Went downtown with housemate Viswanadh (”Vishnod”) from Hyderabad tonight. My goals were to find ruby’s where they have salsa and to get food. We parked up off state street (now I have no sat nav, I’m actually learning the streets and it’s not too hard, especially on the grid!) and wandered a few blocks around. Everything is spotless and expensive! The supermarkets and radioshack were open, so I got some stuff for breakfast and an adaptor for the laptop. The atmosphere is great here, really laid-back but well-off too. I found ruby’s and asked about the salsa on thursdays. She said I should go down tonight. I asked if the class on thursday was advanced or not, and she said no, it’s not really advanced, it’s not designed for really focussed people, more for people like me… hmm, I take it she means tourists. I’m thinking I’ll go down tonight and see if I can make her eat her opinion! If they all dance cuban style then I’ll be a bit lost. It’s going to be interesting to see the local dialect of salsa…

It was interesting chatting to Viswanadh. I’m not sure how much of what I said he understood, and I had a little difficulty with his accent too… but we marvelled at the strange levels of patience on the US roads, and though I saw shockingly little of india on my trip there, I was glad to have experienced the indian culture because it gave me a chance to see SB through his eyes to an extent and gave us some common ground.

OK. Time to freshen up a bit and go dancin. I don’t think I’ll last long tonight, I’m feeling quite knackered right now.