On local geography

The one thing that I am really going to miss about Bombay is the rain. Well, not the torrential and crazy rain we receive, but just rain in general. I've always loved the rain and to live in a place where it rains maybe just a few times a year, sounds quite sad. It will definitely take some getting used to, just it took to get used to living far from the mountains, not hills, but the real deal, the Himalayas.

Going to Kansas for my undergraduate degree was a shock for this reason alone. The have the Flint Hills there, which to my eye were not hills at all, so our perspective was completely different on what really constitutes a hill or a mountain. Branson in Missouri, which is a couple of hours drive from Kansas City, has lots of undulating hills but they are quite different to what we are used to seeing here.

For one, the way they make the roads there is very different as they never seem to follow the curve of the hills, and instead cut through them no matter what. So until one gets into Branson, one doesn't even feel like one is in the hills at all. It was a completely different experience. The Rocky Mountains are incredibly awesome and there's one stretch close to Glenwood Springs that the Colorado river, the train track and Interstate 90 are running alongside, with the river in the middle. That was one of the most amazing journeys I ever took.