well...

Terrible blogger that I've been the last month, it's nothing to what is about to happen. Which is that tonight I'm getting on a plane, heading to Kolkata to stay with Mallory's family, then to Delhi, to the Taj Mahal, up to the Himalayas, back to Hyderabad and then I fly out to Europe, where I prance around there for 2 weeks until the end of May.

Since last writing, mountains of things have happen, of course. I don't actually have the time to write about it all fully, but bullet points for now so that I remember it all later and can write it for real later.

1) Took the yoga exam, which lasted an entire weekend and was beyond frustrating and stupid, but I passed first class, and now I am certified yoga instructor. which hopefully sounds good at a least.

2) Wrote a billion papers and toured the coffee shops of Hyderabad to find a descent place to write them in. Discover of that excursion: coffee shops in India are not conducive for studying because they blast techno music all day long. And they only have one CD, which is just on repeat the whole time. w

3) Went on a weekend trip to visit the Ellora and Ajanta caves which are magnificent. Mind-blowing actually, that they were built/carved so long ago when I can't even imagine how you could construct them using modern equipment. It was one of my favorite places I've been to in India and I will have to devote a lot to describing it fully.

4) Went to cricket game in Hyderabad, which took over 3 hours to get to because it's India. They had brought in cheerleaders from some American football team who danced around every time Hyderabad's team (the Deccan Chargers) got a 4 or 6 (cricket is really weird but I kind of get it now actually). The cheerleaders being there were one of the most disconcerting things I've seen while being here actually because each time they got up, the guys in the crowd would just go crazy and it was just exactly why Indians have this warped view of American girls. And it was just sick looking at these girls who just LOVED the attention. Gross and messed up.

5) Went to this woman's house in Banjara Hills to learn how to cook Biryani which is this rice dish that Hyderabad is famous for. She was adorable and I loved it.

6) Sang kereoke at a "pub" one night.

7) Took some finals, finished classes and turned in papers. Am now finished with the school part of being in India and it feels absolutely amazing!

8) Got so overwhelmed with India and everything about it, that I felt like just screaming. Did scream a bit. Probably at the wrong people. Got amazing advice from my Mother and thought I didn't need it, but it turns out I did and now I am so grateful for the little sentence "do not push off when you leave".

9) Had dinner with my host family for the last 2 night and was amazed at how fun it was. Last night she got ice cream even, which was amazing.

10) Experienced what living in 107 degree heat feels like. and what sleeping in 90 degrees with no AC and oops the power goes out a lot in the summer because of the heat and so no fans...

11) Had a dress made from scratch by a tailor in Lingampally, a town down the road from where I live). Fiasco. Language problem: he spoke not a word of English and so we had to communicate through the usual sign language/Hindi/Telegu. Problem being we wanted him to make us a western style dress, and had him copy my friend's. But being India, obviously, meant we walked in on Tuesday, when he said it would be ready, to find the fabric lying exactly where we had left it on Friday when we asked him to make it. So we yelled and came back the next day, only to find they didn't fit right at all. So I returned the next day to find, once more, my dress in the same state I had left it...So I went to buy new fabric with a small boy who sort of spoke English and I sat in that store while the tailor made me a whole new dress and I waited for 3 hours for him to do it, because clearly each time I left he wouldn't work on it until I came back to pick it up again. This is widely ineffective, but I did it anyways. While there I had an epiphany about my time in India and everything about being here. thinking about what it means to live in this place and get used to seeing toads crushed everywhere on the road, and lizards on the walls everywhere, and ants in the houses, and people staring constantly, and people being so excited about themselves, and the whole culture of laughing at other people, but being incapable of laughing at themselves. All this I was thinking about while this poor man sat and sewed me a new dress (which he thought was a shirt because it is short...) after he had messed up the first one, when only trying his best to make something he had never made before. and he sat there and sewed for me, this white girl who is never going to come back to him, and he didn't do his other work that had to get done, and the entire time I just kept getting angry and mad and yelling and swearing and being blown away by a system that is so unproductive....but he didn't once even look at me in a mean or hostile way, he just did it. And it was so strange. Indians are so nice, and yet they are so mean, and sometimes they really surprise you with how rude they are, and other times it is incredible how easy going they can be.

What a wild experience it has all been. Now 10 more days of traveling and then off to Europe where I will have to patch together some semblance of appropriate clothing to look semi-decent and not hole-ridden and in tatters (which is how all my clothes are from being here). And I will see the Eiffel Tower, and eat cheese and drink wine, and I will dance around Paris and pretend that I am a Polish actress so we can try to get into the Cannes film festival (which is happening in Paris while we are there!!)

So so much to think and write about and still so much to see. I can't believe I'm going to the Taj Mahal and that I get to trek in the Himalayas!! I am beyond excited.

Will try to get to internet cafes along the way to post thoughts as I travel for the next month....If anyone reading this has contacts we could stay with in France or around Europe at all, let me know!

xoxo
sb