Ready, Set, Challo!

It is clear that Anjali has an adventurous spirit just like her parents.  She is so excited to see what's out there in the world and we are doing our best to show it to her.  After spending two and a half years in an orphanage, I can understand her sense of urgency.  She has a lot of catching up to do. This is evident when she struggles with things that we take for granted like going up an escalator for the first time or playing on playground equipment at the park and struggling to walk in the sand there. She is eager to try things out even when she feels a little fearful and she always seems happy and proud when she has tried out something new.  Her favorite thing to say right now is challo which means let's go and it means going out somewhere for her.  All the local rickshaw and Tuk Tuk drivers know us.  We don't even have to say where we are going when we head home.

Our favorite place is still the Patna Zoo.  This past week we went on a quiet Friday morning.  It was feeding time and so a good time to see the animals.  Anjali got to take her picture with an elephant which was pretty exciting.  She has also discovered running and the wide walking paths at the zoo provide a perfect track for a toddler.  She fell a few times, but got right back up and seemed to enjoy nursing her first boo boo with us (a small scrape on her knee).

We discovered a lovely Buddhist park called Buddha Smitri Park near the train station on Sunday.  It has a large Stupa, museum and peaceful grounds that also provided little A with lots of space to run.  Instrumental hindi songs piped out of speakers in the ground and Anjali was fascinated that the music came out of them.  We hope to go back to visit the museum some time soon.

Tomorrow, we will be heading to Chennai and Pondicherry for a week.  It will be Anjali's first flight and we are excited for the change of scenery down south.  Everytime we see an airplane in the sky, we point it out to her and tell her she will be going on a plane soon.  This morning I showed her pictures of Indigo airplanes which is the airline we will be flying.  I also found the video below of an Indigo plane landing and taking off and she was super excited when I told her tomorrow Mama, Papa, and Anjali would be going on an airplane.  She is fascinated with all vehicles that move and has ridden in a surprisingly diverse array of them since we've been here.  Today Adam took her on a bike ride in the neighborhood and she sat on the back rack, no problem.  Hopefully, her list of vehicles ridden will also include train, boat, and motor scooter, before we leave India.


This will be a nice test run for the "big trip" back to the states.  The flight consists of two shorter flights first to New Delhi and then to Chennai on the return it stops in Kolkata.  We leave at 2:30pm and arrive at 8:30pm.  We contacted the airline and let them know that we had the custody papers and NOC to make sure we wouldn't have any trouble traveling with her.  They said it would be fine and left a travel note on our reservation.  We will be back next Saturday in time to prepare for what will probably be an intense week with our second court hearing.