..SouthAsiaRocks..

Well, I decided that this "Funny Things Blog Edition" really only needed one picture... this picture deserves a blog post all it's own... The other day I was at a market called Nehru P1ace. It's a crazy market... it's mostly electronics. You can buy them there and get them repaired... Actually, you can get pretty much ANYTHING repaired there! Here's a prime example... Yes, that man above is getting his zipper fixed (his fly zipper)... WHILE his pants are on! hahaha! The man had two different kinds of plyers and was working on his zipper! I totally took a double take when I saw this and just had to take a picture (which they didn't really appreciate :)). It's one of those things that I just love about this country - you NEVER know what you're going to see or experience!

Yesterday was a national holiday, which means that no busses were running, and everyone was either home, at the malls or at the parade, so the traffic was light! We thought that it would be a good day to visit our friends Deepak and Sunita because they live pretty far out (and without the traffic, it would be faster to get there :) It took us about an hour to get to their house. We live in such a big city, that we can drive for 3 hours and still be in the same city!!! They live in a village within the city. City villages are very different from Rural / Agriculture Villages. This is what their village looks like: Their kids had grown so big in the time since we've been gone!! Aashini had a blast playing with them! (look at that crazy happy face she's making! haha!) Here is Deepak (below) with their youngest son. Sunita had so much fun playing with Aashini and teaching her Hindi words :) The area where they live is very fun. People spend a lot of time on top of their houses - e...

There is a market near our house that sells these things called Kathi Rolls... Adam's favorite is the Egg Chicken Roll. It's pretty much a tortilla with Egg, Chicken, some green stuff (cabbage & stuff), ketchup & spices... Adam loves them! He loves them so much, that when we had some Fun Vols in town, he decided to take them to eat some Kathi Rolls (street food, a risky move)... Well, we all ate one or two (except for one girl - Erica) and EVERYONE (but Erica) got sick!!! Some got sicker than others... Adam was sick for about 2 months - it was pretty bad. Well, now that we are back in South Asia, Adam has really wanted another Kathi Roll :) He said: "It's like riding a horse, if you fall off, you just have to get back on and keep riding"... So he decided that to get over his fear of Kathi Rolls from before, he needed to just eat another one :) So he did... Well, needless to say, he's sick again :) So, the question is.... "Should You Alw...

Our poor wall... We had some water damage... You see, houses here in our part of South Asia are built very close together, and most houses even have walls that touch the house next to them. Our house is like that. Everything was fine... until our next door neighbors tore their house down to build a new one... Well, when they did that, they exposed the bricks in our wall... You see, most houses here are made of bricks, concrete and a little plaster... there isn't insulation or vinyl siding or drywall or anything like that, so if the outside of the wall gets wet, the inside of your house gets wet :) So, our wall had gotten pretty bad, so our landlord said he would fix it... The worker guys came over yesterday to fix it.... Here is our wall Before/During the "fixing".... And here it is AFTER.... Yes, I said after.... Looks much better doesn't it?? Apparently there was more damage than they thought, so after they had been working all day, the wall just fell off! ha...

Here are a few random things I've missed about South Asia while being gone... Cows eating out of dumpsters :) Busy, Crowded, Crazy Markets... ... And funny random things :) I guess that's not that funny, but it made me laugh :)

So last night we took Aashini to the doctor for a check-up, so we decided to walk to the mall for dinner :) We had some AWESOME Turkish food! We had a great time hanging out and chilling for dinner :) The exciting thing was that when we went upstairs we saw that our FAVORITE donut shop had opened up in this mall!!!! The closest one before was an hour away! It's a fun treat to have here and there ;) We bought a dozen of them :) (one of them even has an Oreo topping!) They have some really yummy flavors... but they also have some weird flavors too!!! Take this one for example... the "It's Greek to Me" Donut! It says: "Creamy cheese sprinkled with Italian herbs and topped with olives - a taste of the Mediterranean" haha! ON A DONUT! Then there's the "Mama Mia" Donut! haha! The ingredients are: "A sprinkle of Italian herbs and sauteed garlic on oodles of cheese - just like how mama makes it" haha! Does YOUR mama put cheese a...

Well, as a part of workin' ourselves back into our house and re-adjusting, we stopped by the mall yesterday :) There is only one mall in our area of town (all of the others are about an hour away), and it opened around when Aashini was born, so we didn't have a chance to go to it much before we left. Now there are more stores and more parts of the mall open, so it's exciting :) The main reason we went was to get a baby gate for our 5 (marble) stairs - Aashini things it's fun to climb up and down them... yikes! In the new part of the mall, there's a new foodcourt!! One of my favorite South Asian Restrauants (Haldiram's) is in there! I got to have my favorite "snack" - a Raj Kachori! So, I've been cleaning up our bedroom. We had people staying in our flat while we were gone, but we locked up our bedroom. I covered most everything with sheets or towels, but sometimes a little area was uncovered... you can see in teh picture below that this onsie wasn...

We made it back! The flights were so long (especially our 6 hour layover right off the bat) but we made it!! We flew from Tallahassee to Memphis (where the long layover was) and then Memphis to Detroit (see picture below). It was snowing in Detroit! The only snow we saw all the time in the states was at the airpots! haha! We left Detroit about an hour late because they had to De-ice the plane! I'm from the south so I had no idea that they did that... and that it would take so long! haha! We were an hour late coming into Amsterdam (where it was snowing too!) and had to rush to our gate (it was a blur of wooden shoes!)... When we got in the plane we had to wait about 1.5 hours while they de-iced that plane! So we got into the Captial at about 2:00 am!! When we got home we were welcomed to a rat infestation in our bathroom!!! EWWWW!!!! Aparently, if the toilet isn't flushed for a couple months and dries out, then rats can crawl UP the TOILET!!! yes... nice... They wrecked our ba...

So here are my friends Allison, Reba & Christine... they were all together at a wedding about a year and a half ago and I was sad that I missed everyone together, so Reba "photoshopped" me in the picture :) But! This weekend we got to all see each other in the flesh and take a real picture of the 3 of us! The next day, Christine & I were talking to Reba (who is pregnant and due at the end of January) and we told her that we would like for her to have her baby that weekend so that we could be there. Christine told her that she had some free time on Saturday, so that day would be good for her! haha! I told her about a song that my friend Mandy made up that she sings to pregnant ladies that encourages the baby to come out (... she only mentioned the song around me and I had my baby that week!) ... We thought it was worth a try :) We sang the song to her and she went into labor that night! So.... here we are visiting her in the hospital after she had her baby girl - Ella!...

This past weekend we had a Reunion Get Together with some awesome folks (thanks to Christine!). We all worked together as Youth Interns at FBC Tally for a while. It was so great to get together with everyone!! We've been missing you guys and it rocked to see you!!!! Here is almost everyone that came (give or take a couple of people and a couple of sleeping kids). We took a bunch of silly pictures! Reba (in the black shirt) is preggers in this pic... and the next day I sang Mandy's Baby Come Out song (that is famous in the Captial of South Asia) and she went into labor that night!!! (more on that later)... Another silly picture - haha! You can't even see my face! And another... and these are just the ones I posted... I have a bunch more :) We hung out and ate, went to the park, hung out... and WENT BOWLING!!! I hadn't bowled in a while and I thought I would be awesome at bowling because I am pretty good at Wii bowling .... well, I didn't do so well... My high...

I just included that first picture because I thought it was funny :) We always drive through Atlanta as we're headed back from Tennessee, and this year we decided to take a quick lunch break at the famous restrauant called The Varsity ! It's a fun burger joint :) It's one of those places you just have to go to if you're ever in Atlanta! Aashini loved it :) Afterwards we took Aashini's picture in the parking deck with the Olympic Torch in the background ;) I thought that was fun :)