Finally some Pictures!

Hello World! I know, I know, it’s been a really long time since I’ve written. It’s been crazy busy here, plus I was waiting until I could figure out how to put up photos. I'm going to try to edit some of my past posts and put up corresponding photos, so check out some of the old updates to see pics from Gwalior and Taj Mahal, etc.

Okay, so, attempting to update from when I last wrote: I went to Udaipur (the third largest city in Rajasthan) with Div & Ellie (two other students), and Prahlad-ji, one of our Hindi teachers. The bus ride there was overnight and lasted for fifteen hours, which is more time than I really want to spend on a bus ever again. It was really nice that it was just the three of us students, and we had a really good time. We spent four days sitting around making batiks, which is really really cool. I actually ended up switching my ISP to batik instead of theater. So while it sucks that I’m not going to get any credit for it, I’m quite excited. I loved doing it. It’s a really relaxing process, and actually intensely satisfying. Because perfection is practically impossible with batik, it allows you to have a lot more freedom trying new things, since you know that it won’t turn out exactly the way you picture it anyway. I’m really looking forward to it. I’ll be taking a train all day on the 2^nd to get back to Udaipur, and I’m staying in the same hotel that we were at (where the people are ridiculously nice), and I’ll make batiks during the day.

~Little background on batik: Batik is painting with hot wax. It’s a resist-art method, which means you draw a design on fabric, and then start painting it on with wax. You paint everything that you want to be the lightest color first. Then you dye the material the next lightest color. The wax keeps the dye out of the areas it is on. Then you paint everything you want to be the next lightest. Then you dye again. You keep doing this until you get to the darkest color, and the material is almost completely covered in wax. Then you boil the material and carefully scrap off the wax, and Viola! You have a wall hanging or a scarf or some other pretty thing. It’s really cool.

I’m going to be spending a lot of time alone while on ISP, which I’m a little bit worried about, but I think it will be okay. I’m also really looking forward to being on my own. The hard part will be evenings, since I can’t really wander around town by myself at night, so I’m just going to be stuck in my hotel room a lot. But I have lots of sketchpads and colored pencils, and I’m going to buy some paints I think. I also have a book of Marlowe plays, and since I’ve never read any of his stuff before, I think it will be a good time to. So it’s going to be awesome. And I’m going to get to make a lot of awesome stuff.

This is Dishu and I being silly. I know, we are adorable aren't we?

So that’s where I am right now. It’s really weird to think about leaving Delhi in a week. Hard to imagine. I’m ready to get away from the group, but I’m kind of sad about leaving my host-brother and mom. They are wonderful people. My brother told me today that I wasn’t leaving. He said I couldn’t. We’ve become very close, and I’m really going to miss the little chap.

I think this has to be it for now, but I'll try to get another post up again soon. Things are crazy since ISP starts soon and I have finals all this week. Damned Hindi. Grrrrr.

Love!

Just a quick quick update--I can't write for long, but I promise I will try to write more about these few things when I get back.

~Sari shopping and the Indian wedding I went to last night.  It was incredible, intense, and involved a lot of drunk cousins trying to get the white girls to dance with them.  I'll go into more details about the ceremony and stuff next week.

I leave in a few hours for a 12 hour bus ride to Udaipur, where three of us are learning batik.  It's about five days, and I doubt I'll have internet, so don't expect any updates.  Sorry for the lack of info I've been sending out.  We haven't had a free day for quite some time, and the 'free time' we do have gets sucked up very quickly by studying, research, and family stuff.  Hopefully when I get back I'll have a little more time.  Probably not, but I'll try.

Love you all!

Back in Delhi!

Oh boy, what an adventure this last week has been. It would take pages and pages for me to describe everything I saw and everything that happened, so I'll try and make it a somewhat condensed version.

On the 24th we took a four hour train ride to Gwalior, a small city south of Delhi. Gwalior, while not my favorite place on the excursion, had my favorite site. After wandering around a museum-type place, we went up to the fort ruins that were on top of the hill. It was amazing, and I have never seen anything more beautiful in my life. When everybody comes to visit me here, that's where we are going. The ruins were spectacular, and the fact that they overlooked a city from the top of a mountain definitely added to the experience. It was straight out of a Lord of the Rings or some other similar movie. My favorite.

The 25th we went to Orchha, which was a wonderful little town. My favorite town so far. Really nice people, and a really awesome palace--that was used for only one night when the emperor came to visit. Complete with camel stables and concubine houses. Just for the one night. It was incredible, and the view from the chatras (turret-like things) was so beautiful. I had a really good time there, because we were finally out in the country. One of my friends and I took a walk through some of the fields and through some old temple ruins, and it was just so relaxing and pleasant. Then we waded and skipped stones on the Betwa river while green parakeets flew overhead. So picturesque.

On the 26th we went to Kajuraho. Ick. The temples...of which there are many...were amazing. The Kajuraho temples are famous for being covered with friezes and carving of people. And I mean covered. The entire temples are intricately carved with beautiful figures. The majority of the figures are in erotic poses--women putting on make-up or brushing their hair while completely naked. There were also some rather interesting sex poses, with more detail than anyone needed. It was pretty neat though.
The problem with Kajuraho was the town. Built up completely on tourism and commercialism, it was by far the most unpleasant place we've been to. Many a shopkeeper lost almost certain business from us because of their nagging and harassment attempting to get us into their stores. It was just obnoxious. Everybody was thoroughly frustrated and ready to leave after our second day there.

Oh yes, and while we were there we got word that there was another bomb blast in Delhi. It was at a flower market about a kilometer from our program center. There was a festival there that we were planning on going to if we hadn't been on excursion. The last I heard 2 children and 2 adults were killed, although I'm sure there were more. Because of this, Brattleboro (the headquarters of SIT) decided that it would be a bad idea for us to go back to Delhi right away, so we were to continue with our trip, but instead of going home on Tuesday we were driving to Rajasthan to Dr. Storm's country house.

On the 28th we went to Agra, where we saw the Taj Mahal! Woo woo! Finally a name that some of you may have actually heard of! It was pretty damn cool. I was expecting it to be a slight let down, since it's one of those things so hyped up and all. But no, it was pretty awesome. Huge. It was so freaking big. It was also really nice because it has ridiculous security to get in, so we weren't harassed at all and everyone in there had paid to get in and were really nice and offering to take pictures and it was generally really pleasant. My husband better build me something like that when I kick the bucket. Oh, and did I mention that we road from the parking lot to the main gait in a camel rickshaw? Because we did. I LOVE CAMELS!

Then on to Rajasthan. The road to Rajasthan (sounds like a movie!) is awful. It was supposed to be three hours from Agra to her house, but due to the ridiculous ruts and potholes, it was actually about 5 hours. And because of the bumps nobody could sleep. We all cracked our heads multiple times on the roof.

Her house is beautiful. They have spent that last six years restoring an 18th century palace, complete with walled garden, chatras, enormous kitchen, and--everybody's favorite--swimming pool. We spent some quality time with that swimming pool. It was nice and very relaxing there, and on the second day we took an open-air jeep safari ride through the tiger sanctuary. Didn't see any tigers (turns out there are only two in the whole sanctuary) but it was a really fun and lovely ride, and we did get to see a lot of monkeys and deer and antelope and wild boar and a jackel or two.

Then this morning (the 2nd), we got back in our jeeps and drove for 4 hours back to Delhi! I loved being out of the city, but it was nice to get home. We were worried for awhile that we wouldn't be able to go back at all and that we'd have to take the program on the road. It would have been awesome, but also would make ISP really hard. I think that my ISP is going to end up based in Delhi. There are actually about 5 of us that are staying here, so it will be nice because we can probably get a place together.

So that was the trip in a nutshell. There was a lot more to it, and a million things happened that I didn't even touch on, but this would go on forever if I tried to say everything. We're only here for another week, and then we leave for our site workshops. I'm going with about 4 other people to Udaipur for five days to learn batik. Should be fun.

I hope everyone is doing well. Because of the ridiculous amount of car time we've had, I've had an awful lot of time to think about how much I miss everybody. Which is a lot. Please email or comment and let me know how you're doing and what you're up to. I'm eager to hear about stuff from home!

Oh yeah--Happy Birthday Gandhi!