BoveNet 2.0

As mentioned in previous posts, we are now back in Mussoorie. It is definitely nice to have a year under our belts as we prepare for the coming school year. We have said goodbye to some great friends and welcomed lots of great new staff to Woodstock. As we begin our second year, we're not really sure what the BoveNet blog will look like. Naturally, we could take more pictures of every big event at the school, but that might get boring as we celebrate our second Independence Day and second Diwali. Instead, we thought that it might be nice to do a bit more blogging about what India is like rather than simply what we have done here. We'll see how it all works out.

Dave and Beth

In the City

It would not be fair for us to share all of our country experiences while giving no time to describing our visits back to the city (and suburbs) during our vacation in the states. When we weren't being glamorous in Hollywood or relaxing on the farm we were spending time with Dave's family in the Chicago area. For a couple of days we got to visit with our friends, Jared and Emily. They just finished their two years at Woodstock School and were taking a cross country road trip before starting graduate school. When they made their way to Chicago, we decided to show them around the "Little India" area of Chicago's north side. This stretch of Devon Avenue is home to much of Chicago's South Asian immigrant community. Naturally, part of the street has been renamed after Mohandas Gandhi. To make sure that there is peace on the street though, the section a little further east was renamed, too.

After giving Jared and Emily a taste of India in Chicago, we thought we'd share some of the city's gastronomic delights with them, as well. These included Italian beef, Chicago hot dogs, and deep dish pizza. Having visited the Taj Mahal with Jared and Emily, it seemed that the only appropriate place for a hot dog was the famous Superdawg (it inexplicably shares a spot with the Taj Mahal in the book 1,000 Places to See Before You Die).

We also had a chance to see some of Chicago's tourists sites. We walked the Magnificent Mile and got pictures taken in front of Picasso's scultpure in Daley Plaza and the more recent "Cloud Gate" sculpture (known more colloquially simply as "the bean").

As cultured world travellers, though, these large public sculptures were simply not enough art. We took a quick tour of the Art Institute of Chicago to sample the finer examples. You can see that we are very critical in our appreciation of Monet and Seurat.

One final interesting thing that we noticed in our visit to the city was an actual chunk of India preserved in the Chicago Tribune building. If you cannot make it out in the picture below, the white block above the window is an alleged piece of the Taj Mahal.

Emily looks incredulous because she did not think that the government of India would allow some newspaper publisher to simply come to Agra and hack off a small portion of the most famous building in the world. With or without an actual piece of the Taj Mahal, Chicago is a really great place to visit.

Dave and Beth

Down on the Farm

Just in case anyone was worried, you can rest assured that we have arrived safely back in India. The internet has been down in our house since we got back a week ago, so we're a bit behind on our blogging. Now that it is functional again, we thought we'd make a couple more posts about our time at home in the good old USA.

First we wanted to take a look at our time on the farm in Michigan. It was great to be able to be at Beth's parents' farm without much responsibility. One thing that Beth was excited about was harvesting honey. She got all decked out in her nectar collector gear for the occasion.

The extraction process began after the hives had been collected. Beth and her dad did all of the uncapping of the combs.

After the combs were uncapped, they were placed in the extractor and spun around till all the honey had been...extracted.

We were left with more than thirty pounds of honey in a big bucket (don't worry...we filtered out all the dead bees that you can see in the picture below before we handed out free honey to friends and family).

Of course, no trip to southwest Michigan is complete without some fruit picking. In addition to our usual cherries (and requisite pies) we did some blueberry picking, as well.

This was Dave's first time with a bucket tied around his shoulders, but he did quite well. Beth is a natural at this task and had perfected a very efficient system before the day was done.

We thoroughly enjoyed our time on the farm and will certainly miss it for the next year.

Dave and Beth

More California Fun

Aside from Universal Studios, we have done lots of other fun stuff here in California. Last night, we went to the Hollywood Bowl for an Independence Day extravaganza (celebrating on the second of July is very appropriate considering that is when the resolution of Independence was approved by Congress, or so says Dave).

We started with a little picnic before the LA Philharmonic took the stage.

It was getting dark and we were pretty far away from the stage, so these were the best pictures that we could get of the orchestra and John Fogerty (of Credence Clearwater Revival fame).

After the rock concert, we were treated to a great fireworks show.

We also got out to the LA farmer's market and even got to take little Jimmy along with us.

Another great point of interest was the observatory in Griffith Park. It had lots of great scientific presentations and exhibits and even a view of the famous Hollywood sign.


Of course, all of the touristy things that we did paled in comparison with seeing our first nephew (it was nice to see the rest of the family, too).

It has been great to visit the coast, but we're definitely looking forward to being back in the Midwest and getting some Chicago-style pizza and hot dogs.

Dave and Beth

It's Universal

Before anyone gets too worried about our flight from Delhi to Los Angeles, we need to explain that the picture above is actually part of a movie set. One of our big touristy stops while visiting family in California was Universal Studios in Hollywood.

We got to see lots of great movie stars, such as the Incredible Hulk.

We were also able to visit Springfield (of The Simpsons' fame) and all of its sights.

Naturally, when one is visiting the sets of movies there are bound to be disasters and things that blow up. We had a large earthquake hit while we were in the subway. We also got attacked by a shark and stuck in a burning building. It was all quite terrifying!

Finally...when were all tired out from our day of star-gazing, we decided to stay the night at a friendly little place that we found.

So many great adventures and this was only Wednesday.

Dave and Beth

Visiting Jimmy

Well, we've been in California for a couple days. We have had a chance to see some of the sights, but reports on Universal Studios and the rest will need to wait. The most important portion of our vacation thus far has been our introduction to little Jimmy Boven (and the rest of Dave's family, too).

He is super cute and seemed to take to both of us pretty quickly.

He even seemed to enjoy the little outfit that we got him from Jaipur.

We'll post more about our other exploits in California later (and, no doubt, some more pictures of Jimmy).

Dave and Beth

The Club

When we were getting ready to leave Delhi and fly to California, we had a couple hours to kill. We had to check out of our guesthouse but couldn't go to the airport that early. We decided to hang out at the American Embassy Club (of which Dave is a member). They had a baseball diamond and a bowling alley to play at.

We bowled a game just for the nostalgia of it. It was a close match and it was great fun.

The other highlight of the Club was cafe where they sold beef. Dave had a classic hamburger and Beth had a roast beef panini. It was a great preview of the food that we'd be having in the states.


Dave and Beth