Saturday, August... ?^th

So, today, I learned some very important life lessons.

1. There is a time when “say yes to everything” and “don't ask: just eat” run into something that is basically breaded deep-fried extra-spicy green chili peppers. This is a bad, bad time. These chili peppers look for all intents and purposes like every other fried vegetable; however, they are like chewing on fire.
2. When fair skin is coupled with increased photosensitivity from medicine, there is no such thing as too much sunscreen on the mountain. When added to this, the phrase “I put sunscreen on my face, and everything else but my hands and feet are covered” actually means “my hands and feet are gonna roast like ducks. And then, in the sun's intense heat, the sunscreen on my face will sweat off, and my face will burn too. Afterwards, since that's simply not enough, the sun will burn the rest of me through a layer of cloth.” Thank you, sunshine. I appreciate your hard work.
3. Indians are fascinated by the funny red color white kids turn when they go in the sun. I totally wasn't getting enough stares because I was white; now, people approach me and ask “why has your skin turned red?”
4. Climbing trees is easy. Getting down is not... at least not until your foot cramps and you fall.
5. There is a road of desperation that leads to all sorts of awkward toilet facilities. Many people found that road today.

On another note, we've been working on planning our 2 week break. Four of us (Sarah, Laura, Bill, and I) are going to Southern India for the two weeks, and we have a sort of rough sketch of what we'll be doing. We're gonna take a super-long train ride from Pune to Bangalore, and then a short train from there to Madhumalai. Madhumalai is basically a giant jungle/forest sort of inland, and we'll stay a couple of nights in forest lodges. That is also where I'm going to get to ride an elephant. After that, we'll take another train further south and towards the coast to Parya. Parya is another forest where we'll get to see wild tigers and other cool wildlife. It's also located near the Spice Village, where all the Indian spices come from. From Parya, we'll travel south to the very tip of India, Cape Kamarian. There's a musical temple along the way that I'm excited to stop at. After that, we'll head north to Kochi and take an overnight boat ride through the canals (mmm... I can smell the bugspray already). And then we'll be back to Pune. Exciting, huh?

It's weird to think that I've already been here for two weeks. The time is going extremely quickly. I'm already an 8^th of the way through my time in India. Before I know it, I'll be packing up a bunch of new clothes and trinkets (and pretty things for Yemna) to come home.

Sunday, August 29^th

Today, my host family went to visit relatives and left me home alone. It's the first time in two weeks that I've really had any time or space completely to myself. In the hotel room, we would get a little bit of time alone, but I roomed with two girls who shared virtually the same schedule as I had, so we were in pretty constant company. In the last week that I've lived with the Junnarkars, I live in the bedroom with the shrine, so they tend to come and go as they please. It's been wonderful today, just being able to sit and read without any interruptions or other people.

Curate ut valeatis,

Anne

I had my meeting with Vidya, the classical Indian violinist, today.  It was basically just amazing.  I had no idea you could make those kinds of sounds come out of a violin.  Vidya and a student that she's been teaching for about 15 years basically gave a mini-concert to Gene and me (and then they fed us lunch... because food must be involved in everything).  Hopefully, I'll be starting lessons soon, and Vidya insists that by the time I'm home, I'll be able to play at least a few different musical modes.  I'm excited to get started!

Well, I don't really have very much to say for myself today. Marathi got canceled because Sucheta's daughter went into labor, and Sucheta went to be with her. I think we're going to have a replacement teacher for the next week or so of class.

We talked today about plans for our two week break. Laura, Sarah, and I are all planning to travel together, and I think we're going to be kind of loosely traveling with the group of three boys. We're all planning on heading to southern India to see kind of the same things... wildlife, the spice villages, and some other cool things in the south. It seems like the other two thirds of the ACM students are going north for the break... up to Delhi, Dharamsala where the Dalai Lama is, and to the Taj Mahal. According to people here, though, the Taj Mahal is basically an over-hyped tourist location that's not really worth seeing, and there are much better things to be seen and done in the south (like elephant rides). Anju even talked about a time that she spent the night in a treehouse in the middle of the forest, and she woke up with the treehouse surrounded by elephants. For some reason, she didn't recommend this experience for us.

We have to plan way ahead for the break because it's going to be happening during Divali, the festival of lights. Apparently, that means virtually everyone will be traveling and celebrating while we're out, and it'll be hard to book trains and transportation if we're not careful. So we pretty much have to have set plans very soon, and I kind of wish we had more time to figure things out and plan them. However, as far as the break goes, I'm pretty content with just about anything as long as riding an elephant is involved somewhere. I'm pretty easy to please, and I'm basically just so thrilled to be here that I'm not too picky about what we do. Except the elephant thing. That's a must.

I'm kind of thrown off by the schedule here. First of all, everything runs on brown time. And I'm kind of used to that, so usually it's not a problem. But my stomach has some issues with it. Breakfast is usually served whenever I get up and ready in the morning. Monday-Friday it's usually around 8, and later on the weekend. We have a couple of tea breaks during classes, but then lunch isn't until 2 or 3. There's another tea-time in the mid afternoon, and dinner happens sometime after 8 o'clock. I'm used to eating two meals a day at about noon and 5, so the eating schedule here is so weird for me. I feel kind of like a hobbit with my elevensies and tea time and things like that. I'll probably be round like one by the time I get home with all they're feeding me, though. For breakfast this morning, there was oatmeal and idli with sauce and chutney. It was amazing, but there's always just so much.

Also, I dislike caffeine. It doesn't really give me a buzz at all anymore, but I'm still getting caffeine headaches after every cup of tea. Hopefully that'll wear off eventually.

For lunch today, we went to a Western-style cafe. It was actually kind of neat to eat American food in India. It's about as accurate as eating foreign kinds of food in America. I basically got a tomato-mozzarella sandwich, but I'm pretty sure the main ingredient was garlic, followed closely by basil. After those two, there was bread, tomato, and some cheese. It was pretty awesome, considering I like garlic and basil.

Tomorrow, I'll be going with Gene to sit in on a lesson with the violinist and then have lunch. I'm going to miss some of Marathi and Contemporary India classes, but I'm really excited to meet the violin lady and to find out what I'm going to be able to do this semester.

Life-Size Barbie Time!

Alina and Me

So, tonight... it was an experience.

Today was some sort of holy day, especially for recently married women. The ACM students all went to a festivity to watch some of the ritual games. According to some of the people there, the origin of the games started back when women were married off at young ages: 11-13. Because they were so young, the wives would get together and have sort of playdates, doing things like patty-cake, red rover, and spinning in circles. Even though women get married at much older ages now, they still have the traditional games. After the new wives did their games, everyone had the opportunity to join, and I'm still dizzy from all the spinning.

Despite all the excitement of the night, one of the coolest parts was that I got to wear a sari. My aai told me it was traditional to wear saris to this kind of event, and she brought me two or three of hers to choose from (all green, because it's my favorite usually). After that, she pretty much spent an hour playing barbie with me... dressing me up, wrapping my sari, finding necklaces and earrings for me to wear. And once I was all dressed up, out came the camera for photo-time. It seems like quite a few of the girls had a similar experience... about half of us showed up in elaborate saris and jewelry (I, however, thankfully missed out on the long and tedious experience of having flowers braided into my hair). I ended up wearing a forest green sari with the traditional gold trim. I'm pretty sure, despite the fact that I was wearing six yards of fabric, I showed more skin tonight than I have in years.

Anyway, I had a good night and a fun new experience.

Curate ut valeatis,

Annie

Police Department

Monday, August 23

Today, I experienced the joy that is the Indian Police Department. Let me tell you, three hours in that place gives you all sorts of reasons to never want to disobey Indian law. We had to register with them since we're living here for months, and it involved all sorts of paperwork and hoops to jump through. What was it like there? Imagine an area the size of an average grade-school classroom... maximum capacity around 50 people. Now imagine 200 people packed into that classroom, all with different goals trying to get to different corners to see different people.

I spent about an hour sandwiched between Aisha and Justin with absolutely no room to even breathe. And I was one of the lucky ones: at least I already knew the people I was squished up against. Some people got really comfy really fast with some complete strangers.

And man, did that place reek. So much sweat and manstench was just drenching the air of that little building. The heat was awful, even with all the fans running. And I'm pretty sure that every single employee was texting. A few even took calls while they worked... I'm pretty sure that typing in information is tons more accurate and speedy when both hands are being employed. It was kind of entertaining, though, because while I was waiting in my third line, a higher-up came in for a routine check, and all of a sudden ties were going on, shirts were being buttoned all the way up, and cell phones were all hidden out of sight.

On a completely different note, today I was reminded exactly how much of an epic fail I can be when it comes to boys. When approached with the question of “So Anne... what's your idea of a perfect first date?” and put completely on the spot, the first legitimate response I could come up with was “Well, it should definitely involve turtles.” It was kind of like Rhode Island's Q&A moment in Miss Congeniality. For as good as I am with languages, I really fail at words sometimes.

After police registration, Emily (my ACM neighbor) and I took a walk around our courtyard and explored a bit. Upon further investigation, we realized that not only do we have a pool, we have a jacuzzi, a steam room, and all sorts of showers. And as far as we can tell, no one ever uses them. I'm pretty sure that's gonna be our favorite hangout for the next few months.

The food is getting progressively hotter the longer I'm here. Every night, my aai asks if the food is too spicy, and I always say no. So every night, the food is a little spicier. I kind of like it. Tonight, my host family is doing a religious fast, so I ate alone. Aai made me some dal and some kind of squash dumpling. I don't remember what she called it, but it tasted good. It was kind of like my vegetarian meatloaf packed into balls and put in a masala sauce.

I'm beginning to think I should have brought more books with me (that's kind of the last thing I expected to say while I was packing my suitcase full of books). I started reading Spoon River Anthology again yesterday, and I'm already halfway through it. If you haven't read it, you should. It's a book of poetry by a man from Illinois. He basically went to a couple of graveyards near Peoria, IL and made up poems to describe the life stories of all the people buried there. We read some of the book back in junior English class with Ms. Vogel, and it quickly became one of my favorites. Last year, I drove through the town of Spoon River, and it made the book somehow more personal knowing that I've been the place where these imaginary people were created.

On Thursday, I'm going to be missing classes to go with Gene (the American professor who teaches musical theory at Lawrence) to sit in on a lesson with my new guide just to meet her and see how things are going to work. I'm very excited to get a violin and start learning things. Sucheta (our Marathi teacher who's basically the main person in the program) said she'd set up a couple of opportunities for me to give recitals of what I'm learning while I'm here, so I'm pretty psyched about that, too.

Pictures

Activity Center and Courtyard from Balcony

View of Fountain from my Balcony

Classroom

Tulshibag Market... lots of saris

WWBD?

Saturday, August 21

It's Saturday afternoon, and I'm mostly unpacked and moved into my host home. I probably won't have the internet to post this until Monday morning, but I want to write everything down while my first impression is still fresh. I'll work in kind of an earthquake pattern to describe everything... start from the center and go outward, because that seems like the easiest way to go.

I have my own bedroom. It's actually a little bit bigger than my room at home, I think. It's very white... white walls, white ceiling, white tile floor. There's a bed, a wardrobe, a vanity-type table and a full length mirror, and a Ganesh shrine in here, along with a couple of lawn chairs for seating. I have one window, and a door that opens out onto the balcony, and I have a pretty awesome view into the apartment complex's courtyard. There's a huge, gorgeous fountain, but it's not currently turned on. There's also a community complex building for group activities. My Aai and Baba pointed out Emily's balcony, and I can see it from my balcony. We'll be rickshawing to ACM together every morning, and we'll probably spend a lot of time at each other's apartments.

The second door in my bedroom leads out into the rest of the apartment. Right across the hall from me is the bedroom of my Aji (grandmother) and Bahin (sister). There's a bathroom attached to their room that I'll be sharing with them. My host sister is 26 and works for an American company, so she works a night shift to coincide with American time, and she sleeps through most of the day. Aji is my Baba's mother, and she's quite old. She doesn't know a lot of English, but she's a very sweet lady.

There's a second bathroom in the apartment with an Indian toilet. The kitchen is down the hall from my room, and it has a glass dining table in it. Hopefully, that's where I'll be learning to cook tasty Indian foods! Between the kitchen and the door to the apartment is a living room-type area.

My Aai and Baba both seem extremely nice... Baba is currently making me a cup of special chaha (tea) with basil in it to soothe my cough (I picked up a cold my first couple of days here, and I'm not quite over it yet. I figure as far as viruses I could have acquired, though, I can't really complain about a cold). He speaks very good English, and he doesn't have very much of an accent. He seems to be a fairly quiet person, but very kind. My Aai seems like a very lively person, but she also seems very worn down at the moment. She's spent the week in Mumbai because her mother is unwell, and she only got back today to meet me. She has quite a bit of an accent, and sometimes (especially in the noisy lunchroom) it's hard to understand her. Hopefully, I'll soon be speaking enough Marathi that it won't be a problem.

Aai and Baba just took me for a walk around the apartment complex. I'm pretty sure Emily and I got the most awesome homes of the group. The garden has a stone-paved jogging/walking path through it that's surrounded by beautiful plants... lantana and heather and oleander and tropical plants that I don't recognize. There's a small playground with teeter-totters and a merry-go-round and swingsets and slides (it lacks the oleander plants), and there are bench swings at the edges so family can sit and watch over their kids. There's a gym (which I doubt I'll use), and a swimming pool that's kind of quarantined off out of people's view. It's all very beautiful: a little oasis in the center of the traffic-ridden Pune.

Whoever came up with the idea of garlic chutney is a genius. I mean, I've had chutney before... coriander chutney, coconut chutney, mango chutney, other kinds of chutney. And usually, I think they're pretty okay. When it comes to Indian food, there's pretty much a guarantee that I'll eat it. But seriously, garlic chutney? I'd never had it before dinner tonight, and I didn't think such a thing existed. But then my aai came out with a bowl of pulverized garlic mixed with some spices, and I suddenly developed an entirely new passion for chutney. Where can you go wrong when 95% of a recipe is garlic (unless the other 5% is dead or... well... actually, that's pretty much the only qualifier I can come up with)? I'm sure Pop has some relatively negative answers for this, but I'm pretty much sold on the concept.

So anyway, dinner was good. It was a very light dinner... just the chutney, methi (fenugreek) paratha, dal, and rice. But we had a huge lunch at the hotel when we met our host families, so I'm pretty sure I couldn't have eaten any more food than that if they'd had it. I'm getting a little more comfortable speaking Marathi... I still know virtually nothing of the language, but I can say things like “it's good” and “that's enough” and “i want [insert food item here].” Theoretically, I could also say I wanted non-food items, but frankly, why would I want to do that?

Sunday, August 22

Today was a new experience for everyone. I went with my host family to a housewarming party. Their neighbors moved to a new apartment, so we loaded up and headed across Pune to help them celebrate with all their friends. Right inside in the center of the entry room was a firepit full of ashes. It was a square of bricks laid out on the tile floor where they had burned a fire to honor their fire god, according to my aai. At the edge of the room, there was a cloth spread out on the floor with copper bowls set out on it. In each bowl sat a coconut with a garland of flowers decorating it. Each door was adorned with a spot of red powder like the dots they put on their foreheads.

When it came time for lunch, we went into an empty room and sat in the floor. We were each given a huge banana leaf to serve as a plate. On it went lots of different foods, most of which I still don't know what they were. There was a spiced potato dish, mixed vegetables in a coconut sauce, two types of dal, lemon rice and plain rice, mango chutney, and something really spicy that might have involved green beans. We also got a bowl of sweet rice in coconut milk as a dessert. The food was pretty delicious, and the experience was epic. Once all the food was laid out on the banana leaf, it was a beautiful display. There's just something about putting food on a banana leaf that makes it look better. I wish I had had my camera just to photograph the food. Other than me and my host family, there was only one other person that spoke English, so I pretty much just sat quietly and absorbed. Everyone ate with their hands which is pretty common here, and, lest I should have appeared like even more of a dumb uncultured white girl, I did too. I actually tend to prefer eating with my hands, anyway. Finger food just tastes better. And besides, when in India....

I've decided to add a second mantra to my India trip (along with “Don't pet the monkeys!”), because I'm beginning to feel as if that's just not going to adequately cover every situation I get into here. I mean, when I'm walking down the street and see a cute puppy or goat, “don't pet the monkeys” is adequate. But when I'm sitting in a room full of people with a banana leaf in front of me, it just doesn't suffice (unless of course there's a banana attached to the banana leaf and a monkey eyeing the banana). So, for situations like that, my second mantra: W.W.B.D?: What would Bones Do? For those of you who don't watch/know the T.V. show Bones, you should. It's about a cultural anthropologist who is pretty much brilliant, but she's socially awkward and totally misses even the most obvious of social cues in normal situations. Jolie compares me to her all the time for some reason... like I'm socially awkward or something. Either way, any time some sort of cultural question comes up (“Should I eat this with the spoon they gave me, or should I just do what they do and eat with my hands?” for example), I just think what Bones would do in that situation.

Before we went to the house-warming party, I spent some time with Aji (grandmother) learning a little more Marathi. When my aai was cleaning out a cabinet, she found a book of Marathi children's stories, and I've been using it to learn the letters and pronunciations. Aji came in and helped me with it a little bit, and translated things after I read them. As a side note, Aji is very taken with the stuffed llama ;) I brought here with me, and she comments on him pretty much every time she's in my room.

Thanks to Dr. Nick and my amazing adaptive skills, I now have the ability to type in Marathi on my computer. Kind of. In a very slow, painstaking sort of way that involves looking at a chart of the keyboard because it's not done in the same order as ours. Instead of the j-key typing the Marathi letter that makes a 'j' sound, it types र which makes an 'r' sound. It's rather frustrating. However, with much time and effort, I successfully managed to type out a few sentences:

मी आनी. मी भजी खातो. मला पाणी पाइजे.

Basically it says, “I'm Annie. I eat vegetables. I want water.” I think. Or it could say something about a giraffe. I'm still a bit shaky on the vocab. But the letters look cool.

I keep having dreams that I'm still in America and I've just dreamed everything that's happened in India so far. It's really weird, and gets a little bit confusing. I mean, I'll dream that I wake up and I'm just totally convinced that I'm still in Missouri in my dreams and that I've just had a really vivid dream that involved going to India and learning Marathi and meeting all these new people. And then I wake up, and I have to convince myself that that was the dream and I really am in India.

So far, everything is going well, and I hope it continues to do so.

Curate ut valeatis,

आनी

I meet my host family in approximately an hour, so I'm super nervous.  Solution:  read fun facts about India to pass the time.  So, here are some interesting tidbits about India, courtesy of and :


The art of Navigation & Navigating was born in the river Sindh 6000 over years ago. The very word 'Navigation' is derived from the Sanskrit word NAVGATIH. The word navy is also derived from the Sanskrit word 'Nou'.


Here I thought 'navigation' came from 'navis' (ship)... Apparently Latin words have derivatives, too.


Algebra, Trigonometry and Calculus are studies which originated in India.


I suppose I can't expect everything that comes out of India to be good...  Pi and the Pythagorean Theorum were also explained here as early as the 6th century.


There are 300,000 active mosques in India, more than in any other country, including the Muslim world.


The four religions born in India - Hinduism, Buddhism, Jainism, and Sikhism, are followed by 25% of the world's population.




Also, I found some links to Indian music played on the violin.  It's frankly just amazing.  Hopefully, I'll be able to play that way by the time I leave.  Here's a link to an amazing concert that I think everyone should watch! http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6EfQ5_6Z70E&feature=related

Curate ut valeatis,
Anne

Elephants and Tigers and Lamas, Oh My!

So I don't think I've adequately described India yet.  It's basically a sensory overload... there are so many sounds and sights and smells that I can't even begin to process them sometimes.
 Horns honk 24/7, but they aren't the types of horns we hear in the US.  They all sound more pleasant, and some even have a sort of musical honk going on.  Those horns actually sound out a series of notes.  There are all sorts of animal noises going on outside, too... goats and cows and rats and bats all make their own little sounds as they traverse the city.  It's still a shock for me to see goats and cows strolling along down the street with the cars and people, but it happens all the time here.
 Everything seems to be more colorful here (and not just because of the caffeine).  Some of the buildings are painted bright colors: the one across the street from ACM is a bright yellow with blue trim, and there's a sea green colored building on the trek between our hotel and school.  There are plants and trees that I've never seen before, along with palm trees taller than I could imagine.
And the smells... the air reeks of car exhaust and smoke and body odor and poop.  But in with those bad smells linger the scents of spices and foods and fresh fruit and animals and hundreds of other things. It really does just completely overload the senses.

I've decided to do my independent study project on music... learning traditional/classical indian music.  I'm actually really excited for it.  I'm going to have to find a violin to rent or buy, but I think it's going to be incredibly interesting to learn a completely new way of playing.  It'll give me something to show for my semester here, more than a mythology project would.  I'll be learning how to actually do something, and it's something I can show off and be proud of when I get home.

We found out about our host families today.  I'm very excited to move in with mine.  I'm going to have an aai (mother), a baba (father), an aji (grandmother), and a bahin (sister).  I'm going to have my own bedroom with a balcony overlooking a garden and a swimming pool.  My Aai is apparently really chatty and outgoing, and she called today during the family-briefings to find out if I'd been told yet and what I thought.  It's nice to know that the family is just as excited to have me as I am to stay with them.  My bahin is about 26 and works, and my Baba is retired.  I also have an ACM neighbor, Emily, who lives very nearby.  I think we're going to end up spending a lot of time at each other's houses and doing things with each other's families.  Her family has a cashew farm outside Pune (you have to take a ferry across a stream to get to it!!!) that I'll hopefully get to visit with her.
We move in with our families tomorrow... we have lunch with them at the hotel at noon, and after that we go to their homes and settle in.  It's exciting and nerve-wracking.

I've been reading guidebooks to see what I want to do during my two week break in November.  My two goals are to ride an elephant and to see the Dalai Lama (in that order).  My guidebook talks about Bandhavgarh National Park where you can actually ride an elephant through nature to watch wild tigers.  I'm super excited at the idea of doing that.  I also want to go to Dharamsala where the Dalai Lama is.  Conveniently, that happens to be very close to the place that Lord Elgin (of the Elgin Marbles) is buried.  If I were a boy, I'd pee on his grave.  At some point, I'm pretty sure I'll go to Agra to see the Taj Mahal because that seems like something you just have to do while you're in India.  If anyone has other suggestions, please feel free to tell me about them.  I'm totally open to ideas on cool Indian vacation spots.

Vale,
Anne

P.S.  I think I should mention that the workers at ACM are incredibly awesome and sweet.  It's really fun to try to communicate with them using our small amount of Marathi and a little of their English.  Today, Laura and I showed Tukaram where we're from in the States, and we talked a little about the parts of India. :)

I haz Caffeinez

So, for those of you who don't know, I haven't had caffeine in nearly five years.  The beginning of my sophomore of high school, I decided that I was entirely too reliant on caffeine for energy boosts, so I went cold turkey and haven't touched the stuff since.  No chocolate, no coffee, no caffeinated sodas or teas... Nothing at all.
Here in India, tea's kind of their schtick.  They drink it all the time.  Tea at breakfast.  Tea time in the middle of our classes.  Afternoon tea.  All the time is tea time, basically.  And instead of being rude or disrespectful and turning it down, my response is, of course, to take the tea politely and drink it.
Current time: 10:45am.
Cups of tea: 3
It's a very electrifying experience, actually.  I feel like I have so much energy and my muscles are practically humming with the need to move.  My brain kind of feels like all the brain cells are playing pinball, bouncing around rapidly.  My hands are kind of shaky and it's almost a dizzying experience.  Definitely a rush.

We're supposed to learn about host families today.  We move in with our families tomorrow, but as of right now, we know absolutely nothing about them.  And when I say "absolutely," I mean it.  No names or anything.  It's a little bit terrifying.  I mean, tomorrow, I'm going to meet a group of people for the first time, and right afterwards, I'll be moving into their house to share their living space and food and lives for three months.  What if they don't like me (not that that's really possible... I'm awesome)?  What if we don't have anything in common?  What if i don't like the food (also rather impossible)?  What if we can't communicate well?  There's so much to worry about and to think about right now.

On yet another note, I've been thinking about the Independent Study Project I have to do.  My original plan was to find some way to maintain my classics nerdiness.  I wanted to study the Mahabharata and Ramayana in comparison to the Homeric epics, the Iliad and the Odyssey.  But now there's a whole new option... one of the professors here offered to hook me up with a lady who plays traditional hindi music on the violin.  So I could spend my semester learning a completely new style of music on my violin.  And I'm kind of torn now on which direction I want to go at the moment.

Vale,
Anne

So, I lied a little.  I ended up breaking down and bringing a second bag just because of the weight limit.  C'est la vie.

Moving on to the more important stuff... I'm in India!!!  It's fabulous.  Everything is so alive.  There are so many colors and smells.  There are goats and dogs wandering the streets, and cars seem to be everywhere.  The fumes from exhaust and smoke and food are everywhere... you have to keep your face covered to keep from breathing in anything in.
The food is awesome.  I'm quite enjoying it.  I'm learning Marathi... I can say random things like "how much is it?" and "i want water."

Oil Tanker vs. Cruise Ship

My handy dandy Yahoo! news keeps me updated on all the fun worldwide happenings.  Latest story of relevance (aside from the one that says there's an armed fugitive wandering around in my neighborhood): oil spill near Mumbai.  So, in an epic battle of oil tanker versus cruise ship, who wins?  Definitely not the environment.

On another note, my packing is almost complete.  One suitcase goal: accomplished.  I'm convinced, though, that if I open my suitcase between now and the time I get to India, everything will burst out and never all fit back in there again. 

Vale,
Anne

Countdown: 10 Days to India

Namaste!  

I'm Anne, and I'm getting ready for a three and a half month adventure to India.  I'm leaving behind my family, my home, my major, and even my hemisphere in pursuit of new culture and knowledge.  Books are being read, suitcases are being packed, and goodbyes are being dreaded all around.  

My current goal is to fit three and a half months worth of clothing, necessities, and books into one single suitcase.  Can I do it?  I hope so.  The other two thirds of my trio are coming over soon to approve my packing choices, so hopefully, among the three of us, we'll manage it.

Facts on India:

About 35% of rabies-related deaths in the world occur in India.  1 person dies every 30 minutes in the country from the disease.  Vaccines for rabies are available but expensive; however, according to my travel doctor, they are not necessary if you are careful.  In other words, don't pet the monkeys. :)


Curate ut valeatis,
Anne