Delhi.

After my big presentation on Tuesday (which went extremely well; we are moving forward with licensing one of our phototherapy devices with an Indian manufacturer!), Booth and I headed to Delhi on Wednesday.  Since dealing with the grimey hotels, all-nighters, and tense negotiations with rickshaw drivers didn't quite feel like vacation for either of us, we decided to take advantage of Booth's Goldman discount and stay at the fancy shmancy 5 star Taj Mahal Hotel in Delhi.  WHOA.  Best service I have ever encountered.

We enjoyed drinks (with ice!) at the hotel's dark, luxurious bar, ate free crackers and nuts (and didn't have to check the bowls for stray hairs or sticky residue), and lamented how amazing India would be if we could just stay at the Taj.  At our dinner in the Japanese restaurant of the hotel, the manager chatted us up and somehow got the impression it was our anniversary?  For desert, he presented us with a giant cake that said "Congratulations", and jumped behind the sushi counter to snap our picture.  We were later given the picture in a logo'd frame ... He also emailed us the images (see below).  And everyone at the hotel constantly wished us a happy anniversary wherever we went.  We should always pretend it's our anniversary!

Thursday we visited urban slums in Delhi with Smile Foundation, an Indian NGO who takes mobile health vans into slum and rural areas to provide care for those who wouldn't otherwise make the journey to a clinic.  The slum was next to one of the 2 trash dumps in Delhi ... It was basically a mountain of trash.  Cows, pigs, goats were grazing, and nearby in the slums, the scene was very similar.  Happy children, though ...

Friday I had a great meeting with Unicef, and took the afternoon off to join Booth by the empty pool.  We swam and relaxed and pretended not to hear the honking just over the (very tall) fence.