Searching for an NGO?

Who thought you would actually have TROUBLE finding those in India? According to the Indian business communications setup, I should have my internship by the time I need to leave for the US... Needless to say I've decided to press people for a little quicker turnaround. However, I'm pretty sure I'm set up to get a pretty cool job, no matter what. The main options seem to be either:

1. receiving feedback on the quality of Pune's footpaths from residence organizations
2. promoting Car Free Day to happen in September in Pune
3. teaching children in grades 7-9 about the role of bicycles in improving the quality of city life
4. making a film documentary about a local environmental problem
5. improving biodiversity (still need details) in the hilly areas on the outskirts of Pune

We shall see. But people have been begging for pictures, so here they are! And no, Ella, I don't look like a freak with "blonde hair and nearly black eyebrows." And I don't even have swine flu.

Here's Sasha and I last Monday before our hair adventures. We just found the salon, walked in and got our hair dyed! ... talk about planning ahead...

I was still sitting in my chair waiting while Sasha finished the first time... oh no! Purple!

I doubted that my hair would actually react to anything... but I started seeing some changes through the top of the foil.

And here we are... post purple! A complete switch of color :)

Finally took a picture of the outside of my apartment/hostel... can you see why I call it the barracks?

Went shopping on Luxmi Road on Sunday, and Rebekah got this awesome salwar kameez set (shirt and pants). She wonders whether she can wear it back at Princeton... I told her she better.

The sign for the Shisha cafe... a great hangout with hookah and... alcohol... no really the best part was that it wasn't freaking crazy like the rest of India.

Louging on our dinner couch... this is what India should be like. Instead we get stranded by rickshaw drivers. :P

Cheers!
Kaitlyn refusing to pose with the hookah.

Carolyn doing otherwise.

There's me! With my hair!

Went to see a Kathuk dance performance. Our host mom, Swapna, was playing violin to accompany, along with a singer, tubla (drums) player, and a accordion (sort of thing) player. The music and dancing were great... for about 15 minutes. Watching a play/dance festival with only one dancer and no words we could understand for 2 hours was a little more than I bargained for. Like I said-- I'm a Republican. I don't do art.

Coleen and I at Pizza Hut... so good! And really fancy too. It was hysterical.

Here is the cow out the front window of our hostel.

And here's the whole view off the front patio/entrance. Looks pretty, smells like sewage... but it's home!!

We went to a local Sant (read saint)'s hometown the other day, so that will have a lot of fun pictures. Also spending the weekend with Liz and Reilly in Mumbai for the 4th.

And I should have a job by the end of the week. Hopefully. :)

Finally adjusting

First week in Pune was a bit of getting used to, but since then I’ve had some great experiences that have given me a lot more confidence that I can ACTUALLY live here.

One of them is that I have bought enough eggs, tomatoes and cheese that I can make my own omelets in the morning. That is a small, but significant victory. But there are much better stories than that!

Streetwalker
Over the weekend, we visited the Osho Ashram far away in the northeast corner of town. The best part was probably the German bakery (legit German chocolate cake) rather than the Ashram itself, which we apparently needed tickets and a negative HIV test to tour officially (care to guess about the Ashram activities??). Even so, Preston and I couldn’t get a driver to get us all the way home, so we got to Laxmi Road (shopping road) nearby. Since drivers normally mess up my location, we decided to take 40 minutes and walk the rest of the way home. Now, I doubt I would do this myself because the streets are a little sketchy, but it was the middle of the day and I had Preston with me, so I didn’t feel as nervous. It was actually fun to see landmarks we usually pass up close and personal.

Not that I hadn’t done some walking in the neighborhood before. The girls and I walked a couple blocks from the hostel and on the way saw a camel and a little girl walking a tightrope with pots on her head and one on her foot! It was kind of Slumdog/child extortion-esque, so we didn’t watch the girl for very long. The camel sighting was quickly topped by our elephant sighting near the German bakery the next day.

Anyways, on our walk back to the hostel from Laxmi Road, we stopped by a park. It is actually a very nice park, will golf course grass, a walking path, benches, and playground equipment for the kids. I think I’d like to do some of my homework (or just hang out) there in the future. While Preston and I were resting from our walk there, we saw this three-year-old boy on the swings who was staring at us. We waved to him and he quickly looked away. We got back to talking, but a couple minutes later the boy, prodded by his father came up to us. He shoke my hand, and I asked him his name (in Hindi), but he was too shy to answer. His dad said something to him, and he walked up and gave me a hug! His dad said something else, then he went up to hug Preston too! Then… he ran away back to the playground! It was so cute… omg I love little children. I think little Indian children are particularly cute. :)

Joining Sketch-ville Fitness
Major booster was finding a gym. Sasha had found a great place near her house that offered some cool classes (like Bollywood dancing!), but then I found out it was the equivalent of $120 for two months. That plus the rickshaw ride to get there seemed like too much for me. So I went wandering. I visited one place called “Status” (pronounced “state-us” with and Indian English accent), which was essentially a collection of machines randomly arranged in a room. I was like,.. okay, so may be this is what gym in India means. Got a price quote and kept looking.

I checked out my second place, called Fab. It’s on FC Road, the same street on my college, on the third floor of a multi-story building. The signage looks like it could be denoting some sort of abandoned warehouse—the color is faded, orange rust on the edges. You enter from a sidealley and go up two flights of steps—the landing of one of them is the favorite dozing spot for a certain tawny stray dog that, for all intensive purposes, looks dead. You go in a glass door on the right and, suddenly you’re in the middle of this glass, professional, polished, fully American-style gym! There’s air conditioning, weights and free classes from yoga to aerobics every morning (I went to my first class this morning and it was surprisingly hard! I don’t know how those little Indian ladies do it!), and its only the equivalent of $70 for two months. I found my place! I was so happy that I could conduct my own search and actually find something agreeable. It’s also great to be working out again… one of my theories was that I felt agitated and irritable last week because I’m used to exercising regularly and I hadn’t been able to lately. Now I plan to go every morning at 7 before classes start—think it will be something to look forward. The trainers don’t even mind the fact that I barely understand them. ☺

One downside. The power went out this morning (a semi-regular occurrence in Pune and I assume many parts of India), which means the lights in the shower stalls went out. Not wanting to shower in the dark, I had to settle for anti-bacterial wipes… I feel like my classmates were unappreciative, especially since the aerobics guy lead a killer hour-long workout!

Strawberry Blonde
So, same day as the day I found the gym, Sasha and I were sitting in class. She wanted to know if she should cut her hair short—she was looking to really change her appearance while she was away for the summer. I said she shouldn’t cut her hair (it’s as long as mine), so she suggested dying it. I told her I thought going darker could be a good change (she’s a natural blonde)… but she said she would only do it if I went with her.

So…

We went to this hair salon to check out prices. Our professor Sunila had recommended a specific place that is actually very close to my gym. The owner at the salon (think Indian version of Jersey mob boss… don’t know how this guy got into hairdressing) told us the upper limit was Rs. 1800, which is about $36. Price sounded reasonable (and the place looked very professional), so we started discussing shades—Sasha was looking at a light brown color, and I wanted to go a lighter brown as well. Since we were there after lunch and business was slow… we sat down and did it!

They divided my hair into 210948509837439 sections (because I really do have that much hair) and slathered each one with bleach and wrapped it in foil. Sasha was done faster—they kind of mixed the dye and just massaged it into her hair. I guess that technique works better when you’re drying to darken? I didn’t question… hair is hair. Even if it screws up, it grows out in a couple months, so it’s no big deal.

I tried repeating this mantra to Sasha after she finished… after she took the towel off, her hair was punk rock purple!! We were so shocked! She was very upset, and the hairdressers were surprised and promised to correct it right away. I tried to tell her it would be okay, secretly hoping that my own hair wouldn’t go so drastically wrong! Actually, I was most afraid that my hair would do nothing at all. We tried to highlight my hair at home once, and not even kitchen bleach would dye it.

But lo and behold, off comes the foil, and I’m blonde! It’s actually a sunny red color… I compared it to an Anne of Green Gables color, except a little more blonde than red. I was actually pretty pleased—it was more of a drastic change than I had planned for, but I like the way it looks! Of course, I couldn’t say that in front of Sasha while we stayed an extra half hour to dye her hair again… they managed to get most of the blue out of her hair, so now it’s just a very dark red. It’s almost like we switched hair colors! She’s still kind of unhappy how it turned out, but I actually think that (compared to purple) it looks pretty good. She will just need to get accustomed to it. Even though I like my color, it’s still a shock in the mirror every time I see myself—it will take some time to get used being BLONDE. Growing it out will be interesting… but I don’t care! It’s India!!

Pictures soon people. Don’t worry. ☺

Kuch Photos... with labels!

Okay, I have finally negotiated the Internet connection here, so I can tell you a bit more about these pictures. I hope to be posting more regularly now, as we're doing cooler and cooler stuff. :)
These pictures are from the first day...

This is our home base, where we can access the Internet and we eat breakfast every morning. It's not air conditioned, but now that we're more used to the climate we don't really mind. The rooms are small and it was a little less formal than I expected... but they have normal toilets (which is a big deal!).

This artwork on the sidewalk is prominent in a lot of places. It's called something like rasgulli (but I'm probably pronouncing it wrong), and it's hand-drawn sand art that, traditionally, the women make in front of their homes every day. It's absolutely beautiful.

Closeup

While we were waiting for the afternoon's religious procession, Kaitlin, Cam and I went exploring down the main road, FC Road (for Fergusson College). We ran into a lot of people preparing for the procession and temples playing music. Here we are in front of one of them (note the art on the ground again).

We all met up again to watch the procession, which is called the Palki. It's a celebration unique to Maharashtra where hundreds of pilgrims converge on certain holy cites at some time during June. We had to wait for a while, but once it got going...

it was a real crowd! Here are one of the palanquins they were carrying.

And here is the crowd of people behind it! The best part about the whole procession is that pilgrims kept looking up at US on the balcony and pointing... even though we were there to watch them. One girl took a picture of me with her camera!

Here is the most elaborate palanquin that carries and impression of the footsteps of one of their saints. People rushed up from the sides to touch the inside or leave gifts.

It passed just below us.

I got to my room the first day and was kind of surprised about the accommodations... so I tried to personalize as fast as possible. Here's the headboard of my bed... already full of great people and great memories!

Panning view of my room

And the other side

Omg. One week and I'm still not over the thickness of this mattress. It is like sleeping on a board.

These are the girls who live in the hostel with me. From the right, you have Hyun, Coleen, Mallory, Jessie (my suitemate), Kaitlin and Carolyn. Everyone is wearing their new kurtas from Fab India, so we are all very brightly colored. :)

This is Rebekah and I at Aga Khan palace, one of the places that the British imprisoned Gandhi before Independence. We went there on Friday. Despite it being a former prison, we really liked it! The architecture is something I don't recognize from any US buildings... I would live in a house like this.

The front yard

Add several stories

Me and the sideyard

The whole group! On the far right you have Shashank (red shirt) and Preston (brown shirt) and my friend Sasha (orange shirt). We are in front of a very old banyan tree.

We took a rickshaw to the other side of town to see the Osho Ashram, a meditative community, over the weekend. The difference in air quality is striking... all the greenery makes the air feel noticeably fresher and cleaner than the smoggy stuff we unknowingly breathe in the busier areas. There were also some awesome houses... this is Preston in front of his dream home.

A look down the street... so green!

After the trek (I walked quite a ways home because I was disenchanted with rickshaw riding) we went to my hostel mother's apartment to cook. She (Swapna) did most of the actual cooking but we helped for some things. She's cutting cucumbers with this great knife contraption. She sits on the wooden board, then just presses the vegetables up against the knife to cut. It's surprisingly efficient.

Here's the cooks!

This was yesterday. After dinner, we saw our Indian roommates playing on a seesaw... and yea. Irresistible.

Wow. Actually have to go to class now. More later!

The barracks and a rickshaw adventure

A couple days in and the weather is certainly cooling off. Otherwise, I'm kind of heating up over our living arrangements. The room is a good size, but it is very dusty... a fact not helped the construction going on in the room while I'm at school. We eat dinner with the other Indian girls in the hostel at 9pm at night, but we basically only have cooked vegetables and bread. It's good, but I feel like I'm going to die if I don't get some eggs/fruits/vegetables/something other than carbs! The other Indian girls seems nice, but they are reserved and would rather talk in their own room to each other than to us. That could change... but it's not very welcoming. I still have to wander around our area to buy some necessities, like detergent and a dustpan... god knows WHERE.
Our rickshaw adventure, though, was what really scared me. We had just finished shopping at Fabindia and caught a rickshaw ride to where we thought was back to the college. However, after the driver stopped on the side of the road, got himself a drink (we made him get back in), drove slowly, the car broke down, we haggled over an (unfair) price and found ourselves in the middle of nowhere totally lost and without phones... not so much fun anymore. It took us two more rickshaws and too much money to get home, and by that time it was dark and v. sketchy. So frustrating! I told one of my professors today that we needed a little more direction on going places since apparently the rickshaw drivers are out to rob us/get us mugged. Awesome.
Today we did visit a cool place, Aga Khan Palace, where Gandhi was imprisioned by the British for a while. It was hard to concentrate and admire the palace because I'm so worried about how I'm going to get home and take care of the basics. Felt better after I talked to my professor a bit, and took some cool pictures, which I will post soon. Like I said, Internet is impossible here and laptops are heavy to carry around.
My professor is Sunila, who is an academic but very young and also very US. She was going over the founding stages of the Indian state today, one of my favorite topics from class last semester. I think I was a little too excited... let's just say I was the most vocal participant today by far. :) She thought it was okay though-- I mean, there are plenty of other topics that I don't know a lot about, so I'll be quiet for those.
Coolest part of today, though, was talking to one of the women who runs Gandhi's memorial foundation for rural women. She took part in the freedom struggle back in the 1940s, and actually met Gandhi. She had wanted to join her friends and go to jail for the cause, but Gandhi wrote her back and told her that it was more important for her to take care of her father-in-law and young child. Later on, she brought her baby daughter to see Gandhi (against her family's wishes) and Gandhi praised her for being fearless and blessed the baby. What a great story from a real person!
Rains should be starting soon... we'll have to see how that affects our weekend plans. Sasha and I plan to visit Sunila's gym and work out a membership. Apparently the facilities are great. They have a small pool, weights, treadmills, and (best of all) BOLLYWOOD DANCE CLASSES. Very psyched about that. I think the sooner I start working out, the better I will feel and the quicker I will adjust to this new setting.
Even if it is gritty and full of wicked drivers.

And this is Pune

Just arrived in Pune—can’t say it’s what I expected! Can’t say the weather is too much better here in Pune than it is in Bombay, but maybe after the rains start. The city is much wider and less grungy than Bombay, but our “classroom” (as well as all the other universities) are just tiny little houses. It feels more like we’re at summer camp than a real college! The classrooms are very small… let’s hope I won’t go mad sitting in a lecture for hours in such a small room.

Met up with the other students in the program last night. Sasha came to the hotel first—she’s from Illinois and her dad was with her. It was actually nice meeting her dad because he reminded me very strongly of my Uncle Mike… tall, kind of loud, and very gregarious… very Midwest! He and Sasha have been traveling up North to visit a temple that her dad goes to, so they got to see Delhi and the Taj Mahal.

Everyone else arrived later on in the night after their flight got in, including Rebekah! Finally I had someone to watch Indian MTV with into the night! She is very excited about shopping, so I guess I’ll have to spend more rupees to buy more clothes/jewelry/shoes. Oh yes, and we made a vow to pick up some Bollywood moves in some of the local clubs in Pune. It’s an obligation.

Anyways, drove through the Ghats (mountain range) to get to Pune, which was very beautiful to watch out the window. Used my first Indian toilet at the restaurant (all the flats I visited in Bombay had normal ones)… I will have to get a picture. Let’s just say I’m glad I brought toilet paper.

Internet will be difficult to come by here. The center only has plug in internet and I'm doubtful the hostel will have anyway. But I will try hard to keep writing things down! Just in these first 20 minutes it's been a bit of a shock arriving here and realizing it will be so different from school/life in the US and at Princeton. The apartments that I stayed at in Bombay were basically regular apartments with an Indian flavor and stores looked sketchy on the outside, but were basically what you'd expect in New York on the inside. So far, I see little of that here... especially in the "school" where I'm going to be spending a lot of time. That said, I really like all the other students here on the trip-- they seem very optimistic, open-minded and fun. Some of them were more vocal about being worried about adjusting to the trip, which makes me feel better-- I'm not alone in having my doubts. And I think that, of the group, I'm one of the better-adjusted people who's ready to go out and explore more on my own. I mean, I've done the rickshaw thing now and I feel like that was an important step. :)

We have a schedule for the whole 2 months planned out for us... and I'm reading it over and seeing how I can alter it for maximum fun. Mwahaha.

A different perspective

So... about walking around the streets. Forget what I said. Actually, if you want to live like Sheri, Liz and Reilly... forget just about everything your parents or the guidebooks would tell you. We walked around the streets today, bought food from street vendors, wore clothes without sleeves, talked to strangers... just a wild day. I definitely feel like I this would not be the way I would live here. I like trying to fit in in a new place and not do my own thing. At the same time I have to admire how brave these girls are for coming to a brand new place and just trying to make it through. I don't think I could do that.

Waited a lot for various things. I'm beginning to get a grasp of Indian time-- it's about normal time x3. We had to wait forever to get a bagel at the bagel shop, and then getting nails done took hours. At least my nails are are cool cOloRZ now...

Going back to Mehek's to stay one last night, but plans are constantly changing... I should be meeting up with the Alliance tomorrow night, but I don't really know what I'm doing tonight. Don't really know what I'll be eating, probably going to do something ridiculous like ride a rickshaw home late at night-- we shall see.

One step at a time... one step at a time... oh India.

Pictures from Mumbai

I'm sorry for all the crazy posting. There isn't much to do because my program hasn't officially started yet, and I don't really know when I'm going to get Internet after I leave Mehek's tomorrow.

It's actually hard to take pictures here. Most of the time I'm either walking around and shopping (and I don't want to snap pictures everywhere) or we're driving in the car. We drive everywhere. Places are far away and I get the feeling that it's not advisable to walk around in the streets (and it's much hotter than the car's AC). That said, I do have a couple of shots I took off the back patio yesterday morning, as well as some of the results of my shopping trip!

This is Mehek's living room, and the door to the back patio. Pictures are off of there.

High rises and concrete housing... it all goes together in this city.

A closer look at one of the concrete apartments. This isn't a great picture, but these houses are very different from anything that Mehek or her friends live in. There are blocks of these type apartments in different parts of the city.

Bamboo (?) scaffolding

This is one of the panels surrounding Mehek's door-- her mother is an artist and many of her original paintings hang around the house!

Ah! It's me! I bought the kurta, tights, and dupatta just yesterday (with help).

The shoes I picked out myself. OMG SHOE SHOPPING.... :)

The main event

I’ve now officially been in India for about 24 hours. It’s still blowing my mind. I’ve never been this far away from home before, and I’m having trouble coming to grips with the fact that I am literally on the other side of the world. It’s going to take time to get used to this place. However, let me backtrack a little bit to Heathrow.

Dawdling in London
The whole experience of waiting at an airport shouldn’t be that exciting, but there was something about the British-ness of it all that made it funny. For one, the overhead announcements were hysterical! Is everything in the UK supposed to be taken as a personal insult?
- “You must check in for your flight at least 35 minutes before takeoff. Otherwise, your baggage will be unloaded and the flight will leave without you.”
- “Please do not leave baggage unattended. All unattended baggage with be confiscated and destroyed.”

Fire up the incinerator! ☺ Having a lowered drinking age also had some weird social consequences. I mean, I certainly took advantage of it (do you know how much wine the flight attendants tried to push on us en route to Mumbai??), but it was odd seeing people younger than me casually walking around with a pint or two without cops swarming the premises. Diversity in the airport was different too. I don’t’ know if Heathrow is really reflective of the UK, but it seemed like everyone was either white or Indian. AKA there were, like, three African Americans. And a couple Asian people. It wasn’t as shocking getting to India and having everyone be Indian, but maybe I have different expectations for a country that I think is more like mine? All and all though, I’d like to make a trip back to the UK and properly visit.

Watched more movies on the plane—Watchmen (pause here and wait for TM to stop seizing with joy) was interesting, if more than a little dark, and Tales of Desperaux (sp?) was the worst children’s film I’ve seen in a while. Watching movies has made me feel like I’m just going to stop watching the movie, turn around, and walk into my kitchen… but in reality I’m not going back to the Western hemisphere for a long time. Movies do help to take my mind off things… like the idea of jumping up from my middle seat on a plane packed with 200+ people and screaming, “ARE WE THERE YET???”

Touched Down in Bombay
Touched down in Mumbai (Bombay? Can’t figure out what people call it) at 11:00 in the morning, got screened for swine flu, and waited for my luggage. I was panicky because, 15 minutes before I’d boarded the flight in London, the agent told me that my luggage was not on the plane. Relieved when I finally found it (one of the porters had pulled it off the belt early on… way to let me know). My friend Mehek, who will be a sophomore at Princeton, was supposed to meet me at the airport, but she called me in London and told me that she had been sick for the past couple days. Instead, I met up with a man from her dad’s office, Pradeep. He and his driver were both very nice, and surprised about my light packing! I can see why-- several Indian families from my flight had also been waiting for their luggage, and they came away with, like, 6 giant suitcases each!

Drive-through impressions
Driving away to Mehek’s house, I figured out why Pradeep had a driver. I feel like that’s the first person I would hire if I lived here—traffic is CRAZY (and not even because they drive on the wrong side of the road!). There is really no comparison to anything in the US, even US city driving. South Asian taxi drivers in New York must be those drivers that got kicked out of Bombay for admitting that following distance and passing etiquette exist. Drivers literally just swipe into you and it’s your job to yield and make room for them. Or, like our driver, you can choose to assert yourself and keep a ready horn for when you want to sidle into someone else’s lane (even if they are still in it). You would never be able to drive a large car here—there would be no way you’d be spatially aware enough to keep it intact.. Most of the vehicles are not cars, though. About 50% that I saw were little auto-taxis… which, upon inspection, are actually motorized tricycles surrounded by a large box that holds the passenger. There are only three wheels! I have a feeling I’ll be riding these to class in Pune… that will be fun!

The city itself was also very different. I’d read things about Bombay being dirty or that the poverty is shocking… but it’s not at all like that. Guaranteed, I’ve only seen the part around or 40 minutes from Heathrow, but what I’d say is a better comparison is that the city looks like it is still under construction. You know the way there is random litter around a construction site and dusty dirt just from it being unbuilt? That’s what the buildings and streets were like—as if they were still being finished. It didn’t seem dirty in the sense of purposefully unclean, just gritty and sandy. The style of most of the buildings, except, notably, the Indian Center for Planning, was like what we would call a Southwestern, stucco style. This may explain my sand association?

People have built homes in every enclave—you can see the slum districts from the plane as you’re landing. Clothes and cloth are draped over trees and random outcroppings, and metal siding is built up to make multi-story shacks. It’s actually exactly like what you’d seen in Slumdog Millionare or in pictures or a documentary of Bombay (which is probably why I wasn’t that surprised or interested). The people on the street were much more interesting than their houses. I saw two boys swimming (?) in a deep pothole on the side of the road. Two small boys and a little girl in a pink dress spun tops in an alleyway that must have been 3 feet wide. A small gang of teenagers dressed in mismatched collared shirts and long shorts were walking down the street with cricket gear away from a dusty park (complete with basketball hoops???). However, those people seemed like the buildings… they’re not dirty, just gritty. They live gritty lives, but it doesn’t seem as dark as the movies portray it because they’re used to it, it’s what they’re comfortable with. People looked happy.

I couldn’t decide whether it was helpful or hurtful to know what little Hindi I do. I can read the Devanagari script, but still very slowly and not very small type fonts. I can also pick up a couple of words people say and simple commands, but not complex sentences. Therefore, I had to keep telling myself to stop reading or listening in order to keep from getting a headache as we were driving! There were so many signs on all the shops, so I would try to make sense of them all. I would start to read and get halfway through before we started moving again. Either that, or I’d hear something on the radio, remember the word, and then they’d be on to the next sentence before I’d deduced anything useful. My brain hurt from the constant effort! ☺

Food food food, what else?
Slept for 6 hours after lunch, which was my first Indian food, provided by Mehek’s mom and the servants. I’ve decided that there’s no way I’m not going to lose some weight on this trip. The food is great, but it is very rich—there is a lot of spice in just a small bit. I was eating everything in very small portions in order to take it all in. I feel full after eating barely anything! :P I’ll have to keep track of dishes that I like the best. Indian mangos were a little tart for me (like sour green apple tang x7 plus sweet), but I really liked the vegetable and potato dip (?) that we ate with the roti (Indian bread) for lunch. My favorite part of dinner was the homemade yogurt. I NEED to learn how to do that. I tasted just like plain yogurt from the store, but it came out of a pot! Rest of dinner was actually “Mexican” – rice and beans on open face hard taco shells with salsa and sour cream. Was relieved that this dinner was more mild in taste (I liked the tomato soup and was just about to say so when Mehek goes, “There’s not enough salt in this soup. Can we have salt?). Something I’ll have to get used to… though I don’t mind getting used to new food! I also didn’t even think about it until now, but I had two all-veg meals and didn’t mind a bit. Interesting how that works…

Mehek and I watched Harry Potter and the Order of the Pheonix online after dinner—she is as obsessed with Harry Potter as I am, which is cool. We’re going shopping tomorrow so I can buy some real Indian clothes—so excited! I’m glad she’ll be there with me to help me find what I like at a good price ☺ I will take some pictures so I can get to more posting.

…

I still can’t believe I’m in India.

ps. Mom, there are cats in India. I saw a (very) scraggly version of Boo walking down the streets. I also saw a little black chiuwawa dog… ???

pps. There really are cows in Bombay. I saw about five of them on a street corner. They are huge! Not fat… just very tall. They are like ox-cows!

Pictures from the Yotel

The door to my room-- looked kind of like an industrial freezer unit. :)

Here's the bed in the alcove....

And the purple lighting (no flash reveals all)