Sai Baba Temple

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Good Morning from Pune.

Yesterday was an amazing day. Started out visiting a friend of the family's her name is (Key-shore-ahh). She has one boy who is 14 and her husband. They invited us for a traditional Pune meal. I totally forgo the name but it is like this....you take a bowl and put lentils, then puffed rice (which is a big thing here but not like we have in the US) then you add crunchy stuff made of chickpeas (kind of looks like a party mix), then you add onions and tomatoes, potatoes and then this "gravy" which is super spicy. After the first bowl I was stuffed but Keyshora filled me up a second time. We didn't eat again til 10pm!

We then visited Sai-Baba Temple which is out a bit from town. Lots of villagers and sooooo many people waiting to get in. Once you get in the temple itself, men stand in one line and women in another. People were so curious to see me. I was the ONLY non-Indian person in the temple and there were hundreds of people. The temple entrance is made of gold and is beautiful. I have pictures of it on facebook (uploading to this site doesn't work very well for some reason).

At night we met Ranjit's friend Tushar. Tushar and Ranjit have been friends since school. We ate fish and chicken and lentils at a restaurant which overlooks the city and watched the fireworks. The service was unbelievable, they serve everything to you and waiters are always checking on you. Tushar was so much fun to meet...smart, funny and peaceful...I see why the two are friends.

Obama is the talk here....the Indian media is pretty pissed that he hasn't admonished Pakistan for the shootings here in Bombay (26/11 as it is referred to). He has booked entire hotels and spent millions for what seems to be an empty visit. In general the Indians are less than impressed with the U.S. President.

We are visiting more family today and are off to Delhi tomorrow. I'm sure I'll have more photos and stories to share.

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