Who the fuck is Alice?

I had the greatest weekend. It was awesome. I finally got to see India a bit, and it is amazing. I'm exhausted, and worn out, but it was worth it. Allow me to begin....

So Friday I worked most of the night with the knowledge that I had to be ready to leave by 3:30am Saturday morning to get to the airport. So do I go to bed early in order to be rested up? Of course not! I stay up all night watching TV, LOST and talking with people to get through the night. At 3:30 I met with my group to get in our car and drive to the airport. The flight to Delhi was pretty uneventful, I slept most of the way, not unexpectedly. Once we arrived in Delhi, we immediately met with our new driver to make the 5+ hour drive to Agra. Let me tell you something about driving in India. I thought traffic in Chicago was bad, traffic in Delhi/Agra is a whole 'nother animal. Well after stopping for goats, traffic, monkeys and lunch, we arrived in Agra for the Taj Mahal. It was so much more than I expected. The building is HUGE, and beautiful. Pictures are posted. The history behind the building is astonishing, and learning about all of the work that went into it made being there so much better. To give an idea of just how much work was put into the building, their are designs and inscriptions throughout the white marble. All of this work is inlaid into the marble. This means the white marble was carved, then pieces of semi-precious stones were cut and placed into the carvings. The whole slab would then be sanded down to make a smooth surface.

We spent the majority of our day at the Taj, and then took some pictures outside of the Agra Fort, but didn't have time to go in. We had to make the 5+ hour drive back to Delhi to stay the night. Unfortunately, due to some convention or something, there was not a single hotel that we could book, thus causing us to go back to Delhi. Well the drive was exhausting (mind you we've had maybe 4 hrs of sleep for 2 days) and we were starving, so we hit up a McDonalds on the way home. Now you may be thinking, "Really Dan, McDonalds?" I'll get more into that later. Suffice to say, it was some damn good McDonald's.

We finally got back to Delhi at around 11:30 and checked into our hotel. Before getting there, I checked our itinerary, and was looking through some things, and figured out hotel would be shady. I honestly was expecting some tiny ass room, with either 1 double bed, or 2 small twins, and the definite possibility of spooning the person I was sharing a room with. So imagine my surprise when we walk into our room, and see the site before us. A 2 bedroom, 2 bathroom, kitchen and common area hotel room that was nicer than my first apartment in Chicago. Check out Svelte.

Now sometimes in life, you have a thirst. A thirst so rare, that only one thing can quench it. My friends, that thing is a cold beer. After a shower and change of underwear, we asked the bell hop where the nearest bar was. Well it turns out it was a Hard Rock Cafe. Now, by this point you may be going, "Geez Dan, you travel thousands of miles to India and go to a McDonald's and a Hard Rock Cafe. Two things that are plentiful in the US, you go to in India. " Well, let me justify myself a little. The McDonald's was one of the finest meals I've ever had. And the Hard Rock, was surprisingly an awesome time.

Most Hard Rocks I've been to in the US are pretty boring. This was actually a bar and was fun. Music blaring, we got some drinks and found a table. The music selection was actually great. It was all rock music, no rap, and was a nice change of pace to listen too. The best part was people watching, especially a drunk Indian kid who was in his own world dancing up a storm. It was very refreshing to see people across the globe doing exactly what I do back home. Oh, and my new favorite song is, "Alice, who the fuck is Alice?"

So we closed down the bar, went to bed, and then spent all of today in Delhi. The highlights included a bicycle rick-shaw ride, the Prime Minister's house, India Gate, and the Lotus Temple. I would go into more detail about everything, but it's 2am, and I'm tired. I'll let the pictures do the rest.