Postcard #2: Acclimatization

Yesterday, I saw a Taco Bell next to the KFC, brand recognition is reassuring when you are hemispheres away from what you know. Electric wires and string lights are woven and twisted around the trunks and branches of enormous trees, surrogates for telephone poles. There are pigeons here just like Paris as well as soaring birds of prey (the black kite.) In France, I found it strange that there aren’t any squirrels; in Bangalore, there are chipmunks. Like Paris, there is the incessant din of traffic, but the double paned windows filter most of the noise out. Here, through the window screen you can hear the constant honking and motors roaring past. Around 9 am you can hear sweeping or my neighbor talking on the phone, the other morning I even heard the original Nokia ringtone. At night, you can hear the crickets over the traffic. I am fascinated by the wandering cows eating garbage and the friendly looking stray dogs (that I fight the urge to pet because of the medical advice dispensed to me via animated video in the lobby of the Air France vaccination center.)

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