Today I hung out at a coffee shop by myself for a few hours so I could work on a big assignment. I'm documenting 50+ asana sequences in great detail and I can either turn it in tomorrow on the last day of classes or I can mail it in within the next 30 days or so - I can't remember the exact due date at the moment.

Anyway, if you know me, you know I always like to do my very best, especially on things like this, and doing your very best takes time, so I'm probably going to end up mailing the book in after I get home. Anyway, the coffee shop.

I'd been by this coffee shop on the second floor of a corner building near my apartment a few times over the past week. From the street, it looked spacious and clean, so I'd been wanting to check it out. I even looked it up online to get a better feel before actually venturing to go there.

An auto driver dropped me off and I climbed the stairs up to the second floor (which incidentally, is known as the 1st floor in India), and the place looked great. Tables and chairs, coffee and tea, lots of interesting sandwiches and even some baked goods.

I sat and worked for about 3 hours with only a handful of other customers coming in during that time. It was quiet and I got a lot done.

When it was time to leave, I thought I'd better visit the restroom because I had several errands to run on the way home. And that's when I realized that public restrooms in India always give me a little bit of anxiety. The thing is, you never know what to expect.

I'm pretty tolerant and resilient, but sometimes I've had to walk out of restrooms without using them because I just couldn't deal. Like if it's a squat toilet (aka as a wet toilet) and I'm wearing some kind of clothes that I can't figure out how to keep off the floor and dry, or if there's nowhere to put my purse or bags. Maybe TMI, but I think these kind of cultural experiences are interesting.

But this restroom was relatively very good! It had a western-style toilet, toilet paper (this is a big deal), a clean sink, soap (also a big deal), and even a mirror. Bonus points that they even had a checklist and schedule posted for cleaning.

I'll definitely come hang out at this coffee shop again when I come back in October. I hope it's still open then. They need to figure out how to draw more traffic.