Woke up at about sunrise in our co-ed sleeping quarters at the Union Office to use the bathroom and went back to bed for awhile.  Couldn’t sleep with the birds calling, so I took a shower then went outside to have my devotions in the courtyard.  It was more modern and really pretty here.  A crow fussed at me from the tree over my head.   Parrots flew from windowsill to trees around the high-rise apartments nearby.  Flowers that I almost recognized tried to grow where they had been planted in the hard sun-baked soil around the edges of the yard.  It was clean here.  It was hot already.

Soon the others were up, and we headed out in a bus without a/c to see the sights of New Delhi.  The ruins of Qutb Minar were amazingly tall and beautiful still, after 2,000 years.  The grounds were really pretty and we spent a lot of the time sitting under the large shade trees; it was so hot (have I said that before?).  Saw a Neem tree and learned that the Banyan tree that Mother Teresa talked about is the one that sends out all those roots (a ficus).  Had a conversation with Alfred (our lovable, Indian “Grandpa”) about why everyone likes him so much; he seemed to need the affirmation.  He then affirmed our team for being willing to leave our comfortable country to come to India.

Waiting in a little shade for our bus.  It was so hot (110? one day it was 120F)

Hard to believe they could build something like that 2,000 years ago!

One of the breeze-ways between ancient buildings - pretty!

I forget how many stories tall it is - but it was really, really tall.

All this intricacy is carved into the entire stone tower.

A door high up on the tower - shoes the amazing size of this thing!

The height of the ruins inspired the desire to climb.

Resting to regain energy the sun had sapped.  Did I mention it was hot?

A famous building in New Delhi.

If I remember right this is the parliament building.

Got back into the roasting hot bus (van) and the driver toured us all over New Delhi it seemed.  No one was all that interested.  We were so hot and hungry and tired.  We did see the parliament building and other neat architecture.  But some of us felt really close to heat stroke.  Finally we were taken back to our room to cool off a little before lunch at the Union Office - a really good aloo gobi curry and lots of dahl as well.  After lunch/breakfast we went shopping/window shopping.  One department store (where presidents and others who visit India shop) had the most amazingly beautiful wood furniture I have ever seen.  We got back in time to shower and eat samosas and fruit before heading out.  Had to load the luggage onto the roof of the bus again, and do it again when we changed to a different bus near the airport - thankful for our strong men!  I couldn’t even get one of the suitcases up there let alone all of them, twice in one night!  Said goodbye to Alfred, and got all of our luggage checked in at the airport.  I think everyone slept the whole 8 hour flight to Amsterdam, but I still felt exhausted.  As we quickly changed planes and headed for Rome, Italy we were all talking about what we were looking forward to the most - #1 cleanliness! (real toilets and showers!!!) and #2 non-Indian food!  : )  And Pr. Clark kept talking about canolli...