Seatbelts, everyone!

Only to say hello again

2010-12-08T06:48:00.001-08:00

Well, party people, the program's officially over. And let me just say that it was one of the most emotionally draining weeks ever. First off, by the time I got out of the hospital and was recovered enough to function, I had only one week left of school. And that week included making up all the stuff I missed while I was gone. Ergo, Monday through Friday meant six papers to be written. Oh, and let's not forget my thirty page ISP that was due the next Wednesday. Yeah. I was basically attached to my computer. When I wasn't at dance, of course.
End of the program also meant the end of the program celebration!! Dinner and a show, actually. There's a cultural center with a stage right behind my school, so they set out a bazillion chairs and all the host families came for the program. Everyone dressed up in saris and whatever it is that guys wear. For the record, yes, I did wear a sari. It rocked. Pictures are on facebook. As a side note, they're possibly the most confusing things ever. Somehow women wrap them so nicely that they don't fall down and they just wear them around. I couldn't for the life of me wrap it myself, even though Anjali gave me the full tutorial, and I walked around very carefully because I was so afraid it was going to fall down.
The program itself was tons of fun. The week before was more crazy than fun. Bollywood every night, Kathak three times that week. It definitely cut into my paper-writing time (and for the record, yes, I did turn everything in on time). But I must say, it was worth it. First off, it was super cool to see what people had been learning. One guy played guitar and sang, another girl learned classical Indian violin all semester (it's played sitting down and balanced on your foot, kind of like a cello) and she played a raga that she'd worked on, and another girl took classical singing lessons and sang part of a raga. It was super neat. Plus, everyone sang "ye re, ye re, pausa," a Marathi song that we'd learned. When Alex and I sang it for Anjali and Karan, we also learned that people are taught this song when they're about two years old... Oh, well.
As for the dancing, I have to brag a little. Kathak was really cool. And yes, we did finally get the ankle bells. Words cannot describe how entertaining they are. I was super nervous for it, actually, because I'd missed a lot of lessons between stretching my ligament and being in a brace and also being in the hospital. I was glad I was in the back (even though there were only four of us). But it went really well. It's a really hard dance style to learn, especially in four months, and I must say, we pulled it off very nicely. Our teacher, Rashmi, was really proud.
As for Bollywood, well, what can I say. I think Rajashree was even more nervous than we were. She actually came into our changing room after the sound check (before the program even started) to tell us that everyone was surprised and excited we were doing this song (there's a link to it some posts ago if you want to see why). This did not help her nerves. She placed so much doubt in us from the beginning *sigh.* Well, let's just say, Aishwarya Rai and Madhuri Dixit aren't the only ones that can rock "Dola Re Dola." Oh yeah, we brought down the freaking house! People were clapping along, dancing in their seats. It was wonderful! And when we were done people were shouting "once more!" Not kidding. After Rajashree told us how awesome we were (and she was so nervous. psh), she asked us "you will perform again?" Yeah. Apparently it's not like in the States, where when people say "encore," it's kind of assumed that there won't really be another stage appearance. They seriously wanted another round of "Dola Re." To their delight, we actually did perform it again. If I could, I'd put a video up, but I'm not tech savvy, so the DVD is the best I can do.
After all the stresses that came through the next Wednesday and the ISPs (I actually pulled an all-nighter and a half, much to Anjali's concern), Thursday through Saturday were the most emotionally draining days ever. After our final Marathi exam on Thursday morning, we all gathered for Sucheta to announce her final goodbyes. People were sobbing. And yes, I did too. I'm a reciprocal crier. We had to say goodbye to all the staff, which was super sucky because they're awesome. I remember my friend Sarah asking one of the staff, Tukaram, "How are you?" And he said, "not good." I asked if he was sick and he responded with "Khoop sick ahe (I'm very sick), students leaving." It was enough to make me burst into tears.
Saying goodbye to all the other students was also heart wrenching. Hopefully, we'll all get to see each other eventually, but who knows. Some of us live close enough together or go to school close enough together that we're definitely going to arrange a getting-together of sorts. I can't wait! But that didn't stop the crying. Thankfully most of it was confined to the ACM building. Although when I said goodbye to one of my friends, we were on a main road by my house. I wasn't allowed to cry in front of him, but as soon as he got in the rickshaw, I started bawling my eyes out. It earned me many weird stares from passing people. Plus side: I went to the stationery store right after, and I must have looked like a complete mess because after I sobbed out that I needed paper and an envelope, they gave it to me right away. And for only two rupees. If only I'd learned earlier that you get things faster in stores when you cry...
Packing was weird. Alex and I both packed with the "Dabangg" soundtrack on full blast, which was quite entertaining, but my empty closet was a really sad sight. Alex's parents actually came to India, so I got to meet them. She went south with them for a week. They came to our host house and hung out with everyone for a few hours before they all left. It was really hard saying goodbye to my roommate. I couldn't even be fully consoled by "Sa Re Ga Ma Pa" (my absolute favorite show here! It's kind of like American Idol, but a bazillion times more awesome. ie. does American Idol have a smiley Punjabi judge whose turban always matches his sparkly coat? I think not! I need to figure out how to watch the last few episodes...)
Saying goodbye to my host family absolutely sucked. I think Alex took a million and a half family photos, which I need to get from her. To spare all the sad, crying details, let's just say that I am going to miss them more than a deflated balloon misses helium. Even Bruno. And yes, I cried tons upon tons of buckets of tears. Sucheta said a lovely thing at the goodbye program, which was: "we say farewells only so we can say hello again." So I like to think that I'll see everyone again someday.
I'm now in Chandigarh, staying with my mom's college friend. Yeah, he lives here. Random, right?! But fun! I've only been here for a few days, but I'm having a great time. It's pretty relaxing. Everyone's really nice. Chandigarh is a really pretty city. It's definitely different than all the other cities I've been to here. First off, it's planned. Meaning the whole city is divided into sectors and all the roads are organized like blocks, like cities are in the States. I'm not used to this organization. At all. In Pune, it was impossible to locate anything. Streets wound into other streets, there were a bazillion tiny little streets, lanes off these tiny streets, and oh yeah, no street signs. But here, everything is much more organized. And there's greenery! Real greenery! As in every sector has a park! I think it's 50% of the city is green space. So. Freaking. Awesome. Today, I went to the Bougainvillea garden and war memorial, plus got to tag along on some errands. Which involved a stop for some golgappa (or panipuri as it was called in Maharashtra). Yum!! What is this, you ask? Well, it's basically fried dough that's a hollow sphere (a puri) and inside, they put water with tamarind, masala, chili, potato, and onion. You put the whole thing in your mouth at once. Oh my god, they're delicious!! The guy gave us multiple golgappas. The thing is, they put the water mixture in the puri right on the spot, so he would pour in the mixture and then give us the deliciousness. Which meant that you had to get through the one in your hand pretty fast. The best way I can think of describing it is that it was like taking shots of golgappa. And it was super hard for me to keep up! Lesson learned. Next time, chew faster. I'm here for another few days. It's nice to end my trip somewhere calm, although to quote my mom, "with Kanwar, nothing's ever really calm," so we'll see. I do have a trip to a hill station coming up on the way to pick up his daughters from boarding school, so there's definitely that to look forward to. Last adventure in India before coming home, I guess. And as nice as it will be to be home, I'm definitely going to miss India tons. And I'm not looking forward to the weather shock I'm going to get. According to weather.com, it's about 65 degrees (yes, Farenheit) in Chandigarh right now. I'm freezing. As in I'm wearing the heaviest sweater I brought (which is going to do absolutely nothing when I step into a taxi in Chicago with no winter coat) and a scarf (also probably going to do nothing) and I'm still shivering and my hands, feet, and nose are freezing cold. Yeah. I'm in so much trouble when I go back... Mom, if you're reading this, you should make the awesome hot chocolate mix, please *hint, hint*

Namaste, Madam!

2010-11-26T02:39:00.001-08:00

I absolutely love that the program requires an independent research project (ISP) because it allows us to study whatever we want, but it's also the most frustrating thing on the planet. I'm probably saying this now because it's near the end of the program and there are currently thirty pages that I need to write by Wednesday. But don't get me wrong, it's been really fun! Which is what I'm going to tell you all about.

For those of you who don't know (which is probably everyone except my parents), for my ISP I'm looking at multiple language acquisition. This means I've had to go to various schools and interview students of different age groups. I've never been more entertained. I was like a novelty to these people. It was kind of like being a goldfish. At every school I went to, people would stop and stare at me. I understand the curiosity and everything, but it was quite uncomfortable at times. Poor goldfish.

I actually went to four different schools to interview four different groups of people. The Marathi medium school I went to was a riot. I don't speak nearly enough Marathi to converse with anyone, but luckily, one of the teachers was my unofficial translator. Going to this school was like being a toy with a button that you can push a million times and it's always entertaining. I was literally surrounded by kids. Most of them were from the grade level I interviewed, so they were about 10 or 11 years old. There were also a few littler ones, plus a few older ones, probably about 13. The older ones were asking me a bajillion questions because they wanted to practice their English. So I had to tell them all about my host family, what festivals I like, what my host mom cooks, yes I can handle the spiciness, where I'm from, all that jazz. The younger ones kept saying, "Namaste, Madam!" and seeing exactly how many times I would "namaste" back. Again, like the magic button. After eons of "namastes" these kids never got tired of it.

And they were super impressed that I could speak a little Marathi. They kept asking the teacher questions like, "Where's she from? What's her name? Why is she here?" When I said really loudly "Mi USA hun ale" (I'm from the USA), their faces were all like "OH MY GOD!!" It was probably my most entertaining set of interviews.

Followed closely by the University students. One of my professors, Anu, told me that I could come into her class and interview some of her students. When I walked into the classroom, goldfish mode set in again. None of them were paying attention to the lecture because they were all looking at me like I might explode at any second. Anu actually stopped the lecture and said, "There seems to be a curiosity factor here" and had to explain who I was and why I was sitting in the corner of their classroom.

I've never been asked so many questions while conducting an interview. It was really funny because some of the students weren't completely fluent in English. Like the one from Manipur (all the way by Myanmar), who had the thickest accent I'd ever heard. But he wanted to know how I like India, where I'm from, what Minnesota is like, where Minnesota even is, all that good stuff. And we had a surprisingly exciting conversation about Christmas. Another one of her students was like a waterfall of questions. And he could not sit still. About halfway through the interview, he asked if I like tea, to which I responded yes. I thought this was a normal question, but then he said, "ok, let's walk and talk and finish the interview over tea." The University actually has tea time. No joke. We literally went to what they call the canteen, he bought us tea, and we did the interview via tea time. And the questions never stopped: "Why do you wear your nose ring on the right side? Everyone here is wearing it on the left!" "You know a little Marathi? What can you say?" "What exactly is your program?" "Why did you chose to come to India?" "Why are you doing your project on language?" "How will this project benefit you, your school, and your society?" Yeah. I felt like the interviewee. When I told Anu that her students are so curious, she said "They're never curious with me." Whoops. Well, that's the benefit of being foreign, I guess.

I'm a bad blogger!!

2010-11-18T07:29:00.000-08:00

Sorry, all!!!! It took my sister posting on my facebook wall for me to realize that I've posted absolutely nothing since Goa! This is pathetic. So for all those who may have been worried about my current respiratory state, I'm fine, breathing, kicking, all that jazz. I may have gotten gastroenteritis traveling through Rajasthan and ended up in the hospital for a week-ish, but I'm not down yet. And I will choose not to write about the hospital. It was not fun or entertaining in any way, shape, or form. But the important thing is I'm getting better and my host mom is taking good care of me. Yay, Anjali!!

I just got back from my two week break and it was SO MUCH FUN!! I got to see lots!! Pictures to come soon on facebook. There's too much to write about, so I'm just not even going to try. I'll tell you some stories in person and you can look at my photos :) So, in a nutshell, this is just a quick note to say sorry for being a bad blogger and I promise I'll write about something very entertaining in the next few days.

To the beach!

2010-10-12T19:32:00.000-07:00

I don't know what drove them to do this, but ACM actually scheduled a long weekend for us. Yeah. Scheduled it. We were told that this would be a good time for us to go to Goa. Well, if you insist. So we all packed our bags and grabbed our train tickets.

Oh, the train. It was an overnight journey to get there, about twelve hours total. Man, was it an experience. We were in sleeper cars, which aren't anything like I expected them to be. It was kind of like being on a refrigerator shelf. There were three bunks on each wall of the car, and by bunks I mean shelves. They were just wide enough to fit a person. And people were crammed in there. Really crammed. Which makes me wonder how many of them actually had tickets... multiple people were sleeping on the same tiny little shelf, on the floor, crouched against the walls. There was barely room enough to move. It made me very grateful that I was on the middle bunk. If you were on the bottom, you risked having people sit on the end of your bed, which always made for an awkward "get off please" moment.

Once we got to Goa, we all broke off into our own little hotels. I went with five other girls to the south. Oh my gosh, what a wonderful decision!! We literally stayed in bamboo huts on the beach. But it was a legit hotel, don't worry! It's in the Lonely Planet and everything. We could walk out of the hut and see the beach about fifty feet away. Beautiful! Blue water, white sand, the whole enchilada. Or since I'm in India, the whole chapatti? I'm not even that obsessed with the beach, but after being in Pune for so long, it's so nice to be somewhere where you don't hear cars honking at every hour of the day and you're breathing in the polluted air from said cars. My lungs thanked me.

There were actually a bunch of other Westerners staying there. We met the coolest British couple ever! Plus, we got to spend every day in the water because the weather was so nice!! Oh, the Indian ocean. I actually ended up getting stung by two jellyfish in the span of an hour, but I'm alive, so that's good. Supposedly the jellies where we were are all dead because they're the castaways from fishermen's nets. Thank god for that. At least that means they're not vicious and out to get me. But they could not spoil the beach for me.

And there were cows on the beach!!! They came and went at different intervals. But they were definitely cows. Only in India.

We also went on a dolphin boat ride! The dolphins here are not like the ones I picture. Their dorsal fins are all lumpy, like a camel's humps. I wouldn't have known they were dolphins except for the fact that someone told me. But it great! There were little kids sitting behind me that were squealing with dolphin-enduced delight the whole ride.

And I've officially been parasailing. One of the scariest, but most fun, things ever! I almost didn't do it, but then I figured, why the heck not? I'm not sure when that opportunity will come again. And I'm glad I did it. I was up high enough that I had the greatest view of the water, the palm trees, the sand, the bamboo huts. It was like looking at a postcard, but a way better view. Like 100 times better.

When Ganpati gives you a long weekend

2010-09-29T09:47:00.000-07:00

You get the heck out of Pune. At least that's what I did. Thanks to Ganpati festival, which fell on a Wednesday - Thursday 24+ hours time span, we had class off on Thursday and Friday. Four day weekend! Yet another reason why Ganesh rocks my world.

Me and three other people decided to head to Mumbai. It's about three to four hours away, so good for a weekend. We didn't really want much more time than that, anyway, just a chance to see something on our own outside of Pune. It was pretty easy to plan the bus, where we stayed, and what we wanted to see. Success.

It was a really fun weekend, but it definitely had more bumps than we'd planned for. Let's start with when we got there, which was around 7:30/8 at night. Not late, per se, but it was dark. People here have a tendency to make difficult things sound so easy, and easy things sound really tedious. It sounded simple enough that we had to find a taxi so they could drive us to the place we were staying. We were actually staying with a woman who knows one of our ACM staff. It sounded like: we get off the bus at x stop, hail a taxi, and give the phone to the driver so the woman can give him directions. Easy, right? Wrong. First off, the bus didn't even go to our stop, even though we'd talked to the driver and he said he'd call it out in English and we were definitely going there. Lies. We had to get off past our stop and attempt to find a taxi. And by "attempt," I mean it was not successful. We had to walk around for about half an hour in an area which, if one of us wasn't a guy, I would have been way more freaked out of than I already was. It was just really sketchy. And it was impossible to hail a taxi from the side of the Mumbai highway. Eventually, we bribed a rickshaw driver to let us stuff all four people into it. It was tight because one of us had to lay across everyone, but we were definitely not about to split up. Thank Ganpati for sympathetic rickshaw drivers. I put this driver on the phone numerous times with this woman and he dropped us off in what he swore was the right area (and the woman had told us on the phone that she had told him the exact area). Another lie. We had to walk around for another half hour/45 minutes in an unfamiliar dark area to attempt to find this place. None of the directions that people told us or that we called for make sense. They should really invest in street signs. Plus, alleys lead everywhere and n0thing is ever what people make it sound like. Don't listen to any landmark that anyone gives you. It's probably worthless. Eventually, they just came out of the house and met us. Thank God.

And there was more bumpiness to come. Taxi drivers definitely try to rip you off when they know you're not native. We got taken for a ride a few times, but we were also smart enough to know when we were being lied to and called them out on it. There's also a lot more poverty in Mumbai than we're used to seeing. Granted, there's a lot of it in Pune. You can't go a day without seeing it and it's completely heartbreaking, but the Mumbai level was almost unbearable. And like I said before, it's really hard to get around. Really hard. But it was much nicer to do this during the day. No more sketchy areas at night for us, that's for sure.

But for all that hassle, we had a great deal of fun! It's amazing what we were able to pack into one Saturday. In the morning, we set out for the Hare Krishna temple, which was beautiful. There were paintings, sculptures, shrines, and everything was so colorful. People were singing the mantra and playing instruments. I think one of them was a sitar, the other was tabla drums. It was really cool. I felt a little weird because there were actually people worshipping, but they pretty much ignored us. It was so pretty. Then we went to the Haji Ali Mosque, which we had to make sure to hit before high tide. You can only get there by going down the walkway that leads out to the mosque, which is built into the middle of the water. When the tide gets too high, the walkway is covered, so it looks like it's floating. People were actually doing tricks and jumping off the walls of the mosque. It scared me to death, but they were so proud of themselves. It was like a competition to see who could do the coolest flips. No, I didn't try to rival them. I was content not accidentally killing myself.

And in the midst of the city hustle and bustle, we were able to find the Hanging Gardens. Beautiful. It was so strange to see flowers and different plants in the middle of Mumbai. And there were a lot of penguin statues for whatever reason. Maybe they guard the flowers. Who knows.

From there we went to the Gateway of India, which also happened to be right by the Taj hotel. How convenient! It was so nice to actually look through the arch of the Gateway and see boats!! On the water! And speaking of the water, the place to be is Nariman Point. Yeah, it's literally a point in the city where the road juts out kind of like a peninsula. There's a great view of the ocean and the Mumbai skyline. And you sit there amongst these rocks that are shaped like jacks. No kidding. Jacks! I don't know who or how or why it was decided that this was a brilliant idea, but it was, in ever sense of the word, brilliant. Those rocks give to much entertainment. People were constantly posing on them, climbing through them to get to the shoreline, racing through them. It was great. Each jack was big enough to fit a few of me at least. These things were giant. Like I said, brilliant.

Even more beautiful that this view at sunset was the view of what's called the "Queen's Necklace" when it gets dark. Not like midnight, pitch black dark, just dark enough when you know it's nighttime. We got to the middle of Marine Drive, which is a huge road, but the middle is the place to go for sure, around 8:30. So. freaking. beautiful. The Queen's Necklace isn't anything but the Mumbai skyline lit up at night. What makes it so wonderful is the way it's shaped. The ocean and the skyline together make a semicircle, so when you look at it from the middle and you see this view and the buildings lighting up at night, it's supposedly as if you're looking at a queen's necklace with sparkling gold and jewels. It's really stunning. And Marine Drive was packed with people, a lot of them locals, who were claiming spots on those giant jack-shaped rocks to see the Queen's Necklace light up. I'm hereby convinced that there is no nighttime skyline in the world that's more beautiful than Mumbai.

Tonight, Pune is the best city in the world!

2010-09-23T13:08:00.000-07:00

Sadly, Ganpati festival had to come to an end. And people know how to end their festivals with a bang! With the firecrackers and whatnot, this turned out to be pretty literal. Lucky for us, we had school off that night so we could enjoy the holiday.

First off, the processions of the gigantic floats of a bajillion Ganpatis lasted all day and all night. I woke up in the morning to drums, firecrackers, bells, shouts of "Moria!" all coming from two roads away from me, but it sounded like they were right outside my window. You were able to tell where the processions had been because of the kholi powder that they throw on people was staining the streets. And you could tell who had been in the processions. Every once in a while, we'd pass someone on the sidewalk or on their motorcycle who was stained with the red powder.

Everything closed early. I actually got out of class to go to the phone store because my phone was having issues and my teacher said it was important that I get it fixed before it closed at 11:30 that morning. At least one good thing came out of my phone hating me. Thank you, Ganpati.

At around 8 that night, my friend Laura and I walked down my road to where the procession was. Entire roads were blocked off. It was impossible to get a rickshaw or to get anywhere without crowds of people going the same way. And if we thought getting there was crowded, we had another surprise coming.

It was absolutely impossible to walk on Karve Road. The procession took up the whole thing. People were literally standing on top of each other to watch the people dance down the street and play their instruments. Oh. And see the Ganpatis as well. Laura and I were so excited that we actually jumped into the procession.

And of course, that was crowded, too. I don't know how, but somehow people managed to dance with virtually no space around them. It's a talent that I'm still waiting to acquire. And for all the chaos, it was surprisingly well-organized. The men and the women were separated, which could sound sexist or something, but Laura and I really appreciated. Many of the men were quite intoxicated (and not just with joy for Ganpati) and it was really uncomfortable being in a crowd of them. There was a circle of guards surrounding an area that was just filled with women dancing. It was so much fun! People were so amused. Everyone wanted to show us dance moves.

At one point, a girl said to us over the overbearingly loud music, "Welcome to India, how are you enjoying the festival?!" And, of course, we told her how wonderful it is. To which she responded, "Tonight, Pune is the best city in the world!" Oh, how true that was.

We ended up being out until about midnight dancing with this crowd of women. It was so much fun. Laura spent the night at my house, since I'm close enough to walk to the party. We watched the party continue on TV for a while with Anjali, but eventually we were so tired from all the dancing and excitement that we both passed out around 2 in the morning.

But the show must go on! The festival didn't stop until around 4 the next afternoon. Talk about a party! Oh, and the next morning, Laura's host mom said she saw us on TV. Go figure, right?

Sock! Sock! Sock! Sock! Sock!

2010-09-19T10:22:00.001-07:00

The great thing about having a professor who's also a legit published novelist is that you get to go to his book releases and meet his super famous friends. Yup. My modern Indian literature prof premiered his new book, "Hostel Room 131" at Crossword, a bookstore here. Google it. Or Bing it. Or Yahoo it. The choice of search engine is up to you. You'll find his name. And as if we didn't stand out enough, we were lucky (ugh) enough to be mentioned a bazillion times in his responses to whatever questions were being asked. "As I told my American students," "I hope my American students aren't offended," "My American students may remember." Mmhm. Oh! And did I mention that he's being published by Penguin books? Just a statement of his legitness. And when you're that legit, you naturally make legit friends. His happens to be a prince. My sparkly invitation specifically calls him "His Highness Prince Manvendra Singh Gohil of Raj Pipla." It takes up three lines. He is also search engine-able. Go figure. But this is what happens when you're a Gujarati prince who defies your family and starts a magazine. And if you've actually typed these names into google, 1) I'm really impressed; I didn't think you'd actually do it, and 2) You'll find a lot of stuff on GLBT activism. Yep. Both are openly gay and leading activists in India. And highly googleable. Another great thing about the book release: we got invited to His Majesty's palace in Gujarat. I know Raj really wants us to be able to go so we can see a real functioning palace. Sweet!! As to whether or not that'll happen, I'm not sure, so your guess is as good as mine.

Now let me just talk about the pure awesomeness that is dance. I've been doing Bollywood lessons for a little while, now. The instructor is kind of sort of the greatest thing ever. She's actually my friend Kacie's host mom, so bonus right there. Her name's Rajashree. She can't be more than 5 feet tall, which makes me feel like a giant, even though I'm only two inches closer to the sky. There's one girl that dances with us, Laura, whose name she can never get because she keeps calling her "the giraffe." Bear in mind, Laura's at least 6 feet tall. Rajashree's actually taught ACM students in the past, but we're her first in the past few years. She's a trained Bollywood and Bharatanatyam dancer, which is super cool. Plus, really helpful, since a lot of Bollywood dance has a classical base. Hence, we have to learn all the facial expressions, body positions, and hand mudras. And the hands are super difficult. But so far, I can do two different ways to portray both Krishna and Shiva, along with peacock, bee, deer, flower, lightning, beautiful woman, butterfly, and good. And of course, we've taught her our own mudras, which include the hand jive, rock on, I love you, and hang loose.

Kacie had told her about me before dance started because she knew I was super excited. So, by the time Rajashree gave her presentation to ACM, she called me out, "Who is Isabel?" She thinks I'm crazy. The first thing she told me was, "Kacie tells me you're crazy about Shahrukh Khan." And I know your question is: who? Once again, search engine. And the answer to her accusation is: no, I'm not crazy about him. I believe he's quite charming and fun to watch, but that be it. And for the record, Kacie is just as "crazy" about him as I am.

And she thinks I'm legitimately crazy. By which I mean, I have a lot of energy and I think she's used to calmer people. I've become very used to the look of mixed terror and amusement that she gives me. She's teaching two songs that we're going to perform at the end of the semester. The first one is from the movie "3 Idiots." http://www.youtube.com/watch?

She's convinced that the next one is going to kill her. She keeps saying "December 4th will be the last day of my life." I guess that's our performance date... But no matter how much I tell her she's going to be so proud then, she's convinced that she's going to watch us, be proud, and then keel over. The other girls and I are obsessed with this dance that we're working on: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=58qky-vPSkE&feature=related. We're insistent that the choreography be as close to the original as humanly possible. This, of course, means that we're working our butts off, but it's going to be awesome. Rajashree keeps calling us "you crazy girls" because of our obsession. If you actually watched the generously provided hyperlink, you'll know that it's super fast and super complicated. It's beyond normal counting to get the moves. Rajashree counts in terms of "1, 2" and what I can only describe as sounding like "sock! sock! sock! sock! sock!" Each "sock" being a different move, of course. I know this poor woman thinks we're killing her, but mark my words: by the time that curtain falls in December, all 5 feet of her will be jumping up and down with complete and utter bollywood joy. Koop chaan!

I also started Kathak dance yesterday at a studio behind ACM. It involves a lot of foot stomping patterns and hand movements at the same time. It's pretty difficult as far as I can tell, but I really like it. The dancers wear bells around their ankles to make more noise when they stomp. It's only been one class so far, but I want those bells soooo badly. It's only a matter of time...

So, I've been wanting a sari since I got here. And I'm happy to say that I finally have one!! Rajashree took me and Kacie sari shopping this past weekend. Man, it was an adventure. First off, getting around Laxmi road is not the easiest thing in the world, especially now, when it's crowded with giant Ganpati (Ganesh) statues and people processing down the street. Ganpati is more important than people right now. And then you have to find a shop that sells saris for a good price. Thank God (or Ganpati) that Rajashree was there because it's completely beyond me what a good sari price is. And there are so many colors and patterns and materials to choose from! And it's not like you can say "I want a blue one." There's a bajillion different shades of blue, along with a bajillion different patterns to go with each shade. And don't forget the border colors of the skirt. Each one comes with a contrasting color, usually stitched along the border, which is also used as the color of the shirt, plus the color of the underside of the thing that wraps over your body (the actual name escapes me at the moment). Decisions, decisions, decisions. So if you give a request to the shopkeeper (ie. "I'd like this color"), they pull out a million options at once. a) I really wonder how they keep track of everything, seeing as most stores have shelves that line every single wall that all contain the folded material. And b) my brain had absolutely no time to process it all at once. Before I could blink, there were colors upon colors of material laid out in front of me probably deep enough that I could have gone swimming in them. The only thing I could ever think to say was "haluhalu!!" (slow down!) or "bas bas!!!!!!!" (enough!). In the end, I became the proud owner of a purple sari with a burnt orange contrast color. Mmmhhhmm. I'm pretty proud. Rajashree says that what we got is an "every day sari." I will not, in fact, be wearing it every day so much as every special occasion, but I love it anyway. They are not performance saris, though. That'll have to be a trip to the bollywood shop... Later.

You underestimate the amount of Ganesh going on

2010-09-10T09:44:00.000-07:00

It's a party over here! The Ganesh festival is starting. Yay! And it's all Ganesh all the time. Not kidding. You can't walk anywhere without running into a temporary temple or a place selling these elephant god idols or moduk, his favorite sweet. A few days ago, I had a meeting with my guide for my research project and I got lost trying to find his house, so I called him. He told me to walk straight and I would see a Ganesh temple. To be fair, this wasn't a complete lie. The problem was that I saw three and I hadn't even started walking. I tried saying "there are lots of temples" to which I only got "yes, the Ganesh temple." And I finally had to be blunt and tell him "You underestimate the amount of Ganesh going on in front of me."

The whole festival lasts ten days, so there's more to come, but I'm enjoying the parts that I have experienced at least. At ACM, we made our own Ganesh idols to prepare for visarjan, which is when families take an idol made from a particular kind of clay and immerse them in water. Yes, it dissolves, so it's relatively sad, but it's also considered good because you're returning the soil to the earth. ACM arranged a class for us where people came and taught us to make these elaphantine deities. I felt so artsy. I don't think the instructor agreed with me. Every time I asked her if I was doing something correctly, she said "yeah, ok, no problem," took the clay from me, and did it herself. And the main instructor laughed at me because I was so proud of the tiny bowl of gulab jamun that I made for my god. At which point of course he decided to inform me that Ganesh's sweet of choice is moduk. Whoops. Oh. And of course, he thought it would be hilarious to tell all the other instructors that some girl made a giant bowl of gulab jamun. Well, my Ganesh likes his gulab jamun just fine, thank you very much. He's sick of moduk. The fact that my idol actually turned out to look like an elephant god is a miracle in and of itself.

Our idols were actually so awesome that we made the news here. Yeah, we're kind of celebrities. No big deal. I'm having trouble finding the link, but I promise I'll get it up here as soon as I locate it.

We had to wait to paint them until after they dried completely, so about three days later. It was actually really hard to paint nicely. The statue in and of itself is detailed because there are so many nooks and crannies, plus we imprinted a lot of designs with toothpicks, so there's a lot to cover and not a lot of room to mess up. I, of course, messed up. My poor Ganesh looks like a kindergartener painted it. That's ok, though. They get submerged in the water anyway. Don't worry, I'll post a picture on facebook.

Quick side note, the two German girls that lived with me and Alex are gone. We had a little goodbye dinner and everything. Now in their place are two other girls. One happens to be German. Her name's Irina and she's here to teach German in schools. The other one is from Spain. She's actually living in the apartment that my host family owns, but she comes over every day for breakfast and dinner. Her name's Gema, and she's here to study aryuveda. She specifically studying marmapoints (I'm not sure if I spelled that correctly), which is like acupuncture, but with your fingers. She's floating around different clinics and doctors around the city. They're both here for a month and they're really awesome. They love going places with us and chatting and whatnot.

Ok, back to Ganesh. For the actual start of the ceremony, Irina, Alex, Gema, and I (plus a few other ACM people) went to Laxmi road, where they start the procession. It rocked. There was absolutely no escape from the drums. Boom! Boom! Boom! All the time. And everyone's shouting and dancing. They carry a big Ganesh behind every procession on a float type thing. Except the floats are all really ornate and silver and they're decorated with flowers and whatnot. Along with the inescapable drumming are also the inescapable firecrackers. Every so often, we'd see people running away from a certain area, so there'd be a circle of people surrounding something. That was the signal. A lot of people lit strands of firecrackers for maximum boomage. Some of us didn't like the noise, but I absolutely loved it. A city-wide festival is never complete without some firecrackers. And that's a fact of life.

You could not get away from a procession on Laxmi road. They just kept going like an energizer bunny of procession. And the end of one would lull you into a false sense that it'll get quiet soon. Except then another one would be starting a mere few minutes behind it. Surprise! In one case, people put hats on us and had us join them. Which, of course, involved taking lots of photos, but they were also really happy to explain everything that was going on. They all seemed to lead to a temple of some sort, or at least a shrine-like thing. And they're everywhere. There's the richest Ganesh, which has jewelry of pure gold and precious stones, the oldest Ganesh, which starts the procession, and my favorite, the Ganesh surrounded by lights, which Anjali fondly calls "disco Ganesh."

We also became famous here. News stations wanted to interview us, newspapers wanted to know how we were "enjoying the function." Yeah, all of Pune is going to know we're celebrities.

On a completely un-Ganesh rated note, I have seen my first Bollywood movie on the big screen. Oh yeah!! Now, I've seen Bollywood before, but it's always had subtitles. But of course, they don't need those in theaters here because everyone understands Hindi... except us. We saw a new release called "Dabaang." Holy baloney, was it amazing! We could get a general idea of the plot, so we weren't totally lost, but we had such a great time. Plus, we just had Karan explain the story when we got home. It was a movie about a sheriff trying to catch a corrupt politician (that's a really, really rough summary), so it was a fairly serious and legit subject. But then, all of a sudden, they'd burst into song and dance! So. much. awesomeness. And going to a movie here is a completely different experience than it is at home. People in the audience love to interact. They'd whistle for a pretty girl, clap when Dabaang punched a guy in the face, sing the songs, dance... Our movie-going experience in the States is clearly inferior.

Field trip to the caves

2010-08-30T20:24:00.000-07:00

We all just got back from our field trip to the Ajanta and Ellora caves this past weekend. It was a really long drive to get there, about 6 hours total. The bus ride was definitely unlike any bus ride I've ever been on. Bumpy beyond belief. No exaggeration. There were times when I would seriously fly out of my seat.

We spent one day at Ajanta and one day at Ellora.

Ajanta was another hour and a half drive from our hotel (we stayed in Ellora), but it was definitely worth all the bumping around. The caves were beautiful. The story behind Ajanta is there was some British explorer who saw a tiger disappear down the mountain. He followed the tiger through the wilderness and somehow stumbled upon these ancient Buddhist caves. Why no one has thought to follow a tiger to find this wonderment before, I have no idea.

Like I said, the caves are carved into the side of a mountain in a perfect semi-circle. As you climb down to get to them, there's a peninsula called something like "lookout point" where you can literally look out and see the layout of the caves.

Inside the caves, there are carvings of the Buddha and whatnot. Some of the carvings are actually free standing statues. The caves were used as temples, monasteries, etc. The most impressive thing was the paintings. The caves were filled with paintings that have lasted all these years. And they're all really colorful and intricate. There was one particular painting of a queen where her necklace actually shone like pearls when a light was shone on it.

The monsoon is coming to an end, so the whole place was really green. During our free time, a bunch of us went to the base of this waterfall we had seen from lookout point. It felt really nice because it was so freaking hot outside.

The next day was our trip to Ellora, which was where our hotel was. We could actually walk out of our rooms and see the caves. It was a nice walk up there. There weren't as many paintings here as Ajanta, it was mostly carvings. But it was all so amazing. The story this time is that a Hindu queen had seen the temples in Kerela and there was nothing in her own kingdom to match their beauty. She said that she would not eat or drink anything until she saw the top of a temple in this style. Which of course meant that she would die, so the king was freaking out. And then one day, an architect came to the king and said he has a solution. Two days later, the architect brought the king and queen to the top of a hill of basalt rock. He had carved the top of a temple, meaning the queen was happy and the construction of this temple began from the top down.

It's a huge, free-standing temple dedicated to Shiva, carved from the top down layer by layer, and took somewhere between 8 to 10 generations to complete. It's insane! The temple is constructed to look like a giant chariot, but instead of wheels, there are elephants (which symbolize royalty) carrying it. Although it's a tourist attraction, when we walked into it, you could actually see people making devotions and burning incense and flowers. And around the temple, there were more carvings and caves dedicated to Shiva. Many of them were references to stories and whatnot. If you explored further outward, some of the caves were Buddhist, like the ones at Ajanta, and there was a Jain temple too. We had time to explore on our own, so me and two other girls climbed the rocks and were able to look down at the whole temple.

The cool thing about both the caves is that they were all carved in the dark, using mirrors and reflectors for light. And these were legit caves. I can't even imagine doing that. The paintings were all colorful, the carvings were all 3D, and everything was super detailed and precise. I can't even color a detailed page in a coloring book without loosing patience.

Before we even went to the caves, Anju warned us that people would be hassling us, and she could not have been more correct. And "hassle" is an understatement. I'm thinking this is how celebrities feel all the time, in which case, I feel bad for them. We seriously felt like we were being stampeded by paparazzi, especially at Ellora. Our staff hired a guard there to shoo people away from us. Not kidding. And we all totally appreciated having him there. There was a specific time I remember people actually surrounding us. We could not move. People either wanted to take our picture, have our picture with them, or have you take a picture of them. Most people were blatant about it, but some would try to by sneaky and take a picture discreetly. Like we couldn't see. Psh. The best thing to do is wave at them. They're generally shocked that you saw them taking their secret photo, but then most of the time, they wave back. Especially when me and my friends were walking around on our own, I can't tell you how many times we got "excuse me, madams, one photo please." Some people were nice and would just wobble their head and leave us alone, but others would just not stop. We had a few followers that we eventually just had to yell at to leave us alone. They got the message.Although on our way out, there was a family that really wanted a photo with us, so we gave in because they were really sweet. And everyone wanted their own picture. The mom, each sister, the little one, etc. Yeah, we're kind of a big deal.

It was a great time. And it was a great way for us to end our orientation period, which has been going on for the three-ish weeks that we've been here. Now, we actually start the semester. Which we've kind of been doing anyway... We've had Marathi classes since the second we've been here, and yes I do mean formal Marathi classes in our bamboo-walled classroom, and Contemporary India classes. But whatever. We start our electives today, so I guess that's what the "start of the semester" means...? I was initially going to take Indian Cinema, but the teacher dropped out two days before the start of the program. Yes, my heart pretty much ripped in two. So now I'm taking Modern Indian Literature, which should be fun. We met the professor and he seems really cool, so that's something for me to look forward to.

We'll be in Pune for a bunch of consecutive weekends because there are tons of festivals coming up. So many people have told me that right now is the best time to be here for this very reason. The Ganesh festival is coming up this weekend. And watching all the giant, colorful Ganeshes being erected around the city is making me super excited!

Ek photo

2010-08-22T03:37:00.000-07:00

So, I've officially moved in with my host family. Hooray! I was nervous beyond nervous. Not kidding. I think my roommate at the hotel was ready to shake me. Of course, I can't really say yet that it's 100% comfortable yet, but I'm sure I'll ease into it once we all develop a routine. There are 26 students in ACM total this year, which apparently is much bigger than they've done in the past. Think over twice the size. Yeah. We're comparatively giant. This means that some students have had to get put into pairs. I happen to be one of them. And it's not totally horrible. I'm with one other girl, Alex, who I don't know very well, but she's super nice, so I'm sure we'll get along great. We have a mom, a dad, and a brother. Our mom is absolutely adorable. Her name is Anjali. She's very funny and very nice. She was actually pretty shy at first, but she's warmed up to us. She's really sweet. Our dad's name is Raju. He's hilarious and quite a little chatterbox who enjoys giving us history lessons. He works somewhere between Pune and Mumbai, so he's only home on the weekends. It's a little saddening because we wish he were home more, but we love him nonetheless. Our brother's name is Karan. He's 21, so really close to our age. When Anju was telling us about our family, she said our brother would be "elder to you, in his twenties." What she failed to realize was that this gave us about a decade's worth of possibilities, age-wise. Also, 21 ≠ "elder," but whatever. We really enjoy our brother. Like his dad, he's also very talkative and very inclusive. He's really into taking us out, showing us around, giving us recommendations of places to go, and all that jazz.

There's also two German students living with us (random, right?!). They're both really nice. They speak English really well, but with a really heavy accent. That's ok, though. I appreciate the basic ability to communicate. Their friends sometimes come over, who are also great and English-speaking. They're leaving in a few days, though, which actually makes me kind of sad. I was just starting to get used to them.

We live really close to two other pairs of girls, plus one of the guys. Our location's pretty prime. We're about a half hour walk from school and really close to cool areas of town. I'm quite glad that I don't have to take a rickshaw to class every day. Even though they are quite fun. Rickshaws here are basically like little motor bike/scooter things with a covered bench dragging behind them. They're like taxis in the sense that they're metered, but much cuter and entertaining. And somehow the rickshaw drivers know their way around everywhere. Which is much harder than it sounds, considering I've seen a total of two street signs since I've been here. My sense of direction is crying.

A few days ago, everyone celebrated this holiday called Raksha Bandhan when sisters tie bracelets called rakhi onto their brothers. There's a whole ceremony that goes along with it. The sister holds a little dish that contains a candle, this red powder that I can't remember the name of, a nut, dry rice, cotton, a ring, and the rakhi. We did a little celebration with ACM, but then Alex and I also got to do this again with our host brother. Our host mother took us through the whole thing and explained everything. Ok. I'm hoping I get the order of everything right... Sorry if I don't, but all the steps are here, I promise.

So first, the sister puts the red powder on the brother's forehead, between the eyebrows. Then she puts the rice in the powder and on top of his head to invite him to pooja. Then she puts the cotton on top of his head to say something along the lines of "may your life be long like cotton." Then she circles his head clockwise with the ring and touches it to the red spot, then the same thing counterclockwise. This is supposed to convey the hope that his future will be prosperous, like the gold and precious stone in the ring. Then she does the same circling action with a nut to say "may you be strong like a nut." Then she circles his face three times clockwise with the whole dish and the light of the candle is supposed to symbolize the light and new beginnings in his future. Then, she finally ties the rakhi on her brother's right wrist. By doing this, he agrees to be her protector and gives her a gift.

The whole class also got invited to one of our classmates house for another celebration. I forget what it's called, but it's basically a celebration for a newly wed bride. Everyone dresses up and there are women that come and play games. Not kidding. Games! What's most impressive is that they can play all these games in their saris. Some of them involved quite a lot of jumping, spinning, hopping, and whatnot. They tried to have us participate, which I think they got more of a kick out of than we did.

This weekend, our class got to go on a field trip to Sinhagad fort, which is about an hour or so drive outside of Pune. It's located in the mountains. They jeeped us out to a relatively flat location in the mountain and we climbed up to the fort itself. It's beautiful. There are tons of trails to take that get you to one ruin or another. When you look out over the walls, there are green valleys with little spots of colors like yellow, red, white that are actually villages. The quiet of the mountains was almost alarming compared to the constant noise of the city. When we got there, it was cloudy, but as we started moving, the sun came out and it was glorious. The majority of the class got sunburned, but I think they were fine with it. And then it got cloudy again when we left. Perfect timing.

There were tons of Indian people at the fort that bombarded us and wanted to take pictures with us. Not kidding. Apparently, there's something special about having photos with foreigners...? Some of them didn't speak English, so they would just gesture at us and snap the picture. The groups of students from the university of Pune (and there were quite a lot of them) would talk to us (by which I mean scream because everyone wanted to talk at once) and play a wonderful game of "teach the Americans Marathi words." It was like a pride of lions pouncing on a dying bunny. There was absolutely no escape. Their favorite phrase seemed to be "ek photo," which means "one photo." And there was always a lot more than ek photo. They remembered every single one of our names, but when we ran into them at various points, we couldn't remember any of theirs. Whoops.

Last night, Anjali took a group of us to a dance performance, which was a combination of the Kathak and Odissi styles. I forget the woman's name, but she's pretty well-known. And it's really rare that one person becomes an expert in two Indian dance forms, which made the show even more amazing. Everything was so precise. The hand mudras coincided with the head movements, the hips, the eyes, the bells on the ankles, everything. I'm kind of dying to learn. And by kind of, I mean REALLY dying to learn.

Holy bangles, batman!!

2010-08-19T07:25:00.001-07:00

It's weird to think that a week ago today, I was getting on a plane to come here. This whole week's been a huge adjustment, but a really great time nonetheless. I've never been in a place where I feel like I stand out. But here, people turn their heads and stare at me when I pass by. It's like there's a neon light flashing above my head that's so bright and shiny and obnoxious that people can't help but look. And I know the sign clearly says "foreign." It's not horrible or anything, but just something I'll have to get more used to.

I'm starting to vaguely find my way around. And yes, this is way more difficult than it sounds. If there are street signs, they're either really hard to see or written in Marathi. And my brain cannot read Marathi at the drop of a hat, if even at all. Mapquest would certainly not help me here. And I am getting progressively better at crossing the street!! You really just have to walk out when it looks like you might have a little leeway and trust that everyone will weave around you. One of the ACM faculty, Anju, can just walk out into the middle of the street and put her hand out in front of her, and every car in her path will automatically stop. It's like the parting of the Red Sea. One day, I will have that same commanding presence.

The biggest adventure of the week was the trip to Tulsi Baug. Anju took us in two groups to this giant outdoor market. The streets are filled with stores and vendors selling clothes, fabric, jewelry, bags, shoes, fruits, and whatnots. I was easily distracted by everything because it's all so pretty and colorful and shiny and mesmerizing. It's pretty overwhelming in a big group, but oh so much fun. And man is it crowded!! At certain points, you just have to follow whatever current the crowd is flowing in and then sneak your way out when people start to peel off in different directions. And once you're there, you don't have any concept of time. So, you could spend hours there and not even realize it.

What really got everyone was the bangles. When you take nine girls into a bangle shop, you know you'll be there for a while. It's really just a tiny little room-type thing filled with bangles in every single color you can think of. And they're all sparkly! It's like your eyes are touching heaven. The way they determine the bangle size is by how much your hand folds in on itself. Like, if your hand was a piece of paper, you would fold it like a hot dog. So, really, the size of your wrist doesn't have much to do with your bangle size. The ability that the shop owner has is inhuman. She folds your hand and slides a dozen bangles on like it's nothing. Take note: it's not nothing. These things are impossible to get off without getting your hand nice and soapy. My roommate also had to use soap to get some of them on. Plus, they're made of glass, so they're very easily breakable. But they're addicting. Why? Good question. A) they're beautiful beyond belief and could probably hypnotize me if I stare at them too long. B) they come in so many different colors, that you can always mix and match and trade; like pokémon cards. C) like pokémon cards, I'm also convinced they have special powers and attacks depending on the bracelet. D) They make the most wonderful tinkling sounds, like having a symphony of fairies on your wrists. I can't think of a single girl on this trip who hasn't bought bangles yet.

My roommate and I are dying to learn this Bollywood dance about bangles from a movie called "Paheli." I'll let you know when this feat has been accomplished. Shahrukh Khan will be proud.

Let the blog begin!

2010-08-15T04:59:00.000-07:00

Because I'm finally here!!! Meaning I'll actually have cool stuff to write about, now. And it was quite a journey getting here.

I got to the airport in Chicago about an hour and a half before my flight. Holy cow, the line to check in was long. Eventually, I made it through, plus security (which also had long lines) and made it on the plane about twenty minutes before it was scheduled to take off. But, as to be expected at the O'Hare airport, we were delayed taking off. We were supposed to leave at 4ish and I don't think we actually took off until about 5ish. I fell asleep waiting...

I ended up sitting next to the nicest, most talkative guy on the plane. He was from India (Hyderabad, in the southeast) but lives and works in the states and is going to visit his family for a few weeks. He gave me lots of tips and recommendations, along with a few warnings about things that may culture shock me. We talked for a good portion of the flight about everything from India to schools (he went to grad school at UW) to Harry Potter (which is supposedly very popular here. Yay!!!!) to horrible Minnesota winters to the World Cup. It was a very nice way to pass time.

The flight from Chicago to Frankfurt was 8 hours, where we had our connection... to the same exact flight... Still, it was nice to be able to get up and walk around, even for a little bit. There were about 10 ACM kids altogether on my same flight and we didn't meet each other until we got to Frankfurt. I met one girl standing in line for security and another one standing in line for the restroom. We were basically the only Americans there, so we all just took the chance and asked each other if we were from ACM. We met the other 7 or so people on the flight when we were waiting at the gate. Everyone had found each other and congregated. There was just enough time during the layover for everyone to say hi and introduce ourselves before they called for boarding.

From Frankfurt to Mumbai was another 8 hours. And after 16 hours in a plane, I wanted nothing more than to walk. Like I said, it was the exact same flight, so I got to have my plane buddy with me again, which was nice. Plus, I was actually able to sleep some on this ride, which I'm sure my body appreciated. We then had to get on this tiny little bus that brought us to the Mumbai airport. And that thing was crowded! Jeans were a great idea for the plane, but not so much for the ground. All the ACM kids met each other coming off the plane, though, so it was nice that we were able to stick together.

We had to go through customs and baggage claim, which took a little while because there were so many of us and the Mumbai airport was chaos to say the least. When we exited the airport, the first thing we noticed was the humidity. The air was so thick, it was like breathing in water. And it was about 10 at night by this time, so you'd think the humidity would have cooled off by then. Nope. You could also feel the pollution in the air. It's very thick and smoggy. And definitely a bit of a shock. Some faculty from ACM met us right outside the exit. I know my group was at least easy to identify because we were so big... and American. Since every student was arriving on different flights, some of the faculty stayed there, while the others bused our giant group up to Pune.

We took three vans, with about 3 or 4 students in each one. Another thing I learned very quickly about India: drivers here are either very gifted, very brave, or very insane. Or some combination of the three. And also, lanes are for squares. People can weave their way in and out of anything. And I mean anything. If they're stuck and they see a tiny space, they wiggle through it. If the opposite way looks faster, they'll weave their way through oncoming traffic. At first, it was like riding in a deathmobile. I could have sworn that my visit to India was going to end somewhere on the expressway between Mumbai and Pune. But they really know what they're doing. It's quite an amazing skill. And it also makes me wonder what they're taught in driver's ed.

The noise of all the horns took some getting used to. They use them as a kind of GPS. Drivers basically honk to let others know they're there. So if they're trying to get around someone, if they're coming up behind or next to another car, if they're trying to merge into another lane, anything really, the horn goes off. And somehow, other cars always know what this horn means. There must be some kind of morse code or something that I'm just not picking up on. Beyond just the horn, our driver also used his lights to communicate. He would flash his brights in different patterns and intervals. He was even skilled enough to flash them so quickly he could rival a strobe light.

We were told that the drive would take about three hours. This was a total lie. We left the airport around 10:30 at night, 11 at the latest. We didn't get to our hotel in Pune until 4 am. Yeah. The roads were just so congested and traffic was so bad that we moved at a turtle's pace. And this was even on the expressway. There were times when the driver would just put the car in park because we would just be sitting there. We kept falling asleep at random intervals throughout the ride, but we were so tired when we got to the hotel that we all just crashed.

The next day was more or less a free day. We all met at noon and had a talk from our doctor and the program director, but the rest of the day we were totally free. We all split up and went on our own adventure. My little group of people went on a search for this temple that one of the faculty had mentioned. This, however lead to a string of its own adventures. First lesson that came with the adventures: crossing the road is a feat in and of itself. There is rarely an official crosswalk and people stroll out into the middle of traffic like it's no big deal. It's much easier to cross in groups because it's easier for traffic to see.

We found a really nice café that we stopped in, then looped back around because we realized we were going the wrong way to the temple... There's a street right by the hotel with lots of shops and venders. Just beyond there we found a park. And I mean a legit park, like with a playground, green space, and everything. When we jumped the fence, there was a herd of water buffalo grazing along the river. We were actually able to get relatively close to them. I mean, we were at least on the same side of the fence as them, walking the same grass, crossing over the same bridge.

We eventually came to a temple. Whether or not it was the one we were looking for, I can't tell you, but it was a temple nonetheless. And at this point, we'd been walking for so long that we were just happy to finally get to our goal. We took our shoes off when we got in and looked at the all statues of gods and whatnot. It was really cool. A good exploring day all in all.

Today was our first official day of classes. It felt like the first day of school in an exciting way. We all walked to the ACM office together and oh my goodness did we stand out. People kept staring at us as we walked by. Probably because we were a huge group, but also because we were 25 Americans walking down the streets. Although now that we know the way, we'll probably go in smaller groups. Today was just learning Marathi. I can now say basic phrases like "I want/don't want" "I'm Izzy, and you?" "What is this?" "yes" "no" and "good." I can also count to five and write the letters m, p, b, a, and e. I've never had to learn a new script before, so this could either be a huge disaster or a huge success. Either way, it's fun to learn. I haven't learned quite enough Marathi to communicate effectively with anyone, but we'll be learning the language the whole semester.

Meghan (a girl on the program) and I met the nicest girl from Pune when we got out of class. The ACM building also has classrooms in it for other language learning purposes. There's a French program that met this morning for an exam. It was slightly strange seeing a bunch of Indians speak French. Not something I'd imagined seeing here. Meghan jumped right in and introduced herself to a bunch of girls who all seemed super nice and I joined in eventually. We went to a coffee shop with one of them, who is right around our age. She was super talkative and had so much to tell us about everything. It was nice to actually meet someone from here, seeing as I'll be with everyone from ACM the whole semester.

My next mission is to master the head wobble. It seems so nice and effortless when Indians do it, but whenever I try, it looks like my head and neck are just struggling to line up and I have this weird twitch.

Little Sticker

2010-07-23T20:54:00.001-07:00

Today marks the day that I finally got my Indian visa. After having to make calls and faxes to the Indian consulate and Travisa, I have to say I was more than relieved to find my successfully stickered passport in the FedEx envelope by the front door. I'm getting both more excited and more nervous now that the little orange and white sticker is reminding me that the date of my departure is getting closer and closer. A little over three weeks to go and time only seems to be moving faster.