After a day exploring New Delhi, we dedicated today to a day trip to Agra to visit the much-anticipated Taj Mahal, the “baby” Taj that the Taj Mahal was modeled after, and the Agra Fort. Since the “high speed” Gatimaan Express train that takes only about an hour and half had now been in operation for a few years, we decided to use that to get to Agra to then meet our driver and guide at the Agra train station.

Our guide, Tushaar, recounted the famous story (and potential myth since it has various iterations) of the Taj Mahal. An emperor of the Mughal Empire in the mid-1600s, Shah Jahan, had three wives, two of whom he wed for political reasons, and one of whom he wed out of love, which was very revolutionary at the time. This favorite wife, Mumtaz Mahal, was a Persian princess who was extremely intelligent and beautiful, and oftentimes consulted him in major decisions he made. She even accompanied him in battles that he fought. She bore him over a dozen children, and unfortunately, died during giving birth to their fourteenth child. They often times talked about what he would do if she were to die, and he eventually told her while she was alive that he would have a great palace built to bury her, where he’d eventually join her. This eventually became a reality. The emperor was devastated that the love of his life had died so tragically and abruptly, so he followed through on his promise and commissioned to have built what would eventually be known as the Taj Mahal, or in Arabic, “the crown palace,” to be the mausoleum to house the remains of his favorite beloved wife.

Rumor has it that it took over 22 years and the labor of over 20,000 men to build this lavish palace, designed in shades of white, beige, grey, and purple marble, and inlaid with jewels on the interior and the exterior, both local (such as the shiny brown Star of India), and foreign (cousins of emeralds and rubies). The technique used to inlay the semi-precious gemstones is unique to the city of Agra, requiring hand-chiseling of the marble to them insert the unique shape of each unique, custom shaped gemstone. And because the emperor did not want the technique to be copied, since he wanted just one unique palace to be the memory of his beloved wife, he chopped the thumbs off of each of the 20,000 workers to ensure they’d never flee and build something similar elsewhere (other iterations of this story claim that he blinded each of them and performed other variations of torture, but this is what our guide told us). The estimated cost, in today’s dollars, for what it took to build this embodiment of undying love and marital devotion, is about $830 million USD. I wonder if that amount discounts the cheap or even free slave labor that Shah Jahan probably used to get this masterpiece done.

Like many works of art and architectural masterpieces, the Taj Mahal is so much more in person than it is in photographs or textbooks. In photos, it looks very bright white, but in person, if you look closely at the minarets, the domes, and the walls, the marble ranges in color from white to beige to grey to even subtle shades of purple. And if our guide never pointed out the gem inlays and the method used to create this type of art, I probably would never have thought much of it and would think it was mass created. The technique employed to inlay the gems is so painstaking and takes years of studying and practice to get correct. After we walked through the grounds of the Taj, our guide took us to one of the family-owned businesses that still uses this same technique to make crafts such as framed marble inlays, tables, jewelry boxes, and table tops. I tried to chip away at the marble myself for a few minutes, but the workers got worried that I was ruining their work, so they immediately took the pointed instrument away from me. The method is called parchin kari (literally meaning “inlay” or “driven-in work”), a decorative art that uses cut and fitted, highly polished colored stones to create images. The stones are glued one by one, and stability is achieved by grooving the undersides of the stones so that they interlocked like a jigsaw puzzle. It’s hard to imagine anyone back in the U.S. being this devoted to a craft to learn a technique as intense and difficult as this one. You truly have to love this to do this.

The Taj is so grand and awe-inspiring, and it’s a romantic, sweet thought to think that a man was inspired to have this built in honor of his wife. Although, I do think at the same time it may have been even more romantic if he chose to have it built as a place to live with his wife while she were still alive, especially given that she bore him so many children. The other thought I have is that although he may have done this out of “love,” a lot of sweat, toil, and literal blood went into this, given that 20,000 men worked day in and out to have this built (and even got blinded or had their fingers chopped off after – what a reward!), and if we factored in real wage living costs into this, $830 million USD may actually be just a fraction of what this palace is truly worth. That is a chilling thought. People’s livelihoods changed all because of a crazy emperor’s obsession over the death of his wife, so everyone else has to “pay” for her death.

I don’t usually say I have favorites, but since I’ve been wanting to see this building since high school when I studied art history (and of course, because the U.S. is racist, and Advanced Placement Art History completely skips over all of Asia in favor of Western European and American art, I had to read about the Taj Mahal and Persian art in general on my own), I can honestly say that this really blew me away and is one of my all-time favorite buildings I’ve ever seen, next to Falling Water, the Frank Lloyd Wright home in Pennsylvania, and the Hearst Castle in San Simeon, California. It inspires me to want to see even more Persian art… how can I get there?

We awoke to our first full day in India together this morning, here in New Delhi, where the humidity today was at 85 percent, and the temperature, depending on the time of day, was anywhere between 85 to 92 degrees Fahrenheit. I’ve never been a fan of humidity and dislike it when people rave about how good it is for one’s skin; I don’t care how good it is for my skin if I am stifling for air to breathe and get through the day. Who cares if you have great skin if you can’t breathe and die?

I can’t say more things about how intense and overwhelming the traffic has been. We took advantage of Uber in the city and also did quite a bit of walking, which apparently is not “normal” here for people who are not of lower classes. Upper class people get driven; lower class people walk. Since we’re foreigners who are visiting this country on holiday, by default, we are “upper class.” “Autos” or motorized tuk-tuks kept stopping to ask us if we wanted a ride, and when we said no and that we wanted to walk, they gave us befuddled stares and said we didn’t need to walk if we could get a ride. There are dotted white lines along the roads to indicate different lanes to drive in, as well as a double white line in the center of the ride to denote traffic going in opposite directions, but none of that mattered since there was absolutely no semblance of any order whatsoever. The dotted lines sometimes didn’t exist, and they didn’t really need to since no one really saw them or paid them any attention. A road was simply a road to drive a vehicle or walk on. Our own Uber and auto drivers would drive across the double-white line into oncoming traffic to then make turns. Autos along the road would almost drive into each other before swerving at the last minute to avoid each other. The autos, which at best could fit three passengers plus the driver, would stuff in as many as six or even people into the backseat. And we haven’t even gotten into the fact that it wasn’t even just auto and cars along the road; there were also pedestrians walking in all directions, with and against the traffic, plus cows and the occasional goat. We even saw chickens coming from who knows where and walking into the streets. Somehow and quite luckily, I didn’t see one chicken fatality.

Although New Delhi is the capital of India, it felt far less like a government city today and more like an enlarged rural area. The roads are paved, but if they weren’t, I wouldn’t have thought anything of it given how overwhelming and chaotic the traffic flow was. The crowds, the humidity, the frenzied traffic and total disorder: this is actually kind of how I imagined India to be. Although I will say that contrary to what others have warned me about (because it seems that everyone has an opinion on India and its lack of cleanliness), it’s nowhere as dirty as people have told me it was; I’ve seen similar if not worse levels of filth and trash in places like Cambodia, Vietnam, China, Brazil, and even parts of South Africa where the slums are.

After a seven hour flight to London, a four-hour layover at Heathrow, and another nine hours from London to New Delhi, all I wanted was to just teleport to India and get this trip started. Luckily for us (and especially Chris because he’s an Uber addict), Uber is readily available in pretty much every major city in India, so we “ordered” an Uber to pick us up from the airport late tonight to take us to our hotel. As we rushed through security and had our e-visas cleared quickly, I took a deep breath and realized… wow, the New Delhi international airport is redolent of cardamom and rose water. Yep, that’s it. Now, I know for sure that I am truly in India. All these beautiful spices and flowers are going to surround me for the next ten days (as well as the smell of sewage and garbage and fragrances of human and cow and dog and goat pee and poo, but.. we’ll get into that later).

Unfortunately, although English is technically a national language of India… well, guess what: not everyone knows how to speak it. So we experienced massive communication issues trying to tell our driver where exactly we were, and Chris couldn’t understand him, so we waited over an hour for this guy to show up when he ended up cancelling. We eventually did get another Uber who took us on a smooth ride to our hotel… in the midst of an endless sea of “autos” (really, motorized tuk-tuks), scooters, and lanes that have dividing lines but really are not real lanes because no one is following anything, even the double white dividers in the middle of the road. I’ve seen some really orderless traffic in China and in the middle of Vietnam, but New Delhi truly takes the cake for the level of insanity and complete chaos.

I must have really terrible luck when it comes to fire drills with customers because when I remember the times when really bad events have happened at work, they always tend to be around the time when I am about to leave for vacation or when I am actually on vacation but am still incessantly checking e-mail (which means that the person backing me up has to deal with the drama, which is not great). It happened today again while I was in transit to JFK with Chris and his parents. We got stuck in ridiculous rush-hour traffic (which… I guess starts at 2pm now on a Wednesday during summer time?!), so it took almost two hours to get from the Upper West Side to JFK. As we were stuck in traffic with my phone in my backpack, which happens to be in the trunk, and my computer is obviously packed away, I could feel my Wesoo buzzing on my wrist because my customer is not only calling but texting me, and she never does this unless it’s an emergency. As soon as we got through security and go to the lounge, I had to make three different calls while also Slack messaging four different people to get the problem resolved.  My head hurt. And I downed the glass of red wine that Chris got me in two gulps. I had just enough down time to resolve everything before I could pack everything away and get ready to board our flight.

Please don’t let anything bad happen at work while I am out. The last thing I need is a pile of crap waiting for me when I get back.

I set my alarm for 6:30am in hopes of watching the sun rise over the East Coast in Miami this morning, but was disappointed when instead, I was awoken by the sound of thunder and rain on my hotel windows about half an hour before. I looked outside and saw dark grey clouds and realized that my desires for a gorgeous early morning sun and sky would not be satiated this trip. It was the first time I’d been to Miami and seen this type of miserable weather.

The last two weeks in Miami, according to my customers in the area, have been dreary, grey, muggy, and needless to say, unpleasant. Miami residents are so used to clear blue skies and the sun that when periods like this descend over their palm tree-lined city, they start getting depressed. And hurricane season is nearing us in a couple months in August, where they’ve all advised me to stay far, far away and to postpone any work visits until after the last month of summer has ended.

It’s funny to think that no matter where you go in this country, there’s some natural phenomenon that everyone loves to hate on who is not local: in Florida, there are hurricanes; in New York and the northeast in general, there are snow storms; in California, we have earthquakes. But the locals just think it’s another part of their lives and are unphased by them. It’s their reality. It’s like accepting that you will wake up every morning and sleep each night. Earthquakes don’t scare me as someone native to California, and snow storms are just another day in the life in New York City, especially since I don’t have to shovel or salt anything.

Unfortunately, we had to depart Mexico City midday yesterday, and on our route back, we stopped over in Dallas. After going through Global Entry and clearing U.S. Customs, we re-entered domestic airport security to board our flight back to LaGuardia. For whatever reason, my big bag of chilies and other edibles I’d purchased in Mexico set off the security machine, and my backpack had to get inspected.

Of the edible delights I’d purchased in Oaxaca and Mexico City, I got dried chilies of the ancho rojo variety, which are dried poblanos known to be sweet and meaty, with a medium spice profile; morita, which are short, fat, smoked and dried jalapenos that are spicy, toasty, and roasty in flavor; pasilla, which are chocolate-colored, slender, and add richness without heat; and guajillo, which are a vibrant red hue with moderate heat, and slightly acidic in flavor. Of these, I’d used ancho and guajillo before, but the other two were new to me. They’re popularly used in moles, sauces, and various types of Mexican salsas. I also purchased three types of Mexican chocolate and some extremely fragrant and fresh dried oregano. The dried chilies’ fragrance was rich and unmistakable; they scented up all the clothes in my backpack, for better or for worse. As soon as the security agent unzipped my backpack, her eyes widened immediately, and she smiled and asked if these were dried chilies. I told her they were, and she asked where I was coming from. I told her, and she laughed. “Of course, these are from Mexico. This is potent stuff! The smell is so, so strong!”

I was so proud of my purchases. If I’d carried more than just my backpack and work carry-on, I definitely would have purchased more dried chilies, but alas, I had to exercise self-control in an effort to be a light packer. Chris made fun of me and likened me to an old grandma carrying a raw chicken across state lines. I’m just being an avid, international cook.

Yesterday, we wandered through Mexico City and spent some time in Centro Historico, the central historical district of the capital city. There is a large open plaza there that includes the famous Metropolitan Cathedral, a historic Baroque-style Catholic church that was built in the 1600s. We arrived right at the time of the main Sunday church service, and the cathedral was packed with hundreds of worshippers, all reciting, singing, and following along with the sermon. The songs portion was just beginning, and thus the organ music was being played.

For someone who is not particularly religious at all, I have always loved exploring churches during our travels, and I get the most excited when I visit and I hear organ music. The organ is one of those musical instruments that we never seem to get to enjoy unless we’re in a church and in the very fortunate music hall. It’s got this chilling, thrilling, haunting, reverberating sound that for me, no other instrument is quite able to replicate. I used to joke that the only benefit of getting married in a church is to be able to listen to organ music while walking down the aisle. I wandered through the throngs of worshippers and reveled in the organ music against the singing voices of the crowds. They were all pretty in tune from what I could hear, which was even more impressive.

And then I realized that in the middle of my audio enjoyment, I was probably offending almost every single person in the church given that I was wearing a sleeveless top and short shorts, thus exposing parts of my body that in Catholic churches, they look down on. I was getting some double takes from a few of the fully covered women singing.

That was just great. Well, it was hot outside, and I’m an unknowing tourist, right?

We arrived in Mexico City early enough this morning to not only have a quick breakfast at the hotel lounge of refried black beans, corn and rice, ham and eggs, and salsa verde with a side of watermelon, papaya, and pineapple, and green juice, but also to have a quick taco at Super Tacos – A La Parrilla, which we randomly stopped by during our walk around the Reforma area to begin our full day of exploration through Distrito Federal. Super Tacos is exactly what it sounds like – the tacos are not small by any definition; they are made with face-sized, thick, grilled yellow corn tortillas and stuffed with your choice of meat, topped with thick gooey cheese, thinly sliced potatoes, pickled green peppers and onions, huge grilled scallions. We chose chorizo to fill one and thinly sliced skirt steak to fill the second, and our guy cooked everything to order. All the fillings with the exception of the meats were being stewed in meat juices and fats – definitely not vegetarian friendly, but hey, we didn’t come to Mexico to eat vegetarian food. We topped our massive tacos with a brightly hued orange salsa – smokey, a little sweet, and a bit spicy. We made a bit of a mess eating these, but as I was watching other people eat their super tacos while sitting on the unstable plastic stools at our street side stall, I noticed we weren’t alone: there was no clean way to eat these things, which I’m all for since I love getting into my food when the mood is right.

We then wandered through a market and paid about $3 USD for 500 grams of the sweetest and most flavorful jackfruit I’ve had since we were in Thailand for New Year’s Eve 2016. Each bite made me want more and more. It made me wish I had easier and cheaper access to this in New York, where usually for just about six to eight pieces, I’d have to pay about $4 in Chinatown, and only during the summer time. We got lured to a table in the market, seeing everyone drinking big glugs of what they called “sangria,” but it ended up being watermelon agua fresca, much to Chris’s disgust. He holds the opinion that watermelon, among all melons, is the most useless fruit ever known to humankind. I know no one else who thinks this.

So we had this seemingly “authentic” experience, which transitioned into an early evening when we ended up in La Condesa, which is known as the “international” area of town where Mexicans come to eat non-Mexican food. In other words, the area is full of English speakers, really expensive and Westernized spaces and real estate, and expensive prices for everything. After my original seemingly authentic taco joint was found to be closed, we chose to go to another I had bookmarked, which was a spot called El Tizoncito, which was purported to be the “original al pastor taco.” As soon as we arrived, though, we were both immediately let down and annoyed when we saw that pretty much every single patron was white and speaking English, mostly American English and a few in perhaps British English. Damnit – this is when Yelp has led me wrong. We didn’t come to Mexico to surround ourselves with a bunch of Americans and English. But I guess I should have known given that none of the reviews were in Spanish at all. Our moods were immediately ruined, and we decided that since we were already there to settle on just one al pastor taco each; priced at 17 pesos each (just shy of $1USD), they were the most expensive tacos we’d paid for on this trip, which was saying something.

We were eventually saved for our last meal when we decided to go to Casa de Tono, which two different Uber drivers recommended for being very local and authentic to Mexican tastes, and being especially famous for pozole, a traditional Mexican soup-stew that is made from hominy (nixtamalized corn). We ordered a small bowl with a mix of pork parts and head cheese, shredded cabbage, onions, radishes, and squeezed lime, as well as a chicarron (fried pork skin) quesadilla, and two intensely creamy horchatas topped with canela. The pozole, like the chicken soup we had at the Oaxacan market days before, was one of the highlights of what we’ve eaten on this trip, one of those dishes I’d wished I’d had more of in Mexican cuisine that I hadn’t been exposed to much, but had only heard of. Since my first trip to Mexico in 2010, I have had a love of Mexican soups, and the way that the end squeeze of lime complements all the other flavors of the soup has always surprised me and brought a smile to my face.

It felt like a quick and somewhat rushed trip, especially since we easily could have spent four days just in Mexico City, but it’s given Chris more motivation to find (or possibly make up..) work reasons to come back here. Mexico City is like one of those cities that you could always keep coming back to and never get bored of.