Monsoon season is officially here

I think the best purchases I made in the States before I came over were my waterproof sandals and Marmot rain jacket. It is so light weight and seriously perfect for the sporadic rains that we are now having. I'm in love. Especially because I can continue walking home from school while the rest of India has to find a dry spot under a tree or overhang.

Agra over the Weekend

Over the weekend, ten of us decided that we wanted to do some tourist activities here, so we hired a car service (a must in India because 95% of Americans or really like 80% of the world wouldn't be able to handle the driving here) and drove 8 hours to Agra to see the Taj Mahal. We drove throughout the evening and checked in to our hotel by 1 am after having to ask local rickshaw wallas where this place was. Before we dispersed for some shuteye, the BEST possible idea arose. Why don't we wake up at 5am and go see the Taj?

BRILLIANT! I thought Lucknow was hot, but Agra is a whole new level. I can't even imagine what the places are like in the center of the country. Regardless, we wake up at 5 and are in line with our tickets to see the Taj Mahal by 530. We are the first people in line. Awesome right? I was stoked until a lot of us found out that we couldn't bring our backpacks with us since they had clothes in them, camera tripods (me), a lighter, and other stuff. So our guide to us to the lockers where you can put your stuff. Yes a guide is included when foreigners are in a group of 10... convenient right? Well, the lockers were a perfect example of the Indian sense of time. It said it would be open at 530 and it was 545 and clearly not open. Oh well. Our hotel is like another 10 min walk from there so we just go to the hotel and drop our stuff off. We get back in line around 6 (and there is still no line) and finally go in.

After we walked through the gates, all I could say was wow. It was truly a spectacular sight. Our guide was awesome and took us to all the great photo locations on the grounds. He was also super knowledgeable. Something interesting was that we had to either go barefoot or wear shoe covers while we walked immediately next to the monument. I wasn't really expecting that but it was great to see the government trying to preserve this historical gem. I was pleased to say the least.

So we are walking around the Taj Mahal and I am snapping pictures left and right because the view is awesome, especially with the lighting from the sunrise. It was also cool that there was no one there! It was totally worth getting only 4 hours of sleep so I could get some photos with no one in them (or hardly anyone in them). We are walking around though and I see some monkeys. This is trouble because the monkeys here don't play games. They are aggressive and not afraid to bite you. So I am standing on a bench near some of them taking photos of the Taj when I hear some hissing coming from my right. I turn my camera, never leaving the viewfinder, and see a cute little monkey picking at himself. As I'm in the process of taking a quick photo, I hear another hiss and realize it wasn't the monkey that I'm photographing that's getting pissed at me. In a matter of milliseconds I pull my face away from my camera just in time to see a monkey like sprinting at me standing on the bench, and barely have enough time to jump off the bench as he was hopping on it. I probably was going to get bit if I hadn't acted fast enough. Everyone in my group saw the entire thing unfold and everyone was just laughing hysterically as I almost got attacked. Definitely another first for the record books thanks to India.


Our tour continues and then some friends ask me if I can take one of those cool pictures where everyone is jumping in the air. Ironically enough, I had just read something in one of my books on how to setup the camera to get a shot like that. It was quite easily a photographers dream moment. I'm glad I read that tidbit in my book or else I would have missed out on a cool photo opportunity.

It's now 845ish and I can now put a check in the box for seeing the Taj Mahal. We thank our tour guide profusely for his help, and then he surprises us with a wonderful place to eat breakfast called Joney's Place. This place was unreal. A hole in the wall diner with 4 tables that could probably sit 16-18 max. The food at this place was to die for though. They had omelets the size of the entire plate, dessert pancakes, lassis, french toast, and best of all egg sandwiches which were the biggest hit amongst the group. And did I mention that it was CHEAP!?! The egg sandwiches were only Rs20. That's like 44 cents by the way, and we ordered soooooo many. Travis alone had 4 sandwiches all to himself. Can you really beat being stuffed beyond imaginable for only $1.76? My order kind of went down like this. First I had two honey dessert pancakes. Then an omelet and finished it off with an egg sandwich. Not too shabby for $2. We definitely made it a point to come back again on Sunday.

So we go back to the hotel, get our stuff and walk to the other hotel that we would be spending the night at Saturday night. We took a nap during the hottest part of the day (in which everyone thought it would be funny to get a picture of me dozing in and out, curled up on my bed with my shoes on) and then visited Agra Fort. This fort was bigger than anything I had ever seen. We drove around it the night before and it seriously took like 5 solid minutes to drive around the entire thing and the road was right next to it. The history of the fort was very interesting because I would have never thought that it was captured by another group because of its vast size. I was wrong though. The fort was actually captured after they ran out of water because of the duration of a siege.Well, we ended our day in Agra by exploring a local market (it was pretty comparable to the one's in Lucknow) and then called it quits for the day.

The next day we ventured to Joney's Place for breakfast and then headed back to Lucknow. Agra = total success. The journey back was pretty interesting too. I was fully indoctrinated to Indian culture.... yes, you can let your imagination run wild with this one. Now it's time to get prepared for school which I really really enjoy. I'm learning so much. I personally can't even believe it.

Custom Made Clothes

So India is definitely known for its wide availability of custom made clothes and tailoring. Well, my auntie told me today that she has a tailor who can make me a suit from scratch if I provide the fabric. Here is the look that I'm going for... if I can find the fabric.

First two days of class and the first Saturday adventure

The first two days of have been incredible. They don't call it an "intensive" course just because it sounds good. I have four 1 hour classes Monday through Friday with two teachers that alternate each class. One of them is back from Columbia for the Summer and he says that my class of 3 people has made more progress in two days than he normally covers in 3 weeks at Columbia. Granted, I think it's because we only have 3 people in my Advanced Beginner class. It is going to be a shock when I get back to school and have 20 people in my class. I truly think I'm going to be upset about that. I really like the personal attention you get in a small class.

After school, the true adventures begin. The best have been shopping excursions for traditional garb (Kurtas) and a Tendulkar cricket jersey. My friend Kevin and I accidentally stumbled onto this place called Prince Market which was a big mistake. It's an inside market with tons of vendors selling nothing but men's clothes. Ridiculous. We couldn't walk anywhere without the entire row of vendors yelling in English, "Sir Sir, I have very nice thing for you. Just your size. Please come. Please Please come buy." Thankfully we made it out of there alive.

Then, we discovered the gold mine of all places in the basement of a store. When shopping for kurtas in India, you walk into a place, tell them your size and they start pulling down all sorts of interesting fabrics and patterns. So we are looking at all sorts interesting things, and then this one manikin catches my eye. It was dressed in wedding attire (I think), but it had this awesome hat on. So of course I ask the old man helping us about it and he asks, "Want to try it on?" Heck yes I want to try it on!!! My friend had told me earlier to shop for something Raja Joey would wear and this was definitely it. After looking at more kurtas that I didn't really like, I realized that the shirt I liked best was the one on the manikin. I try it on to make sure it fits (and it does. Perfectly), and then the old man says, "Another picture." This time I have the complete outfit on and look ridiculous.

On the way home from our shopping adventure, Kevin and I walk through this narrow streets lined with shops and vendors. Definitely what everyone associates as the epitome of Indian shopping/markets. As we are walking, we find a shop with cricket bats. We were shopping for them at a dedicated sports shop but decided to pass on the ones they had. Basically there are two types of cricket bats. Regulation ones and street ball/pickup game ones. The difference comes from the ball that you use. Regulation uses the hard ball while street games use tennis balls. We find an awesome bat for pickup games in this side shop and were able to negotiate a pretty good deal. We were definitely super excited about the purchase because it would open up a lot of opportunity to play with the local kids.

First Saturday Adventure

We had heard that everyone goes to the stadium to play cricket on Saturday's so Kevin and I meet up at the local stadium around 9. To our surprise, there were a TON of kids there, but they weren't playing cricket. They were practicing. When two white guys walk up holding a bat, all activity stops and everyone comes rushing over to us. We were overwhelmed. We learn that this is a club team and that they practice there on Saturdays from 6-12 and then 4-7. Yes, 9 hours of practice on Saturday. That's because cricket is now the fastest way to become a millionaire, and everyone dreams of the life cricket could afford them. Since they were a club team, they played with regulation balls so Kevin and I were unable to use the bat that we had just bought, but they showed us an area where we could practice. After about 2 hours of practicing, we get a call from Travis who wants to meet up and tour some of the sights.

Kevin and I get auto rickshaw and ask him to take us to Bara Imambara. We make it there successfully even though we didn't know it at first. Travis on the other hand got taken to some other Imambara. While we are waiting, we find out how much it is to tour the site. Rs. 300 for foreigners while it is only Rs 25 for natives. WHAT!!! We were shocked that it cost 12x more for foreigners. Travis got there shortly after we did and by that time we were starving. Rain was on its way so we were also keen on finding shelter. A security guard pulled us aside to sign a visitors log, and then pointed us towards the Chowk (market) to find food. Well, we needed shelter before we found food. So where did we go? The Lucknow Medical University.

It was a long shot, but we were like, "What the heck. It's worth a shot." So we are walking along the row of buildings and manage to walk straight into the Admin building. There, we ask a security guard where a nearby restaurant is. He walks inside a room and motions us in. Inside, we meet a man who happens to be one of the head administrators of the college. Super nice guy. We have tea with him and talk all about religion with him because he was a devout Christian looking to move to the states. You definitely don't meet many people like that.

After the rain was over, we were famished. We saw in a tourist brochure that there was a Pizza Hut! Unlike Pizza Hut in the US, Pizza Huts around the world are actually very nice sit down restaurants, so we decided we needed to visit. We find the main road and start walking towards the local shopping district where the Pizza Hut is when we decide to take a detour to see a monument by the river. This was probably the best decision we've made yet. We pull out our camera to take a picture of it, and then all of a sudden we see these kids rushing towards us. We were completely taken off guard, but all they wanted was to have their picture taken!!! So we take turns getting pictures with them, and then showing them what it looks like. They were having such a blast. It was funny how they kept shoving each other trying to become the center of attention in the photo. After a few minutes of photos, we decide to pull out the cricket bat. They go NUTS. Everyone here loves cricket. It's awesome. We begin to play with them until this one random dude walks up and takes the bat from one kid and they all run away as fast as they can. We were completely blown away. He had to be their boss, and he didn't seem happy that they weren't working. He spoiled our fun, so we decided to continue on to pizza hut.

We are back on the road walking to pizza hut when the rain begins to start again. This time we are without cover. So we find a rickshaw who is willing to take us and has a cover. The first problem was that our group consisted of three grown boys. Typically, you only fit two people in a rickshaw so kevin was squished in between/on top of me and Travis. The next problem was that our driver was old. We felt so bad for the guy. He struggled to move us. He only wanted Rs 30 (less than a dollar to take us about 15 min down the road), but we felt so bad that we gave him Rs 100. Definitely an unexpected surprise for him. We had made it to the mall and subsequently pizza hut.

Pizza hut was fabulous. Ridiculously cheap ( my medium pizza was only $3) and incredibly tasty. I thought it tasted better than it does in the states, but that's probably because I haven't had pizza in weeks. It was a great way to end an exhausting but awesome day in Lucknow.

Meet and Greet / Institute Visit / Moving In

6/14/11

So I met my host family, actually host grandmomma, and she is totally sweet. She is an older Muslim lady that loves to COOK, and supposedly her cookin is awesome. She doesn’t know it yet because we only got to talk for about 3minutes but we are going to be spending a lot of the time in the kitchen together aka me learning how to make awesomeness.

Her apartment isn’t in the nicest part of town, but I’m definitely cool with that. There is a lot of local happenings going on all around with the street venders and shop owners. It will be fun to practice my Urdu with them and begin the quest of becoming master bargainer since everything is negotiable.

After I met with my host, we went back to the hotel and a few friends asked me to walk with them to the mall again. This time, I was able to find some helpful material to assist in my learning… KIDS MOVIES!! Haha. They are in Hindi with English subtitles. Even though I’m studying Urdu, the only glaring difference is in the script. Orally, Hindi and Urdu are essentially the same. I got a lot of weird looks from a little kid who was also looking around in the Kid’s movie sections but I don’t care. I get so many stares and looks with my long blonde hair that I’m used to the awkward attention now. 

6/15/11

Today we had orientation at the institute. Finally, the last orientation I’ll have to sit in here. Of the 20 of us here, 8 will be in my beginning class. After lunch, we get to move in with our host families and then regular classes begin tomorrow. My biggest fear is that I have no idea where the institute is and where my host g-momma lives. Haha. The taxi drivers have been driving us around under the direction of people from the institute, but hopefully I figure it out pretty quickly. Tomorrow morning will be my first test, getting to school so I’ll write something about that because I’m sure it’s going to be an experience.

First Day in Lucknow

6/14/11

0500 – wake up call. Yes, a very early morning. We are down in the lobby by 530 and are ready to leave the hotel by 0600 to catch a flight that leaves at 0805. Well, the bus drops the 20 of us off at the domestic terminal when our flight was actually at the international terminal (even though we really were only traveling domestically). That was a super big oops because the international terminal is on the other side of the airport approximately 15-20 min away. So yea, we get to the terminal at approximately 0725. Yes, cutting it close. And then, the gate agents really don’t feel like helping us after they help half of the group. So I’m the last one to get my ticket along with the program director and we sprint to security. I am totally confused when I get there because their security is waaay different compared to ours. You don’t take off your shoes, belt, etc. Just pull out your laptop. I did this and walk through the metal detector and then begin to get wanded/ patted down. It’s very neat, but almost every big store/hotel has a metal detector and x-ray machine. So he is wanding me down and then discovers my cell phone. Another oops, but I’m now sprinting to the gate again. I get there at like 0757. Phew. To my awesome surprise though, I somehow have a first class seat on Air India. Haha. I was the only one in the group to get a first class seat too!! I don’t think it was my official passport but I seriously don’t know why that happened. Not like I was complaining though. I got my Mango Juice from the nice flight attendant and began reading my Hindu Times. It was great because on our short 1 hour flight we were given a meal. So I got my non-veg meal which consisted of a potatoes, meat omelet, fried something, tea, and fruit. We finally make it to Lucknow and as we are coming down through the haze, I am like a little kid GLUED to the window. It was so awesome to finally see my new home. From the first glances, I was like, “I’m really going to enjoy this. It’s like a big kid’s playground.” The airport was on the outskirts of the city so we were able to see all the rural areas surrounding the city with little towns here and there.

So we made it to our hotel, the Comfort Inn of all places,  and begin to settle down again. We arrived around 11 and lunch isn’t till 1 so myself, Kevin, and Rohit decide to go exploring. We learn that there is a mall just walking distance from the hotel and begin on our merry way. Well,  the trip the mall was definitely my first “real” taste of India. We walked down a dirt road, avoided getting hit by speeding motorcycles and auto rickshaws, and delt with little kid beggars there and back. The two little girls that were begging were unreal. They will not leave your side no matter what you say!! We just kept walking and they followed us. And they wouldn’t stop poking me saying they wanted stuff. Even when we told them to go away, they just didn’t. Anyway, we finally got to the mall and walked around. I love how everyone stares and Kevin and myself since we clearly are out of place. After making a lap around the small mall, we made the trek back to the hotel and on the way picked up three “Thumbs Up” their Pepsi equivalent which was only Rs 30. So Awesome. I guess since I’m referencing money I should give some background on the money system. One dollar is approximately Rs. 45 (Rupees). So yea, three sodas for like 75 cents, what a great deal. It’s lunch time now and after that it’s time to meet my host family!!! Woohooo. I can’t wait.

               

Day 1

6/13

Our early morning exploration of Lodi Gardens.

So, it’s a little weird running a blog and video journal side by side because I write about stuff that I don’t talk about and vice versa. Today we had orientation with the people running each Institution that we are going to be at. Yes, another boring orientation. At least this one was only half a day. The one thing I did learn was from the Indian doctor that came to speak to us, and that was “Hot water each day, keep bad things away.” Today I was hoping we would find out who we were staying with, both host family and potential roommate, but we learned about neither. 

Typical New Delhi street sign.

After lunch we were able to go off on our own for the afternoon in Delhi. Myself, Rhea, Kevin, and Iushi all decided to visit Conaught Place which is a bustling shopping center/market in the center of New Delhi. Riding the New Delhi Metro was an EXPERIENCE!!! If you think the New York City Metro is crowded, think again. Indian’s are great because they are accommodating. I.E., if the bench is designed to hold 4 people, they will fit at least 6. That’s exactly how the metro cars were…. PACKED. I was ridiculously impressed with how clean they are. Granted they are only about 15 years old, but they were pristine. Once at C.P. we went searching for this underground store called Pilkar Bazzar. We were told it was like a Wal-mart Indian style. It was pretty ridiculous. The amount of people in this circular store with rows and rows of vendors was unreal. I have never been touched by so many men in my life. Every vendor owner felt the need to touch me/grab my hand and pull me into their store. At one point, two men had each hand and were trying to pull me different directions into their store. What an experience. I love how everything is ridiculously cheap though. The metro there and back for four people was 98 Rupees (Rs. 98). That’s approximately $2. Yea, 50 cents round trip per person can’t be beat. Now we are back at the hotel and packing up to finally leave New Delhi and exchange it with Lucknow.

Qutb-Minar

After our free afternoon, the program took us to a place called Kingdom of Dreams. Essentially this was Disney meets Las Vegas, India style. Minus the rides. We were so out of place. There were tons of little kids running around, and us. It was neat though that they had restaurants representative of every major state in the country. The only positive aspect of the trek to K of D was that they gave us a card with money that we couldn't cash. I do enjoy it when they tell you that you MUST spend money. Especially free money. 

First full day (Day 1)

6/13

So, it’s a little weird running a blog and video journal side by side because I write about stuff that I don’t talk about and vice versa. Today we had orientation with the people running each Institution that we are going to be at. Yes, another boring orientation. At least this one was only half a day. The one thing I did learn was from the Indian doctor that came to speak to us, and that was “Hot water each day, keep bad things away.” Today I was hoping we would find out who we were staying with, both host family and potential roommate, but we learned about neither. 

After lunch we were able to go off on our own for the afternoon in Delhi. Myself, Rhea, Kevin, and Iushi all decided to visit Conaught Place which is a bustling shopping center/market in the center of New Delhi. Riding the New Delhi Metro was an EXPERIENCE!!! If you think the New York City Metro is crowded, think again. Indian’s are great because they are accommodating. I.E., if the bench is designed to hold 4 people, they will fit at least 6. That’s exactly how the metro cars were…. PACKED. I was ridiculously impressed with how clean they are. Granted they are only about 15 years old, but they were pristine. Once at C.P. we went searching for this underground store called Pilkar Bazzar. We were told it was like a Wal-mart Indian style. It was pretty ridiculous. The amount of people in this circular store with rows and rows of vendors was unreal. I have never been touched by so many men in my life. Every vendor owner felt the need to touch me/grab my hand and pull me into their store. At one point, two men had each hand and were trying to pull me different directions into their store. What an experience. I love how everything is ridiculously cheap though. The metro there and back for four people was 98 Rupees (Rs. 98). That’s approximately $2. Yea, 50 cents round trip per person can’t be beat. Now we are back at the hotel and packing up to finally leave New Delhi and exchange it with Lucknow.