Back from India!
Just got back from India yesterday, but I was so jet lagged that I could barely function, so apologies for the delayed post.
As cliched as it sounds, I think my time in India can be best summed up by that ever famous Clint Eastwood movie. Here’s a few tidbits:
The Good:
Hanging out with my grandma and having a really great time with her. She was pretty sick/weak when I got there, but our (my mother and I went) visit put her in good spirits, and she’s doing a lot better now!
Playing with my baby cousin, who isn’t really a baby anymore (8th grade!!). Had a blast listening to her tell me the plots of the latest Hindi soap operas, painting each other’s nails and doing each other’s hair. She is such a sweetheart!
The AMAZING shopping! I freaking LOVE the rupee to dollar conversion ( Rs 48 = $1), and the fact that you can still buys tons of things for under Rs 100, like legit things such as jewelry, food, sometimes even clothes. Needless to say I bought a ton of stuff and didn’t break the bank!
The Bad:
The hot weather + people thinking A/C is a luxury. Luckily I was able to handle myself better this time (I spent most of my visit there in a “maxi dress” which kept me cool and took showers at least twice a day, if not more) *this might have been a good thing in disguise, bc I think sweating made me lose 5 lbs in “water weight”*
Learning how dependent I am on my straightener. I didn’t bring it because I couldn’t find a decent converter, and omg my frizzy hair + super humid weather resulted in me looking pretty fucked up for the 18 days I was there
The food. As with many families, mine uses food as a way of showing love. However 6 meals a day was a little too much love for me to handle
The Ugly:
I experienced the worse night of my life while I was over in India. This night involved an overnight train going from Puri (in Orissa) to Kolkata (to West Bengal), and the train was INFESTED WITH COCKROACHES!! Yes, this meant that roaches were not only crawling on the walls next to the bed I was sleeping, so literally inches away from your face, but the roaches also managed to find their way onto my pillow, blanket, you name it. For some reason no one else on the train was fazed by this at all (my baby cousin kept giggling at my misery), so I spent the on the edge of my bunk (which was about 5 feet off the ground) trying to make sure I stayed away from the roaches and at the same time not fall off the bed.
This night also included an Indian transvestite covered in green body paint coming up to me and trying to “bless” me.
…
Overall it was good to see my family, and make it home in one piece. Some other things I learned while I was over there was that
Reading Marquez in a tropical climate makes it SO much better :)
Everyone and their mom wears eyeliner!
My mom is a lot more reasonable than I thought she was
And For Rebecca, I did end up reading all the books I took :) And my favorite Sherlock Holmes story was “The Adventure of the Speckled Band”
