The group from last night, plus the six we hadn’t met yet: Curtis and Charlene (He is great, intellectual, occasionally it seems like he wishes people would disagree with him more than they do so he can debate a bit…but it seems like everyone is more or less on a similar page politically. Charlene is a quick-to-laugh Emergency Room doctor, and her professional expertise is called for more than once. I personally needed her drugs to help shake a terrible flu toward the end of the trip. She is funny, and exhausted, as used as you can be to working impossible hours then flying for what feels like weeks), Odile and Mary Anne, and Merilleon and Caroline (Merilleon is 70 years old and more energetic than I’ve ever been. Born and raised in South Africa and now living on Nantucket, I have such a crush on her. She is wise and helpful and irreverent and game for absolutely anything. One of my very favorite memories of the trip is sitting in a big wingback chair, feeling a bit under the weather, while Merilleon told me childhood tales of why the Elephant’s trunk is long and others. I could have listened to her recite the phone book and been in heaven—she made me feel so much better. Caroline is her daughter, from Washington DC where she is a therapist with several, evidently, important government clients. If confidentiality weren’t such a big deal and we knew how messed up politicians were, we’d fear even more for our country…Caroline is feisty, strikes me at first as the popular girl in school whose clique I will never be a part of, but I get over that. Since returning home I’ve been in more regular contact with Caroline via email than I ever would have predicted, and truly enjoy our similar smartass take on things.) all go sightseeing in New and Old Delhi for the day.
I stay back at the hotel since I have been in the city for several days with private guides and have been to all the places they are going. I go instead to the Imperial Hotel’s spa for a 2 hour Ayurvedic massage that blisses me out completely. I meet up with the group for lunch and spend the second part of the day with them, still getting to know each other.
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