On the way to Goa

Liz has certainly beat me in writing about our trip to Goa (if you haven't read it, you should go here, here, here, here and here!)* She's done such a good job of describing everything that I thought it would be redundant for me to repeat the same details. Instead, I thought that I would describe two smaller incidents of our trip.

Some time ago, you may remember, Reader's Digest conducted a (arguably unscientific) survey to determine the most polite cities in the world. As you may also recall, Mumbai ranked the lowest of the 36 cities on the list. After the experience we had at the Baskin Robbins counter in the Mumbai airport, I can see where they may have earned this reputation. Liz and I had a long layover in Mumbai, and so we decided to treat ourselves to Baskin Robbins while waiting. No one was at the counter, so we spent a little time debating over which chocolate flavors to choose. Liz even tasted a couple of flavors to help her narrow down the choices. As she starts to order, this older woman pushes her way between Liz and the counter. (Note: Liz was standing at a normal ordering distance between the counter, leaving room for maybe a small child to fit between her and the counter. Not really room enough for a middle-aged, stout woman to fit through.) Liz, somewhat graciously, allowed the woman room enough to look at the flavors; then, the woman, taking advantage of this**, starts giving orders to the guy behind the counter (who is still working on Liz' order and has not yet taken mine.) When he finished Liz' order, she butt in again, even though she still didn't know what she wanted. Then, another guy comes in, with money in hand***, giving his orders. I, of course, stepped in and placed my order. The guy behind the counter starts filling my order and the woman starts complaining. The guy behind the counter explains that I had been waiting. Then, the woman's husband chimes in, saying that they have a plane to catch. (Don't we all? It's kind of a pre-requisite for being in the airport these days!) Anyway, he continued scooping, I got my ice cream, but the whole incident left a bad taste in my mouth.

And now that I have been running on for longer than I thought, I will end here and write about the second incident later. Stay tuned!

*and if you want to read about our massive shopping experience, go here. She is not lying-it was seriously a full 8+ hours of shopping each day! I never thought I could be a full-time shopper! [My mother is probably fainting right now imagining it.]

**I'm not sure if I've talked about the lack of a queue mentality in Indians before, but here it went beyond that. I mean, I've been in India for 2.5 years now, I've learned how to adapt. This was way beyond normal levels-this was rude!!!

***this is typical jumping queue behavior-get the money out, flash it before the counter attendant in the hopes that he'll take you first because you are ready.