Yet Another Awesome Day!

Today, once I finally woke up, we scraped off my dry henna and saw that the design turned out really well. The colour darkens throughout the day as long as you don't get it wet, so that means my left hand stayed dry all day today.

We had Uncle Tony and Aunt Jasmine's driver take us down to the pau walla, which is the guy who sells bread. We bought some pau (bread) and then got a tour of the local Saturday market. It was really interesting to see all the shops and stands that sprouted up overnight, and aside from the meat stores it was pretty cool. The places that sell meat always freak me out, mainly because they're still in the shape of a recognizable animal and because they way they're displayed is so unsanitary. No refrigeration here, that's for sure! I guess it never killed anyone, (at least not directly) so who cares?

After that we went out to Bandra, which is the city that my dad grew up in. We visited some more family and then went out to see the apartment that he spent his childhood years in. The couple that's renting it seems really nice. They're a mixed couple just like my parents are, which was pretty cool. We then went back to the house to pick up Uncle Tony and Aunt Jasmine, and then we went to the set of a movie that is being filmed here. Since Uncle Tony is a movie director, he's very close friends with the famous Bollywood actor Akshay Kumar. Because of that, we got to meet him, take a picture with him, and watch him act in a scene of one of the movies he's currently working on. It was super cool to see how the acting industry works! They mainly shoot the same scene over and over and over again until it's perfect, but I guess that's the way to do it!

Yet another great day in Bombay, but we're going back tomorrow. I like it here but I miss Bangalore! It's way too hot here :)

Thanks for reading!

Surprise! We're Going to Bombay!

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. :)

Hulli Cabs and Blake Shelton

First, let me explain what hulli means. It seems kind of rude if you translate it to English, and it's really hard to explain in English, but in Kannada (the native language) it's not a big deal at all. It pretty much means something along the lines of village idiot. It's used as an adjective though, like to describe people or things. So one of my friends ALWAYS says "You know her? That hulli?" She pretty much describes everyone as hulli. But you can also say stuff like, "That hotel is so hulli!" So yeah.

But anyways, for the past week we've been getting a ride to and from school from Amara's friend's mom who is a teacher at Indus. We get to school a little before the buses, so it works out well. Today though, it didn't quite work out that well. Amara's friend's mom, who I will refer to as V, has a really nice driver and car. This morning when we went to the building where V stays to go to school, we were informed that the car had a flat. The driver proceeded to try and fix the flat, but it ended up that there was some issue with that and he couldn't get the flat tire off the car to put on a new one. V then called up some cab companies (which didn't take long because it seemed she had them on speed dial), and after about 15 minutes of talking to different cab drivers, we got a cab to be there within another 10-ish minutes. This cab looked fine from the outside, but when the driver opened the back door of the cab, there were like several spider webs hanging off of the window and doors. Right away, I could tell that this cab was pretty freaking hulli. So we get in the cab (which smelled strongly of spicy Indian food and incense, ew) and drive away, brakes squeaking all the way to Indus. Later I found out that after we drove away, my mom saw one of the tail lights go out. All the more reason for this cab to be called hulli. About three whole seconds into the ride, the cab driver turns up some music in Hindi or Kannada or something, and it was SO LOUD! Of course my head was right next to the speaker too, so this squeaky Hindi music is blaring in my ears and it was actually kind of torturous. However, my sister and Blake Shelton came to the rescue. Thankfully, Amara had a headphone splitter, so not only could Amara and I listen, Amara's friend could listen too. As soon as she plugged in those headphones, I went to the country music playlist and started blasting me some Blake Shelton! YES. Then, I had another full hour in that hulli cab which was made bearable solely by my hero, Blake Shelton. :)

So not only did Blake Shelton save me from dying a sad miserable death in that hulli cab, I have introduced the wonders of his music to my fellow Indians here at Indus. Yes, that's right, I have hooked a small number of people on Blake Shelton's beautiful and amazing music (as well as other beautiful aspects of him). Below, I will post some links to a few of his songs, and let me just tell you that it was extremely difficult to limit myself to less than 50 songs to link to. I don't expect yall to watch all of them, but I would if I were you. If you like these, you'd probably like everything in his Red River Blue album, and everything else that he's ever written. :)

Hillbilly Bone by Blake Shelton (the first ever Blake Shelton song that I heard)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OGoiiwxTWeE

Kiss My Country Ass by Blake Shelton
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PJe754cLbok

She Wouldn't Be Gone by Blake Shelton
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ki-n6DsDG40

Drink On It by Blake Shelton
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QnuVedLV0yg

Good Ole Boys by Blake Shelton
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9wUeegIam9I

Some Beach by Blake Shelton
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JTT2LEyjdC4

Red River Blue by Blake Shelton
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mU--RQvpyA8

Thanks for reading and watching!:)

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!