One interesting aspect of this life we lead overseas is getting to see and do things that many people don’t have the chance to. Besides all the cool places we’ve been and fantastic sights we’ve seen, we also get to take part in some pretty funky stuff.

Breck’s modeled clothes, we’ve eaten dinner with a billionaire, and tonight we are going to a CD release party. The thing that makes this even more interesting is the fact that it is for an album being put out by a student of mine. Alea is invited (as is much of the 7th grade, and middle school for that matter), and so we are going to traipse downtown to check things out.

It is a little bit ’strange’ to see a 12 year old that you meet every day and eat lunch with quite often involved in something like this (not to mention the crazy outfits and all in the music video!), but just as teachers have lives outside of school, so do students.

In any case, you can check out Raveena’s official website and blog, watch the music videos, and vicariously enjoy the Indian jet-set life!

Hot stuff, man.

Saw this at the Aquathon last week. And I know, I know, this probably is technically correct English, but it just isn’t something that, really, would ever be written this way.

Thanks, Eddy, for noting the issues I had with the original post for today (which has now disappeared into the bologsphere!)

Translated from Hinglish – “The delivery person from Deepak liquor store is here at Kiara. Are you expecting him, and would you like him to come up to your apartment?”

Since many of our purchases are made via delivery (groceries, medicine, pizza, photo prints, etc), we get a phone call with this phrase every time a delivery peon comes to the door (and yes, they are really called peons here).

That’s just one example of the funny mix of Hindi and English (Hinglish) that takes place as we try to communicate with our building guards. When we need to turn on the filter in the pool about 20 minutes before the kids go swimming, we have to tell them to “Make pool on.” If I am not going to be on the school bus, “602 no go bus.” Or if looking for someone in the building, “Is 301 sir come?” I love being called sir.

Driving home from school the other day, some fellow bus-riders and I were astounded to see a convertible Porsche 911 pulled up next to us. There are a number of fancy cars tooling around Bombay – I’ve seen Hummers, BMWs, Mercedes, Bentleys, and even a Porsche Cayenne – but a low-slung car is kind of a silly vehicle to take over the potholed roads here.

He took off like a jet when the light turned – kind of crazy considering the people, cows, cars, bikes, rickshaws, etc that lumber along the road. We figured that we’d seen the last of him.

As we headed on towards home, however, we passed through a super straightaway that is famous for being a speed trap. Policemen will set themselves up with a mounted radar gun, and then flag down cars that zoom along the one piece of road that is actually built for going fast.

Now, the police used to do this in Serbia too, and I always wondered why people stopped. It isn’t like they have cars that will chase you down. At this area, though, the road continues to either a toll booth or a hairpin turn of 170 degrees, so all they do is have another set of cops at both places ready to nab jackrabbits. Plus the fines are only between 2 and 10 dollars!!

And, who did we see as we lumbered up to the hordes of police (and a tow truck)? That’s right – you can even see the Porsche being pulled over in the photo. Instant karma, baby!!

(Or, as Uncle Rob puts it, “How’s that karma suit ya?!”)

(insert inappropriate pun here)

Now that you’ve gotten that out of the way, you can enjoy the picture I saw the other say heading home. The neighborhood basilica, built on a hill, is called “Mount Mary” – which is actually an even funnier combination I suppose.

But in any case, this new sign built near our new wonder-bridge is supposed to be pointing us to the Mount Mary basilica (where, incidentally, the Bandra Fair noted in the previous post took place).

Whatever, it made me chuckle…

I’m not going to go into all of the theological implications of how this might impact the story of the virgin birth or anything like that – I’ll leave that up to your imagination. Instead, I’ll end this post with a little joke my dad(!) used to tell:

Why did Popeye want to beat up the Pope?

Because he heard he went to mount Olive.

(and unless you know anything about this and this and recognize the double entendre, the joke will not be funny at all – and it isn’t that funny to begin with anyways…)