Hello, this is Todd with the journal entry from the Around the World Team for November 9th. I must start this journal entry with a Happy Anniversary to my grandparents who have been married 64 years today! Happy Anniversary Grandpa and Grandma Borgie! They are pretty amazing people.

Yesterday we spent the day in Agra. Doug, Earle, Jeff and I were up before the sun to begin our walk to the Taj Mahal. Mr. Navlika, a friend of ours from India, suggested that the best time to see the structure would be during sunrise. Although we doubted this at 6:00am, we were truly impressed by 7:00am. The path to the Taj lead us through a sea of personal tour guides, hawkers and taxi cab drivers, who try to sell you everything in the city, the country and the world, for that matter.

But in the end the reward was truly worth the pain. Even though I was standing before the Taj Mahal, it just didn't seem real. It almost seemed as though I as standing in front a large painted canvas or photograph. This structure was too beautiful to be true. It is surrounded by a large garden, a place where one could easily spend the day just oogling at the structure, reading a book, looking up and oogling again.

The Taj Mahal was built for Shah Jahan's favorite wife upon her death. Apparently he was planning to build a black mirror image, like a photograph's negative, of it for his body to be laid in upon his death. However, apparently his appetite for architecture and building was greater than that of his court. He was ultimately arrested for his frivolous building and lived out the remainder of his days in prison. If his court would have known the future allure of this structure, I'm sure he would not have been treated so harshly. There are a number of other structures that he commissioned to be built, including the grand fort in Agra. Which was also a pretty amazing structure.

After spending several hours at the Taj, we returned to our hotel for breakfast and a nap. We have all been fairly worn down due to the rigors of travel and car maintenance, and we all needed some down time. A couple of days ago Jeff, Doug, and Earle became hooked on the game cricket, an English game that has taken off in popularity in its former colonies. For three days Earle, Doug, Jeff, and eventually myself, were captivated by the Pakistan versus Australia match. Earle was not content to just watch, he has been on a quest to figure out the rules of this confusing game. Actually, he did a great job of figuring it out and the information was of great use to us as we invited ourselves over to play cricket with some young fellows from Agra. The boys were great as they let us bowl, bat and field. I am not sure what they thought of our cricket skills, especially as I more often than not hit the ball high in the air, when it is much better to hit the ball on the ground.

Kicking around Agra was fun. We had taken the train from Delhi as to save us the pain and anxiousness of driving here. Due to the train schedule we had to spend longer than we had anticipated, in other words we had to kill time until our train came to take us back to Delhi. This always puts you in an interesting state of mind. Since we had four hours to kill before our train came, not really enough time to do anything, we had lunch and drank some Kingfishers, a local beer, if you can say being brewed in Banglore was local. We ate on the rooftop of a restaurant that was caged in, and we soon learned it was caged in to protect it from monkeys. Monkeys seem to rule this city, taking what they want and hanging out where they want. They have to endure the harassment of children throwing rocks at them once in awhile, but I am sure they are smart and able enough to instill a sense of terror in anyone they meet. As we wanted to get a better look at the animals we opened the metal gate which held the monkeys outside, and us inside. But within minutes the monkeys began making their way towards our haven. We had seen the day before how they will steal anything they want, and we had heard of the horrors of monkey bites, so we were not willing to take any chances. We quickly closed the gate and contented ourselves to watch them thorough the metal grating.

It was a relaxing couple of hours eating and drinking as we gazed out upon the Taj Mahal and were entertained by monkeys jumping from rooftop to rooftop and hanging out in the trees. We made our way back to the train station by hiring modified mopeds. These vehicles have a moped base but have a rickshaw cab on the back that enables it to hold several people (two of us comfortably, three of us uncomfortably, and multiple locals at an unknown comfort level). Since there were six of us we hired three and the race was on. It was neck and neck between Nick and Chanda and Doug and I. However, Doug and I were able to pull off the short-lived victory as we saw Earle and Jeff waiting for us at the station as we pulled up.

As we waited for our train we meet some of our countrywomen from Minnesota whom are studying development in India. It was great to talk to them, as they were able to answer many of our questions regarding the caste system. They all had host families who were a part of this system and were able to give us greater insight as a result. It truly is a confusing system and one can talk for hours without even knowing what ends up. We talked of the similarities and differences between our two countries and decided there was a need for changes in both societies. Our train ride was cheap and uneventful, as we were all tired and preparing ourselves for the next days' drive. Negotiating for a cab back to the hotel was its routine hassle and we all fondly looked back on the Beijing days where it was so easy to negotiate for a taxi.

We are all anxious about the upcoming days, especially the driving in Pakistan. Hopefully our fears will be allayed as we progress safely across. This is Todd signing off.