Lunch and a tomb

This morning I woke up with big plans to go to the National Museum.
I ate breakfast and upon standing up, began to feel very queasy. I had to go back up to my room and lie down. It's about two hours later. I'm pretty sure this is standard-- I don't feel sick in my bones, but today I'm taking it easy.
Yesterday, I had lunch with Akram Khan, a tabla player, and his family. It was wonderful. I saw a part of Delhi that tourists do not go to and I got to spend some time with his four young kids-- three girls and a boy, talking about movies and cartoons. They go to an English school so conversation was easy. I almost feel embarassed that so many people here know English and I barely know any Hindi.
The food was delicious-- Mutton, rice, chickpeas, bread. Yum.
They are a muslim family, but I found it very interesting that they also talked about Hindu gods and mythology with much respect and reverance-- I'd love to learn more about the mix of these two religions here. One of the little girls asked me what the the symbols of Buddhism were, and I said I don't know, there are a lot. After that, she piped in and told me "A wheel and a lotus!" Owned.
When I come back to Delhi, we're going to plan a day of sight seeing with Akram's wife and kids. I'm looking forward to it.
I had a little trouble getting a cab back to my place, which is always harrowing since I'm used to five or six men jostling to give me a ride.

Later, I went to Humayan's Tomb (thanks for the tip, MZ!)-- a large tomb complex for Mughal leaders. I'll put a link to pictures at the end of this post.
It was incredibly beautiful. Breathtaking. And it made me lonely. I found myself narrating what I would write about it on my blog and taking a lot of pictures as I was there. Seeing beautiful things with someone else allows you validate the experience-- to turn to someone else and say, yes, this is amazing, and yes, we are here. Seeing it alone, I missed having someone to bounce ideas and reactions off of.
I tried to not take so many pictures and narrate my blog in my head, but it was difficult.
I wondered as I was there if that was connected somewhat to those Mughal rulers building their giant tombs-- to awknowledge that yes, we were here, and we know beauty. So others can see.

Tomorrow I take a 26 hour train ride north to the monestary in Lava, West Bengal where I'll be attending a program for eight days. I'm not sure what my access to the internet will be like, but I'm reasonably sure it will be more spotty so this might be my last post for a little bit.

The internet has been very comforting. The cafe is pleasantly neutral and I can look at the huffington post and talk to people on gchat. I will miss it.

More pictures here.
They continue to the next page.

Some additional thoughts--
There's a group of young students here at the end of their gap-year India trip. They are very sweet, and seem very young. It really makes me appreciate doing this trip at this point in my life after working for it for a while.
People often ask me where I'm from. I say the US. A lot of the time the conversation doesn't progress due to language barriar, and I say "Obama!" and there's this exchange of joy. Everyone here knows who he is and respect him. It's very heartening, like the feeling of hope of him being elected has spread throughout the world.
The recent news story is that Obama called Pakistan before India, but he finally talked to the prime minister for ten minutes. No international crisis.