February 12

HOW ABOUT THOSE CHIEEFFSSS!!!!

Wow!! So excited for them! I did a few happy dances and we did lots of high fives, but we controlled our shouts of joy! We missed the kickoff – miss timed our alarm wake up time but caught the first game scoring by the 49ers. Anyway, we did have our celebratory fizzy – the Rose from Sula winery. It was great, but some of that may have been because of the victory.

We ordered same breakfast and finished our Rose. Then we packed our stuff up and checked out of this hotel, but they kept our bags and we went for a walkabout: to rehash the game and expend some built up adrenaline while getting some steps. I was still was super-stoked when we first stepped out of the hotel, I almost let out a big WHOOP! But again I controlled myself. We walked by the river one last time. Arriving back at the hotel, we collected our bags and Jeff sequestered an Ola tuk-tuk. We are going to another hotel – Hotel Sai Lodge. We will use this a “day stay”. Our train is not until 4:30 pm and was running late, as in one hour and 20 minutes late. When we had gone about six of the eight  kms, our tuk-tuk had a flat tire! So the driver pulled off and changed it. Jeff and another man pulled up (being the 'hydraulic lift'). But it was changed and we loaded but up and arrived at our day-stay hotel. We got checked in and unloaded in our room. There is always a porter that goes for the heavy bag – bless them, and Jeff does with a tip.Now we decided to finish getting our steps in and go eat.

Walking around this area, it seems to be a different city because of a more country vibe. We are on the outskirts of Nashik. Jeff chose this day-stay due to its proximity to train station. Anyway, we found and ate at Rasoi Family Veg Restaurant. We had Garlic Cheese Toast, Corn Garlic Rice, Mushroom Masala, and X2 plain Roti. I had a diet Coke, Jeff a Sprite. It was a good meal. We finished, washed our hands in the bowl of hot lemon water they bring, and paid our bill as we ate a bit of the fennel seeds & candied sugar all restaurants offer. Now we went back to our hotel. We did our resistance bands, showered and readied. Then we checked out just after four pm. Jeff hired a tuk-tuk to take us the short distance to the train station.

At the station, we found out which platform, went there, and waited. The train arrived 12 minutes late, we boarded and pulled out 18 minutes late. We had discovered 5 minutes before this that we are in different cars! We didn't notice because our seat numbers are sequential 37 and 39. Now we did all kinds of swapping of seats. One guy wanted mine seat, so I moved to seat/sleeper #33. Someone else traded with Jeff, so at least he and I are in the same car, but he is in #22. That all settled we settle in for a longish ride – approximately 19 hrs. The conductor came around trying to figure who and where everyone was supposed to be and is now. I think we gave him a headache!

We watched sunset, ate some grapes and set up our beds.