So... The travel agent that booked our trip said multiple times that our train is the 28th.  They booked the entire trip based on our 28th departure date.  Today, we looked at our tickets... we leave the 29th.  Guess who called the hotel to cancel our extra night?  Not the travel agent!  Guess who gets to explain to our families and teachers why we're in class when we said we were going to be on a train to Bangalore?  Not the travel agent.

Also, we all feel really dumb for not checking the tickets before.

So, day after tomorrow, I will be leaving for a fourteen day trip.  Yay.

We went to Mahabaleshwar this weekend. It was described to us as a mountain resort that we could relax at for four days while we presented our independent studies. It was supposed to be a good weekend together with everyone before we went off on our two week trips and didn't see everyone for half a month.

And, to be honest, it was. However, it was also really cold. Sometimes, the electricity went out. We didn't have hot water. Sometimes, we didn't have any water. We didn't have toilet paper. Our toilet clogged. We didn't have towels. And my Aai's cooking is tons better.

So basically, we all spent four days without showering. We all re-wore our clothes in layers to keep us warm. We had greasy hair and smelled funny. And we'd have to go to the next room to use the toilet. Hygiene... ah, how I miss it.

I officially wore out my first pair of shoes this weekend. I thought if I brought enough pairs and cycled through them, that wouldn't happen. But the sole of a pair of sandals just fell off on Friday. And they were the only shoes I packed, so I replaced them with a pair of hot pink striped slip-on shoes. They were $3, and they're kind of awesome.

I also knocked out quite a few presents for people back home... Shopping in Mahabaleshwar was pretty good. I got a couple of gifts for people for whom I was unsure what to get. It feels good to get Christmas shopping and such out of the way a month or two in advance.

Back to the actual happenings of the weekend!

We left early Friday morning for Mahabaleshwa. We spent three or so hours on a bus, minus a tea break where my shoe broke. We got to our hotel. We ate lunch there.

We had about an hour or so to rest before we started presentations... presentations were alphabetical by first name. Surprisingly, I was fourth. Aisha, Alayna, Alex, Anne...... Lots of A's in this bunch.

My presentation involved talking for fifteen or so minutes and then playing my violin for a while. It was kind of fun, actually. I quite enjoy playing for people who don't know how the music is supposed to sound. Also, it's definitely nice to get some positive feedback. My guru doesn't do that.

One person presented after me, and then it was time for dinner and bed. Presentations took about 20-40 minutes each... and there are 24 of us. It was a long weekend. 5 people presented at a time. We got done Sunday morning. We spent the rest of the day Sunday shopping! I like shopping here. Everything's cheap.

In the beginning of the program, I was really worried that I was going to spend tons of money because everything's so cheap that I'd buy tons of things. And then about a month or so in, I was thinking “I'm not doing that at all! I'm hardly buying anything at all! I'm doing really well at not overspending .” It's funny how things add up when that happens (also, it's funny how that happens when you buy 8 pairs of pants in one go). But then I remind myself that I'm shopping for the rest of my life, and things will never be this cheap again. And I'm going to wear everything I buy (even some of the things I'm buying for other people, to be honest...). So I'm kind of okay with the spending.

There were monkeys this weekend. One barred his teeth at us. Others threw sticks at us. They perched above our door so any time we came out, we got a barrage of sticks... among other things.

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.   

Today, my aai made me an espresso milkshake.

Has anyone seen the movie Over the Hedge? It has Avril Lavigne in it as a baby possum. Anyway, there's a squirrel. And squirrels are generally depicted as hyperactive and energetic, right? Well, in the movie, at the end, he gets caffeine... and there's a scene where he's shown casually strolling through a yard, and the laser system is slowly slowly slowly being activated and the lasers are just hardly moving at all because his caffeine-world is just moving so fast.

Today, that was me.

We made a trek into town today. We present our independent study projects in a week, and we all have some serious work to do on them, so the Paud Road kids all got together and rickshawed to an internet cafe to get some research done. Today, the internet cafe was experience internet difficulties, so we couldn't do anything.

In order to make the trip worth it, we went shopping. I now have more presents for people back home. Yay.

Last Thursday, we took a test in our political science class. This Thursday we got it back. Three people got D's. Everyone else failed. Most of our answers paralleled what we read in the class readings. When we brought this up, our teacher told us that he disagreed with a lot of the readings (ones that he assigned). Other answers paralleled what he said in class. When we mentioned that, he said we should know more than just what he talks about in class... like in the readings. Some questions were covered neither in our class lectures nor in our readings... some questions were covered in both lectures and readings... with different answers. I tend to think that when an entire class fails, it says more about the teacher than the students. The highest grade in the class went to the boy who missed two weeks of class due to Dengue fever and didn't read any of the outside reading. He is, however, a South Asian Studies major at his college, and he's doing an independent study on the politics of language.

Our program director, Sucheta, said that we should pretty much disregard all grades in that class from now on because she would be deciding our grades at the end... and they won't be failing ones.

Today, we went to the travel agent (and by 'we,' I mean Sarah and I). Again. We have two more trains booked, and two nights worth of hotels. So, for our 15 days of travel, that means we have 1/3 of them planned for. Progress!

I think we've decided not to use the travel agent to book anymore hotels... while the travel agent has better resources than we do and is more capable of finding hotels, he also charges us $6 for every booking we make. And, considering that we're paying around $5 a night for hotels, I'm not quite okay with that. Also, today, the travel agent in charge of hotels had to clarify that I am not a man, so I dislike him.

I hate booking hotels and trains. It involves multiple trips to travel agents. It involves lots of stress. It involves infinite possibilities of where to stay, how long to stay, which hotel to stay at while there, which place to go next, which train to take to the next place, etc. And Sarah and I are planning the trip for four of us, so it generally involves a trip to the travel agent to get options, a trip to ACM to get group input, a trip back to the travel agent to confirm, a trip back to ACM to collect the required money, a trip back to the travel agent to pay. For. Every. Transaction.

It's not fun. The two people in charge of trains know us by name now, though.

One of the ACM kids is in the hospital, and I spent an hour or so visiting her today. She has appendicitis or kidney stones or something like that... she's not feeling so hot, basically. The doctors aren't sure what's wrong with her. And no one speaks English regularly, so she never knows what's going on. Today, they didn't feed her. The surgeon was supposed to visit this afternoon, so if she needed surgery, she wasn't supposed to have any food in her system. However, no one at the hospital explained that to her, so she just went all day with no food and no reason why. Our resource guide who is hired to take care of the students' needs (be they shopping, directions, coordination of programs, health, or transportation) refuses to help Meghan with anything because she is afraid of hospitals. Today, Meghan had to have a CT scan, and the guide wouldn't go with her lest she get sick. So, ACM sent the non-English-speaking helper to sit in on the test. So Meghan still had no idea what was going on, but at least she had a friendly face. Note: don't get sick in India, and if you do, don't go to the hospital.

During class, we've been talking about how little Indians know about their history. That raised the question of how much we know about our own country. So, as basic review (I don't have internet at home... I have to do something), I've been seeing how much I remember. First, I tried to list the 50 states in America... I could come up with 49 of them (for some reason, Maine escaped me... I even drew it in my map, but it just wouldn't go on the list). I then listed the state capitals... it took three people to come up with all 50 of them. For some reason, Wyoming, the Dakotas, Michigan, and South Carolina are difficult. My third task: name the presidents. That's been the hardest. I can easily name the first 7 and the last 14. Then, in the middle, I can get 10-12 of them. I got up to about 35 of the 44 presidents. And at that point, I got internet, so I looked them up. Of the nine that were left, about five of them were definitely obvious ones that I would have gotten to eventually. Grant, Coolidge, etc. Then there were a couple of less obvious ones that I might have eventually come up with and at least knew of as presidents. Then, there were a couple (B. Harrison and Arthur) whose names I was kind of surprised to see on the list of presidents considering I really just don't know anything about them and I didn't recognize their names. So... how many states/capitols/presidents can you name?

My host family's son and daughter in law and granddaughter are staying a few days with us. Tonight, they asked my aai if I like the food. Aai's response: “She is not choosy. She eats everything. She always says 'khoop chaan!'”

Oct. 13

I forgot to post this this morning, so two days worth!

Not much happened today. About the most exciting thing was our Literature class. It annoyed me. I think it annoyed everyone. Coincidentally, today was the day to fill out a mid-course review on our teacher. I'm pretty sure he got lots of bad reviews.

Reason one for annoyance: We were discussing a memoir (imagine that happening in a Lit class...). It was about India being a poor country with a caste system. We got onto the topic of Americans as an audience. He told us that when Americans think of India, they think of it as a holy land of philosophy and a spiritual sanctuary. We told him that when we as Americans think of India, we think of it as a poor country with a caste system. He argued. He told us we're students, and that makes us different. We told him that most of our friends and family tend to think of it the same way. He told us that we're wrong.

Reason two of annoyance: One of the girls in the class said (and we all agreed) that the character in the book was hard to relate to because he was very flat, his character wasn't developed, and he was hard to relate to as an actual human. Our teacher told us that we were being narrow-minded and racist for not relating to a character because he was different from us.

Reason three for annoyance: We brought up Anne Frank. She went through the whole process of being persecuted for her birthright like the character in the book, and yet we can relate to her diaries. Our teacher told us that that's because she's white, so of course we can relate to her. He doesn't seem to acknowledge the fact that we aren't any closer to being Jews in Europe in the Holocaust than we are to being lower caste members in India. She's white, so we can relate.

Reason four for annoyance: Our professor writes books. We have to read and analyze one of them in a few weeks. He takes it personally and gets offended when we criticize books he didn't write, so I can't imagine what it will be like when we read something he actually wrote.

The Beach!

Monday

Trains are cool. Sleeper trains are set up so that you have a bench seat for three people, and a person can sleep on the bench. The back of the bench can be raised up on a ledge, and that makes a second bed. And there's a top bunk that looks like a plane's luggage compartment that the third person from the seat to sleep on. It's a pretty nice setup. However, 28 hours worth of train is just a lot.

The beach is awesome. 6 of us stayed in beach huts that were directly on the beach. They were made out of palm and bamboo, and they overlooked the ocean. It's off-season in Goa, however, so, to conserve money, they cut back on things. Like peanut butter and electricity. Things like that “aren't in season” right now. But that was okay, too. We couldn't charge our phones or cameras, but it was kind of like beach camping. Friday night, we all stayed up late playing jenga by candlelight with the hotel staff and a British couple that's been married twenty-some years and comes to Goa regularly.

The ocean was nice. It was shockingly warm compared to any American ocean I've been in, and it was more alive, too. Everywhere we walked, there were crabs scuttling along or some other sea life. When tide went out, we went to pick up seashells... and we had to be careful not to get the ones with hermit crabs or sea slugs in them (I tried to convince some of the hermit crabs to trade me because they had all the coolest shells, but for some reason, they weren't up for that). And there were starfish everywhere along the beach. I got a bunch of seashells to bring home despite that. We went swimming a few times, and we all got a little sunburnt and a little more tan.

The downside of the ocean was that there were jellyfish. Thousands of them, literally. The town we stayed at, Benaulim, is a big fishing town (all of Goa is actually into fish), so jellyfish get caught in nets a little bit out to sea and die, and then they're washed inland. And then they get partially buried in the sand in the water, so when you go out swimming, you step on them. Usually, they're dead enough to not sting you, so we all stepped on some impotent ones. Sometimes, they still pack a punch. Izzy got stung twice, and I got stung once at least. When she got stung, she said they were kind of painful like wasp stings or something similar. The time I got stung, I was not even in the water... I was walking along the beach at low tide early in the morning, and we could see the jellyfish in the sand where the water would be when the tide came in. And I avoided all the big pieces, but I stepped on a little invisible chunk of tentacle and didn't notice or think anything of it. And about three steps later, my leg was numb to my knee. It was a weird feeling.

We went on a dolphin-watching boat. The boat held about 15 people and was basically just a little motorboat. Dolphins here do not look like our dolphins. When I have internet, I'm going to look them up. They have longer noses, funny shaped dorsal fins, and they're not completely grey. I was a little surprised when one popped out of the water because it wasn't at all what I expected. The boat ride was nice. We never got out of sight of shore, because you don't really have to to see the dolphins.

While I was in Turkey this summer, I found a pair of pants that look like what Princess Jasmine wears in Aladdin, disney-style. I bought them for $20. After wearing them a few times and realizing that they are the most amazing pants ever, I wished I had gotten more pairs of these pants. I spent all summer hoping to find the pants in India so that I could get more of them. And, I spent my first two months in India looking everywhere and not finding any of them. I found them in Goa: they're called Ali Baba pants. And, acknowledging that I would have been willing to buy another pair in Turkey for $20, I decided the only thing to do would be to buy $20 worth of Indian pants. Do you know how many pairs of pants you can get for $20 in India? I do. I ended up paying about $30 actually, but I got 8 pairs of pants. And they're awesome. And I can't feel too bad about spending that much money on pants, because two nights of hotel cost $12.

So, now that our Goa expedition is over, we're getting to crunch time in our trip. We have two weeks of class, and then we go to the Mahabaleshwa Resort for a conference where we have to present our independent study projects. I think that means I have to play some violin... oh, joy. After that, we have half a week of classes before we leave on our two week vacation – mine is mostly planned... kind of. And once those two weeks of vacation are over, we have two weeks of classes, and then we fly home (except about half of ACM is staying later to tour India again). So I'll be home in just over a month and a half. It's nice to be past the halfway point.

Anyway, we rode a train back. The train went through the jungle, and there were some amazing views before night set in. The train left Goa (Madgaon Station) at 3:50pm. It got to Pune at 3:30am. Since it took 14 hours to get from Pune to Goa, we were expecting to get back at about 6am. We didn't. So none of our families were expecting us home this morning and we all had to figure out a new game plan. A lot of people bunked at one house close to ACM, and a couple of us just came on to ACM at 4 in the morning, jumped the fence, and slept the rest of the night in the classroom. So that's where I am now, waiting for class to start.

Magnus

Today, I saw a cockroach. I thought it was a mouse. A big mouse. I think it could eat a mouse. I named him Magnus, because he was big... and not even just big by cockroach standards. If normal cockroaches were people, he would be Godzilla. And he would be able to eat all the little cockroach-people, and their skyscrapers, too. Not that Godzilla really ate the buildings or anything, but if he had wanted to, he could have fit them in his tummy.

So, I leave tomorrow for Goa. Hopefully (but not likely) I'll have internet for at least part of our trip. Otherwise, this will be my last post until Monday or Tuesday. But if I don't have internet (and if I do), I am going to spend three days on the beach enjoying waves and sunshine, palm trees and sand, and all the things that mean ocean-y goodness. The sea is just a wetter version of the skies (RS). The catch: I'm going to spend about 28 hours on a train in the next few days... 14 each way, assuming it runs on time. I hope I can sleep on it.

So if you're wondering what's happening for those four days of my India experience, it involves beaches, palm trees, waves, sunscreen, coconut water, trains, and beach huts. And the coconut water is on there because the ten-year-old boy who I take lessons with told me I have to try it while I'm there. I'm a little skeptical, but he's a sweet kid, so I'll try it. His name starts with an M, and it's something I can't really spell. He was born in Florida, but he moved back here with his family, and he's been taking lessons with Vidya for the last three years. He doesn't speak very much English (I think he knows more than he speaks, though, and just prefers to talk in Marathi), and he really likes to show off his violin skills. It's always kind of humbling at lessons to get shown up by a ten-year-old. Anyway, today, he told me I have to try the coconut water, so I'll do that.

Also, playing Hearts has become a big time-waster for me here... it's what I do when I have no internet and no homework and nowhere to be. I'm never sure whether to feel proud or inept when I accidentally shoot the moon...

 So I haven't really posted on here for a while. Things have been a little chaotic lately, and sometimes, I really just don't want to write about my days. The most important update from the last week: I polished off the quart of pickled limes. I'm a little disappointed in myself because it took me a whole month to eat the whole thing, but I finally finished it. Mmm. Limes soaked in lime juice and spices. And probably some other stuff I don't want to think about. Also, for dinner tonight, I ate the chili peppers. My Aai served me and said something about “there are many chili peppers... be careful not to eat them.” And a couple minutes later, she looked over and my plate was cleared and there were no chili peppers. And she made some noise of horror and said “you ate... the chilis?!” And I agreed, and she laughed. And then she served me more food. I'm pretty sure I ate about three whole chili peppers tonight. That might have been a bad decision.

The court trial was finally decided, and I got some extra information about what it was. Ayodya (or some similar spelling) is supposed to be the birthplace of Lord Rama. Muslims built a masjid there years and years ago. In 1985, the Hindus decided to tear the mosque down because it was their religious holy-spot. 25 years later, the court finally decided the case: this place really was the birthplace of Rama (India's idea of secularism doesn't quite align with the American version...) Anyway, 1/3 of the land goes to the Muslims, 1/3 to the Hindus, and 1/3 to some other group that likes to smoke pot to get close to god(s). I'm not really sure what role that group played in things, but that's all the information people here really have to give about them.

The trial was kind of a big deal. ACM held classes; however, they set a 2:30pm curfew for us, so we all had classes, ate, and went home. As Emily and I got into our community, the gates were closing. All the Indian schools dismissed early for the day, and our gated community closed and locked its gates in case of mob violence or riots. Doors stayed closed. People stayed inside.

Yesterday, I was attacked by a pigeon. I was walking along the street, and a pigeon landed on my shoulder, dug its claws in, and flapped its wings in my face. If it hadn't been for having Jake around this summer, I'm pretty sure it would have been a pretty big shock.

Yesterday, I also got my sari. My aai picked it up from the tailor. I tried the blouse on... it was too small. When we went to the tailor, he measured me. I watched. He wrote the numbers down right. So somewhere along the lines, there had to be some thought of “they can't really be that big...” because the blouse will not button over my chest. Today, I get to take the blouse back to the tailor and make him fix it.

Sarah and I are going to meet up and go shopping today; we're going to go back to Tulshibag Market, the place we went the week of India. It's kind of a giant open market that sells clothes, jewelry, dishes, scarves, material, etc. I'm a little excited for it. Indian prices make shopping actually kind of fun. It's always a downer in America to shop because everything is so expensive. But here, I can get two shirts and a pair of pants for under $10. It's like going to garage sales, only it's all day every day and the supply is virtually unlimited.

I've been doing a lot of work for my independent study project. I have lessons for about four hours each week. That's starting to take its toll because Indian violining uses completely different muscles than Western violining. My right shoulder is pretty much just in a constant state of tense discomfort. I've been reading books and typing things up, and I so far have about eight pages worth of rough draft and another three pages of extra notes to add in. So I'm actually kind of on top of things for that... two months left, and 8 pages in. However, I got kind of annoyed at one of the ACM people the other day because she made a comment on how easy my project is compared to what everyone else has to do. I very much disagree.

More on the Sarah-Anne Tulshibag shopping spree: it's done. Total cost (including refreshments, ice cream, and transportation): $20. I got two pairs of pants. I got two kurtas/dress shirts. I got a scarf. I got four pairs of earrings. I got drawstrings for the pants. I got a petticoat (for my sari). And I got presents for two more people back home (so Derek isn't special anymore). I'm pretty sure if I had gone shopping in the States, nothing I bought would have cost less than $10. It was a pretty good day for shoppings.

Side notes:

Ashley Gilland, if you're still reading this, Jolie said you're looking for some kind of tunic/blouse type thing and not having any luck. Tell me what you want in a comment on here, and I'll see if I can find it for you. Color/pattern/cut/sleeve-length/etc. Tunic-y shirts are pretty easy to come by.

Jolie, since this is easier and cheaper than texting you to ask, you said you want a shirt, too. Tell me what kind/color you want. What size does Joacquin wear in a shirt? I mean, I know he does the XL or whatever, but do you know what that would equate in inches? Also, if I buy you something with shiny blue stones and tell you they're sapphire, will you believe me?