Simple Joys...

So my simple joy today is that Sellers and Jules both have adopted the phrase "simple joys"...
Sellers... http://outtakesfromindia.blogspot.com
Jules... http://julia22gulia.blogspot.com

So to carry on the tradition..here are some of my simple joys...

• showers with water pressure
• Dr. Pepper
• ice cubes
• lightning bugs
• coffee shops
• hammacks
• porches with a porch swing
• flowers
• summer rain
• my bunny fluff blanket
• coffee
• toe socks
• seasons 1-5 of 24
• mountains
• hugs
• hobby lobby
• oil paints
• charcoal and pastels
• Sweet iced tea!
• Cornbread
• microwaves
• stretched canvases
• Veg momos
• eating with my fingers
• art galleries
• Seller's future telling stories
• Banana bread
• yaks
• christmas lights
• my family
• surprises
• Bollywood movies
• sunsets - never up early enough for sunrises!
• a good book
• jasmine tea with honey
• blue skies with big fluffy clouds
• handwritten notes
• piano
• jazz music
• dance lessons
• smiling and laughing
• good jokes
• corny jokes
• jet skiis
• packages
• riding with uncle ji to town on his scooter
• holidays with my family
• tyler candles
• Sarees
• Friends' quotes
• Target's clearance section
• The Denton square
• fun picture taking excursions with friends
• Roadtrips at random hours
• I agree with Sellers... comments on my blog

What is your simple joy for today????

So long Sandwich City...

So simple joy of the week... drinking a mocha from a very large cup in a real coffee shop with air conditioning... Maybe we should open a coffee shop in Nimda*but i don't think it would be the same. Besides we would probably drink all our proceeds.Our last night in town, we went to Bennigans - it was so good! However the strange thing was the table topper - it announced we could get delicious steaks!! It didn't say what Kind of steaks they were or what they were made of...so we opted for chicken....

Emily's sis and bro flew in on Saturday so we went on a crash course Delhi tour...
We saw the India Gate - a war memorial to all the Indians who died in the Afghan wars and WW1.
Then we went to see the Lotus Temple. It kind of reminds me of the Sydney opera house from its design. =)
This is the India Gate...if you turn around from this spot you can see Parliament.

Below is a picture of the Lotus Temple.

Welcome to one of the few green spots of the sandwich city!! the grounds are immaculate - not a piece of trash anywhere with security guards posted on every corner so you don't step on the grass. This is the Lotus Temple or as we call it - the bloomin onion. This is a temple designed so that people of all religions can come together.

We made it!!

Two weeks of intensive Hindi class...
Lindsey said it best.

I found that i know Hindi better now but have realized how much i really didn't know english.

Our teacher was so GREAT! She was very patient and laughed a lot - mostly at us but that's beside the point... she would always tell us.."Yes, yes there is much influence of other languages... so this word is actually Urdu and this word is Sanskrit. "Then she would say," this is Punjabi or of Punjabi influence - don't say that." It was pretty funny since our town has a lot of Punjabi influence and a lot of what the people in our town say is what she told me not to say...


Jules and I decided to celebrate finishing our class (indian style)...

A whaat??

What do you mean what is a rickshaw??

So i forget that everyone does not know what an auto rickshaw is..so here ya go.

This is for you Molli!!!

PROCRASTINATION:A Lost Art..... what happens when you SHOULD be conjugating transitional verbs in accordance with its postpositions

Grammar does things to you... but we really are learning!!!

 

The Great Sandwich City

Me and my roomie while i'm here - Megan but i just know her as Meggers.
She teaches English in the slum with "Happy" the coughing dog.

Lindsey, Emily, Julie, and me....
Reason 12,973 why this place is great...
fun friends while attending grammar class!!
How else can you conquer transitive nouns and postpositions??



This is for you boys....
you shouldn't leave pictures on my desktop!! haha.
You never know who you'll meet when you come here -
we hung out with these fun guys while they were in town before they flew back to the States.
See! you too can climb a big mountain so there is no need to go to Nepal like everyone else.
Just come here!!

 

More wanderings..a few pictures

A view of Nimda* from another hill.
Here is Beth while we took a break for lunch - it was so beautiful!

Little America with Asian flare

We went for a visa run to thailand -it was amazing! this is a picture of the city we stayed in.
This is the hotel we stayed at... it was soo nice even by american standards. The fact that it had hot water on demand and a shower with tub was enough for me!

But of course after like an hour of being in country we went straight to the massage place to get foot massages - they cost about 4 bucks for an hour. And by foot massage they meant foot, hands, arms, legs, head, neck, and back massage. Then afterwards we ate american food, visited my long lost friend Mr. Starbucks, then went shopping at the sunday market.

After a few days of classes i spotted a very familiar looking red soda can on someones table. After a quick investigation of the situation, i found the exact location of a grocery store that carried these contents. Even more exciting was that when we entered the supermarket...it was a real store...with shopping carts! and it had AC and even Ben and Jerry's. We had to stand in awe bec it even had a cereal aisle. We were pretty amazed. However, after the initial shock of this most magnificent store wore off, we scoured the store and successfully completed our mission.... The thai girl that checked us out giggled when we stood in line....Between the 4 of us we had about 36 cans of none other than Dr. Pepper - oh yes.

We went with a group of people for dinner on a river boat. It was beautiful! We left as the sun was setting and the food was delicious. Great hang out time and relaxation.

However on a different night we ate on the river and a friend ordered the following dish since it was in season... YUMMMMMMMM! I love bamboo worms this time of the year!

We did make it to the Zoo where we walked more than actuallysaw animals. There were elephants, hippos, koalas, pandas, camels, giraffes, etc. It was really hot but i still enjoyed it! One afternoon we went sightseeing up a mountain. We stopped to see the Buddist temple towards the top. You had to climb a million steps to get up to it. The grounds there were immaculate. There were tons of university students walking up and down the mountain to get to the temple.

On our way home.... delirious and goofy. We arrived in the great sandwhich city after the sun had gone down and the temperature read 104 degrees at 8 pm. That's just wrong. However our passports were stamped and we could stay another 6 months in our country.

We stayed a couple of days in the Great Sandwhich City, picked up our volunteer and headed the 10 hours back up into the mountains to our beloved Nimda*.

Marriage....marriage is what brings us together today

Uncle ji took us to a wedding at his village.... it was really fun - really long but fun! And we only went to one day of the festivities... most shaddis or marriage ceremonies last anywhere from 3-7 days.
Our tailor was making a blouse for my saree and when she found out that i was going to a wedding, grabbed a jewelry box from her room and told me to wear it. Evidently it was her daughters... i felt very honored.

The first picture is of the barat - which is where the groom and the grooms family, friends, and a band parades in. Its pretty insane, tons of dancing and yelling and drums and untuned instruments all parading towards you...







Here are pictures from part of the marriage ceremony. The picture with the hands was taken before the mother of the bride pours water from a vase type holder over her daughters head so that it drips into the teardrop shaped holder and into the large bowl below.
This is the bride... i got to meet her before the ceremony began. She was all smiles until it was time to take a picture.. It is customary for the bride to look sad...traditionally it would dishonor her family because she is supposed to be sad to leave her family and now join her husband.

And this is me and my language helper... this is her saree that i am wearing.... she can't wear the colors white or black the first year or two of marriage so she wanted me to wear it since she couldn't.

Welcome Home!

Welcome to our house....

home of bucket baths, electricity outages, no A.C., night enemies, mangoes, and monkeys!

This is my side of the room... Beki has the other half.

This is our "formal sitting"

If you turn around you will see the "lounge area"

From the formal sitting if you turned right you would see the dining room

Here is our squatty....jealous?

Cooking with Papa Ji

We were invited downstairs to our landlord's flat for dinner. It was a special holiday that i couldn't pronounce little alone spell it for you. We ate food that is only found here in this area. I was invited into the kitchen which was pretty exciting - you don't wear shoes in the kitchen and only when you are considered part of the family do you usually get to go in someone else's kitchen.
This is Auntie ji and her sister that lives with them for now.... They are great!!

This is Papa ji cooking, he calls himself the cooking assistant since his wife did most of the work. But we have learned that he's a pretty good cook himself. And yes you also cook on the floor. Beki and I are trying to master what we call the indian squat...we are making progress however our ankles aren't strong enough yet. Basically you squat but your feet are flat on the ground.... You should try - its harder than it sounds.

Goomna (wandering)

Well we were walking the town and heading outside of the main market area when a lady started talking to us and told us to come to her house... strange thing about this culture - they don't ask you to come to their house, they tell you and sometimes don't really give you a choice. We had chai and visited with her a while.... and met her family and were invited to stay in her home the next time we were in town!

Here is a pic of one of the main temples in town.

Anyone notice something strange
about this 24 hour ATM...?


We were pretty excited about our mini trek...

it was only "7 km" to this lake.... or so they said.

Funny thing about tourism in our state...they forgot to mention that it was all downhill and you just follow the road....and the "lake" is more like a river with a lot of fish on steroids and big rocks. Seriously these fish were huge, several of them had to have been at least 3 ft long. We were a bit disappointed with our really challenging trek but now we know and we took the bus back.

So, i think we're going to make shirts....

with a picture of marijuana leaves on it.

You may call me Mary and Beki will be called Jane...

Yes, this is us in patch of what has become a very familiar plant..

And this sign on a building was just plain funny..

One afternoon i was sitting outside reading and journaling when group of ladies came up to me and i found myself whisked away to their home.

Hi, my name is april and yes i am a giant...