Because of jetlag, they were all up pretty early. Technically, we had reserved the morning to unpack their bags and repack them seriously. As could be expected, despite their efforts to travel light, they still came with much much more than they should have. Axle at least had an excuse for her extra bag—it was entirely full of candy, chocolate, and Christmas cookies for Amy and I—so that was totally acceptable.
Of course, Henny, in true Henny fashion, didn’t want to deal with having to unpack and repack already. She kept complaining that all the old ladies here seemed to be perfectly acceptable walking around showing their back-fat-rolls, and why couldn’t she just wear her sleeveless tops? So, instead of thinning out her luggage contents, she decided to prune our wilting, dying plants and clean one of our porches.
Eventually, she gave in and decided to see what she could safely remove from her luggage, and at late morning, I was able to take them out of the house for some new adventures (and in the process, leave her luggage to Amy’s mercy to get repacked in peace.
I decided that it would be good for them to get some South Indian food so that they would know some of the things that they might like to eat that would be easy to get, so we started out at Murrigan’s Idly Shop and ordered some dosas, idlies, onion uttapams, and South Indian coffee. They all seemed to love all of it, which was good to know, and Henny and Karin didn’t seem to flinch about eating off of leaves…. They kept looking over at the meals and were very curious about what those were and so on, so I promised them that meals would come soon enough.
After our late breakfast/early lunch, we went to Pondy Bazaar so that they could get to see a bustling little marketplace and start getting accustomed to some of the walking crowds. We wandered around a bit, through the flower market and so on, then we decided that it was time for them to see Nali Silks. Henny’s jaw just hung open upon entering, and it seemed to hang open further when I told her that it was a multi-storey store…. She seemed to really enjoy getting to see all that fabric in one place though, and she got a little brochure on how to tie a sari, in case she decides to get one some day.
Then it was off to Spencer Plaza so that they could get some money changed, and back home to meet up with Amy and decide where to go for dinner.
Axle was brave and elected to ride shotgun in the autos during our rides today. I've only done this once or twice, and it's pretty fun (except for when the autos stall, because then you need to jump out in the middle of traffic while the driver tries to get his little lawnmower engine started...).
We ended up going to Coconut Lagoon for dinner since we figured that they would all be in the mood for some beer and tasty food. Guna, our favorite waiter there, was out in full form, giving us special treatment like an extra bit of rassam, an extra appam, small sample bowls of spicy fish curry…. To top the evening off, one of the other waiters brought out a tiny little black kitten to our table so we could have some company.
Totally stuffed, we headed back home so that we could begin our travels.
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