As excited as I am to be heading off to India, and get a general restart to my life, there are certain things that I'm going to miss about life here in the District of Columbia.

• My garden
  
• Polish coffee at Domku
  
• Thursday nights at the Dorothy Day House
  
• Old friends, and new
  
• The people I worked with
  
• Metro
• Being able to walk to so many of the places I need to go
  
• Biking through the city (though I am not going to miss that uphill climb up New Hampshire Avenue on the way home)
  
• Netflix
  
• The tidal basin
• As skeptical as I am of government, it was still kinda cool to spend my days just down the street from the White House and see famous political types on a regular basis
  
• I never had to travel far to go to a protest
  
• The Dupont Circle Farmers Market (though I think this will continue to have a place in my life)
  
• Record stores.  My partner and I were just discussing this morning that outside of urban markets its impossible to buy a record from a store other than Best Buy or FYE, because other stores just don't exist.  
• Have you ever seen the sunset on U street?  I think it's a delight.
• 18th street people watching.  Oh the drama you see
• Rock Creek Cemetary was practically my back yard
• Gus Gus
• Naan and Beyond - the best veggie samosas around, and only a block from my old office
• Oh, and the Jasmine Bazaar,  an Indian market in Takoma Park
• Driving into the city, from Virginia, on 395, at night.  There is this moment where you come around a turn and all of the sudden it is just emblazoned in front of you, a sea of lights and monumental buildings.  Funny that a city is at it's most beautiful in the dark.

Correspondence

I got a letter from Sister Mary at the Missionaries of Charity house in New York today which was pretty exciting.  It was an encouraging letter, and it never hurts to get affirmation about doing something crazy like quitting your job and going to India.  Most of the info about volunteering with the Missionaries of Charity in Kolkata I already knew just from reading other accounts of the experience, but it was good to have something concrete like this from someone in the know.  I now have up to date contact info  for the Sisters in Kolkata, but she said that you don't need to do any arranging before hand since they have volunteer orientation everyday at Shishu Bahvan, an orphanage there.  

At the end of the letter she writes "May our Blessed Mother be a Mother to you and prepare your hearts to seek and to find God hidden in the distressing disguise of the Poorest of the Poor."

I'll take whatever help I can get.