Last week of the trip

This is my last week of the trip and I thought that it would be worth it to write something down about my feelings on how the trip went. I'm glad that I'm coming home and that I can get a break from the heat, the average here is about 110 degrees F. We finished our classes yesterday and came back to the residence relieved. In the afternoon, I went to a local coffee shop and got a needed cup of coffee. I hadn't had real coffee in a long time and I was really craving it. When I got back I went straight to a cricket game that some of the students were playing against the local kids. After playing the game for three weeks, we still suck. But at least we can hit the ball. Last night, a majority of us had a party in the basement where it was cooler than the roof. We all dressed up in our Indian clothes and danced to Indian music. Today we are going to a school for the blind. It should be really interesting. A lot of the students are leaving today, they were able to catch an earlier flight. Which leaves four of us back at the residence. I think that we are going to the lotus temple tomorrow. If you haven't seen pictures of it, you should really look it up. Anyways I have to get ready for the school visit.

Agra

We just got back to Neeti Bagh, from our trip to Agra. On the trip we were treated like Royalty, put up in a five star Hotel and taken to some shops where they gave us drinks while we shopped. There was a marble shop where the workers have been using the same techniques used in the Taj. While we were at that shop the owner gave us a demonstration on how they make the intricate designs on the marble. They have to use tungsten tools to scratch the surface and then cut the inlayed pieces by hand. He then took us into the shop and showed us that Indian marble was resistant to staining and cutting with out special tools. He took his key and scratched the surface of this table that was about five feet in diameter, plus he took a bottle of coke and spilled it on the surface. We all freaked out a little bit. We went to three different tourist attractions. The first was Agra Fort. This is positioned so that if you were in the fort, you would be able to see Taj Mahal from most of the rooms. Despite being attacked many times, the fort had remained unconquered for over 400 years. I wish we could have been there in the rainy season to see the moat full. But it was still pretty impressive. The next place we went was the Taj. We went early in the morning, leaving at 5:30 from the hotel, and getting there at about 6. At least the heat hadn’t gotten to the marble yet because we had to take our shoes off. Most of us just put surgical booties over our shoes because we didn’t trust the people standing around the shoes. Taj Mahal was built by Sahajahan, I’m not sure of the spelling, for his wife after her death. Now there is a man in love with his wife! He wanted to be able to see it from where ever he was, which is why he had part of Agra Fort facing the Taj. Later in the day, after we checked out of the Hotel we went to Fatehpur Shikri. This is another fort that was occupied by the grandfather of Sahajahan, Akbar. It was a fun trip but I am very glad to be back at the residence.

Day trips around Delhi

Yesterday and today we went on day trips, albeit rushed day trips, yesterday we broke down and went to an Italian place for lunch. Mark, one of the students on the trip is Italian and he was enjoying himself beyond all belief. The tiramisu was excellent!!!! It was something that wasn't as spicy as we had been getting. After lunch, we went to the National Museum of Art. Unfortunately, I didn't bring my camera in to the museum because it cost like 300 Rs. which is about $6. Some of the student did and they got some pretty good pictures of the art from ancient India. I really enjoyed the weapons and the naval portion of the Museum. They showed some of the battle gear that was ornately decorated for kings. There were also portions of the museum dedicated to different religions that were present in India. Lots of statues of the Hindu gods! After that, we went to Indira Gandhi's Memorial and learned a little bit about how she affected the Indian government. She was the first woman Prime Minister of India.  It was pretty neat to know some of the history of present day India. The trip there felt rushed and I would have like to stay and read some of the news articles concerning her life and death. Right after we left the memorial a caravan for an Indian dignitary went by and the police shut the road down. Which caused us to be stuck in traffic again, but this time Aman didn’t have to pick up a car with his super human strength. After class today we went to an Indian restaurant that one of the IES directors took us to. It was really delicious and not to spicy, I think there were 6 different styles of meat and a lot of naan. I really enjoyed the mutton. After lunch, we went to see Mahatma Gandhi’s memorial. I thought it would have been more fancy. But it was just a square slab of rock with flower petals on it and a flame burning. We all had to take our shoes off for respect, so we were standing on marble that has been heated by Delhi’s heat barefoot. Aman had to leave for today, abandoning Gauri to handle 19 of us alone. I think that she was getting stressed by leaving someone behind and because of the heat. As a side note, it got up to 110 today. As soon as we got back I started doing laundry, Indian style, a.k.a. by hand. Luckily, the heat made the drying time short. Tonight we had McDonalds deliver, yes the deliver, us some sandwiches. I had a Chicken Maharaja Mac, sorta like a big mac except with chicken and some type of sauce on it. With dinner we watched an Indian movie. Their movies are like 3 hours long…average. I was falling asleep through it. There has been a group of us, who like to get up in the mornings to run or exercise. Mainly because its only 90 then, but also because there isn’t anyone else out and the girls that go with us can wear shorts. But lately we have been playing Cricket. We’re getting better at actually hitting the ball. We still suck but we’ve definitely made improvement. It is difficult, because we’re all used to baseball and swing the bat doesn’t transfer from baseball to cricket. I won’t even try to explain cricket to those that don’t know, because it took three wiki articles, and ten youtube videos for me to really understand it on the most basic level.

Around the house

Today, the most of us were feeling a lot better. We all had digestive problems some way or another. I think it is all the spicy food that we are eating.  Its been almost a week and an half and we are all starting to crave American food, like a cheese burger, mmmm. After class today, we went to a South Indian restaurant, which isn’t as spicy. Some of the girls thought that the butter dosa dipped in lentils tasted like a grilled cheese and tomato soup. It’s a stretch but I could see what they were getting at. This afternoon we got our papers done for the class then went out to go shopping at a place called Dilli Haat, which is just an outside market place. It was pretty cool because we all tried our hands at bartering. I thought it was funny that everyone kept coming back to Aman to ask if they were getting a good deal or not. It was tough for us to get into the mind set that the asking price is not the price that you have to pay. At the end of our little excursion, a dust storm rolled in really quickly, knocking the power out for about an hour. It was my first real experience with a dust storm, I thought it was weird to have a storm without the rain. Sometime later this week I think that we are going to Aman’s parents house to get henna. I think the girls are more excited about this than the guys are. Most of us are looking for a good home cooked meal. I’ve noticed that I’m really getting used to the driving in the city and I don’t have a panic attack every time that we get in a car. I just hope that I won’t be this crazy when I get back in the states. Tomorrow morning a couple of us are getting up early to play a game of cricket before we start our school day. Hopefully it won’t be that hot in the morning. I think that high today got up to 113 F and the low is 90, which is only at 3 in the morning. Well, I’m headed to bed now so that I can get some sleep before tomorrow. 

Mussoorie

Well I have gotten a couple of emails from people asking different questions about what the food is like and how people live here. I'm going to put it all in the next blog because I want to give people a chance to get new questions to me. Dad, don't send more questions cause I can't answer all the questions. I'll try to get to as many as I can, but the internet is shady sometimes and doesn't like me to be on for a long time.

We are in the mountains right now. Well what I would call mountains, they call these peaks which are bigger than a lot of the Rockies, foothills. I'd love to see the actual mountains. we took a train from Delhi to another town, I don't remember the name but I have decided that trains are the way to get around. They'll serve you Chai and biscuits plus you don't have to worry about getting hit by two scooters with burrow in between them. After the train ride we got lunch in a restaurant that is sorta like a Culver's. The drive up was one of the scariest experiences of my life. I thought that I would be okay with it because most of us have gotten used to the driving, but if you would imagine roads that are at most 8 feet wide being a two land road going up an almost thirty degree incline with traffic at about 40 km/hour. OH, I didn't mention that it was a windy road that had a drop off of a 1000 feet on one side. I'm not joking about the 1000 feet either.

We are staying at a place called Woodstock School, in their guest house. It is really nice, even compared to some of the places I've stayed back at home. A bunch of people got stung by nettles when we first got here because there were some right in the middle of the path. I got some but I saw the larger plant and avoided it. The schools that we visited today was a rural school, were the kids had to walk about 2 hours to get to school. BTW guess where they walked?? ON THE ROAD!!!!!! I couldn't believe it. They didn't seem to mind it too much but they thought we were pretty funny. We sang them a song in English and then they sang a song in their language, which we needed two translators to understand. I showed some of the kids how to dance and then they showed us a dance that they knew. I got it on video I'll post that tomorrow when I have the internet on my own computer. I'm really enjoying the wild life here, there are some monkeys but they are vicious. The birds make very different sounds than the ones that I'm used to at home.

Aman, our prof, started calling my Pappu, which is just a nickname for a boy. I think it is fun to say. I took so many pictures today that my battery died, but that is because I forgot to charge the it last night. The food that we ate today was so good but that is because we ate so late and were starving by the time it came out to us. Ellen, Steve and I had paneer, chicken, rice and roti. There was a lot but we ate every last bit of it. When we got back to the guest house the dinner was being served. Aman was the first down to the dinning room and yelled, "THEY'VE GOT MANGOS!!!!" One thing that you have to know about India, if you don't know anything else is that they are crazy about mangos. Aman will eat two at one sitting, mind you, mangos are like coconuts, if you eat too many, you'll be on the toliet for the night. I say that they have the mango mania, because if someone even suggest mangos we have to stop what we are doing and go and find some mangos. This week I've already had about four mangos. And yes they are that good.

Okay that's all for now. get the questions and put up some pictures tomorrow night.

School Visit

This is my fourth day in India, and I'm finally getting used to the driving. Now the craziness seems normal and sometime more exciting than back at home. But it is still hard to explain. Even videos don’t show exactly how close they get to hitting each other. Yesterday, we had our first class and a few other lecturers. One was a doctor here in New Delhi, and the other was a Delhi historian, named Harini. She took us to a place in Delhi that is called Qutb-Minar (Qutub Minar). It is basically an ancient Islamic prayer tower. Everyone took so many pictures and after seven hours in the classroom it felt good to get up and walk around. We heard a story about a mughal emperor that fell down the stair and died trying to get to the prayer service. I thought to myself how hard is it to walk down the stairs with out falling, then I saw the stairs. They were twice as tall as our stairs and only half as wide. We came back to the house in the taxis from the YMCA and we got the same driver, Asu. He thought we were funny because we kept saying our favorite Hindi phrase, KHANA KHANA HAI!!! Which means “I want to eat food”. He asked Gauri if she wanted to eat food too, haha. When we got back Louis made us a homecooked Indian dinner. Oh my gosh was it delicious. The internet cut out a couple of days ago and then we all had to write a paper that was due today at 5. Some people are still frantically writing, pushing it to the end, and trying to get Gauri to extend the deadline. I don't think she will even though she kept us out all day at the school visit and at lunch. The school visit today was humbling. Many of the kids only had pants on and there were no desks. But they were happy to see us anyways. The picture is some of the students who wanted their picture taken with me. The one in the back is a little shy. As we were leaving, we pooled together and donated about 12,500 rupees, which comes to about 250 dollars. Tonight, we played cricket with some of the local kids, we weren’t very good. But we drew a large crowd, I guess they were saying come and look at the funny Americans playing cricket.

Arrival

The trip to Delhi was extremely long, 14.5 hrs long. Everyone that was on my flight wore Purdue clothing so that we could pick each other out on the plane. I was lucky enough to change my seat with a man who noticed that the people on either side of him were wearing Purdue shirts. I sat near the back of the plane with Shannon, a girl in my class. We managed to get through 4 movies: Taken (amazing!!!!), Defiance, Paul Blart: Mall Cop, and Bride Wars. I managed to get maybe an hour or two of sleep. I also got about three chapters of some of the required text read. We got two meals on the plane, one was pasta and chicken and the other was three cheese omelet. Once we got off the plane everyone met up with Aman, our Prof. and headed out in to the chilly 90 degree heat. It's suppose to get up to 109F tomorrow, not too happy about that but I'll deal with it when it gets here. We rented some vans to get us to the Boarding House, which is about 20 minutes away from the Airport. As far as I know the rules of the road are more like guideline and most people don't follow them, nobody stays in the lanes and they use the horn for everything because they don't have mirrors on the cars due to the fact that they have all been broken off from driving to close. This is the key for the stoplights: green don't slow down, yellow speed up, Red lay on the horn as you blow through the intersection like a mad man. Needless to say, the van that I was in was relieved to get to the house with out getting hit and dying. Hopefully we'll get used to the driving later in the trip. I'll put a video up of the driving tomorrow, you really need to see this. Our house is nice, one of my friends that i knew before the trip is my roommate and we're in the first room in the house so I don't have to lug my bags up and down the stairs. The room is about the same size as my dorm room in Earhart, maybe a little bigger and we have our own washroom. The shower, which I was just informed by Steve, my roommate, is in some serious need of CLR because it comes out in four sprays two of which are in the complete opposite direction that they need to be. I had some confusion trying to get the plugs to work because I didn't know that there was a switch for the plugs, slight panic from Steve.