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I wrote this whole long heartfelt thing about returning from India and then Blogger had to go and insert 20%s all throughout the whole goddamn thing. I swear, Blogger, there are other webhosts in the sea. Don't think I won't go fishing.

It's cool. I'm over it.

So I'm in DC as of right now, on my way to Seattle. It started in Providence, and then went to NYC, and now I am in DC. The following is my itinerary...loosely.

WASHINGTON DC: NOW UNTIL THE 16th.
I drive to Louisville on the 17th.
I drive to Kansas city on the 18th.
I stay in Kansas city until 20th or 21st
I go to Boulder on 20th or 21st.
I go to denver...then....
I go to Slt Lake City on the....25th?
I drive to Seattle on the 28th.

Okay? Did you all get that? Any questions? If you live in any of these locations, let me know. You can buy me coffee.

And finally, my friend has created a website for me. The long and short of it is that over the course of my drive, I will take a photo of my in front of a Home Depot in every state. Lofty, I know. But, someone has to do it. There are also web updates and things. I don't really understand. I just drive. But here's the URL http://allisontourusa2009.weebly.com/index.html

Have a good day everyone, I will be updating with real life experiences soonish? Hopefully this won't die just because I don't have crazy fun India stories anymore.

I did, however, see a man ride a shopping cart outside of a Home Depot in Connecticut. He was 40. And he was riding a shopping cart.

-allison

Oh, Hopes and Dreams...

So...This won't be a real post. I'm in San Diego with my sister and her boyfriend Sage. It's great. I only feel slightly ill (Winesway Lufay anyone?) and overall fairly functional. I had tacos yesterday which were amazing and have almost completely downed a gallon of Breyer's Mint Chocolate Chip ice cream. So I won't post about all my travels, but they were awesome. 

Here's a few key pictures for now, though.

I wanted to add captions, but stupid blogger hates me and the horse I rode in on.

-allison

My Asiatic Journey

Sorry I haven't posted recently. I am alive and doing well. I love not being in India and as of right now, I don't miss it at all. Seriously. I can't imagine a place I'd rather be than the first world.

Just so you know, Seoul and Tokyo are the most trendy, scene, and hipster cities I have ever been to. 

Alls I have to say is: I saw an ironic bowl cut.

Yeah.

-allison

Ch-ch-ch-changes

I spent my last day in Varanasi doing multiple errands all around town, and spent my last night in Varanasi with my friends. We sat around, reminisced, laughed and, eventually, cried. We said all the things everyone else has said before, and we meant them. They, nor I, could have gotten through this year without each other. I have said many times that I always knew I could survive India, but without the few people I had in that city, that survival would have not been worth it. In other words, I spent my last day in Varanasi doing multiple errands all around town, and spent my last night in Varanasi being a Sapasaurus.

As predicted, the rickshaw ride to the train station was epic. I was crying for most of it, until faced with the unfortunate minute realities of men calling at me and having to signal for the rickshawalla when he turns. They really killed my buzz. So I get to the train at 7:50 PM, when it leaves at 8 PM, thinking everything would be fine. My train was there (it had arrived on time...?); a friend of my bother's, Moosa, was there to see me off. I get on the train, Moosa helps me with my bags and clandestinely gives me two gifts, and then says goodbye. Then the train leaves at 7:58 PM. Two minutes early. TWO. MINUTES. EARLY. I don't know if people who haven't been to India will understand how crazy this is, but it left EARLY. WHAT? That's the equivalent of an American Airlines flight leaving 5 hours early and turning into a giant pumpkin or something. That shit never happens! India: what? It was insanity. Anyway. Moving on.

So this train ride turns out to be one of the more fun things I have ever done. First of all, I love trains. Thus, good train ride. Second of all, I was worried that I should have just gotten the more expensive flight until I figured this out. I pretty much rented out a shared, air conditioned hotel room that came with a bed and sheets and a blanket that took me to Delhi in 12 hours for 15 bucks. It was way, way better than staying in my apartment in Varanasi. It was kind of like taking a vacation on the way to a vacation. 

When I got to Delhi I got in a rousing argument with a rickshawalla, whom I agreed to pay 100 rupees to take me 15 km away (which was a pretty good price- for him. I sort of got hosed.) but then he took too long and I went to the pre-paid rickshaw place and paid 80 rupees on the advice of a rogue rickshawalla with a towel on his head. I'm not being racist; he really had a small, pink hand towel on his head. Anyway, I took a rickshaw to my brother's friend's apartment. Oh! His name is Simon and he's a photographer who takes some pretty awesome photographs. There are even some photos of my very own Varanasi on his website. So after tooling around on the internet in his swanky apartment for too long, I do my laundry and then go out. This is about the time I decided to try a Mexican restaurant in India. 

Now I will start off by saying things could have been much, much worse for me and this restaurant. I ended up ordering a quesadilla which was good...sort of. Actually, no it wasn't good. But it was much better than I anticipated. But I talked to my waiter for a long time about the cricket leagues in India. Oh man, do these guys love their cricket. The Chennai Super Kings were playing a team from Rajasthan in the Championship. That's all I retained from the conversation. Oh, except the Chennai Super Kings have three cheerleaders. One is White with blond hair, the next is also white, but with brown hair, and the last one is Black. Do you know how many Black people are in India? Including that cheerleader on TV, three. Weird. Anyway, so dinner was niiiicce.....

And then I came back and watched one more episode of Gossip Girl, which rounded out my episode count to 5, I think. Yes, I watched 5 episodes of Gossip Girl in one day. Don't judge me. After that I went to sleep in the ever-lovely air conditioning, and woke up this morning super happy to be alive. I've had two bowls of Chocos today, and am getting ready to go out and buy a new pair of shoes. My birkenstocks have survived the past 6 years, but I fear their time may be running out. 

So my life is pretty great right now. I've been mooching off of my brother's connections pretty much all year, and it's served me quite well. Maybe when I'm a big bad journalist like him I'll be able to pawn off my siblings onto my big bag journalist friends. No promises though, big bro.

 

Well everyone. I leave India tonight at 10 PM with my friend Sara to head off to East Asia. We'll first fly to Mumbai and from there get a direct flight to Seoul, South Korea. We'll be in South Korea for a week or so, and then go to Japan for a little over a week. Within Japan we are planning to see Tokyo, Mt. Fuji and Kyoto. 

Perhaps I will update in from East Asia. Again, no promises.

Thanks for reading about my time in India, everyone. I hope you enjoyed it. If you're heartbroken over the final India post, look at this; it will for sure cheer even you up.

-allison

Accident Report GH-727

Okay I can't go on without writing this: My stomach is about to explode. To set the scene, picture nine students taking a Hindi final. We are scattered throughout the program house, taking our exam and eating snacks.

First of all, before the exam, the didis (the two women who cook for our program who are absolutely-tootly wonderful) showed me how to make imli chutney. So I was standing in the kitchen furiously writing down names of foods and vague measurements sweating my proverbial balls off when suddenly Sharda-didi actually shoves a jawbreaker-sized chunk of brown sugar in my mouth. It was delicious...in that way raw sugar is. Mostly it was just absurdly sweet and uncomfortable and did nothing to alleviate my already-persistent nausea.

After that, we started our exam and the didis proceeded to make tasty snacks for us, non-stop, for 2 hours. The snacks were given, in order, as follows:

Bowl of Muesli (oh how foolish the young are when they are hungry)

Chai

Chick Peas in sauce (I gave all mine to Ed)

Potato Samosas (x4 servings for myself)

Imli Chutney

Cilantro and Mint Chutney

Fried Pieces of Deliciousness (AGH I just ate another one because they are so good)

Mango Shakes with Ice-Cream (x one more half-glass)

And then Sanghamitra-Ji asked if we wanted to eat lunch. ARE YOU KIDDING. I DON'T KNOW IF I CAN TURN MY BODY ANYMORE. I MUST LIE DOWN IMMEDIATELY.

Gasp. Okay. I think I can write about other things now. Maybe. Gurgle.

So a week ago I was on my bike going to Madanpura, just going along, doing my thing, when I decided, perhaps also foolishly, to pass a slow-moving cart being pulled by a guy on a bicycle. I hear honking behind me, but I'm always hearing honking behind me, so I remain unworried. I sidle up next to him and give him a nice cordial nod. A mid-sized van then pushes my bike into the cart, pinning my hand between the handlebar and the side panelling, while my left foot gets stuck in the cart while getting pummeled by the spokes of my bike. All three of us go on like that for about 30 really painful seconds, when finally the van disengages, and drives off through the intersection. The cart and I are both going the same speed. We look at each other briefly, he shrugs, and we turn in our respective directions. Ain't no thang. Right.

My hand still hurts, so I glance down at it; other than a strange white spot in the middle, nothing seems to be wrong. Meaning, I am not bleeding, I still have a hand etc. I say to myself, "Whew, dodged that bullet," and keep going. But then my hand really, really goddamn hurts and I look down again. The previously white spot is now dark red and swelling about a quarter of an inch off of my hand. It looks as if I inserted a bullet-sized something into the top of my hand. Things have, obviously, taken a turn for the worse.

I get to my Urdu ustaad's house to teach his kids, but ask for ice and a cloth instead. I ice it, the swelling doesn't decrease at all. Eventually Salman Sahab tells me I need to take the ice off (which is dripping all over his floor since ice melts in one millisecond here) and we both look at it. It seems as if the van stole about 10 percent of the surface area skin on the back of my hand in addition to making the weird red spot. Salman Sahab puts anti-biotic powder on it and wraps it up with gauze. (A note to anyone in the medical profession reading this. Anti-biotic powder: Legitimate or not?) So now I wear my hand wrapped up every day to try to minimalize whatever India could put in my body via an open sore. Here are photos of the wound about two days after it happened. The ones I took the day of are way less impressive, so I'm posting these ones instead.

And this is what my hand looks like on a daily basis now. Hopefully bandages are big in Japan?

Let's see. Other than that, I finally turned in my paper. It ended up being 104 pages and I titled it "Are Ram and Ali Friends?: Hindu-Muslim Friendships in English-Medium Primary Schools in Banaras." And yes, that is the real name. It will be forever known to the University of Wisconsin University system as "Are Ram and Ali Friends?" And no, I'm not ashamed.

The weather has been predictably terrible recently, with absurdly high temperatures like 105 or 111 degrees. At night I lie awake thinking about all the times I joked about the high temperatures here. And then I curse whatever evil fairy planted Junior Year Abroad in my head. Hear that, Scott? I blame you.

In other news, Katie and Michael visited me! Katie is a friend of mine from school whose blog you can find here. From Cairo, she mostly writes about the Muslim Brotherhood (when Egypt doesn't block her IP address). And Michael is her husband on Facebook.

Anyway, it was very fun and we did the ultra-touristy and ultra-beautiful activity of taking a boat ride. I realize I haven't posted photos in a while, and I don't think I have ever posted photos of Banaras. So, here are a few.

The girl is Katie, and the boy is Michael. Which of these photos looks like I photoshop-ed my friends into a stock image of Banaras?

If you picked the last one, you would be correct.

So, I leave Banaras in six days, after which I will spend two days in Delhi and then head off for South Korea and Japan. I keep having these moments of terror/elation when I realize I'm leaving India. Usually I get them once a day and the two feelings always come together. I think about burritos and sidewalks, and then I realize I'll have those things because I decidedly won't be here. Processing things is going very slowly right now, so I probably just won't think about it until the day I leave. I anticipate the rickshaw ride to the train station will be epic. After spending so much of my time hating India, it's bizarre to be given the chance to be somewhere else. Despite my better judgement, I think I might actually miss India.

I hope you all are having a lovely end of April. I will hopefully be able to update as Sara and I travel through Seoul and Japan, and perhaps I will update one final time from India while I'm in Delhi.

-allison

Promise

I swear I will post in the next few days.

I turned in my Fieldwork Project.

I took my language finals.

I was hit by a car.

I have pictures.

-allison

Just because X, does not mean Y

This blog post was co-written with the very teal and fabulous MaryBeth.

1) Just because something is on a menu does not mean it is available, ever has been available, or they know what it is.
2) Just because you order something off a menu, and they say they have it, doesn't mean it will remotely resemble what you anticipated. Surprise.
3) Just because you're in India does not mean you're a Hindu.
4) Just because you're in India does not mean you're interested in Hinduism, spirituality, Hindu classical music, the healing properties of the Ganga, yoga, or crystals.
5) Just because I'm white, and you're white, doesn't mean we're friends.
6) Just because I'm white, does not mean I am an ATM.
7) Just because I'm holding a soda, doesn't mean it's yours.
8) Just because it's in a newspaper, doesn't mean it's well-written, makes sense, or based on facts.
9) Just because something has a Maximum Rupee Price, doesn't mean there won't be unmarked "fees".
10) Just because your rickshaw walla gave you one price, doesn't meant he gives up his right to scream at you when you pay it.
11) Just because you think you're friends with little kids, doesn't mean they won't ask you to buy a candle every day.
12) Just because someone has a PhD doesn't mean they understand how peacocks reproduce or logic in general.
13) Just because it seems like a normal day, doesn't mean you won't be stuck in traffic for two hours behind a parade.
14) Just because you feel fine, does not mean it's out of the question for you to be vomiting in 20 minutes.
15) Just because you've been sick for the last two days and look disgusting, doesn't mean you still won't be hit on. Multiple times.
16) Just because you're on a bicycle, motorcycle, or a rickshaw, doesn't meant a rickshaw walla won't say, "Rickshaw madam?"
17) Just because you go over your plans for a piece of clothing with a tailor in two languages, bring drawings, and have him repeat it all back to you, doesn't mean you'll recognize the results.
18) Just because you think something is fashionable by western standards, doesn't mean it is.
19) Just because you shower three times a day, doesn't mean you will ever smell good or be less sticky.
20) Just because you're going home in twenty days, doesn't mean you don't want to drown yourself to make the end come sooner.

-allison and mb