Thursday, April 26, 2007

Cheers to Beers



Happy Birthday to Erin!

Wednesday, April 25, 2007

Find me in India


My Maps is a supercool feature in Google Maps that will let you track my progress in travelling around this amazing country! Check out Where I've been (it's only been 3 weeks, I have a lot more to explore). Then create your own.

Monday, April 23, 2007

Mandar's Wedding



Mandar was kind enough to invite me to his wedding along with hundreds of his other closest friends and family. We spent the entire weekend preparing as if it were for prom: we bought saris, had blouses stitched, bargained (not very successfully) for bangles and sandals in Charminar, found sparkly necklaces in Shilparamam, and had henna painted on our hands and feet.



We found a site with instructions on how to wear a sari but in the end we definitely needed help. The woman who cleans our apartment came over and dressed us, put flowers in our hair and bindis on our forehead. Our security guard commented 'Now you are real Indian women!'

Sunday, April 22, 2007

On Stray Dogs

I love the fact that I live close enough to the office to walk home, but after dark, I take a driver on account of all the gross stray dogs in the streets. There have been four notable attacks by stray dogs in India, and the topic is all over press. Scary!
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An update from today ... So I tried to take a picture of one of these dogs on my way to work today. I wasn't satisfied with the first, so went for another... and then nearly got attacked. Can you see the look in his eyes and the ready-to-pounce stance? It's blurry because I screamed and started to run. I will never take a picture of a stray dog again.

Kerrie, Gulls, Char in Kerala


The three of us met up in Fort Cochin and had a fun time people-watching along the boardwalk. I had no idea the Christian influence was so strong in Kerala. We arrived on Good Friday when the city was unfortunately dry but as a bonus got to observe several processions around the town with solemn Christians carrying crosses. We even caught a glimpse of the largest Pieta in Kerala.


The next day we took off on a boat ride and landed at Coconut Lagoon, a posh resort surrounded by water. We were greeted by fresh coconut milk and later on in the weekend enjoyed Ayurvedic massages (more on that later), did yoga (more like a nap), observed a cooking demo, sat around the pool and generally felt like we were very far away from India. The highlight was a leisurely and educational boat through the backwaters. Our guide pointed out the local birds, flowers, rice paddies and lobster and duck farms.

Early Monday we headed up scary twisting roads into the hills of Kerala. We drove through beautiful tea platations (Tata estates) and the temerature dropped the higher we went. Our hotel was a lovely spot with its own cardamon and coffee plants and a great view. r

Friday, April 20, 2007

Where I live



My bedroom here is bright, spacious and always very clean (I get some help with that). Our house has four bedrooms and bathrooms, a big living room, kitchen and dining room.

Tuesday, April 17, 2007

My Tuesday morning

So here is my blog. Namaste!

I’ll start with my typical morning. Let's take today. I wake up at the luxuriously late hour of 7:15 and snooze a bit before getting up. I get dressed: today, I break out some linen pants that haven’t been worn since the summer I bought them in Rome. I brought a bunch of cute summery skirts that I thought would be perfect for the office, but it’s just too cold. Even in jeans with sandals on, my feet are blue by lunchtime because of the excessive AC.

Breakfast is waiting for my downstairs. Today, there's couscous, sliced kiwi and apple, and a mango shake. Lovely!

I skim through the International Herald Tribune and say good morning to the security guards and other random people coming in and out of the house. It's still a mystery to me what all these people are doing-- I know there's a chef and also cleaners and a house manager, but there always seem to be new people wandering around as well-- a little strange.

Then I walk-- WALK! -- down the street to the office. I've effectively cut my commute time from up to 90 minutes each way to 10 minutes. Even though it's brief, I love the chance to be outside in the morning when it’s not too hot yet and the streets are relatively empty.

Two minutes into my commute, I exit our very nice half-built gated community. To the left are several large heaps of garbage, in some areas mixed with ashes from being burned the night before. Skinny stray dogs are picking through the trash looking for leftovers. Just beyond all the debris, there’s a make-shift shack selling some sort of hot breakfast food. There are five men sitting around on the ground or on pails chatting with the vendor. On the right side of the road, a man is peeling limes and stacking them onto his cart to make fresh lime juice. I’m tempted to buy some but the pitcher just seems a little too grimy. The symptoms of what Lonely Planet fondly calls ‘Travelers Diarrhea’ haven’t struck yet, and the juice doesn’t look appealing enough to risk it.