Delhi-2 Brad-0

Well seems like every time we go through Delhi something lame happens...be it our train delayed 5 hours to all my shot stolen, lucky for me we're headed back there as I write this portion of my blog to try and get me a new passport :(. 
Maybe I can win one point from Delhi...in the final count they snatched my digital camera, iPad, external hard drive (thankfully almost all of my pics from the trip were backed up on dad's laptop!!), both of my harmonicas, plane tickets for the last leg of my trip, my dad's zoom lens, my favorite set of pens + journal (can't replace that one :( ), over 80 panda express fortunes, plus a few misc things here and there (the saffron I had just bought for my ma and Darlene!). On the positive side of things it turns out my ma's insurance will cover me for everything besides the journal entries and the 80 fortunes (unless I can get a shit ton of panda gift cards to cover the meals :p).  We also had to cancel our trip to Varanasi because as I stated above we are headed back to Delhi.  For better or worse it's Friday today, so we have today to try to get my passport and then rush it over to the Indian-what-ever place to try and get a rush on an exit visa for the new passport (cause even with a new passport I can't leave this damn country now) and this exit visa could take up to 2-3 business days...good news considering we are supposed to leave on Monday at 2pm for Nepal...I just hope that after getting mah shits stoled I have enough karma now to have this paper work shit go smooth...  After we do as much as we can today we'll take our taxi back to Agra at least and finish up what we would have done today tomorrow...so really we will only miss out on Varanasi (and see more o Delhi then I wanted to :p). 
On a kinda ironic note, I think it's funny that I got my passport stolen on what was my passport birthday!  For those of you who might not know, my passport has said that my birthday is a month early on sept. 16th not oct. 16th :p though I guess with my passport stolen it was no longer my passport birthday...still worst fake birthday ever!!  
One of the first orders of business for us in Agra was to make a police report for aiding in gettin a new passport...cause it's not like they'll ever find my shit!  Once we found the tourist police station we had a very interesting meeting with the head officer.  He was a very nice man and seemed only to want to please, especially after hearing how the police at the train station in Delhi didn't do shit...he seemed very disappointed in this fact and made it very clear that his duty (heh) was to serve and help us and that tourist were honored guests which made them close to gods (neat!). He had me write out the police report on some carbon paper while he dictated what I should write, at one point even complementing me at how good my English was when I added in the words he was leaving out for full sentences!  I told him it was my first and only language :p!  We also got complementary chai while there, which for some reason we haven't found any where else (best chai in India!! So far...). So after our chai, long conversation about duty and me writing the police report we headed out to check out the Taj Mahal!
The Taj was the one thing that kept this day from the worst day ever!  Mind you we had left manali at 4pm the day before and traveling for the last 20 hours while my bag was stolen...but the Taj helped brighten up my day!  I would agree that this amazing compound is one of the wonders of the world!  The building was built for this emperor's third wife...the most beautiful, and is made out of her favorite marble, and is white also because of her beauty.  The taj is identical on every side and the marble work is amazing!  Some of the prices inside are six feet tall with very intricate parade designs which if screwed up would just have to be discarded and started over!  The four towers around the main building I discovered were built slightly leaning out so in case of earthquake they would fall away from the main building causing it no damage!  One thing I though funny is that there is a mosque on the left as you approach the main building, and an identical building on the right that doesn't serve a purpose, but was built to preserve the symmetry of the overall compound :p. Truly though it is a sight to see, and just walking around on the marble floors 500 years old and feeling it's smooth surface under my feet was great, apparently they used many camel trains and over a thousand elephants to bring the marble from southern India, the only place this type of marble comes from in the world!  I also learned that the emperor had plans to build a second black taj across the river that's on the back side of the first for himself and connect the two with a silver bridge!  This was started but then stopped when one of his sons killed off his other siblings and imprisoned his father!  Too bad, cause a black and white taj would have been even more incredible!  This did cheer up my day a bit...then I got the news from my ma that my stuff should be covered by insurance so my brand new camera and other stuffs wasn't lost for ever!  Still a rough day, but getting better...
All we had left to take care of was get a new passport picture taken, which was difficult because the government was having rolling blackouts over the city and the power dropped out just as my pictures finished printing...in a size too small for passport pics!  So after dinner we had to come back, but with pictures in hand we headed back to the hotel to try to get some rest before our 5am taxi ride to the U.S. Embassy in Delhi...I'll fill in the rest after we go through those hoops!
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Good news everyone!! I've fixed the frozen...err Great news I have a passport and an exit visa all in one day!!! Well look at me acting like one of those fancy movies or tv shows where I give away the ending then go about telling you the beginning to end...
So Delhi has horrible traffic no matter what time it is...we arrived at the boarders of the city at around 7:30am and didn't make it to the U.S. Embassy until around 10am.  This was partially due to the traffic and partially due to our driver not having a clue as to where to go and not understanding us enough to go to the American embassy!  This second hitch is what got us to the place we needed to go second for the exit visa...great :(. After going to the Erin place and our driver stopping about every block to ask directions we finally made it to the embassy at around 10am...still 20 mins before we would have made it to Delhi had we chose to train it in!  We had all the forms and things we needed for my emergency passport ready so we got the process started quite quick at the U.S. Embassy.  Still this took about 2 and a half hours, but we were able to make it to our second stop by 12:45, just 45 minutes before their lunch break!  While working on the paper work we discovered I needed a photo copy of my passport, which took me 10 mins of running around asking everyone where to get one with only answers of "out" or "outside" finally I discovered I needed to go down the road and cross a busy intersection to a shop that could do it...fun!  While I ran and ducked through traffic dad filled out the forms for me and by the time I came panting back into the office we were ready to turn in the papers!  After going to a few desks we had our papers marked up, signed, and stapled and were directed towards "in charge" which is apparently the person in charge...and the title above him on the wall...this guy was a stern looking older gent who upon finding out that we had to fly out on Monday informed us that Monday was a holiday so if we didn't get it done today we were basically up shut creek till Tuesday (my words not his). To top this off they needed to contact Trivandrum, our port of entry, which seemed to be very hard because it's "very far."  Told to come back at 5 at closing to see if it would work.  While we were hoping at most to get me a new passport and get that turned in for the exit visa before going back to Agra, then hoping that we could pick up the passport before the flight on Monday...we not had hope that we could finish every thing today!!
With a bit of relief we headed over to a mall to grab a bit to eat and forget out troubles a bit!  We ended up finding a very nice posh mall (fun fact: posh stands for port out starboard home, because the britts knew there were nice sea breezes on the port side going to India and on the starboard side going back home...) and found a T.G.I.Fridays!!! and what a coincidence...it's friday :p. Relaxed we had some good ol' American foods and then picked up a well deserved cinnabon for the ride home!  I don't typically like malls that much, but it was quite nice to be in some place with AC and clean to take my mind off my India troubles for a minute :p. When it was close to 5 we headed back to check on the progress of the exit visa.  Man can these guys pull off a nail biting reality show style finish!  We sat there for about 45 mins waiting to hear the news, each moment my fears for not making the deadline, thus missing our Monday flight out to Nepal coming closer to fruition!  Finally at 5 we got up and asked the intimidating in charge man if we were in luck or not.  He told us that we needed to wait for the security officer to return with our paper work to know for sure...we sat back down with the officer coming back into the room jus  moments later!  We asked if mine went through and he shook his head and made some sort of noise that I took as a "no," my heart sinks even more the  when i discovered my backpack missing, when we look back at Mr. In charge he responds with a "Yes!!!!" wooohoooo!!! We bouncy back to desk 5, she stamps and marks up my paper work a bit more and back to Mr. In charge for one last signature and many thanks to him on our part!!! We had not only gotten a new passport for me, but also the exit visa as well! That's two different forms of bureaucracy in one day!!! In India no less!  Dear lord, karma has slightly worked out for me today and hasn't totally screwed the rest of my trip!!  Out the door we went before they could change their minds, take my newly aquifer passport, and lock me in jail to boot (I could only think the worse you know...) and back to our car off to Agra!!  Sure we had a bunch of rush hour traffic to sit through, but all dad and I could talk about was our luck with this hail marry, last second half court lob for a win of a day!!! Maybe our luck has finally turned around...
Delhi-2  Brad-1
But then again we still have to come to Delhi to fly out to Kathmandu...guess we'll see if I can even the score...and I think I'll call it a point in my favor if I can just get on the plane :p
One full day in Agra tomorrow, and we plan to take full advantage of it...for now though I think we will sleep a little more easily tonight!
Cheers!