Adventures

Yesterday we had our first adventure, it was me and 4 other girls and we went to Lingam Pali which is a little commercial district about 10k from campus. We took a rickshaw. There were two girls with us of Indian descant and one speaks Hindi so she negotiated. Once we were there they Indian girls negoiated for blankets (our main goal) while me and the other two white girls waited outside.... people stare at white people just standing around in american clothes but it doesnt really bother me.

we went into a sari shop and one girl tried a bunch on. I would up buying a shirt that i really like. (even tho it has mirrors on it, mom) and then we went around trying to find an alarm clock but failed...

by that time it was like 7:35 and we figured we wouldn' make it back in time for dinner. so we went to a restraunt that someone reccomended. er...

well, we got soft drinks which was fine. the indian girls ordered for us. mine had a hair in it and they sent it back. dinner for five cost about $3. er... given the demeanor of the place i was pretty nervous and def did not want to get sick in the first week. i wound up eating about 4 bites and giving up. on the way back we saw lots of cows in the road hanging out. that was cool.

last night we drank indian wine on the "roof terrace". the wine we had was like Manaschevitz..haha.

today after class we went on another adventure. we took a rickshaw downtown...yikes..

we went to the indian mall which is for rich indians. it was weird. sort of like a mall? well more like a bon-ton. except they had all these pictures with indian models doing "sexy"things, it smelled funny, and they had all these signs like "this is what you want!" I bought a water bottle. I can't believe i didn't bring my nalgene.

Then we tried to walk along the street... but there is no sidewalk and traffic is chaos so you are constantly in danger of getting hit and you are walking over rubble and beggars chase you.

so it was with some western guilt, but mostly justification because the thing was outright unpleasant that we retreated back into the mall. they had a movie theather. we wanted to see an indian movie but they were all in Hindi or Telegu without subtitles so we saw Oceans 13. Well.. I liked Oceans 13. No shame. It was the biggest screen and theater i ever saw. they had an intermission.

well, we've learned that next time we need to get a car and driver, which isnt that expensive, because coming back in the rickshaw was the scariest thing i ever did in my life. he wove in and out of traffic with little care for what was going on anywhere else. its basically a tin wagon, there are handle bars not a steering wheel and he just twisted and turned and went the wrong way in traffic up and back and in front of trucks... he got lost a couple of times and pulled over to ask people. it was harrowing. but.. we came back intact and entertained everyone at dinner with full body demonstrations.

we have homework due tomorrow. :( i dont want to do homework im in india... o yeah im studying in india. boo.

someone should email me: ljm22@pitt.edu