Good pick, guys!

Well done guys. Pushkar is amazing.
Last night the guys from the Saraswati school came to pick me up - at 2 in the morning - from the train station. They're brothers, and they're really funny, so I'm looking forward to taking classes with them. My room is quite nice, as well. Great air because it's off a little balcony. I got up this morning, and on the way down to score myself some breakfast I hit this awesome shopping street and ended up buying a silk skirt for myself, and a couple really fun souveneers for people back home. Totally not on purpose, but it was all such great stuff I couldn't resist.
Then I hit the Rainbow rooftop restaurant, which is awesome. It has a great view over "Lake" Puskar. It's really a pond, but it's so beautiful. There are stepped ghats going down to the water all around, with crumbling architectural treasures from several different eras popping up behind them. Beyond that are the mountains. An incredible view. And...drumroll, they have for real pancakes. Not crepes. An actual bread-like, honest to goodness, break out the maple pancake. It had honey on it, but it was still quite possibly the most delicious thing ever because I've been craving one forever. They've also got this great whipped fresh-squeezed OJ which, after weeks of what I've taken to calling "faux-J" was the best thing ever. I plan to eat 3 meals a day there and have a glass of OJ with each so I can kick this cough that's settling into my lungs.

Yesterday was pretty fantastic too, overall. I forgot to mention the sights on the way to the train station (in the AM when I bought my ticket): a work elephant walking down the street and a parade, complete with uniformed marching band, on the way to a temple! Sweet!
Then all the stuff I mentioned yesterday, and a trip to the nature walk, which was the best thing about Agra besides the Taj itself. There was practically nobody there, except young Indian lovebirds looking for a place to hold hands without some older person disapproving. Really cute. Anyway, I found a place with a great view of the Taj complex (it looks like a far-away fairy tale city from there), and wrote out some postcards in complete peace and solitude. Then, I pretended I hadn't understood the guard's instructions that the forest path was off-limits (hey, there was no sign saying I shouldn't go...I thought you meant wandering into the forest off the path, officer...). I wandered off into the woods on the old stone path, and what should greet me but a wild peacock! So cool! By the time I got my camera out his less-ornate girlfriend had showed up, but I didn't get a clear shot of the spectacularly plumed male. After a bit of observing they headed into the forest and I kept walking, only to stumble upon a grazing deer, the size of which blew me away. My camera, of course, had run out of batteries, and as I fumbled for more, what should walk out of the woods but this strange water-buffalo-deer creature unlike anything I'd ever seen before. Of course, all my batteries were dead - my charger is no longer functioning properly from too much rough treatment - so I didn't get a photo of either one of them, but it was better than a wildlife safari out there.
The train was another Indian style adventure. I shared my compartment (ticketed for six) with over 15 people, all but one of whom were loud obnoxious young men with a penchant for smoking cigarettes under the no-smoking sign, until the very classy and offended older lady sitting next to me and I finally found the conductor and made a stink about it. Then they kicked all of our un-ticketed "guests" back to the unreserved seating coach where they should have been all along and the rest of the trip was uneventful...except for the part when I think we might have hit a person with the train. I couldn't really understand what was going on, but from what I gathered, someone was trying to cross the track and didn't quite make it, but maybe that was just a rumor because we were only delayed by 10 minutes...
Anyway, off to my dance class at 3PM!