Touch wood...

that's what they say here instead of "knock on wood". Just thought I'd share that.

Amazing weekend. Friday night I stayed at home, and was Dishou's jungle gym. I don't quite know what he found so enjoyable about being picked up by his feet and swung around, but I have never heard a child giggle and laugh as much as he did. It was great. Then I watched Indian Idol with my host dad. It was...interesting.

Saturday I went to the mall with my roommate. Just to walk around and pretend we were in the US for a little bit. We bought really good cheese...so happy. I also got another suit from FabIndia. It's blue. Almost every suit I have gotten is blue. I think I'm in a rut.

Then, Saturday night, we went to a bar/club in Saket Market (very close to where we live), where we met up with my host parents and got drinks and hung out. It was awesome. They were totally into happy hour and smoking (not that I like the smoking, but the fact that it is okay for my host mom to smoke in public is cool--it's a pretty conservative country), and then a few of our friends from the program came and we all hit the dance floor. It was awesome. As weird as Indian pop is, it sure has a good beat. Nothing like dancing to "Singh is King", "K-R-A-Z-Z-Y", and a number of other scandalous songs while out with your parents! Who, by the way, know how to dirty dance better than anyone in the states. I love my family. I can't express that enough.

Then last night (sunday) we went to Deepak's family's house for dinner and met his parents and grandmother and siblings and all their little kids. It was really nice. Most of the time they spoke in Hindi so we didn't know what was going on, but it was really nice to see what a big happy family it was. That's what a lot of India is like. Everybody is part of the family, even if you grow up and move out. Everybody takes care of everyone's kids, and there is no distinction of whether you've married in or were originally part of it. It's beautiful.

This Wednesday we leave early for our first excursion. We are going to Gwailor, Orccha, Kajuraho, and a few other places, including Agra. I get to see the Taj Mahal! I'm excited, in a touristy kind of way. That means no entries for awhile though.

I must get to work on a paper now. It's due at 8:30 tomorrow morning (right before my Hindi midterm), and I have no idea what I'm going to write about. Oops!

P.S. for anyone from Holly's class--I am currently wearing a t-shirt that says "Same same but different" on it. Yes, they sell them everywhere here. It's wonderful.