Delhi, You Make Me Dizzy

It was a beautiful weekend in Delhi.  We fought the newbie urge to travel and chose to stay in town over the Thanksgiving holiday.  The weather was perfect for exploring - mid-50's in the morning and mid-70's by noontime with clear blue skies all day.

On Friday, Jonah and I left the boys at home for a journey into Old Delhi.  We took the Metro for the first time which is relatively new, and we had heard that it was "really nice".  We were looking forward to using a new form of public transportation in India.  But the trains were super-crowded, we got totally squished - it was like an adult pig pile with that crushing effect, but standing up and very smelly.  It was really unpleasant.  This look pretty much sums it up:

The walk through Old Delhi to get to the Red Fort was dizzying.  It was all the things you hear about India that make you not want to visit this country; crowded, filthy, smelly, in your face, crude, infuriating, heart wrenching.  All this - and more - in a fairly short distance.  Finally, we had just one more street to cross:

Once inside the Red Fort, we enjoyed the open space and relative quiet.  It is a beautiful place.

After our visit, we pushed and shoved our way back through Old Delhi and got onto a Metro train that we disembarked at Connaught Place, a huge retail shopping area in the center of New Delhi.  Exhausted and a bit shell-shocked from the morning, we had a very relaxing lunch at Q'BA then proceeded by auto rickshaw to Khan Market (a much smaller, more manageable place to shop) in search of a few things for the apartment.  Although we didn't find what we were looking for, we did stumble into a grocery store that caters to ex-pats.  Lo and behold, we found Philadelphia cream cheese that was not expired!  This place also has a decent selection of cheese, cured meats and other imported items not available at the Embassy commissary. Victory!

On Saturday, we stayed closer to our side of town and traveled with the kids to Humayan's Tomb and the Delhi Zoo.  We caught a taxi just outside the campus gate and the driver stayed with us all day for a total cost of ten dollars.

The first stop was Humayan's Tomb, perhaps our new favorite place in Delhi.  It was beautiful and a great place for the boys to run around.  Liam wore his Halloween costume which was probably mistaken for an outfit of religious significance. 

Next stop, the zoo.  We did a fair amount of research before putting this on our agenda.  In general, zoos can be sketchy and a zoo in New Delhi?  We were suspicious.  But those we asked said we'd be pleasantly surprised and they were right.

These signs were everyone but this was the first one we spotted, by the duck enclosure:

After the zoo, we had lunch in Khan Market and then it was time to head back home to ride bikes and watch Christmas specials - Frosty, Rudolph, and "The Grinch of Old Christmas".  It was an action-packed staycation. 

Please click HERE for a few more photos.

Now the countdown to winter break officially begins!