Hotel Hindustan Days in Calcutta

We arrived at the hotel around 8pm Sunday night, our room was on the 7th floor. Someone mentioned that it was a 5 star hotel. The room felt cool with AC air and our bed felt very comfortable. We also had a fridge and this neat water heater....it could boil water in 30 seconds. I placed a silent wager that I would still see a crawling bug sometime in this fancy place. After putting our luggage down we went down to one of the big rooms where the Fulbright people were eating a buffet dinner. I enjoyed reacquainting myself with the students and scholars I met last summer in Washington DC...but, honestly, that first evening, I did feel a little shy, and very tired, so I went up and slept very soundly while the rest of the scholars, including Nav, hehe, danced and partied till the wee hours of the morning in the hotel's all-nite club.

The next day and a half was relaxing....I could have almost pretended I was in a country more like USA than India. I listened to interesting presentations, I filmed Nav's performance/presentation, during which I felt happy/excited/anxious.....he spoke and played very well, and the audience responded with enthusiasm at the end; I felt very proud and happy for Navjot. The supervisor for the Asia Fulbrighters asked Navjot and other artists to create a performance for the following evening, which was quite a fusion event: North Indian drumming with South Indian rhythms and dances, with some hip-hop spanish rap/poetry thrown in! For real! Again, I enthusiastically took on the role of camera-lady. The free liquor certainly added a more festive element to the evening events!

My accomplishments were less performance oriented. I chose such brand-new experiences such as: watching 3/4 of the movie Species, getting a facial, and getting a pedicure! All brand new! All fun (except Species....that was just wierd).

I also took advantage of the exercise room, the elliptical was great for my runners knee!

So went the first 2 days in Calcutta...