Off We Go (Again) [Jim]

Having just returned from Orissa a week ago, we figured it was about time that we set off again on some more Travels. Tomorrow morning we leave for Sri Lanka--we will be there until January 6.

We are going down for the wedding of one of my former students (Lahari); I am scheduled to give the sermon during the ceremony. We were invited to three weddings while we were here, and unfortunately we weren’t able to make it to the other two--another former student (Farial) was married in Bangladesh the same day we arrived in India, and we were recently invited to the wedding of another person we knew from our last visit here, but he is getting married the weekend right after we leave. But, at least we can make it to one wedding.

After the wedding, we are planning to go down to one of the beaches in the southwest of Sri Lanka for a genuine vacation--I am really looking forward to vacation.

Christmas was fun. On Christmas Eve, we had a huge lobster dinner--our fish guy at the fish market sold us some fantastic lobsters (Indian style--they are slightly different than their American brethren (lobsteren?)). Christmas morning we went to church, then came home for presents. Our neighbors came over for lunch. For dinner we went out to a local restaurant for a turkey dinner--real turkey with real gravy--it was stunningly good and not a hint of curry!

The church service was amazing. This is the same church we go to every Sunday--average attendance a Sunday morning is around 50-75; the cathedral seats about 500. They had a Christmas Eve service starting at 11:00 pm which we did not attend, but they mentioned in the Christmas morning service that there were about 2000 people at the evening service. When it came to communion, the line stretched far out of the building. One person said they left at 1:00 am and the line was still terribly long (communion starts about an hour into the service). Christmas morning was not so busy, but there were still around 750 people there. The service was great.

Our trip to Orissa was fun--as Lily noted n her post, the rest of the family had a great vacation--I was lecturing for the first half of our time there. Much the same as the other lecture trips--it was interesting. The hotel we were at was amazingly nice. After I was done lecturing, we went over to Puri for a few days of quiet relaxation. We returned from Puri on Wednesday morning at around 5 am, and then I had to go give a lecture at the Institute here later that day. We set up our tree--a genuine fake Christmas tree--that night. Three days of shopping later, we were all set for Christmas.

Alas, once again the this blog post is short--we leave at 3:30 am tomorrow morning, so I suppose I should go get some sleep. I do hope everyone had a very merry Christmas--and Happy New Year to one and all.