I should make some more entries about India. After all, I never talked about the Rat Temple, or the Lake Palace Hotel, or the death train to Bikaner. I never mentioned our awful behavior at the Orient Express, the last week at work, or my two week long bill fiasco with the Taj. I will miss using the words “fiasco” and “debacle”. I got a lot of mileage out of them in India.

My first time driving after I got back to the US two cars ran into each other right in front of me going 70 miles per hour. It was a pretty vicious accident. “Welcome home,” I thought. I found it ironic that I’d spent 5 months in the worst traffic I’d ever seen in Delhi and hadn’t gotten nearly so close to a wreck.

Yesterday was my first back at the office. My work area was exactly how I left it….papers still on the floor and stuff all over my desk. Nothing at all had moved, and I even had someone work from my cube temporarly for a few weeks. I also found it ironic how much effort I’d spent in India to keep their cleaners from moving my stuff (which failed misreably), while I succeeded in the US without even trying.

I was immediately impressed on arrival in Atlanta with the efficiency of the US. It strikes me everytime I come back home at passport control. People stand in lines…and the lines move, and there are an adequate number of them. They have signs in multiple languages all over the place telling you where to go and reminding you to have your passport and papers ready in an effort to save time and increase efficiency.

India is a free-for-all….a melange of ambiguity….all things at once, excelling at nothing, forever smiling….never efficient. If the shortest distance between two points is a straight line, India is surely the longest.

I have fond memories of India. I don’t want anyone to think I don’t love and respect it. Brian Allex told me his in-laws (who are from India) read the website, even the “not so complimentary” things. He said they enjoyed it and laughed and said it really does happen like that.

So here I am back in Atlanta. My first week back hasn’t been the best, I will admit. Sarah has been nice, and I saw my mom, and work hasn’t been too busy yet….so I guess I should count my blessings….even though I no longer have a laundry service, a chauffeur, live in a 5 star hotel, have more money than I can spend, and an amazing, constantly entertaining country to keep me amused.

My life has been so strange.

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