When recovering from a hospital stay, I wouldn’t choose Delhi as a city to recover in. But there I was. Fortunately, Natacha’s friend Dani and our new friend Ashik were in town for a few days, so Natacha didn’t have to be bored to tears while I rested in the room and drank water and ate bananas. I joined them for meals, coming out to eat, mostly at Sam's restaurant at the top of the Vivek hotel.

But even in the afternoon, if a restaurant was too hot or something, I would get dizzy and have to leave. Thanks to the whole hospital trauma, whenever my body got a little overheated, it would remember what happened before and tense up I'd get anxious and that would make things worse and...no more passing out, thank god, but it took some weeks for my body to not freak out if I got too hot.

Going out at night wasn't a problem though.

Natacha took a shopping excursion with D & A, as they were looking for items that Ashik could sell in Germany when the two of them traveled there later in the year.

A couple of highlights: we ran into one of our French student friends at our favorite restaurant, the Banana Leaf.

And one night, while having dinner at Sam's rooftop restaurant in the Paranganj, I watched a parade go by underneath us, horses, carriages, floats, and marchers: I don't know what it was about, but it was quite a sight in that dark Delhi evening. Mostly we just prepped for Varkala, for a VERY well-earned beach vacation.