Lots to report America. I’ve again been neglecting my duty to record the mundane details of my life in hopes of finding something in my year abroad that I can trick potential employers into thinking is "life experience." However, the posts should get better because my sense of procrastinatory purpose has been restored. Finally, after months of arduous yet fruitless quests, I have real, actual books to read for a real actual research paper.
So starting with last week: unfortunately, India does not really celebrate Saint Patrick's Day, so there was no pretending to be Irish by dressing up like a leprecaun and singing Danny Boy (written by an English guy, just saying) this year. Instead there was Holi. America, I am not concerned by the fact that China is prospected to overtake our great nation in scientific output by 2013 (science is unamerican anyway), but shame, America, shame for neglecting the ridiculous holiday front. This should be our number one priority. Last Saturday morning, I was riding my awesome-hot-pink-recently-less-broken-than-usual bicycle back up from the football fields when I encountered a large mob of about one hundred strangers standing menacingly outside my dorm. I say strangers 1. because most of them really were strangers and 2. because the people I actually knew were completely covered in a rainbow of semi-cancerous neon paint powder. Armed with handfuls of colored powder, super soakers, and a drum which I can only assume came from Lord of the Flies, a sea of arms unceremoniously pulled me off my bike and completely covered me in Holi powder in a matter of 6 seconds. Surprise! I was more prepared on Sunday. The Frisbee team I’ve been playing with decided to play Holi (people say “play” Holi. It’s delightful), which resulted in my hair remaining green for about one week (also boogers are no longer black. Now rainbow). Riding home, strangers stained bright pink, the official color of Holi, would wave at each other, and for the next 4 days I would see people on the street with odd patches of green or purple on their skin, and assume they had contracted some form of alien leprosy before remembering. Best. Holiday. Ever.
This past weekend (by this past weekend I mean from Wednesday morning to Monday morning because my classes are cancelled so often at this point that I only had to skip two of them to take this trip) I went with the Hyderabad frisbee team to our first tournament in Kodaikanal. As usual, I am going to talk about the train journey for longer than I talk about the actual trip because traveling in India is ridiculous (and because I actually may have spent more time on the train than I did in Kodaikanal.) Travel Buddy Judith and I boarded the train on Wednesday morning at 10AM, and with miraculously little incident we met our additional travel buddy, our English teammate, Beth (we bond over the fact that I know what "taking the piss" means) on the next train. As usual, the array of merchants selling chai, omelets, Rubik's cubes, car parts, etc. each chanting a song they had written about said merchandise (for example Chaichaichaichchchchaichaichaaaaaaiiii) paraded back and forth down the aisle for the entirety of the journey. We shared a compartment with a delightful Muslim man who switched seat with us every three hours or so in order to face the correct direction when he prayed. He became slightly less delightful when Beth accidentally let slip that she does not go the church, and he decided that English people are evil, but still smiled excessively and gave us candy. We discovered, as per usual India, that there would be no train from Coimbatore to Kodaikanal and that the bus routes had been blocked by a landslide. So the next morning we got off at the stop before Coimbatore, bought a ticket, found out that train was cancelled, and caught the following train which only came an hour late. Luckily this gave us ample time to get breakfast, at which point one of my contact lenses came out and literally the entire diner, including the kitchen staff, stopped in its tracks and watched in shock and horror as I put it back in my eye, as if I had just removed my eyeball. Waiting for the train we also met a gentleman with an extremely impressive mustach (mustaches are big with men in India. So are bell-bottoms. I never want to leave), who insisted that Beth speak to his college bound daughter on the phone about grad schools in England because her accent made her an instant authority on the matter.
So starting with last week: unfortunately, India does not really celebrate Saint Patrick's Day, so there was no pretending to be Irish by dressing up like a leprecaun and singing Danny Boy (written by an English guy, just saying) this year. Instead there was Holi. America, I am not concerned by the fact that China is prospected to overtake our great nation in scientific output by 2013 (science is unamerican anyway), but shame, America, shame for neglecting the ridiculous holiday front. This should be our number one priority. Last Saturday morning, I was riding my awesome-hot-pink-recently-less-broken-than-usual bicycle back up from the football fields when I encountered a large mob of about one hundred strangers standing menacingly outside my dorm. I say strangers 1. because most of them really were strangers and 2. because the people I actually knew were completely covered in a rainbow of semi-cancerous neon paint powder. Armed with handfuls of colored powder, super soakers, and a drum which I can only assume came from Lord of the Flies, a sea of arms unceremoniously pulled me off my bike and completely covered me in Holi powder in a matter of 6 seconds. Surprise! I was more prepared on Sunday. The Frisbee team I’ve been playing with decided to play Holi (people say “play” Holi. It’s delightful), which resulted in my hair remaining green for about one week (also boogers are no longer black. Now rainbow). Riding home, strangers stained bright pink, the official color of Holi, would wave at each other, and for the next 4 days I would see people on the street with odd patches of green or purple on their skin, and assume they had contracted some form of alien leprosy before remembering. Best. Holiday. Ever.
 |
| Shirt started white. Just saying. |
This past weekend (by this past weekend I mean from Wednesday morning to Monday morning because my classes are cancelled so often at this point that I only had to skip two of them to take this trip) I went with the Hyderabad frisbee team to our first tournament in Kodaikanal. As usual, I am going to talk about the train journey for longer than I talk about the actual trip because traveling in India is ridiculous (and because I actually may have spent more time on the train than I did in Kodaikanal.) Travel Buddy Judith and I boarded the train on Wednesday morning at 10AM, and with miraculously little incident we met our additional travel buddy, our English teammate, Beth (we bond over the fact that I know what "taking the piss" means) on the next train. As usual, the array of merchants selling chai, omelets, Rubik's cubes, car parts, etc. each chanting a song they had written about said merchandise (for example Chaichaichaichchchchaichaichaaaaaaiiii) paraded back and forth down the aisle for the entirety of the journey. We shared a compartment with a delightful Muslim man who switched seat with us every three hours or so in order to face the correct direction when he prayed. He became slightly less delightful when Beth accidentally let slip that she does not go the church, and he decided that English people are evil, but still smiled excessively and gave us candy. We discovered, as per usual India, that there would be no train from Coimbatore to Kodaikanal and that the bus routes had been blocked by a landslide. So the next morning we got off at the stop before Coimbatore, bought a ticket, found out that train was cancelled, and caught the following train which only came an hour late. Luckily this gave us ample time to get breakfast, at which point one of my contact lenses came out and literally the entire diner, including the kitchen staff, stopped in its tracks and watched in shock and horror as I put it back in my eye, as if I had just removed my eyeball. Waiting for the train we also met a gentleman with an extremely impressive mustach (mustaches are big with men in India. So are bell-bottoms. I never want to leave), who insisted that Beth speak to his college bound daughter on the phone about grad schools in England because her accent made her an instant authority on the matter.
This child road his bike back and forth down the aisle of our next train to the musical stylings of what I can only describe as a low budget sci-fi sound effects mix tape. A guy in the compartment next to us was happily listening to screeching sounds and different frequencies of static on his phone for the better part of two hours. Arriving at our next station, Kodaikanal Road Station, which logically seemed like it would be somewhere near Kodaikanal, an exceedingly persistent taxi driver decided to take it upon himself to inform us that there was no bus to Kodaikanal, but he would give us a very good and special deal. We found the bus station after an hour of searching and asking various people, with the taxi driver still tailing us and insisting that he would still give us a good and special deal, up until the point that the bus pulled away. We took two buses and it took about 4 more hours getting us to Kodaikanal about 32 hours after we'd left, but the entire trip was hysterical and the view up the mountain was gorgeous.
 |
| Kodaikanal is also called the Cloud City |
Kodai is cold at night. I have not experienced even mild chilliness since December, so I got to be a real frisbee player again and break out the ugly flannel shirt. Anyway, we finally got to the hotel where we were checked in by Messrs Kennedy and Clinton (not kidding) who very excitedly informed us 14 times that they have showers with hot water! 24 hours hot water, madams! No other hostel had ever had hot water, nor had they ever made mention of it, so imagine my excitement, like a child sprinting downstairs on Christmas morning, as we raced to our room to take our first showers after two days on public transportation. But you guessed it, America, my metaphorical Christmas presents were ugly metaphorical socks. I actually experienced brain freeze and saw my breath (I am not kidding) due to the temperature of the shower (turns out they just needed to replace the battery, but it was so hilarious at the time.)
The next day we stepped outside the hotel, and sure enough there was the same taxi driver from 80 km down the mountain, asking if we needed a ride. We got about a day of sightseeing in before the boys showed up, and then we had all our frisbee matches, which took up most of the weekend. If I elaborate much though, I'll start speaking in tongues (overenthusiastic frisbee jargon) and lose the remaining three people that compose my readership (one of whom I think may be the cat my mother has replaced me with). So just some highlights: For those unfamiliar with it, frisbee is actually a pretty serious game with a lot of plays and strategies. And I like to make my team pretend to be dinosaurs and/or turkeys once in a while to throw off the other team's defense. I love my team, and the people we played against were all really fun, so good weekend.
Other than that, yesterday India won the India v. Pakistan cricket match, meaning at 11:30 PM the streets were flooded with screaming, cheering people, firecrackers and other such explosives, motorcycles zooming by with giant flags, and lots of extremely happy strangers hugging each other. This is a country of really good celebraters.
Today, in Hindi class I learned that my teacher is not sassily calling me out every ten minutes or so like I thought for the entire semester. The word "jaise," pronounced "Jesse" means "like this," and she says it pretty sternly every time she writes an example on the board.
And finally, today the required books for my Human Rights course came in! Yes, the final is in two weeks, and yes, I have circumnavigated the earth and climbed Mount Doom searching for books for the past 3 months, but hooray! They're here!
I'm starting to get to that point that I got to last semester, where I'm finally more comfortable, have slightly more substantial friendships, and really start enjoying myself... which means I'm leaving soon. But that's okay. A month is a pretty long time. And it will be kind of a relief to sleep in the same city for more than 2 months in a row next year.
Also, I have a job and possibly a car for the summer, and a house with roommates for next year, and classes, real classes with real books. Little brother meeting me in Italy in T minus 30 days. Life couldn't be better.
No comments:
Post a Comment