Wednesday was our last day of midterms, which made it a very amazing day. They started last Thursday, and ended almost a week later on Wednesday. Thursday was history, business studies and Spanish (I got 29/30 on my Spanish midterm, WHO'S A BOSS?!). Friday was just math, which was extremely hard even though I studied my butt off for it. Monday was chemistry and english literature (I apologize to all the English teachers out there, but Julius Caesar makes me want to stab my eyes out). Tuesday was a lucky day for me because it just happened that I didn't take any of the classes which had midterms that day--so I had a test free day on Tuesday. Then, finally, Wednesday was biology and english language, both of which were much easier than I thought they would be.
Since Monday evening, our parents had been talking about the trip we would be taking to a location unknown to me and my sister. I didn't have a clue where we were going, and my sister didn't either. We knew we would be leaving on Wednesday night to a place with hot weather, and that was about it. But then again, saying "a place with hot weather" narrows it down to about the entire country of India. So on Tuesday night, I was laying in my parents' bed and my dad was helping me study for my bio exam the next day, and he was telling my mom everything he had in his suitcase and he said some random stuff, then he said "and I have the gifts and To--uhh, toner. And mascara and my flat iron." But I knew what he was going to say. He was going to say, "I have Tony's stuff." And Tony is my uncle, who lives in Bombay! I didn't say anything though, I kept my mouth shut and acted like I didn't hear anything. So that happened, but then on Wednesday, when Amara and I got home from school, I went into my room to change out of my horrendous uniform and saw that the leak from upstairs onto my ceiling had gotten considerably worse. I called my mom into the room and she got really pissed, and she was telling my dad to go call the landlord and tell him, "Look, we're gonna be in Bombay, and if this isn't fixed by the time we get back I'm not gonna be a very happy person." Right after she said Bombay, both me and my sister's mouths were on the floor because she had just let the whole surprise out! That ended up being okay though, because that made it easier to pack since we already knew what the weather was like there.
We got into Bombay really late on Wednesday night and got into bed at my aunt and uncle's house at around 1:30 in the morning. That being said, we slept in on Thursday and once we finally woke up, we got all dressed up in our Indian clothes and went to see some family. Their house is really close to a famous mosque called Haji Ali. To get to it, you have to walk across a really long elevated pathway that goes over a rocky beach and is completely submerged at high tide. That pathway is one of the saddest things you'll ever see in your life though. There are beggars every ten feet, most of which have various disabilities or are very young children. Some have no arms, no legs, no fingers, a lot of them were blind, and a lot of them were below the age of 10. It was extremely depressing to see that amount of disability and poverty in the same place. Anyways, the mosque, though it was very old, was very pretty. After that we went back to their apartment and had some really good food for lunch.
We then went to do some touristy stuff, which included going to the Gateway of India, Hanging Gardens, and a lot of other things. It was really interesting because last time we were in Bombay (seven years ago) we didn't really do anything of the sight seeing variety, we just mainly visited a lot of family and friends. This time though, it's a lot shorter time here but we did manage to get in some sight seeing. It was really cool to see more of the city, it's a huge place with lots of sights to see.
Later that night we went to eat dinner at a Mexican restaurant called Sammy Sosa. Even though we made a reservation, we still had to wait 30 minutes to be seated. Since yesterday was a holiday called Dusserah, which I didn't find very interesting at first but after seeing all the celebrations it's like the coolest thing ever. They do a lot of different celebrations for this holiday, three in particular though. One is that they have this HUGE statue of one of the Hindu Gods, and they wait until nighttime and then they set it on fire and watch it burn. I don't really know why they do that, but they only do it up here in north India, they don't do it in the south where Bangalore is because in the south that particular god is very significant. Another thing they do is that they take a statue of the same Hindu god and put flowers in it (and other random objects, that part kind of confused me because some of it looked like trash) then they say a lot of chants and yell random words in other languages and then a crowd of about 10 guys lift up the statue and wade into the water with it. They sink it when they're around neck-deep, and they let it dissolve in the water or whatever it does. It's cool, but it pollutes the water a lot and that's kind of sad because the water is already very polluted.
The third thing that they do--this is the coolest one in my personal opinion--is they make a little shrine of this god in the back of a truck, then somebody drives the truck reeeeeeally slowly. At the front of the truck, there are big groups of people (around 15 or 20 people) playing drums and/or dancing. They dance like there is nobody else on the planet, and they look like they're having the time of their lives. It's actually pretty freaking cool, I even wanted to join them and dance! :) They also light fireworks in front of the trucks, which is such a safety hazard, especially because the people lighting the fireworks are no older than 10.
Later that night we went to eat dinner at a Mexican restaurant called Sammy Sosa. Even though we made a reservation, we still had to wait 30 minutes to be seated (it doesn't seem like this is related in any way but it actually is). While we were waiting to be seated, we saw one of these trucks driving by. My mom whipped out her phone to take pictures/videos and went closer to the truck. As soon as she went over there and started taking pictures, the truck stopped and all the dancing people ran over to my mom! I thought they were trying to mug her or something insane like that, but all they actually wanted was to have their picture taken! They started posing for the camera and dancing even more and were incredibly fascinated by this magical picture taking box. Everyone wanted their picture taken---from twenty-year-old guys to 6 year old girls to 50 year old women. It was pretty cool actually. This one older guy dragged my mom to the back of the truck and wanted her to take a picture of their shrine, which was very elaborate with candles and flowers and other offerings. As we were walking away to finally be seated at the restaurant, one last boy standing on top of the truck asked to have his picture taken. My mom turned around to take his picture, and he struck a pretty boss pose. Ahhh, the people here are so amusing! :) Anyways though, the food at the restaurant was really good. A little spicy, but really good.
Today was the most amazing day of my life...competition, even, for when I got my braces off. My parents and Aunt Jasmine and Uncle Tony arranged for me to go to a recording studio and sing and get a CD made!!!! AHHHHH that has been a dream of mine ever since I started singing and they made it come true! It was really surreal, I actually thought I was dreaming because it was so insane. I had never even been in a recording studio before today, and it was so much fun I just felt like screaming. I sang my heart out and it was such an amazing experience! I really really really hope I get to do it again sometime. A humongous thanks to my parents and aunt and uncle, I love you guys!
Before that though, we went shopping and bought lots of Indian-inspired clothes, which was great fun as well. We stopped at a little shop for lunch and ate delicious food. My new favorite food is Pau Bhaji, which is pretty much this really buttery bread that you dip in some sort of sauce stuff. All I can say is that it's amazing. Being here makes me realize how much more I like north Indian food than south Indian food. After going to the recording studio, we went back to Aunt Jasmine and Uncle Tony's house and had some home-made prawn curry with rice and fried prawns. We also had rice with this pink sauce called Sol Cadi, which was a coconut milk based sauce that was extremely good. We ate it Indian style---sitting on a mat on the floor. Now I'm going to go have Aunt Jasmine do some henna on my hand, more later! Thanks for reading. :)
