Anticipation

Are you old enough to remember this video from Carly Simon? It encapsulates many of my feelings about my upcoming trip to India. There is someone special there for me as well as a strong sense of identification with the country itself which I am at a loss to explain. Perhaps, as I often quip to people when they ask "Why India?" I really did live there in a previous life.

Strangely, my most powerful sense of belonging occurs in Mumbai, which many people find a most challenging city. I simply love it blemishes and all. I doubt I will get there this trip but hope to make a pilgrimage there sometime in the next couple of years to pay my respects to those that died in the the November 2008 attacks. It shook me deeply to see pictures on TV of Cafe Leopold, CST (Chhatrapati Shivaji Terminus) and the Taj Hotel riddled with bullet holes and blood-spattered. Awful.



So tomorrow morning I'll leave on public transit (I don't drive and I'm the ultimate cheapie so don't take the PCL to YVR even though it is much more convenient and faster) to catch the 11:00 am ferry. Then from Tsawwassen a short bus ride to Bridgeport station and then the Skytrain to YVR. I've got three days in London and leave for Trivandrum via Doha on Friday morning London time. I get in to Trivandrum at the delightful time of 3:20 am on Saturday morning. Oh well.

I've got some ambitious goals for the approximately 10 weeks that I'm gone. I want to improve my jogging speed and lose some weight both of which should be achievable since I find myself naturally eating less in the heat and many of the fattening foods simply aren't available (cheese, chocolate, cake) and as you get lighter jogging faster is easier! I want to work on my writing although that's pretty nebulous at this point. Basically I want to come back to Canada with a clearer idea of how I can make a living using my talents and discover and create a passionate, purposeful lifestyle that allows me to reach my full potential.

I don't know how much I'll be tweeting since India is 13.5 hours ahead of Victoria which makes 'real time' participation pretty challenging. By the time the twitterverse is heating up here it's time for bed there. Although Kovalam Beach (my destination - it's the beach resort near the capital Trivandrum) is not that close to the equator the day and night are pretty much equal length so it lends itself much more to early rising and early bedtimes.

I will have more time to update my blog there and so, once I get over the worst of the jet lag and get myself settled in - probably by Monday the 17th of January - I'll start posting articles and pictures. I may have time for a quickie post from London as well - wonder if they've got free WiFi at Heathrow yet? Probably not! More later friends.