting on the ground with a sarangeet musician as he played happy happy songs.

7) The little family life we had in Goa with our friends Santosh, Akhilesh, and Liz

There are tons more, but when people ask me, I usually say a combination of these things. So today I ate some delicious thali, wandered around connaught place, old delhi, new delhi, and saw some friends. Will leave at 4am for my flight. Then that's that. So I suppose this is also the end of this dancing fool's blog, since I'll be heading back west for now (well, I'll be east coast, but who really wants to read about adventures in Jersey and Poughkeepsie?). So perhaps one other dancing fool will continue to write (ah hem, Jake) as he heads on to China-- because god knows we miss those haikus!!!

Anyways, thanks for reading friends- can't wait to see most of you live and in person really soon! PeaceLoveLight&Life...