Happy Belated Independence Day!

I am not over a month behind with this greeting. Yesterday, was Independence Day here in India. Therefore, Steve was home all day. Surprisingly, he only had a couple of phone calls and was only on the computer a little bit. We spent the day watching TV and relaxing. I did force him to go for a walk with me. The ocean is approximately a half mile from our house, and since it was a fairly cool day by Chennai standards...it was only 88 degrees when we walked...I wanted to go check the beach out for myself.

Anyway, I had heard that the beaches in Chennai are not the nicest in the world. I would say that is a pretty fair assessment from what I saw. There are flip flops littered around the beach. Little grass huts occasionally (not sure whether people live in these or not)...plus we are close to an area that I would guess is a fishing village...in other words, local people have their houses on the beach with their boats. Anyway, in the photo above, you will see a dark area on the beach with a bunch of black birds in it. This is actually a bunch of fish that have been laid out to dry. I actually just saw something about this on TV the other day, but wasn't paying close enough attention to know why this is done or what is done with the fish later. Anyway, the beach had quite the fishy smell until you got on the other side of the fish and then the wind was blowing the odor away from you.

After our trip to the beach, Steve and I both commented that we wish we had the ocean view. We will walk back again. However, for whatever it's worth, I am sort of glad that we are at least a half mile from the ocean...not sure what the chances are of another tsunami hitting...but Chennai was damaged by the one in 2004. Don't worry though...I don't lose sleep at night worrying about this.

Well, we weren't even gone an hour, but on the way back up the dirt lane to our house, some cows had wandered to our road.

This is our house and the dirt road that leads up to it (should be loads of fun during heavy monsoon season). I had taken a closer photo of it when we walked to the beach. However, I figured everyone would enjoy seeing a photo of it with the cow.

In other news...Steve has determined that geckos don't like the cold. After all, if they liked cold, they would be in Illinois...right? Therefore, he has determined the best way to insure that geckos aren't in the bedroom at night when we are sleeping is to keep the room at sub arctic temperatures! I may have to put the flannel sheets on the bed after all!

Anyway, still no internet at the house. Still don't know when it'll be installed. Not too much else going on. Just enjoying the space and room of the house...not missing the apartment at all...enjoying sleeping in my own bed...waiting for our food shipment. Life is pretty good!