Elite marathon runners...at my hotel! We eat the same breakfast!

We found out the coolest thing today. The Pune International Marathon is the day after tomorrow (November 26) and a whole bunch of the elite runners are staying at our hotel. There were about 20 Kenyan runners having breakfast at the same time as us. They were so beautiful and tall. Mostly men, but there were a couple of girls too. Then, in the evening we saw more elite runners checking in, but they were a bunch of tanned, white guys. I'm not sure yet where they're from. Maybe we'll see them in the bar...but they're racing on Sunday, so maybe not.

I hope I'm not boring you all with the play by play of the food. I can't help it. They keep serving new things at breakfast, so I have to try them and find out what they are. I was feeling a little bit of fish hangover from last night, so I didn't have much this morning, but the new things that I tried were: egg bhurji (egg with peppers and green onions), cheese uttapam (soft, sour, white package with cheese), and mulli (radish) paratha. The mulli paratha tasted like it was stuffed with cabbage, but Google says it's type of radish. I made the mistake of taking my malaria pill after only eating a little breakfast. That in combination with the sleep deprivation made me feel like of nauseous and absolutely exhausted. Lesson learned.

We were supposed to do bundles today, but I couldn't face it. I need to make a real lesson plan first because I'm afraid of confusing them. So, we put that off until Monday. Instead, we took a look at the bug system, set up Online, and tried to run through some test cases. Everything was going wrong with the build though. We got a big, fat system error when trying to begin to create a new customer, which I know was not in the tagged version. Richard is going to look into it for me though, as usual. :)

At lunch, we were waited on hand and foot again by the office boys. They brought us paneer, biryani, roti, and pickled onions with lemon. We are so spoiled. Then, they brought us ice cream and sweet yogurt with pineapple. Marcelo had vanilla and I had macadamia, I think. To die for, as usual. The office boys are so adorable and sweet.

The afternoon was low key and we left fairly early. As soon as we left the office, it started pouring again. Apparently, it is very very unusual for it to rain ever in the winter let alone twice in 2 days. I think we're bad luck.

Tonight there was a banquet for the elite marathon runners. I was hoping to catch another glimpse, but they were behind closed doors. I want to try to watch some of the race on Sunday. Hopefully it won't rain. I can't picture how they will close the streets though. There are millions of people everywhere on these convoluted streets.


Marcelo and I went to the bar for dinner. I had a forgettable veggie platter. At some places, we've found that they make this faux spicy sauce out of ketchup that looks like the real thing, but is so disappointing. I really couldn't eat it. My first less than perfect experience. Marcelo had a lamb cutlet, which he said was very good, but heavy. And he had specifically wanted something light -- best intentions foiled.

So, tomorrow we begin our first weekend in India. We'll probably stay around Pune and explore. I can't wait. I'll tell you all about it tomorrow night.