Heaven, I'm in heaven...

Today was so wonderful. The weather was perfect - sunny but not too hot with a slight breeze. Perfect. Last night I got a call from Michele, a fellow American in our branch, who invited me to come to ACSA (American Community Support Association) with her family for the afternoon to go swimming. ACSA is a social club adjacent to the US Embassy that serves its staff as well as the American community at large in Delhi. It has a pool, a few restaurants that serve beef, a bowling alley, a commissary, all that kind of thing. As you can imagine I JUMPED at it. We were the only people there for most of it so we had the pool pretty much to ourselves. It was so deliciously chilly that I could have cried. I spent most of the time floating on my back enjoying the coolness of the water on my back and the warmth of the sun on my face. With the breeze and my eyes shut, I could have been in Hawaii. Perfect. We swam for awhile, ordered some lunch (Roast Beef Panini, fries, American Coke and Milky Way - oh I was going to milk it for all its worth!) and chatted for nice long time. If there is one great thing I can say about Delhi, we have met some wonderful and interesting people. We were laughing about how it must be like a combat unit - you cling to each other sometimes to survive! Fortunately, I think we are clinging to some pretty great people. Michele told me that they come to the pool all the time and that Nathan and I are invited whenever we want. I told Nathan and I think he was about to run out of his office to the embassy and jump in with his suit on! We will be using that a lot, I should think. We are also going to the July 4th party that the embassy is hosting there. I can't wait!

On the way home, Muktar was pointing out all the embassies to me. I would take pictures but they get a little antsy about people taking pictures of embassies for some reason. Hmmmmm. It was a crack up, though, as I realized that the embassies really took on much of the stereotypical cultural aspects. For example, the embassies of the Middle Eastern Arab countries all have a guard in a booth surrounded by sandbags as if they are ready to take us all on at any minute. The Japanese has long sloping roofs that resemble a pagoda. The Pakistani looks like a mosque. The British High Commission has lush green lawns. The German proudly flies the EU flag and looks like the most dull but efficient office building you will ever see. I couldn't see much of the US Embassy, but I did see the long line of people waiting to get a visa. It went around the block. I wonder if they do that on purpose or if it is just part of our national cultures that we unconsciously choose to portray. Either way, it is a very serious and bureaucratic version of "It's a Small World". I wonder if they will change it up for Christmas...