Big Post About Little Adventures

INTERNET IN THE DORMS!!! You may now all skype with me if you wish. My user name is Pink_hubcaps…of course.

You all flatter me far too much with your comments. I know you can’t be that interested in reading about my laundry…lucky for you the last few days have been slightly more amusing.

We are all becoming a little more adventurous in terms of exploring the city. One needs only a steady sense of inner peace and the task of maneuvering the crowded, noisy streets becomes much easier. A group of us ventured out on the bus the other day because it’s the finest transportation that 8 cents can buy. The buses are also a dazzling display of the human capacity for huddling. The experience of riding Hyderabad’s public transportation could be likened to a big, shaky group-hug with dozens of sweaty strangers. Our destination was the Birla Mandir temple, an intricate marble hill-top shrine to many different Hindu deities. It’s a really beautiful location once you find it. The hill overlooks the whole city, and the temple itself is really gorgeous. Unfortunately, you aren’t allowed to bring cameras up to the temple, and it’s pretty hard to get decent pictures from outside. I suppose that makes sense, but it is truly cruel.

From the temple we decided to intentionally get lost, wandering through some quiet urban neighborhoods then right back into noisy crowds. Tired, and needing a break from the crowded streets, we popped into a bakery called Dadu’s. I had never really tried many Indian sweets or desserts before coming here, but I have been pleasantly surprised by every delicious dessert that they serve us at the dorm. Most sweets come in ball form and really exemplify the Indian passion for sugar. We’ve had sugary peanut balls, sugary coconut balls, and my personal favorite “chocolate barfi sweets.” Having had such positive dessert experiences in the dorm, we were all excited to stock up on more tasty things in the bakery, but without any guidance we ended up randomly selecting a pretty strange assortment. One sweet that I tried could really only be described as a “salty dirt ball.” Dadu’s also had an interesting assortment of drinks, so my friend Julia and I both ordered something described on the menu as “salted lime juice.” We imagined it would taste something like a margarita, but we were disgusted to find out it tasted more like tears…or the ocean…

Worn out by our gastronomic adventure, we tried to find our way back to the bus, which we eventually found when we could see through the crowds. Hyderabad is really not known for tourism, so the sight of white people is truly shocking for most locals. I’m slowly becoming accustomed to the pointing, and the occasional stranger trying to snap a picture of you, and the stares of disbelief that say “what is that ghostly figure?!” When we entered the bus the driver along with everyone around us was fascinated. “What country are you peoples coming from?” they wanted to know. A common request has been for American coins. I can’t yet tell if every Indian we’ve met has just been an avid coin collector, or if they’re just aware of the favorable exchange rate. Brenda’s friendliness immediately attracted the attention of a teenage girl who spoke a little English and wanted to know her email address and her phone number and everything about her. Later, an elderly woman took a strong liking to Brenda and me, but didn’t seem to catch on that neither of us speak Telugu. She told us, what I can only assume was her life story and a lot of grandmotherly wisdom while Brenda and I smiled and nodded.

The next day a group of 12 of us ventured to see a really fabulous Bollywood movie in a really enormous movie theater. (Rab ne Bana di Jodi--add it to your Netflix queue immediately.) If you've ever tried to organize 12 college students, you can imagine how disorganized this event was. If you have ever tried to organize anything in India then...well...you get the idea. The epic 4-hour singing and dancing extravaganza was quite an event, but the real highlight of the evening came right before the movie started when we went to the Domino's pizza next to the theater for dinner. We were all sitting around munching pizza when suddenly the whole ceiling shook, a huge ceiling tile crashed to the floor and out of the gaping hole swung a monkey's long tail. The creature frantically scurried back into the hole and through the roof never to be seen again. Everyone looked around for a minute, someone cleaned up the broken tile from the floor, and everything returned to normal.

Today was "Khojo Hyderabad," the final event of our study abroad orientation and I'm going to need a long time to recover from this strenuous day. It was essentially a scavenger hunt where we were divided into small groups and forced to race around the city going to assigned cultural sites. All of the sites they sent us to were really interesting, but the competitive pressure of the event didn't really allow us time to enjoy or explore any of the places we went. Excuse my lack of eloquence, but I really can't remember any details...we went to this weaving place that's run by this eccentric 80 year old woman and saw ladies working on looms. It was really interesting. Some day when I'm not in a city-wide race I'll go back there and provide you with actual information. Then we went to some museum that looked pretty interesting as I ran from room to room but we weren't allowed to take pictures. At the speed we were going, the pictures would have been a blur anyway. Then we went to some nice park...My team didn't win the race, so whatever.

And to conclude this very scattered post, here's a picture my friend took of me because my "dupatta" matched the flowers.