Getting Lost...Sort of...

I have noticed people taking medicine at breakfast. "are those anti-malaria pills?" I asked. It turns out that Kolkota is a high-risk area, especially this time of year. I had noticed the excessive quantities of mosquitoes, due to the humidity and the millions of swampy ponds. I use my 99% deet bug spray and fortunately I don't get many bug-bites, so hopefully I shall live...heat exhaustion and dehydration seem like bigger concerns to me.

I also asked, "what is a fortnight?" The response, "I suppose you were educated in America." My new British friends like to pick on Americans. :) Had I been properly educated, I would know the proper use of the word proper and properly use it excessively as they properly do...ok so they don't "proper" quite that much...


In other news - I am doing a better job getting to Life Connection, now that I know what my friend meant by "you don't need to cross the street."

You see, I take a blue bus to Excide stop. I only reason I know where that is, is because the 1st time I went the bus driver told me to get off when we were at Excide. My friends who were picking me up were 20 minuets late due to traffic. So I stood there a long time. I didn't like that, so I told them that next time I could take a 2nd bus on my own the rest of the way...this also means I don't have to leave quite so early, and I can take my good-old time getting there. Like 1 and 1/2 hours, when it should only take 1 hour.

Excide bus stop is near a corner and I needed to get on a white bus, but they were never on my section of the road, and I didn't know which direction to cross the street at the intersection. My phone rang "where are you?" "excide, am I supposed to cross the street?" "no, go straight." The definition of "straight" depends on which way you are facing. My assumption at that point was "straight" means continue in the way the bus was headed before you got off, and "don't cross the street" means not the street that my bus was on, but I did need to cross a different street as I went straight. That worked, and I got a bus...

This driver was not as helpful, so I missed my stop, but it was ok. I got off the next stop, called my friend, handed the phone to the rickshaw driver and let the 2 of them figure out how to get me where I needed to go...

Today I went with another friend, so now I have learned the correct way to get to Life Connection. I did however, take the wrong bus home, but that was corrected by getting off and getting on a different bus...

I could just give up and take a taxi, but it's an hour trip, so that would cost 100 or 200rs ($2-5) each way, assuming the driver doesn't take the scenic route just so he could charge more. The collection of buses are only about 15rs ($0.30) each way. Yes, I am cheap...so I shall continue to learn from my mistakes, and hopefully do it right at least 1 time before I leave Kolkota...