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Tourist tales yet again
This time, it was well-traveled guests from India. Naresh, RT and Dahria (I am guessing at spelling).
Naresh is an electrical engineer educated in England and focused on renewable/green energy. He was fascinated by the massive generating capacity of the NYPA Power Plant. (I won’t call it by the common name because it’s like talking about the ex-President.)
Naresh shared several details from his travels:
Visiting the United States is a joy for his family because while they have traveled extensively in Europe, the people here are more friendly, even in New York City. His only complaint about NYC: Too few public washrooms.
Indian Prime Minister Nirenda Modi is awesome.
The history of India, with East and West Pakistan and Bengal, and Bangladesh is complicated with many different languages and cultures.
He recently visited China. The economy there, and the people, are thriving in an unprecedented. He pointed out it is increasing manufacturing costs there and resulting in manufacturing business moving to India and Bangladesh.
I told him how health insurance is my family’s biggest monthly bill. He asked what the premium was for a family of 4. I said about $2,000. He said that is a median wage for a middle-class worker in India, where the government funds health care as a basic human right.
He also said after traveling the world and living about 10 years in England there is nowhere he would rather live than India. A city the geographic size of Niagara Falls in India would have 7 or 8 million people.
Dahria and RT went to use the washroom. We waited for them in the parking lot. He snuck a cigarette. He said it is taboo in India for children to see you smoke.
At the end of our visit, Dahria had lost her backpack. We doubled back to Goat Island. Naresh and Dahria searched. I went to the Cave of the Winds ticket window and found what happened.
Her backpack passed from a park ranger to a Cave worker who passed it to Parks Police. I brought my guests to the Park Police Barracks. Her backpack was returned. It took us an extra 30 minutes to sort out. Que sera, sera.
