It's always Christmas in India

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We were dropped of in Mysore two nights ago just in time to catch the Mysore Palace illumination that happens every Sunday evening. It was very much like a fair or carnival. The surrounding gardens were packed full of people: locals, Indian tourists, and westerners. I am glad we decided to come see this city, the palace is definitely a must see. I can't imagine how much electricity is used to light all of the lights for one hour or how long it took to string all of them. Prashanth treated us to a delicious dinner at a nearby hotel and then they headed back to Bangalore to make it in time for work the next morning. Bean and I were quite exhausted due to the frantic pace that our Indian friends like to follow in their travels. We didn't try to see too much of Mysore the past two days but we had a good time anyways. We viewed the inside of the main palace Monday. It was quite amazing architecture and full of some very nice art work. We spent the evening at the home of a very interesting man we met on the street near our hotel. He was dressed in a nice shirt and his pants were pulled high about his waist. His gray hair was covered with a crooked baseball cap and on his nose were a pair of glasses held on his head by a string. He carried a bag full of paper and notebooks and immediately began digging through the bag and pulling out little pieces of paper for us to look at. Each paper had a autograph of a different famous Indian, from Gandhi to Tagore. It turns out that his father was a freedon fighter during the time of India's independence movement and he was an associate with all of the other freedom fighters and political activists of the time. The man's wife was also the grandaughter of the second president of India. They were very nice people and treated us to tea and sweets. It was fun spending the evening talking with both of them. Today we visted at art gallery which had some very interesting pieces and then we caught the bus back to Bangalore.

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