..SouthAsiaRocks..

Adam & I have been here in the capital for the last few days doing some "super-fun-house-hunting"... (that's what I like to call it... even though it's anything but super fun... oh well :)) Anyway, one of our first days here, we met up with Adam's old language helper (Deepansh)... he just recently moved to the capital area... he's been living alone, so he's learned how to cook some and so he invited us over for lunch. He cooked us Dahl and it was really good :) We had fun hanging out with him and catching up :) The next day, we took the metro!! I was super impressed... it's so nice!! I definitely wasn't expecting it to be so nice :) We took the metro to the far northern part of the capital. We were potentially looking for housing up there... You can see the areas we were looking at below and you can also see the metro line on the left side of the picture... pretty impressive :) When we first took the metro - it was morning time, but by th...

You know, it really is the little things that can really make your day... for example... Just the other day, PAPA JOHNS PIZZA opened in a city right outside of the capital!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! Now, I LOVE pizza and what's more, I LOVE Papa Johns!!! It's my favorite pizza place. As unhealthy as that awesome Garlic-Butter Sauce is - Man! Do I LOVE it!! OK, so it just happens to be that Papa Johns Pizza is right on the way as we are driving to the capital - AWESOME! Us and our friends stopped to eat there yesterday as we came into the capital!! It was AWESOME! Now, as you may have noticed, Papa Johns is a little fancier here than it is in the states... it was a whole "sit-down dining experience"... and we didn't just get small containers of that awesome garlic-butter sauce - we got BOWLS of it!!!!!!!!!! Rockon! It was awesome!! The pizza was great and the sauce was great and it totally made my day... (and in case you haven't noticed, I am writing this blo...

So yesterday was Adam's birthday... Now birthday customs are different here... Instead of your friends throwing you a b-day party and bringing you presents, you are supposed to throw them a party and give them presents and sweets :) (they will also give presents to you too) Adam wrote a funny blog about birthdays here :) Check it out :) http://www.SouthAsiaRolls.blogspot.com Well, we went out to eat with some friends and then came home... Sitting by our front door was a present from our landlords... You can see it in the picture below: You can't really grasp this picture by the picture of it... but in person it's pretty funny :) It's really shiny! I like how at the bottom it says "Have a Nice Day!" hahaha it's awesome :)

OK, so my language helper/friend decided that she needed to learn how to sew. She needs to learn for her perspective mother-in-law and she also wants to be able to design and sew her own clothes... Now, the government has places where people can learn to sew... it is 6 days a week and costs 20 rs. a month (about 50 cents)... so Jaya and I decided to try it out. I figured it would be a great way for me to practice my Hindi... and have some fun while doing it :) Jaya and I went to the location that was the closest to our house in order to inquire about the Stitching (sewing) Classes. The class was in a small room on the roof of a t'mple near our house. This is a really interesting t'mple... the group that started this t'mple thought it was wrong to w'ship idols. So in this t'mple, there aren't any idols - it's very different from the other t'mples I have seen here. Well, we walk into the small, hot room and there were about 30 girls in there working on...

OK, so it's Monsoon right now... although it's supposed to be over... We, and another couple in our city planned the day before to go to the coffee shop on the other side of town (ours burned down)... the cool thing about this coffee shop is that it has a field of grass behind it... now, you may not think that is super awesome, but when you live in "the plains"... and it's super dry most of the time... grass is a rare commodity. So we planned on bringing frisbees, a football and all sorts of other toys... this area also had some swings.. So needless to say, we were excited about going the next day... Well, we woke up the next moring and it was POURING RAIN!!! We had been really looking forward to this... (and the other couple has a little girl that was really excited)...so we decided to go anyway to at least have some coffee... So what do you do when it's raining and a little girl is really excited about playing on the playground?? You grab an umbrella :) We...

So, our favorite place that we shop is at the PVS mall... It's the only "western-type" place in our whole city... there's nothing anything like it anywhere else near us...there's a store in the mall that is the closest thing we have to Wal-Mart... it has all the basic stuff that we need all in one store!! (so we don't have to go to a million stores :) Well, one day, while we were up in the mountains we got a TON of phone calls!! Everyone was telling us that there was some kind of short-circuit... and our PVS mall had pretty much burned up.... It was a very sad thing :( Our favorite store is GONE!!! :( Well, ends up, that the whole mall wasn't damaged... so our two western restrauants (Pizza Hut & McDonalds) might be opening in the next couple of days :) Which would be awesome!! I"ll keep you posted :) WHile we were up in the mountains, I got an email from my sister telling me that she sent me a postcard from Chicago, but she forgot to put the pos...

We're home now... our train ride home was nice and easy :) We sat by the window, so we were able to plug in our laptop and watch movies on our ride home :) It was cool :) We came with 2 bags and left with 4 (not unusual for us :)) It wasn't difficult to get onto the train because there are a bunch of coolies (porters) to help with your luggage and to help get it on the train... BUT when we arrived in our city, we had 2 minutes to get all our heavy bags off the train and ourselves, before the train left again :) But no problem :) We made it out and our taxi, that we had called in advance, was waiting for us :) Nice!! Now, the heat hit us pretty hard, but it was nice to dry out a little bit :) I decided I'd use this blog to post some last pictures from our mountain trip :) The picture on the left is the picture I promised when we first got there, of our tiny doorways :) Now you can see why I bumped my head so many times :) We had fun with the tailors there... there were lots ...

This past weekend we decided we were going to have some fun and brave the Cable Car :) Cable Cars themselves aren't necessarily scary, but here they definitley can be :) It was a pretty funny one... we got in and they took us to the top of the mountain it was attached to. It was a pretty cool view. At the top of the mountain were a few shops and restrauants and TONS of places to get your picture made! We dressed up and took some funny pictures!! I look like a dork :) We had lots of fun! There were a lot of people watching us too... everyone wanted to get their picture with us... I felt like a movie star :) And if you thought I looked funny.... hhahaha - Adam and our friend John posed in this funny style :) This little girl (below) was getting her picture made before us... the costume was a little too big for her :) It was cute :) OK, so this picture makes me Laugh!!!! This was one of the cable car operators!! He was just sitting (facing the opposide direction that the cable car w...

There are two kinds of monkeys up here where we are staying… One is the monkey… I don’t know it’s real name, but everyone just calls this one a “monkey”… we have these all over the country, even in the capital and where we live. These are the regular brown ones that I have a lot of pictures of. Now, there’s another kind of monkey up here that is mostly only found in colder places… it’s call the Langur. It’s really cool!! They are big monkeys that are black and white in color (see the picture). They have really long tails and can do really cool jumps and tricks. The Langur are nicer than the monkeys and they tend to keep to themselves and eat leaves (the monkeys like to eat trash and people food a lot… they also like to steal it out of your hands!). Monkeys are really fun to look at – they do the funniest things!! There’s just a couple of rules when dealing with any kind of monkeys… 1. Don’t look them in the eye or show your teeth to them unless you want to fight 2. When walking around ...

Can you believe it!! We've been in country one year as of today!! One year!!!! Whoa! Time has really flown... well, most of the time (when it was 115 degrees and our AC was broken... time didn't go so fast... :)) But it has really gone fast!! One year!!! Yesterday we had a celebration at school and some little girls were there and eating sweets - I thought this girl was really cute :) They have the funniest thing here in the market!!! I didn't realize what it was until the other day :) I would see a lot of older men pushing children in "strollers" here in the market... I just assumed that it was the grandpa or something... but sometimes we would see them walking around with empty strollers... hmmm... It's funny because we haven't seen many (if any) strollers the entire time in country... Well, we finally figured it out!! It ends up that he's a coolie!! (or a porter)... The coolies walk around the market with empty strollers and ask people with childre...

Up here in the mountains, when they say monsoon season - they mean it!!! We have had sooo much rain! When we first got here it was sunny outside and we thought it would rain some, but be sunny a majority of the time :) hahaha When we first got here, this is what it looked like out our front door : And that night: BUT... this is what it looks like most days: It rained for 8 days straight!! And I'm talking about heavy rains!! We even have to walk to class (about a 20 min walk) in the rain (up hill too :) don't I sound like a grandma now :) hahaha Luckily this past weekend we had a break from the rain during the day and we actually got some of our clothes to dry!! whoo hoo!! Everyone lays their clothes anywhere and everywhere in order to try to get them dry :) It's fun! Everybody has these HUGE golf umbrellas they carry around with them at all times during this season. I bought a fun bright colored one :) Whoo hoo! We're having fun and learning a lot! It ROCKS!

Well, I had a run-in with a leach and a scary spider yesterday... Yesterday, Adam & I walked down into the market to get some stuff, and before we headed back, we stopped at a coffee shop. While we were drinking our coffee, I felt something funny on my foot... so I looked down and this is what I saw... (viewer discression is advised :) I know, it's gross looking - It freaked me out! The locals at the coffee shop just looked at it and said "jaunk" (kinda prounced Junk) - which means Leach... and then looked away - as if it was a normal thing :) One of the guys said... oh, it's just a leach, the leach it gone, just wash off your foot when you get home :) haha YUCK!! It's funny because I didn't even feel it! Crazy hunh? Then, we were out hanging out with some friends last night, and we came back to our cabin and there was a HUGE spider inside!! Adam tried to get it (while also getting video of it) and he missed it... so the spider crawled inside of the back ...

Adam and I are having fun here at language school... they forgot to put us on the schedule this week (seems to be a common problem here... it was us and about 5 other people that were forgotten) - so we've been scrounging (sp?) for classes this week. I've only had a few classes and I have already learned soooo much - it rocks!! Adam and I got stuck in the middle of a monkey fight today!! It was a little scary!! The dog that lives at our guest house area (the landlord's dog) always comes with us when we leave the house. Today we were going down to the city, and he followed us... we got to a pack of monkeys and he decided to try to chase a small one... well, the big HUGE males all got on the wall and started making these attacking monkey noises (can't really explain it...) and the dog hid behind us!! We were trying to move out of the way, but the dog stayed with us and monkeys didn't get any less mad... then the biggest monkey came and ran after the dog and pushed pa...