Wedding Time.

Whenever I would talk to someone who had been to India about coming, they would tell me to go to an Indian wedding if I had a chance. With the end of the semester nearing, I was worried I wouldn't be able to go to one. Thankfully, everyone in our study abroad got invited to a wedding last weekend, and it definitely lived up to all the hype. I have tried to explain the experience to people, but others have found a much better way to explain it. Melody said it was: 60% Hollywood A-list party, 20% state fair, 20% carnival. It's pretty accurate. The picture below shows the degrees of separation between us and the groom; also drawn by Melody. It is also described in the great video that Brigitte made. Which is accurate to the whole experience.



http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rNChtD_BuVY

I'm obviously getting much more lazy about these blog posts. T-minus 2 1/2 weeks left in India.

Don't be mad!

Things have been crazy since the end of the Commonwealth Games and our return to school.
Updates!
1. The trip to Sikkim was incredible. I had forgotten how much I missed the mountains, and the Himalayas are beyond incredible. The first part of the week we stayed on a farm and hiked around, visited monasteries, and enjoyed nature. For the latter half of the week we stayed at a orchid nursery, and the owner was kind enough to take us around to some different Buddhist monasteries and explain different aspects of them. Here are some pictures :)





The second week of the games a smaller group of us went down to the Southern state of Kerala. We stayed in a town called Varkala right on the cliff right next to the beach, swam, and laid in the sun. We saw some incredibly sunsets, one of which was from a beach that we ate dinner on. And we celebrated Harold's 21st birthday! After three or so days we went up north to Allepy to do a backwaters tour. A really sweet man took Brigitte and I around on a canoe to the backwaters of the city. It's incredibly to see how much people rely and live their lives on the river. He took us to his sisters house for lunch and we had this really great meal off a banana leaf. It was lovely. That evening we were walking around trying to find a place to eat, and we stumbled upon a
a Hindu temple with a ton of people having a festival for Krishna. There were 9 elephants there, and a ton of shrines and people. And loud music. The next day we went up to Cochin, where our flight was from. There we saw Chinese fishing nets in action. We didn't seem them catch many fish, but it was interesting. I guess the other group got to help out!















So we came back and tried to get back into the groove of things. I heard that the games went pretty well, India got the second most medals. The city seems to be returning back to normal. The weekend after we got back, four of us went to Jaipur. We saw the City Palace, the Hawa Mahal, the Jantar Mantar, and the Ameber Fort. And we rode some elephants! That was really interesting. It was a neat city. Hot, and crowded. Desert-y. This is the view from on top of the Hawa Mahal, which was a womans palace. The white thing poking up is part of the Jantar Mantar which has a bunch of old, accurate, astronomical tools.



The weekend after that is Diwali, the Hindu festival of lights. Andrew's host family invited us over for the festivities, and it was a lot of fun! We ate delicious food, played games, did the ceremonial lighting of candles, walked around the neighborhood to look at all the lights (it's like Christmas!), set off unpredictable fireworks, did puja, and just enjoyed ourselves and each others company. It was really nice to be around a family again. They are a joy.
(the haze in the first picture is from all the firecrackers!)




So that's my update for now. Sorry there weren't a bunch of details. It's been a lot of travelling, and I'm glad to be staying in Delhi for a while. Only one more out of town trip left-Varanasi!

Ps. sorry Cassie, no more monkeys yet.