Far away from home…though the US is a place I am used to, and I feel comfortable with the system here, I still miss being back home on a festival day.

Home is so difficult to define…for me, it is the place where one has the staunch kind of friends who have seen you through difficult times, and with whom you want to be on a long-term basis. It is a place where I can have my own interests and activities, which include a lot of being outdoors, as far as I am concerned. Next to my own home, I have felt most at home in my child’s new home.

I think one should not travel around more than a month at a time. Staying with one person for a long time as family is probably OK but one gets tired of moving from place to place. I am looking forward to going back home, though the trip has been exceptionally good.

Yosemite Park…amazing place and the sunset on the peaks was indescribable. But there is also the sense that in America, everything is regulated just a bit too much…But, on the other hand, I wish we could learn some of their traffic discipline (New York and St Louis drivers would be amazed at this statement) and some of their general sense of cleanliness, especially in small-town America.

What I like very much about America AND India is that they are truly democracies…people are free to be good human beings or loonies or terrorists…that is truly a great thing. A large, unweildy population with that kind of freedom is a miracle.