Disappearing drivers, middle-of-the-week holidays, and permanent housing!

This week, the school days were really screwed up. Our week was this: Monday and Tuesday, go to school as normal. Wednesday and Thursday, holidays for Eid al Fitr and Lord Ganesh's birthday. Friday and SATURDAY, go to school. Yeah, that's right. Grades 9 through 12 have a full school day on Saturday. Of course the “working Saturday”, as Indus International School calls it, had to be on the day that we finally get to move into our permanent housing. Yesterday, on Friday, Amara and I got back from school and immediately went to Commercial Street to buy bedspreads, sheets, pillows, and other things for our bedrooms at the new place. That being said, we didn’t get back to UB City until around 9:30 or a little later, and we still had to eat dinner. After eating dinner and finally getting to bed, it was well past midnight. Needless to say, we were all really tired, and then we remembered that I still had to go to school the next day—which meant being awake bright and early at 6am to catch the bus. We then decided, after much contemplation, that I wouldn’t go to school on Saturday because not only would I be running on 5 hours of sleep, I would be needed to help move into our new apartment.

But it’s never that easy with Indus. This morning (Saturday), my mom burst into my room where I was still sleeping at around 8:20am. She told me that she received an email at 9:30pm Friday night saying that if I didn’t go to school today, I would be suspended for a week. Keep in mind that there was no way we could have planned for this, since the email was sent so late last night my mom hadn’t seen it until this morning at which time it was too late to get me to school on time. In a few moments of sheer panic, we called the vice principal of Indus and told him what was going on. My dad explained to him that we were moving into our new apartment, our driver had disappeared and we didn’t have a new one (I’ll explain that later), and we had already missed the buses. To top it all off, the coordinator of the high school division of the school had said earlier in the month that if we didn’t take a bus and were late to school because of our own transportation, we wouldn’t be allowed to enter the school. The vice principal, after hearing the reasons why my excuse to miss school was legit and why I shouldn’t be suspended due to the school’s stupid rules, said he would “consider our request.” Indus is all about how they will not sacrifice academic rigour ever at all no matter what…but if I miss one day of school (for a real reason), they’re gonna force me to miss a week of school? Does that make sense to anyone?

Okay anyways, now that I’m done ranting, I’ll tell you a little bit about what happened for the two holidays that were earlier this week. For Ganesh's birthday, there were a lot of new stands and venders popping up selling statues and sculptures of Lord Ganesh in various sizes. When I asked one of my friends how she celebrates the day, she said they celebrate by eating a lot. Sounds like an alright holiday to me! There was also a ton of extremely loud music being played out of random speakers on the sides of roads, which I didn't really understand. For Eid, there were lights everywhere and tons of people out and about in their hijabs and topis. On Tuesday, quite a few stores were closed due to Eid al Fitr (the Eid celebrating the end of the 28 day fast for Muslims known as Ramadan), but then on Wednesday, the stores that were closed opened up again and the stores that were open on Tuesday were closed for Ganesh's birthday. Luckily though, we had both days off! 

Earlier this week, we had quite a disaster with our driver Kalandar. He drove us to the bus stop on Monday morning as normal, but then, when he was supposed to be at Google to pick up my mom, he wasn't there. Like, literally, he was nowhere to be found. So some guy comes up to my mom and basically tells her, "No Kalandar. New driver. Get in car." Needless to say, my mom freaked out and called my dad. Long story short, she ended up getting in the car with this new driver, whose name is Babu, and getting dropped off here at UB City. However, there were several issues with mister sir Babu. To start, he doesn't speak English or Hindi, so we were kind of stuck on how to communicate with him. Also, he doesn't know where anything is, so we had to ask random people on the street how to get places every five minutes. Andddd, another thing is that he has like one of those bush cars, you know? The kind that you'd expect to see following a herd of elephants on an African safari, with a machete hanging out of the driver side window. You know the kind...the two seats in the back were even sideways! It was really weird. So, we had no choice but to try to work with Babu for a couple days while a permanent driver was being worked out. After struggling through that until this morning, we were given another temporary driver until tomorrow or the next day. The temporary driver was really nice and had good Hindi and English, so it's kind of sad that we don't get to have him be our permanent driver. Our new permanent driver is alright; he doesn’t know where as many things are as compared to Kalandar and the temporary driver, but I think it’ll work out okay. This driver fiasco happened at a really bad time though, because now we're moving into our permanent apartment for the year and it'll be weird to go through that with a brand new driver. This brings me to the next thing mentioned in the title...

We finally get to move into our permanent apartment!!! We found out at the beginning of this week that we would be moving in this weekend, so we went shopping on the two holidays to get dishes and groceries and get an idea of what we wanted for our bedspreads and pillows. It was kind of insane how expensive the stuff is here…it was just as expensive if not more so than in the states! It’s also super difficult to find sets of dishes…they’re usually sold as single plates and single bowls and single cups, so we were really happy when we finally found a place that sold dish sets. I decided on a set that I liked, and when I say that I was the one who decided, that’s no lie, my mom forced ME to pick out the dishes because the dishes we use here are going to be my college set. Yesterday, we went to a store on Commercial Street like I said earlier to get bed covers and sheets and all that good stuff. That ended up being really expensive too, but that’s probably because we bought 3 bed covers, 8 pillows and like 10 sets of sheets. We were there for a good couple hours and finally left with five or six bags of stuff.

I’m writing this from our temporary apartment—I’m just sitting on the couch listening to the chaos around me as my parents try to get things signed and cleaned and the many other things that are apparently associated with moving into a new apartment. But my mom just started playing Angry Birds, and you know that big white bird that (I’ll be frank) poops out an egg when you tap it? She says that bird is sad and lonely because its face gets all twisted up when its egg goes away. So now she doesn’t tap the bird to make the egg come out, she just leaves the egg in the bird so its face never gets twisted up. I just thought I would tell you guys that. Thanks for reading!:)

Reflection on month 1 in India

So yes, we have been in India for a month now and I've been in school for three weeks! The first month has been really interesting; I like Bangalore a lot more than I thought I would. School is also really good, but Indus lies and says that they only give two hours of homework a week, when they actually give like five or six hours of homework a week, if not more. But the campus is really nice and the teachers are too. I got my formal uniform on Thursday (which consists of a plain but see-through white collared t-shirt, a tan skirt with buttons DOWN THE FRONT [which I do not understand], and these super ugly brown shoes). Amara and I both have to wear the formal uniform on Monday, Wednesday and Friday, and we get to wear our PE uniform on Tuesday and Thursday. A couple posts back, I said that Wednesdays were my favorite days because I had good classes, but now we have a new schedule and Wednesdays aren't my favorite any more.
We recently put an offer on an apartment though! The lease got signed by the landlord today and now it has to go to Google (where my mom works, for those of you who don't know) to get approved and get the rest of the signatures that it needs. Also, on a completely different note, I got a role (a very tiny one at that) in the school musical! I only have two lines (not that I really care all that much) but I get to sing kind of a lot, which is what I actually care about.
I got sick for two days last week and I have no clue why, but I felt really bad and missed two days of school, which kind of sucked. My mom is convinced that I am "becoming SO Indian already!" but I actually don't even know what she's talking about because I am so not. The weather here is AMAZING, it's warm-ish but it's breezy and I realllly like it. Don't get me wrong though, I definitely miss the rain every day back in Washington. I also miss my fat cat, who isn't fat at all but regardless of that I miss her. She's in good hands though!
OH MY GOODNESS yesterday on our way home from school we saw a protest for Anna Hazare! He has been fasting to end corruption, and has caused a movement that swept all over India. The protest (supporting him) was really interesting, they had candles and signs and a guy was yelling stuff and it was so cool! It's probably not that big of a deal to locals but for me it was so different and awesome! I have to get to bed...more later though, thanks for reading! :)

Survived my First Week of School!

Yes, yes I did. The teachers were really easy on homework, but I'm guessing that was because it was the first week. My first week overall was pretty good, I made friends, I like my classes, and the campus is really nice. Unfortunately though, I've already caught a cold and don't feel very well. On Monday, me and Amara are performing in a small orchestra to celebrate Indian Independence Day. We do have a half day of school though, so we have to drive the hour and a half to Indus just to pretty much come right back. Then on Tuesday, there are auditions for the musical We Will Rock You, which our school is putting on. Of course the auditions have to be happening when I have a cold. But I'm still planning on trying out; I guess I just have to drink tons of tea, get lots of sleep and pray to God that this horrid sore throat goes away. I'm already homesick...which is a bad sign, considering that we haven't even been away from home for a month yet. I miss our cat, Nattie, a lot more than I thought I would. I hope she's being good for our house sitter and not doing anything stupid like she tends to do. And, of course, I miss all my friends a TON! I also miss our house, and my bed, and our kitchen, and our couch, and everything. To my friends and other people in Washington, I love you guys and miss you! Thanks for reading. :)

First 3 Days at Indus

Monday was my first day at school, unfortunately leaving me and Amara with an extremely short summer. The first day was pretty much a waste of time, we sat in a room ALL day and were given the same presentation as at orientation, so since I went to orientation, I was soooo bored. The second day was when I started having classes, and I'm not used to having a block schedule, so I was really confused. That being said, I accidentally did Monday's schedule on Tuesday for my first 3 classes. When I realized that, I felt so freaking stupid, so today in biology I had to explain to the teacher what happened. And I was mad because the business studies class that I accidentally went to had cool people in it, so now I'll be alone and sad when I actually have business studies. Oh well. This school really scares me because there are so many rules, and I feel like whatever I'm doing, I'm breaking a rule. And the uniforms are really ugly, in case I failed to mention that before. I don't know any of my teachers' names, they're all either Sir or Miss. It's much easier that way. Today, we also had classes, and I decided that Wednesday is my favorite day because I have good classes on Wednesday, including Spanish and biology, which I love. But it is really weird to be in school the whole day on Wednesdays, because in Washington we got out of school early on Wednesday. It's also really hard to decide what sport to do; I really want to do swimming but if I do that means I have to swim in the middle of the day which I don't want to do because that's really weird. Anyways. More later, thanks for reading!

The Past Few Days in Bangalore

On Saturday, we went to two music schools around Bangalore to see what our options were for continuing music lessons (viola and voice for me, flute for Amara) while we're here. The first one was interesting, the guy who we talked to was named Ashley and he was a weird dude. But, he actually took the time to listen to me and Amara okay our instruments and he also listened to me sing. He then invited me to come back on Sunday to participate in their voice class, and I was undecided at first, but after seeing the second music school I decided to go to the class. The second music school, The Bangalore School of Music (either School or Academy, one of those two) was really a disappointment. I've become really attached to my viola teacher back in Washington over the past four years of lessons from him, so it's really hard for me to be open minded about taking lessons from someone else. But I'm trying, I don't want to lose a whole year of playing my viola so I guess I'll do whatever it takes to continue that. On Sunday, I did go to the voice class and ended up liking it a lot! It was really fun, but I was reminded in that class that I also really got attached to my voice teacher in Washington over the past 2 years of lessons from her, so it was again hard for me to try a new style of teaching and a new teacher. But I think I'll definitely be going back for voice and viola lessons at William Joseph International Academy for Performing Arts. Today, we went to our new school, Indus International School, to get measured for our uniforms and to get our PE uniforms. They're all ugly. Really, really, horribly ugly. It's only for 8 hours a day though, so I guess it's fine...but they're still ugly. Girls have to wear a SKIRT every day which is actually the worst thing ever. Whoever invented skirts is mean. And we have to wear these stupid ugly brown loafer-like shoes! UGH. The PE uniform definitely isn't as bad as the regular uniform but I'd obviously prefer no uniform at all. The parentals are out house hunting yet again, but Amara wasn't feeling good so we had our driver drop me and Amara off at the apartment while my parents went to look at around 9 more apartments. More later, thanks for reading!

We Have Finally Arrived!:)

After 5 days in Hong Kong, we've finally touched down in Bangalore! Hong Kong was...interesting. A good experience, definitely, but not really a place I would want to go to again. The food was kind of difficult, it was good when we were at an authentic place but when it was American-ized Chinese food it was really...gross. We only really had authentic Chinese food one time, and it was the night before we left. We were on a private tour with a British guy who had lived in Hong Kong for a really long time, and he was basically a local, so we had an amazing tour with him. But whenever we tried to eat anywhere in Hong Kong, it was really hard because we had literally no freaking idea what we were doing and the waiters didn't have great English, if any. We went to this gigantic floating restaurant called Jumbo Floating Restaurant (or something self explanatory like that) and the decor was nice...but we all decided that the nice decor was just a decoy to take your mind off the bland food. After carefully sifting through everything on the menu (which was like 50 pages long), Amara and I settled on getting a chicken dish. However, we were then enlightened, and found out that the dish we had so carefully picked out thinking it was a safe bet was actually a whole bird just plopped onto the plate. Literally. A whole bird. Head and beak included. Needless to say, we changed our mind on what to get, but the food in general still wasn't that great. Also, it was so hot in Hong Kong that I actually thought I was going to have a heat stroke and die. If you stepped outside of the hotel, within two minutes you would be dripping with sweat all over your body. When we went to see the Big Buddha, it was around 3000 feet above sea level, which is somewhere near the elevation of Bangalore, and it was still smokin' hot up there too. My dad had been constantly reassuring us that, no, we would not die in Bangalore, because it wouldn't be that hot since it's higher up. So, at the Big Buddha which is at a higher elevation, we were still drowning in our own sweat, so I did the logical thing and freaked out. When we got off the plane in Bangalore, I was bracing myself for the wave of unbearable heat to come crashing down on me and cause me to start dripping sweat at 3 in the morning, but miraculously enough, that didn't happen!!! We got our baggage, breezed through customs and immigration without any problems whatsoever, and then met our driver outside the airport, and arrived at our temporary serviced apartment. Aaaaaand that brings us to right now! Today we were house hunting all day, which was a super fail, we found nothing that met our needs, and now my mother is moping about because of that. But I have faith...we'll find a place to live for the next 11 months eventually! Okay, so now I'll go ahead and spit out the answers to questions you're probably all wondering about...I was wondering about them myself before we got here!
How's traffic? Today it wasn't that bad, it wasn't really a parking lot like you'd expect, but it was definitely not like Washington traffic. Washington's traffic is organized, Bangalore's traffic is....not organized, to say the least. There are cars, trucks, rickshaws, TONS of motorcycles, people, kids, dogs, goats, cows....it's crazy. Cars and motorcycles cut in from random places, people just run into moving traffic to cross the streets, and animals obviously couldn't care less about traffic so they cut in whenever they want.
How's the food? SPICY. Good, but spicy. That is all. Ohhhhmygod though, the gulab jamans are SO good. I could live off of those.
How's the weather? Actually, it's really nice. It was hotter in most of the un-airconditioned apartments we looked at today than it was outside. The weather is definitely manageable, I'm pleasantly surprised at how nice it is.
Are there elephants everywhere? Sorry guys, only in movies.
More later, thanks for reading!

Tomorrow is the Day!

The title is self explanatory but yes! The time has come for us to temporarily end our life in America and start a new chapter of it in India! But of course the suspense of our new life is still not quite here yet, because we added a 5 day stop over in Hong Kong on the way to India. If we hadn't done that, the flight would have been 26 hours, so we decided to make it a little more bearable by shortening it to 13 hours to Hong Kong, then around 6 hours to India. This last week has been especially stressful...it seems like it's lasted for 10 years. I've been trying to cram in my last sleepovers with friends whenever I could and trying to make sure I see everyone that I wanted to see before leaving. I didn't quite get everyone but close enough I guess. The movers came on Tuesday to pack our freight stuff, and it's kind of depressing to me that all the stuff we felt like we needed for a year could fit into 588 pounds of freight and 2 duffel bags a piece. Guess that just goes to show you that we have too much crap in our houses anyways! The biggest downside is that moves get everyone really stressed and on edge, and let's face it, nobody is a nice person when they're stressed, which has kind of been painfully obvious for the past week.When we moved from Kansas to Washington a few years ago, we always said that would be our last move until I went to college. We never thought anything like this would ever happen, and, though it will be a great experience for us, it does mean another move there and back. At least it's temporary!
Going to Hong Kong is also adding stress because the airlines have stupid rules like 11 pounds per carry on! We usually carry on a small Rick Steve's suitcase, but that suitcase alone weighs 7 and a half pounds, so that didn't happen this time. We had to shove everything for our 5 day trip into a tiny duffel bag so as to meet the airline's carry on rules. I also have to carry on my viola, which is light on its own, but when it gets into the case, it weighs 13.4 pounds. I have to carry that on too...so if they weigh it I guess we're screwed. Bottom line is, read the rules of the airline before you book the tickets. You might just have second thoughts on what airline to fly.