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2003-12-23 / 12-24 - Agra (Day 250-251)

Agra has fast internet and I finally get the site uploaded and rest my conscience. Perhaps it is silly, but I know that at least my family will worry if the site is not updated so it feels good to get that off my mind. I also get an injection of world events into my system and a dose of friends spending most of the 23rd and 24th sitting in a café catching up with the news and chatting. Instant messenger really is a blessing that keeps the loneliness and blues away from a trip alone!

I find I made a miscalculation when I figured the cost of the plane ticket out of Delhi in my head and when I se my credit card bill I freak. It cost almost 2x to go from Delhi to Chile that my ticket from Taiwan to Chile cost a couple of years back. I begin to worry that I paid too much and today becomes a chore of checking refund costs, calling different travel agents, etc. Just one of those days wasted on travel stuff that must be written off while traveling. In the end, there aren't any other seats available on any of the airlines, the cancellation costs alone would have been US$ 650 and there are a few options that are cheaper but not much, so the day was spent just buying a bit of piece of mind that while the fare is horrible, it is the best that I will get.

It is Christmas Eve and I make a sorry attempt to contact a few of my friends with Christmas greetings but no presents and no cards, which I feel rotten about.

Even in India, though I keep up my personal traditions of reading The Gift of the Magi and looking over diamonds, which is neat. It is one of those nights where I do love the internet as it enabled me in a very remote part of the world to pass along season's greetings, poor as they were, to my friends far away and grab one of my favorite stories off the virtual internet bookshelf to read in the hotel at midnight.

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