Down by the seasideSee the boats go sailing

And... another guest blog from Quagmire:

So clinic today was cancelled...again. Shocking. We might be going to the HIV hospital this afternoon, but I'm not holding my breath.

Yesterday and Monday, I was at the Leprosy Hospital here in Mumbai.

Sounds kind of scary, being around all those leprosy patients doesn't it? The reality is that there are almost no leprosy patients at the Leprosy Hospital. The people who live there at one time had leprosy and are no longer contagious, but they can no longer return to Indian society. Thus, they live at the hospital.

The hospital is really more of a compound or little community for the people. Our two days consisted of lectures about leprosy, a tour of the place where they make footwear for leprosy patients, and a visit to the leprosy museum. I can't be certain, but I may actually know less about leprosy now than before I went to the lectures.

My night clinic is much more interesting. I am stationed with a pediatrician who is about my age. He invited me to go hiking with his large group of friends this weekend. It seems that we drive about 50 miles outside of Mumbai and hike 5 miles up to a 600 year-old temple in the mountains. We spend the night in the temple and then in the morning we hike up to an abandoned fort that is about half the size of NY's Central Park. It's against the program's rules to pal around with the doctors here, but as I've learned, rules in India are open to interpretation of very wide latitude.

I am going to go with them.
How can I pass this up?

I mentioned that we were in Aurangabad last weekend. I've also spoken about IST (Indian Standard Time). Briefly, IST means that anything that is scheduled in India will happen at least 30 min after the appointed time. So, 30 min late is considered on time, and anything that happens on time is considered early. Therefore, if something starts 30 min behind schedule it actually starts early. It's all very
confusing.

For our flight from Aurangabad back to Mumbai we were running a little late American late, not IST late). But, we felt OK about it because of, exactly, IST. Imagine our shock when we get to the airport and are told "You need to hurry if you want to catch your flight, it's leaving early!" I assumed they meant IST early, but in fact, they meant American early, as in it was going to take off 15 min before the scheduled time. The best part is the looks the ugly Americans got as we boarded the plane that was waiting for us before it took off. I guess because the flight was leaving 20 min early and we didn't get on the bird until 15 min early we were making everyone late for a flight that was not obeying IST. I still need a slide-rule to figure it out.

OK, HIV clinic supposedly starts in one hour which means I either have 90 minutes or 15 minutes to get back to the University.

Hope everyone is well.

Quagmire

If you want my body and you think I'm sexy, come on sugar let me knowIf you really need me, just reach out and touch me, come on honey tell me so

It is another big guest blog day today.

Note: I added pictures to the Eck's Spain guest blog, and I am quite certain I screwed up where they go in the post, but they are good pictures nonetheless, so check 'em... Click Here

Without further ado, The Eck's guest blog from France:

Can you think of any one activity that simultaneously maximizes a woman’s sexiness and femininity and completely emasculates a man? I know your dirty minds, you’ve got a whole list already. Well here’s one to add to it, belly dancing. And here are the pictures to prove it. (I wonder what sort of google searches will bring people to The Dude’s site now).





Let me explain, following our time in Spain, we ventured north to France to visit one of my wife’s former students. They live in Lille, France a University City of about 1 million. It’s located right on the border with Belgium. This is Lille.



One night the mother of my wife’s student wanted to take us out to dinner at a middle eastern restaurant with a bunch of her co-workers, nurses and doctors. They were all there to see one of their other co-workers, another nurse, belly dance. Clearly Gaylord Focker knew what he was doing in becoming a male nurse.




We also visited the seaside in Belgium. Here are some pictures from the seaside.





Of course we also spent two days in Paris. My wife’s former student happened to be on crutches. She was an incredible trooper hopping around Paris on one leg. It’s cool to see all those things that never seem real in books, but Paris is huge and busy.













While in France I also saw a new high profile European car that would be perfect for The Dude.



Things to like about France: Crepes, well dressed women, ethnically diverse, sites in Paris, people that you are introduced to are very friendly.

Things not so great about France: Beer comes in like a 9 oz. bottle, coffee is way overrated, expensive, smoking, Charles DeGaulle airport is terrible beyond description.