Today, I did some math (gasp! The horror! The horror!).

I've actually been doing a lot of math lately. I'm kind of unofficially in charge of the bookkeeping for our two week travel trip. It's a lot of math. I mean, Sarah and I go to the travel agent, and for hotels, we have to pay on the spot. For trains, we can bring money back later. So, some days, we'll book a hotel and a train. Sarah and I will split the cost (unevenly) for the hotel. That means that when the other two people in the group give us money, we have to divide it between what they owe the travel agent for the train and what they owe which one of us for the hotel costs. Last time this happened, I got the math right within ten cents (there were a lot of instances in which we owed half a cent or something like that, and we rounded). I was pretty proud.

Anyway, today, I did some math. Fifteen days of travel. Fourteen nights. Twelve nights of hotels. Four trains. Thousands of miles.

Total cost?

$100

I'm not even joking. We'll still have to pay for things like buses between smaller towns. And we'll have to pay for food. And we'll have to pay for elephant rides and boat rides and things like that. But lodging and major transportation is costing us right around $100. I've been planning my budget assuming that our trip would cost $400-$500. I might have some extra spending money after all.

Or my math is wrong. That's always a legitimate possibility. I mean, I haven't actually taken a math class in about four years... so there's some question there.

I need a needle and thread. I cannot find that ANYWHERE in India. I know they exist. Tailors use them. Tailors will not give up theirs, however, and they cannot tell you where to get more. Pharmacies/the Indian equivalent of Walgreens do not have such things. Host-moms don't know where to get them... I'm at a loss. I just want to fix some pants.