6

Sleepy pup on a cold night

1

Happy New Year! 

Post-midnight cheer in Richmond

Qawwali

awsome qawwali

Charli XCX

I work for you all alone, in the field of lies I won't go home

First Week in Italia

It's been almost two weeks since I arrived in Arma di Taggia. Since then, I have spent many afternoons walking around the town, trying all flavors of gelato and granita, and lying on the beach. I have also started officially babysitting and tutoring in English. Though my schedule varies from day to day, I'm always upstairs and ready to go by 9:00 AM, when Luisa leaves for work (Massimo has already left by then). I wait until I hear Emma shouting, "Mama!" from upstairs (meaning she has woken up) and go and get her and start the morning by watching cartoons. Mostly we watch Pippi Longstocking (the film from the 70s that we have in the US has been edited and dubbed into a TV series in Italy that is just airing now! So weird.), which Emma loves (good for me because less screaming is involved than with other activities). We try to sing along to the intro song, but we can only sing the part when they say, "Pip-pip-pip-pip-piiiiipppiiiii," me because I don't speak Italian, and Emma because she is 2. I get a little bit confused when Emma says Pippi, because it's pronounced "pee-pee" which is the same thing as when she has to pee; we've had a few issues with the yellow peepee stuff...

The porch at Luisa and Massimo's house (where we eat most meals).

View of the beaches from the house.

Anyway, after Peepee (the redhead girl with braids, not the yellow stuff), we usually go play outside. And by play I mean run around and throw things, usually dolls, into the pool. Sometimes we throw balls over the fence and then we can't use them anymore (because we live on a mini mountain, so over the fence = down the mountain), and sometimes we actually kick the balls to each other (I think Emma will make a great soccer player someday). Sometimes we go in the pool for a little baño, but sometimes we shout instead. At around noon, either we go to the grandmother's house or the grandmother comes to our house and makes "pa-pa" (babyfood) for Emma, and lunch for me/the family (the constant refrain in the household is that Luisa is a terrible cook so I guess the grandparents want to make sure their grandchildren are eating). I think eventually I will be alone with Emma until 2 when Luisa gets home, but they are trying to ease her into being with me (which I think is working...).

Scott! Ciao Scott! He eats everything except lemons but including plastic.

 In my afternoons I help Nico with his English homework for about an hour (though this week and next week he is at tennis camp). He is hilarious and very personable, so even if he doesn't really like doing his homework, we have fun. I'm burning him a CD of American music since he seems to share my taste for danceable techno beats (i.e. Calvin Harris/David Guetta. He has to translate an English song into Italian for homework, and he chose Calvin Harris' "Drink from the bottle"). After this, I usually head into town and walk around or to the beach. I've found a new spot on the rocks at a public beach that is a little bit of a walk from the house and away from the more crowded beaches in the center of town. It's really peaceful and is a great spot for swimming!

View from one of my walks down the coast, such clear water, notice the couple in the water on the right for a sense of scale.

Peace rock. Bliss.

This past weekend the Carleton alum who contacted me for this position invited me and the other 3 Carleton students who are working as au pairs here to her house. She lives about 15 minutes away, into the valley behind Taggia and up the side of a mountain. She drove the four of us in her tiny car up all the bends and turns in the road to her isolated country cottage. Basically, she and her husband bought this run-down, centuries-old stone shack and slowly rebuilt/remodeled it themselves. It was adorable and just as one would imagine an Italian country home to be, i.e. kitchen with a brick, domed ceiling, a woodstove fireplace, grape vines hanging above the patio, roses growing up the stone walls of the house...it was lovely and the perfect getaway from living with a family of five. At night as I was falling asleep, I noticed that the air coming through the window above my head even smelled different--fresher, more like grass. The five of us had a great time drinking wine, eating cheese, and reminiscing about Carleton (then and now) into the wee hours of the night on Lynn's patio. It was also nice to have her two dogs, Q and Ruffolino (another golden!), around.

View from Lynn's house.

Lynn's patio with beautiful views and a ceiling of grapes!

 We slept at her house on Saturday night, and then on Sunday we went out and drove through some of the surrounding valley towns. We stopped in Badalucco for gas and a snack, and went to a secluded spot on the River Argentina to go skinny dipping, crossing an old Roman bridge in order to get there. The river was freezing, but very clear and very nice to swim in after a short hike.

Roman bridge, looks a lot smaller than it is.

Climbing down to the River Argentina.

高山，流水

Streets of Badalucco

This weekend I might venture into Nice/Monaco, which are both less than an hour away from Arma, but I need to start planning! At the very least, I'll head into San Remo, the nearest city. Luisa and Massimo promised me to get their old bike out, and there is a great bike path that runs between Arma and San Remo. I plan on taking advantage of it now that I've practiced biking with Sara, ;).

Ciao tutti!

Arrival

Yesterday at around 11:30 I got into the Nice airport after a quick layover in New York and a 9-hour flight (on which I got to see fireworks all across New York from the plane--stunning). Customs and baggage claim went very smoothly, in fact customs was no more than a woman glancing at and stamping my passport--no arrival form/declaration thing needed. Also there was only one person in line. Crazy and so different from the past few places I've been.

I waited in the airport for my family to pick me up, and after a bit of a struggle trying to connect with them, just when I was about to go buy an Italian simcard so I could call the woman who arranged this, I saw a boy holding a sign with my name on it. This was Nicolo, the 13-year-old son. He took me to his dad, Massimo, who was buying a chocolate croissant to have as a snack. I found out later on that they had accidentally gone to the wrong terminal, but all was well! We drove the 45-50 minutes from Nice to Arma di Taggia, a beautiful drive along the coast through the tiny towns between France and Italy. We also passed by Monaco--maybe I will go there for a weekend!

At around 2:00, we arrived at their beautiful house in Arma. The house is three stories. The second When you come inside, you enter the second floor which is basically a big open space with a kitchen and living room. It leads to the wooden patio outside where we ate lunch. They have a tiny pool on the patio (which they really take advantage of--I feel like a lot of American families have these large pools outside that they rarely swim in, but here the pool is just a few meters wide/long yet someone is constantly taking a dip before/after meals) and an amazing view which overlooks the whole town and the Mediterranean right below them. The bottom floor has a pool table, a couch, a laundry room, another nice porch area, my bedroom, and the bedrooms of Nicolo and the other son, Lorenzo, who is 17. The top floor is Luisa (the mother) and Maximo's room and bathroom, and I think Emma (the daughter) sleeps in their room as well. They live a short walk up the mountain from the beach (very steep on the way back! Similar to the walk to Spars Lodge in Shimla, but longer/at a lower altitude).

Yesterday afternoon I took a short nap and then went to the beach with Luisa and Emma. Luisa showed me the salon that she works at. They had some cousins over for dinner, which consisted of two giant pans of homemade focaccia, one giant pot of handmade pasta with prawns, some Italian wine, and homemade gelato for dessert. I think I'm going to need to run more often...

Anyways, it sounds like I will have weekends off, so today I'm just planning on exploring the town a little bit more, and maybe hitting the beach. Then the real work starts Monday...

Ciao!

Eurotrip: Au Pair Edition

In a few hours I'm heading to Dulles airport to catch my plane to Nice, France. From the airport in Nice, I will head to Arma di Taggia, Italy (about an hour away by car), where I will begin my job as an au pair for a family of five! The mother's name is Luisa, and she has three kids who are 2, 13, and 17--quite a big age range! My job is to take care of the 2-year old while the parents are at work and to speak English with the two older boys. Arma di Taggia is a tiny town on the Italian Riviera (hellooo Mediterranean!), so I'm also supposed to make daily trips to the beach with the kids. Rough life, huh?

Coast/Arma di Taggia

More pictures and stories to come upon my arrival : )

Seawolf/Josh Ritter Come to Carleton

So apparently this Josh Ritter character is a pretty big deal? Anyway, I went to the concert last night and it was fun, though I was starting to get sleepy after Seawolf played and I thought most of the Josh Ritter songs sounded very similar to each other. However, I did appreciate how enthusiastic Josh Ritter and his band were. They sort of reminded me of the tabla players that did a concert for us at the program center in India. Anyway, I really liked this song by Seawolf. Enjoy!

Sharks, Korean Pancakes, and Ice Cream

A warm hello from Auckland! This Monday marks the beginning of my third week away, my second week in Auckland, and my first time using internet since I've left! Our first week was spent on the small island of Rarotonga, living in little apartment-style rooms at the "Paradise Inn", going for morning snorkel excursions, eating heaps and heaps of passion fruit, searching for the perfect cowrie shell along the beach, and occasionally drawing some palm trees. I went on my first SCUBA dive(!!!) since certification which was AWESOME to say the least. I felt like I was inside a giant aquarium. The water was SO clear and SO blue, and some highlights were seeing a spotted eagle ray and a shark! I can't wait to go again when we get to the Great Barrier Reef. Saw some pretty cool fish while snorkeling as well--two rays, a sea turtle, giant clams, a large school of trumpet fish, and two very large flounder hiding on the bottom.

For the past week in Auckland, we have spent every day in the print studio from 9-5 with a break for lunch. I chose to do relief prints, so I did my first woodcut last week and am starting in plastic this week. My first print was a tree--wood on wood, so "meta" right? It's a lot of fun, and I really like how tactile the wood is to work with. The studio is located very close to the busiest section of Auckland (which is still incredibly tame compared to every other city I've been to) which means any variety of foreign cuisine is available for lunch, from Korean pancakes to Chinese dumplings to falafel kebabs to excellent sushi to mango lassis. It's lovely, and it makes up for the terrible dining hall food for dinner. In the evenings, I've been exploring the city with friends, trying out different gelato places and walking to the wharf to sketch the boats and sit in the wind. It stays light until about nine PM, which is great. Tomorrow I'm going to see Crystal Castles, which should be really fun. This past weekend the whole group went to a Marai to stay with a Mauri tribe. We were welcomed into their home like family and slept in one giant room all together. We went swimming in the river and ate some yummy smoked eel for dinner! The whole family was so sweet, and there is much more to say about how heart-warming the experience was, but I'm running out of internet time! So I will elaborate more on that later. Anyways, warm greetings from New Zealand, and I will write again before departing from Auckland on Saturday.

Off to the South Pacific

Tonight I'm heading down to Raratonga, the capital of the Cook Islands and the first stop on my 3-month adventure in the South Pacific! I'm going on a studio art program that focuses primarily on printmaking and mixed media drawing, but throughout the entire trip we hike and snorkel and SCUBA and explore! Other places on the agenda are New Zealand (mostly the North Island) and Australia. So yesterday I took a flight from DC to LA, and after a brief visit with my family I am flying south towards summer weather. Internet will be intermittent since I am not bringing my computer (instead I have five homemade sketchbooks and flippers), but I will try to post when I am in larger cities, the first being Auckland sometime early next week. Wishing everyone a most joyful 2013!

PS: Everyone should see South Pacific, the musical! It's grand.

A Cuppa Chai

So it's definitely been getting colder up here in Minnesota. We had a beautiful first few weeks of October, and then last week the temperature suddenly dropped. It was an overcast week and weekend, but today (even though it's still chilly) the sun finally came out again!

In celebration of the cooler weather, I've been making more and more warm things to drink and eat. Sunday is the evening that I cook for my house, and two Sundays ago I made my mom's delicious pot roast for the first time! It was the perfect cold weather food, though ironically I think it was rather warm that day...

I also made some delicious chocolate pudding, and in a moment of inspiration added a scoop of peanut butter and some chocolate chips to the middle of each cup. Heated up in a microwave, the peanut butter and chips melted into the pudding, YUM.

This past Sunday I made a traditional Ethiopian sweet potato and lentil Wat (stew) along with some lachha parathas, which were so yummy. I forgot how easy it is to make parathas/chapatis once you get into the swing of them. Definitely going to go back to making chapatis when I want a dipping vehicle.

Over the summer I was making a lot of chai when I got back from India, but I stopped after making it a couple of times at the beginning of the school year. Today I was really in the mood for some nice hot, spicy and sweet chai so I made a cup. I forgot how much I love it: the smell of crushed cardamom, the way the liquid slowly turns from pale white to a creamy gold as the tea leaves boil, and the way the first sip warms your whole body. Drinking chai is almost like a spiritual experience for me. Drinking it immediately calms me. I feel cozy and refreshed afterwards.

If I have learned anything from my attempts at cooking Indian food, it's that there is no objectively "correct" recipe for anything--everyone has their own combination of spices that they use to make each dish. Here's a recipe for chai that works well for me, but freshness of spices, type of milk, variety of tea, and even what kind of pot you are using will change the flavor.


Chai Tea (makes one large mug of tea)

Ingredients:
3/4 cup milk (I have been using 1%)
3/4 cup water
1 1/2 tsp black tea (darjeeling is good)
3 whole cardamom pods
2 small pieces cinnamon bark
1 whole clove
TINY piece fresh ginger (about the size of one whole clove, but add more if you like spicier tea)
Sugar to taste (I use 1-2 teaspoons, depending on my mood)

Put the water, milk and tea leaves in a small pot on stove over medium heat. Crush the spices (does not need to be fine--just make sure the cinnamon and cloves are broken up a little and the cardamom pods are open) with a mortar and pestle and then add them to the pot. Stir. Bring the mixture to a boil and turn heat off or very low. Add ginger and stir in sugar if using. Let sit for about three minutes and then bring to a boil again. Pour and serve immediately!

good song

Made in China

Written September 18, 2010

So I’ve been in China for exactly a week today, and what a week it has been.  I feel like I’ve been here for months.  I’ve strolled along paths lined with willows and lotus ponds, passed by elderly couples dancing the Chinese waltz in the park, climbed the knee-length steps of the Great Wall, wandered through the palaces of the Forbidden City, walked the longest corridor in the world, tried my hand at Chinese calligraphy, navigated the crowded Beijing subway and bus system, eaten five types of dumplings and Beijing Kaoya (roast duck), peed in seatless toilets, and bargained with the vendors in the silk street market.  Every day is new and exciting.  In fact, because each day varies so much from the day before and is so different from what I’m used to, I have no field of reference, making it nearly impossible for me to form a solid opinion about the country and my experience here so far. 

I will write more about daily life later.  Let’s talk about the name of this entry for a second: Made in China.  Most things that you buy in America are made in China.  You go into a store and buy a washcloth or a pair of headphones and you don’t think twice about where they come from, that someone--who probably makes less than a dollar a day and lives in a run-down room in the outskirts of a small town, perhaps close to the Great Wall, halfway around the world, with no clean water and breathing air containing the amount of tar equivalent to smoking a pack of cigarettes a day--made that object available for you to buy.  That one washcloth is that person's sole means of survival.  He or she can’t afford it but can make it for someone else. 

Most things that you buy or use in China are also made in China.  Except these things are different.  China is known for cheap prices but items of often poor quality.  You can probably buy that exact same pair of headphones in China, but rather than producing high quality sound, they might turn fuzzy after a day or two, or one of the ear pieces might fall off.  These items are often the rejects: the ones with defects that weren’t deemed good enough to be exported.  Why is it that the country that makes the items doesn’t even get to have the first pick of them?

Chinese products are full of irony.  For example, one thinks the purpose of a shower is to clean.  Well, your shower head might be functional, but instead of spreading the water out in a flow that easily washes shampoo and soap off of you, it might let the water flow in a trickle that isn’t really strong enough to clean off any bath products, even if the water pressure in your bathroom is generally relatively strong.  The object itself works, but not in such a way that fulfills its intended purpose. 

Someone said to me that the Chinese just have lower expectations for what they buy and that Americans expect more quality for their dollar.  Do we as Americans expect too much? If you buy a lamp and it works but it doesn’t illuminate your desk enough to read, is that okay?

In a way, both societies are materialistic.  The common saying repeated here is that Americans work and live to acquire objects, and the Chinese make objects to work and live. 

Maybe its better not to put so much importance on having things that work.  If your bed breaks, maybe it shouldn’t be such a big deal.  At least you were lucky enough to have that bed.  Or maybe the bed isn’t important at all.

Next time you buy something or use something, look at where it was made. Think about it.

Qingdao Midterm Break

***Written during my trip to China in Fall 2010***

Right now I am in the lounge of Kaiyue International Youth Hostel in Qingdao, China.  Qingdao is a coastal city in between Tianjin and Shanghai known for its beaches and its beer.  In fact, they sell Tsingtao (old spelling of Qingdao) beer in the States.  Everywhere you go, you see tons of kegs of beer sitting on the streets outside of restaurants and little convenience shops.  Our most recent discovery is beer in a bag.  A little old Chinese woman who calls herself “Mama” (we have now dubbed her 'Mama Pijiu') has this tiny little store the size of a small walk-in closet from which she sells drinks, shampoo, ice cream, and cigarettes.  She has a couple of kegs of beer outside and pours it into plastic bags, which she then weighs on a tiny scale to determine how much the beer costs.  She then pokes a hole in the bags with a straw so you can sip as you walk.  The real problem arrives if your bag breaks while you are walking.  

The group with Mama Pijiu

The beaches here vary from dirty sand and cloudy water crowded with tons of people to beautiful light-sandy beaches with relatively clear water and fewer people.  The latter is readily available to us a couple of blocks down from our hostel.  Beach #6 is right next to the train station and a bus stop, and the boardwalk above it is crowded with vendors selling a sort of stale pita bread and fried squid on a stick.  Lots of vendors have loud speakers and shout at you, trying to sell English-speaking tourists boat rides. There are also people dressed up as characters (i.e. sheep) from a Chinese animated children’s show called Xi-Yang-Yang.  It’s funny because even though locals say “hello” whenever they see foreigners like us walk by, they really don’t know if we speak English, or where we are from in general, which is kind of comforting.  I heard someone ask one of their friends if they thought I was French.  My friend was asked if he was Australian.  I’m glad that people don’t look at me and immediately know I’m form the States, though I don’t think being from the U.S. leaves the same negative impression here that it does in other countries, since people here seem to generally look up to the U.S.

Xi-Yang-Yang characters, Beach #6 in the background

On one of the first few days here, a couple of the guys in our group met this Chinese woman named Ping Ping who runs a business that helps Chinese students get into and study in universities in the States.  She lives in Beijing but is currently in Qingdao on holiday, plus she grew up in Qingdao.  She speaks English very fluently because her husband is American.  She sort of took us under her wing since her nephew is trying to learn English and she wanted him to practice speaking with us.  So on Monday we all met at the bus stop close to our hostel and hopped on the 2-hour-long #304 bus (standing the whole way!) to Laoshan, a beautiful mountain on the coast of Qingdao known for its fresh spring water and beautiful scenery.  We all sort of wandered along part of the road until we came to a little pathway that took us down onto some cliffs above the water.  We climbed the cliffs down to the water and sat there for a bit, which was very nice, and the views were spectacular.  We then got lunch, which Ping Ping ordered for us since we have no idea what any of the characters for shellfish are, and sat on the beautiful sandy beach for a while.  I collected some shells and the boys went swimming and then we caught the 2-hour bus back.  The bus was so crowded on the way back that even though I was standing up I didn’t need to hold onto anything because there was no space for me to fall into.  For dinner we went to a place run by a Chinese woman with HUGE hair, sort of like Marge from the Simpsons, but not blue.  Our final dish was a whole fish cooked in some sort of sweet sauce.  Two guys from a group of three other Americans that we have been hanging out with ate the eyes, which are supposed to be a delicacy here!

Cliffs we hung out on at Laoshan

Fish DEVOURED, no eyes left

Yesterday we got up even earlier (my alarm was set for 6:47!) and went to the same mountain again with Ping Ping and her nephew, but this time to a different side. We ended up at someone’s vacation home on a cliff on the mountain.  It’s still unclear to me whose home it was, but  it was one of Ping Ping’s friends.  One of the men staying in it took us all fishing off the coast of the mountain in a little wooden boat.  We didn’t catch very much, but the views were spectacular and it was a beautiful day to spend on the water.  We came back to the house in the late afternoon and the family cooked us a feast of shellfish (I tried some very interesting looking creatures including some sort of very large sea snail in a beautiful shell the size of my fist! It was pretty gross.).  We were then driven back to the hostel in a van (an eventful ride trying to sit on a stool in the the back of a car speeding down windy, rocky mountainsides), and I immediately crashed when we arrived home because I was so exhausted.

The farm of the family that took us around

Our boat for the day

Ji and me, bright-eyed and bushy-tailed

Pablo's huge fish

 

Yummy sea snail.

  Today I think we are going to visit the Qingdao brewery, which should be cool to see!

dawn breaks like a bull through the hall

So it's been awhile since I've written because I've been savoring the last few weeks of summer before heading back to school next Monday. Since I came home from India a little sooner than anticipated, I used the extra time to spend a weekend visiting some friends in New York! I arrived on Friday afternoon and visited Alex at the UN! We heard Beyonce singing through the walls of the General Assembly room, no big deal. On Friday evening I met Jackie (who I hadn't seen since I left India!) at the Natural History Museum and we went out for a delicious dinner (highlights were a watermelon/feta salad and a barbeque buffalo slider). After that we went to a club and danced the night away! It was so nice to see her for the first time in the US :D.

On Saturday morning I took the subway (no mistakes!) from the Upper West Side to Brooklyn to meet Sandra for a bagel brunch (delish)! We then took a long walk through Prospect Park and went to Williamsburg to sight-see (aka watch all the hipsters). We went out for some wine and a late dinner, ending in ice cream just before midnight when the dude at the counter gave us all of the leftover baked goods that he was going to throw away (nice). On Sunday morning I met up with Alex and her aunt and uncle for brunch. Basically the weekend involved lots of eating, lots of subway-ing, and lots of friends, so it was delightful.

This past week I was with the fam + Sara in Rehoboth Beach, where we go every August. We had some nice sunny weather and again more delicious food so it was wonderful as well. Being in Rehoboth always makes me feel so at peace, I think because of my proximity to the ocean (there were some sweet waves this trip). Thinking about the ocean and the beach makes me think about other random things that have struck my fancy recently, so I thought I'd share a few. Maybe they make you happy too! Or at least remind you of things that make you happy. These are not in any particular order of preference, just written down as they come to my mind.

~Water. I just can't get enough. Drinking it, submersing myself in it, throwing it at people, it's just all so good.

~Hindi devotional music: bhajans, qawwali. I recommend Jagjit Singh, especially his version of Dama Dum Mast Kalander (on iTunes). Listening to this always calms me down. I like listening to it when I first wake up, or when I'm doing yoga. I feel like I can always smell a hint of daal and incense when I play it...

~This song when I'm feeling reflective.

~This song to bump to (@1:10). Also this one (yeah).

~This song when I'm just happy!

~Talking to foreigners in their native language. Along with this, surprising foreigners when I can actually say something in their native language (even if I can't understand their response...).

~AVOCADOS.

~Watercolor painting, even though I struggle.

~Trying new recipes. Just tried to replicate this butternut squash/goat cheese terrine the fam had at a restaurant at the beach. It was somewhat successful? I mean, it's hard to go completely wrong with something that involves squash, goat cheese, and butter...

~Green things, especially dark green things. Or this new dune sage-scented candle that I just got which makes my room smell like an evergreen forest and which also happens to be green.

~Crunching leaves! I'm so excited to have a real fall! I haven't been in the US for fall since freshman year, and that's all a blur since I was so preoccupied with starting college. Favorite season, I can't wait. Also I have a kitchen this year so I can go to the orchard and pick tons of apples and make pie and applesauce and everything else apple, hooray!

Okay well I hope this makes everyone think of some recent favorites :). I'll post some pictures soon!

sailing words on conjured ships

Kochi Sketching

So since I am technically here to draw and paint, everyday I try to do some sketching. It's currently monsoon season in Kerala, which means it can start raining and any time and there are multiple-day periods of overcast and dreary weather, which can make it difficult to do any drawing outside. However, there are breaks in these rainy periods. I think I've figured out a pattern: if it rains during the day it will be pretty clear at night and vice versa. Usually it comes in 3-4 day periods, so it will be rainy for a few days and then clear for a few days. Anyways, the point is that I have to take advantage of the sunny days to sketch outside. Since kochi is on the coast and is renowned for its huge old school Chinese fishing nets, I go sit on one of the benches that overlooks the water/nets to draw. There is a little pathway that runs along the coast with a bunch of benches on it. This is a favorite spot for locals to come sit or walk. At first I found it dfficult to do any artwork here and limited myself to very quick watercolors because people would come and stand next to me and sort of bother me (and as a result my first few watercolors are pretty poor). Now I've sort of gotten used to the passersby, and I've come into a rhythm where if I am focusing intently enough on my drawing or painting, people still come and stand very close next to me to watch me draw but they typically don't bother me. Instead they chat amongst themselves and look at/gesture towards whatever I'm drawing. It's a very strange experience, mostly because there is a lot of pressure on me to be doing a good drawing! But I'm hoping that what I'm really doing is causing people to take a look at something that would otherwise have gone unnoticed (like a tree) and contemplate its beauty.

Kochi

Okay so I am writing this from my phone so I don't think I will make it very long, but just wanted to give a few updates :). So I was having major stomach problems (typical) and was taking cipro but it was doing like absolutely nothing so on literally my first full day in Kochi I decided to go to a doctor. I'm staying in sort of a homestay situation (i.e. a family rents out rooms to people) so they were very sweet and drove me to a doctor. Unfortunately the doctor was away for the week, so then we went to a different one which was across the street. This was just a woman sitting in a rundown building. She talked to me for about two minutes and then wrote a prescription for something I had never heard of. I tried to get her to tell me what exactly it was and gathered it was some sort of all-purpose fever reducer/painkiller/probiotic/antibiotic that would solve all my problems NOT. So I didn't get that filled and instead my host dad drove me to a hospital that was close by. This was a truly Indian hospital, like no foreigners at all and I don't really think they knew what to do with me. Anyways finally they got a doctor who spoke some English and he just basically had a meeting with me (didn't examine me or anything) and then prescribed a whole bunch of things, none of which was an antibiotic or anti-parasite (he actually got annoyed when I asked him to explain what the drugs were supposed to do). Finally after I reiterated that this had been going on for a week he prescribed an anti-parasite, and since then I've been feeling better each day. So that was longer than anticipated and all about health problems haha sorryyyy. Anyways Kochi is absolutely beautiful, full of green coconut palms and brightly-colored tropical flowers. It is right on the coast, and though the ocean itself is not so nice to look at, it really feels like a cute little beach down (in India though of course). It is monsoon season right now, so the first few days here were pretty downcast and rainy, but the past two days have actually been quite sunny! My host family is so sweet and feeds me so much breakfast. My favorite thing that they've made was this warm, doughy coconut flour pancake-ish thing dipped in fresh coconut milk. SO delicious, and easy on the tummy! There is more to say but my thumbs hurt so I'm gonna go, but lots of love to everyone!

Ajanta

Isn't it strange how some things never change and some things will never be the same?

On Thursday, I visited my second group of cave temples. Ajanta is much farther away from Aurangabad than Ellora (103 km as opposed to 36 km--took a little over two hours to get there) and consists of 30 Buddhist caves all carved into the side of a cliff. From the outside as a whole, I think the Ajanta caves seem more impressive since they are all high on the same cliff face right next to each other, looking down into a valley where waterfalls cascade over their edges during monsoon season. Ellora is more spread out, so one does not get the same feeling of complete awe. On the inside though, I was rather more impressed by Ellora with its towering stone carvings of gods and goddesses. Ajanta is more well-known for its paintings, and what remained of these were beautiful, but they are much disintegrated. Sher-Gil wrote, "A fresco from Ajanta or a small piece of sculpture in the Musee Guimet is worth more than the whole Renaissance!" I can see these figures in Ajanta in her work, but I wonder how different her Ajanta is from my Ajanta, nearly 80 years older than hers. How much have these paintings changed since she saw them?

It is amazing that the paintings are still here at all. I enjoy visiting historic sites like Ajanta and Ellora because I can feel the continuity between the past and the present. What always drew me to history was feeling tied to the past, feeling like I am a part of something bigger than myself. History allows us to feel a closeness with each other simply because of our existence as people. People painted these caves and lived in them and worshiped in them. They had hopes and dreams and trials and losses just the same as we do. We are all connected. And in this way it is impossible not to feel moved by Ajanta and tied to Sher-Gil.

In Delhi, I was surprised at how quickly things came back to me. I would find myself answering people in Hindi phrases that I forgot I knew, and not even realizing what I was saying until after I said it. I found myself returning to old habits and finding places to be like I never left them. However, it is this lack of change that reminds me how different things actually are, as I am so changed. As much as we would like to and maybe even try to relive our memories, we cannot, and we must create new ones to appreciate equally as much.

The part of Ajanta that struck me most was the brilliant blue that remained in some of the designs of the caves. While most of the other colors had faded, this blue still seemed to glow as brightly as if it were painted but a few weeks ago. I hope to use this blue in later paintings. I suppose the key to a happy memory is to find the common thread that runs through our experience, just like this blue.

Aurangabad

So yesterday (Tuesday) after a week in Delhi, I hopped on the plane to Aurangabad!  I wasted most of the day yesterday sitting in the airport because I got my flight time wrong. Luckily I thought it was earlier than it was, so I didn't miss it but just had an extended period of reading time...

The flight was Air India, and I was amazed because they served a full meal on a flight that was less than two hours! I didn't actually eat this meal because I was not expecting it and had already eaten lunch by 3:00 PM, but it smelled pretty good. We flew over some beautiful, fluffy clouds once we got out of the Delhi smog.
Yesterday I was exhausted after sitting around doing nothing in the airport for so long, so after arriving at the hotel I pretty much just ate dinner and went to sleep after meeting with an overzealous hotel employee to arrange a trip to the Ellora cave temples for today. There is a beautiful, big pool in the center of the hotel though, so I might jump in for a swim later.

Woke up early this morning to shower and prepare to go to Ellora. Got down to breakfast a little after 7:00, as the buffet is included with the room. I wasn't really sure what was included in the buffet and what was separate, so I stuck to some chocos cereal with milk and a cup of fresh nimbu (sweet lime) juice. I've since come to the conclusion that the whole thing was the buffet, so tomorrow I might try some freshly chopped mango! We are in the heart of mango season right now.

Hopped in the car to Ellora at about 8:15 in order to get there by opening at 9:00 (morning is best because it is less hot and less crowded). The temples were remarkable. There are about 35 of them, with a mixture of Hindu, Buddhist, and Jain caves. They are all carved into the stone in the side of a mountain. It is sort of like an Indian version of Mesa Verde, but more spiritually centered. My favorite was probably Cave 10, which was a Buddhist cave with a huge domed meditation hall surrounded by thirty pillars. There was an older man there who had the key to the upstairs balcony and he took me through the hall and even sang a little chant to show me how beautifully the hall echoed.

Tomorrow I will head to Ajanta to see more caves temples and cave paintings, Sher-Gil's true delight!
Lots of love to everyone.