First of all, here's a pic from the radical neck dissection surgery that we scrubbed in for. As doctor-like as I appear in this pic, keep in mind that I was pretty baffled for most of the 4-hour procedure. It was an amazing surgery, though, and I was glad to get to see it.

Moving on...yesterday was a very cool day in Mumbai. We left clinic after an hour and a half in favor of spending the day in south Mumbai checking out all of the touristy sights. Also, we thought it would be a good idea to take the train, which ended up being quite an experience in itself. The trains in India are legendary, and taking the local is a real process. The trains are amazingly crowded, basically bursting at the seams. There are people hanging out of every car, and being on the inside you sort of have to get used to having your head right in some dude's smelly armpit. The idea of personal space is completely different here....scratch that, it just basically doesn't exist. People have no problem shoving you aside and getting right up next to you. It's just the way things work here. The craziest part of the train experience, though, is getting on and getting off. It's pretty much a free-for-all. The train only stops at each station for a very short period of time, so you damn well better push and shove as much as you can or you aren't getting on/off the train. I ended up getting popped in the head once, but I threw my share of elbows and made it on and off the train with no problem at all.

When we made it down to Churchgate, we walked around for about 30 minutes looking for the cricket stadium so that we could buy some cricket jerseys. Alas, we were unsuccessful, and we were baffled that no one could tell us where to go. Umm, excuse me, don't you live around here? We're looking for the cricket stadium, something tells me it's kind of big. No? It's really crazy that people here generally have no idea where they are. Cab drivers and rickshaw drivers invariably have no idea what we're talking about when we give them an address. Once again, are you not a cab driver? Isn't this your job??? We ultimately did find the cricket stadium, but we weren't able to find a place to buy jerseys. Oh well. We came to terms with the fact that our search was futile, and we consulted our guidebooks to find some cool places to check out in the area. We followed a "walking tour" that was suggested by Lonely Planet, and it ended up being pretty cool. There were a lot of cool buildings that were constructed by the British during the period of the Raj (this is apparently the name given to the British rule of India). I got a lot of great pictures...i'm up to over 220 pics on the trip. At a certain point on the walk, we stopped at a place called Reid and Taylor that makes custom suits, sportcoats, etc. I got fitted for a sportcoat made from very nice fabric, and I'm going in for the 2nd fitting tomorrow. The whole thing is going to cost me about $115. Beyond that, we went to a store called Fab India, where I got a few shirts, and I also picked up a very cool shirt at a place called the Bombay Store.

We also stopped at Bombay University, which was beautiful. We went into the library, which has an interesting mix of Gothic and Hindu architecture....apparently that's typical of the Raj buildings. In general, South Mumbai is really cool. The streets are wider, there isn't garbage everywhere, and the nasty smells are much less infrequent. It was very cool to get down there and experience some of the nicer things about Mumbai. We had dinner at a really nice place called Gaylord's (insert joke here), which was relatively fancy compared to the places we've been to so far. They even had white cloth tablecloths! Unbelievable. I had a REALLY spicy lamb dish, and they brought me yogurt to help with the spiciness of the dish. Surprisingly, it actually helped! The food here is actually really good, and still very few GI issues. (As a side note, I lost the bet to Jesse last week, but only by a day.)

A few more random observations...Yesterday in the hospital, I had an interesting conversation with some doctors about the proportion of males & females in Indian medical schools. Incredibly, the breakdown is about 50-50, which is a big change from even 10 years ago. It sounds like women are beginning to take their place in Indian society. There are signs on rickshaws all around town that say "Women Empowerment," and opportunities for women in India are apparently growing quite a bit. The reason I bring this up is because I recently read a quote somewhere (I can't remember where) that made the observation that the degree to which women are empowered in a society provides a very good idea of that society's potential for prosperity. I think this is a pretty astute observation, and I'm encouraged by what I've learned about the changing role of women in India's society.

Another random thing....today we had a meeting with one of our program coordinators in which she taught us a bit about Hinduism. I'm not going to go into what she talked about, just basically that it was very cool and I'm interested in learning more. Maybe more on this later. Namaste!