Baby Anna's Fourth Week

Time flies when a baby is in the house! Paul and I cannot believe 4 short weeks ago Baby Anna was born. It's been a good, peaceful week a la Casa de Behrens. Anna has been eating well and had an exciting week with a trip to Mumbai yesterday. Here are some photos from the week . . .

Anna loved staring at the blue glass ceiling at the Westin brunch on Sunday . . .

Rohit and his daughter, Syona (USA), came to visit this week . . . Rohit is truly the Baby Whisperer. Within two seconds, he took a fussy Anna and calmed her with this position, Paul loves using it now . . .

Sylvia (Brazil), Lina (Scotland), and Adriana (Brazil/Chicago, IL) came for a coffee and a chat on Wednesday . . .
Friday morning at 6 am, Anna, Paul and I were on the Pune-Mumbai Highway, with our driver Shivling, off to the US Consulate to get Anna her US Consulate Record of Birth, US Passport, and Social Security Number. Anna was a little angel...she loves the car! Here she is peacefully sleeping as we make our way through the ghats . . .

We got to the Consulate in record time, and Anna got her US citizenship that morning. She didn't have to raise her right hand, but we did for her.

After we left the Consulate, we decided to go to our favorite place in Mumbai for brunch . . . Cafe Indigo. Here are Paul and Anna as we wait for our coffee to arrive. I had lox and a bagel . . . almost as good as home! We got home from Mumbai around 4 pm, and Paul decided he and Anna should watch a little tennis . . . I believe the match was with Berdych. He's trying to train her already . . . watch out Dave and Kaitlyn . . . you'll have some competition in a few years!
Saturday morning, Anna and I met Jenny (UK) and her daughter Maya at Dario's for breakfast . . . It was a lovely start to the day and a nice finish to the week.

Oh My, Mumbai!

Paul's parents flew into Mumbai last night. We picked them up at the airport. Paid a small bribe to leave the airport parking and made our way to the Grand Maratha Hotel for our evening's rest. We woke around 9 am to make our way down to Colaba to have a nice brunch at Indigo Deli. On the way, we decided to stop at the Dhoby Ghat (otherwise known as the Indian laundromat). Here you can see the Dhobywallas, laundry cleaners, cleaning the fabric.
A morning commuter train passes us by packed with people . . .

We finally make our way to Colaba, locate the Indigo Deli, have brunch, and walk over to the Gateway of India. Oops, we were not paying attention for this photo and were busy chatting away.

Here's a better posed photo . . .
A photo of the Taj Hotel after the recent terrorist attacks. Despite the terror attacks, Colaba was teeming with life on this sunny afternoon.

After the Taj Hotel and some brief shopping in Colaba, we make the 3 hour journey by car back to Pune. Hungry and tired, we walk over to Soho for some kebabs and pizza before heading back to the flat for dinner.

Mumbai

Mumbai, home to Bollywood, is our destination today. This port city holds many interesting facets.

Here is a photo of our drive to Mumbai from Pune in the hills near Lonavala.



We finally get to Mumbai and make our first stop at the India Gate.
Here is a billboard for the new film "Mission Istaanbul."

Some houses and stores we pass along the way . . .
A bullock cart passes us as we make our way to lunch.
We end the day at Crawford Market. I was excited to find some Alfonso mangoes.
Here I am stopping to smell the coffee--beans! I decided to bring some home for a gift.

Happy New Year Maharashtra!

Well, we arrived on April 5th at midnight in Mumbai! We woke up and had a delicious breakfast of aloo paratha, mango pickle, homemade yogurt and coffee at the wonderful Grand Maratha Hotel. We started on our journey into Pune (Poo-nay) on the morning of April 6th to discover a parade celebrating the Maharashtrian New Year in downtown Mumbai. (Orange is the Maharashtrian color we learned.)

Below, you can see the end of the procession with the bullock cart.

After we passed the parade, we began the three and one-half hour journey to Pune on the Pune - Mumbai Expressway. Here is the traffic jam that proceeded the parade in Mumbai. It is kind of like a ballet to watch the cars, motorbikes and auto-rickshaws maneuver around one another so gracefully and not causing any major accident.

We finally got out of the traffic jam, which is unusual for a Sunday, and onto the expressway that led us out of Mumbai and into Pune. We first encountered a shanty-town before entering the beautiful Indian countryside.

Then, within a matter of seconds we were found ourselves following the highway that winds up the mountains.

We did see a friendly face along the way as we passed a petrol service station.

Yes, even McDonald's has infiltrated India. Don't worry they are not serving any hamburgers and orange drink here! French fries, McFlurries and Filet O'Fish are the only American items on the menu.

Then, back into the mountains . . .



We did finally arrive into Pune and passed this charming stream covered in lily pads. No, it's not grass folks. Those are in fact lily pads. Supposedly when the monsoon starts in June, these rivers and streams will fill up to the railings with water. After about 20 minutes more in the Tavera, we reached our friends home in Koreagaon Park. I took a really nice photo of the Pune City landscape at night, but it somehow inadvertently got deleted. All in all it was a day of interesting surprises and easy travel to our new home.