the clever ann is on a chai break....

not feeling terribly clever today.... had thought of an amusing subject for todays post before i left the guest house, but now it's gone... anyhow.

went for dinner last night at this rooftop restaurant, which amusingly enough was a french and indian type place. so i had gratin de pommes de terre (it really said this on the menu) and a green salad (which turned out to be a plate of tomato, cucumber and red onion slices, not really a "salad" salad, but whatever). also an indian guy who was with this english chick that i chatted to a little bit spoke to me in french. it took me a minute to realize why i wasn't sure what he said... but then i was actually able to reply in french once i figured it out.

back at the guesthouse i sat around with these 3 irish cats - maeve, babo, and lolly. they were quite amusing and had some interesting stories about their travels, sneaking eggs into some muslim run hotel in rajastan, going to sketchy hospitals for heat stroke and vaccinations... much better than the book i'm reading at the moment (called "random winds", i found it in my hotel in mysore and needed a book...). we went out for food - they hadn't eaten. i, of course can always eat, so i had a chai and some fries.

this morning i met up with the english chick i met at dinner last night for breakfast with these 2 other chicks. older ladies, v. amusing, going on and on about sexy footballers... one of them told me about this woman above her guesthouse who gives cooking lessons. so that could be fun.

i've no big plans for today.... in fact i'm kind of taking my time at the internet cafe today, for 40 rupees an hour, it's quite cheap entertainment. OH! i've remembered my amusing subject:

"haven't you got anything smaller?"

one of the hassles about buying anything here is the money. no one ever seems to have change for anything. if you don't have exact change, they're a little put out. and the thing is it's not huge amounts we want in change. so for example yesterday at this very internet cafe i spent a half an hour here, so i owed only 20 rupees. well, i only had a 100 note, so i used that. and of course i got "do you have change?" and i did, but i lied and said no because if i spend all my change then i don't have change and certain types of places such as internet cafes and flipping restaurants should be able to give out a little bit of change. to put it in perspective, my example is like buying a candy bar with a $5 bill. (though even that's exaggerating a bit - 100 rupees is about $2.50)

so major relaxation today, in fact all days from here on out. lots of reading, web surfing, and eating.