Life Lessons

Here's a list of the irrational fears I've developed while in India:
1. Fear of ATM buttons and light switches (electric shock).
2. Fear of dirty cups and glasses (diarrhea).

Strange skills I've picked up while here:
1. Uncanny ability to see in the dark.
2. Ability to eat with my hands.
3. Ability to guess what people are saying, even though I truly have no idea. 

Day of Rest

Today unintentionally turned into a day of rest, which is fortunate because I’m exhausted. After an hour of weights this morning, I had Hindi class (today we learned numbers: ek, do, teen, chaar, paa(n)ch, chheh, saat, aath, nao, das, and some sentences as well). Apparently, we had theater class, but we weren’t informed of this, so we didn’t go… Lunch was then tasty, and we are chilling until dinner right now. After dinner, we’re going to get some apple pie! I think I’ll get some ginger-lemon tea too. Nom.

Sorry for the boring day…

I will attempt to redeem myself by telling some fun facts about India that people would like:

“Dating” in India is very strange (by our standards). Today we talked to people who are engaged to each other, and they he asked her to marry him after they had known each other for 2 days! They were engaged by a week after meeting each other.

Marriage is also governed by some interesting astrological views. Apparently, one way to propose to someone is to ask when exactly you were born to determine whether you are compatible. Although everyone does not strictly adhere to astrological determinations, astrology can play an important role in determining marriage.

Everything is seasonal in India. While food is obviously seasonal, so are the clothes that you wear, as are the types of food that you should eat. For example, although there is no rational reason why yogurt is “out of season” and we get served yogurt all the time, many people insist that it is not the season for yogurt.

Visiting Sunita's House

Today we went to Sunita’s house. Sunita is one of the girls who works at NIRMAN; she is about my age. We got to meet her whole family, which is herself, her father, her mother, her two little sisters, and one younger brother. Her brother also works at NIRMAN, and her sister Prima is in Grade 9, and her other sister is in Grade 7. Things of note: while their house was not very large, they have technology (DVD player and TV). Also, Indian hospitality is incredible- they gave us so much food and chai that I thought I was going to burst. They were incredibly nice to us, and I really hope that we can spend more time with them later, and possibly that I can pick up enough Hindi to talk to the father, who is an incredibly bubbly and happy man despite the large number of challenges their family faces.

Occult Temple

The occult temple in Varanasi is known for its less pleasant qualities: that being their ceremonies with dead people and consumption of humans. We went to their nightly aarti. The first thing is that it was quite obviously a closed ceremony, in that there were few people there, and they insisted that we received a blessing at the end. Secondly, the ceremony itself was very loud. There was the constant noise of a drum and bells. The bells varied: one high-pitched bell was carried by the main priest, a large bell was rung occasionally, a small gong-type bell was rung in a consistent rhythm, and people constantly rang small bells in the background (of no particular pitch). The total noise effect can be compared to the scene in Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom when there are ritual sacrifices. Luckily, there were no sacrifices last night, and the aarti definitely seemed to borrow at least some parts from other aartis that we have seen, as does their religion. Although they get a lot of grief for many of their beliefs, they also have a guru-type figure who they follow, and believe in the trinity of Hinduism. However, they believe in a higher power that blesses both all people (defined in terms of religion: Christian, Muslim, Buddhist, Hindu) and the gods.

Meditation

Today we went to meditation with Pyper’s friend Harshuti (spelling could be incredibly wrong there). Although the meditation was pretty standard as far as meditation generally go, it was interesting to be there because I finally was in an Indian home, and we could still hear the street through the blasting meditation music. Her room was small, but their house extended beyond that. More interesting to me was that the main hallway was filled with goods to be sold, almost so that the house was behind a storefront or supply room.

Theatre Lessons- Words

Today in theater, our teacher spent a good few minutes rambling about the value of language- in fact, that there is no value to language. His argument was that, with increasing understanding of language and words, you become more stupid. I can’t possibly agree, especially since he insists that we swear at each other in class. The real question is where this belief came from: the classic Eastern spirituality, the studies of meditation itself, the study of theater?

Indian Picnicking

We went to a picnic at a Nabul Krisna’s house. He is a joint curator at the museum at BHU, and is somehow affiliated with NIRMAN as a guru. Anyway, we went to his house, and made food.

First, a little bit on his house. We did eat outside, but it was quite evident that his house used to be a palace, and, in fact, is quite beautiful. However, in the back, it was quite a jungle and there was an incredible amount of greenery. It was here where we made the food.

Julia’s new least favorite food: baati. Here’s how to make it: First you chop up insane amounts of garlic and onion to put into the powdery mix that includes other things. Next, you make dough. Third, you make balls of dough and stuff the powdery mix of stuff into the middle of the dough, being careful not to let the powder escape. Fourth, you make a large fire and wait until it dies down to just being coals. Fifth, you put the balls onto the fire and then rake around the coals until they look like a charred mess. Then, you find all of them, and take them back over to a towel-sized piece of cotton (sort of like a pillowcase), in which you shake them until most of the charred bits no longer exist. Then, you eat them. Unfortunately, they are sort of spicy and not that delicious, especially considering how long it takes to make them.

Descriptions of more Indian food is on the way, I swear.

Sarnath

Why care about Sarnath?

Sarnath is only one of four pilgrimage sites for Buddhists. Located conveniently 10 km from Varanasi proper, it is where Buddha gave his first sermon. There is a place called Dhamekha stupa that commemorates this location exactly, but much of Sarnath is really dedicated to the cause of preserving the memory of the Buddha. In such a fashion, there are many temples in the area, as well as an archaeological museum.

Ruins

There are a couple of cool things about the ruins, the first being that they are at least 1000 years old. In terms of age, the monasteries vary in age, the oldest being from around 260 BCE. However, most of those monasteries were destroyed during the reign of Mahmud of Ghazni in 1017. Later (around 1114-1154 CE) the monasteries were rebuilt and repaired.

Another cool thing about the ruins are the stupas. Stupas (in this context) are commemorative monuments to the Buddha that can also serve as gathering places for pilgramages or individual worship (but not formalized locations like temples). These stupas can also serve as physical embodiments of their spiritual counterparts, and thus visiting the structure is like visiting or meeting the person himself. There are two stupas that we visited: the first, Chaukhandi stupa, has been reduced to ruins, while the Dhamakha stupa still stands today as a fantastically tall building. In fact, people still travel to Dhamekha stupa today in order to become more connected to the Buddha and the location where he gave his first sermon.

The decoration on all of these temples is also incredible, especially considering how old all of these engravings are. In particular, the flowers were very beautiful, but it was also exciting to recognize human figures in the sculpture as well.

Temples, Temples, Temples

First, allow me to explain that I was uncomfortable taking pictures of the inside of temples. This uncomfortableness was exacerbated when people took pictures of me inside the temples because of my skin color. So, there are no pictures inside the temples. Instead, I will attempt to describe them to you.

My favorite: Japanese. Why is it number 1? It felt the most temple-like. Without being over-decorated and obnoxious, the temple felt like a place of worship. Probably most importantly, it smelled like a place of worship, like incense and carved wood.

Most over-decorated: Tibetan. There were so many millions of elements going on that I couldn’t think, let alone worship. Alone, the number of Buddhas inside was insane.

The original: Deer Park. Even though the temple here is fairly new, the bodhi tree has a great history as being the tree under which the Buddha gave his first sermon (technically not the exact tree, but a replanting from the tree that he did actually give the sermon under (from my understanding). This commemorative monument is pretty cool, but is also then sacred in its own rite (note the terrible pun), and so I didn’t take any pictures. I assure you that the tree is really tree-like though.

Largest Statue: The Buddha Statue at the Thai temple. Standing several stories high, this Buddha statue actually shows the four sites of Buddhist pilgrimage on the sides, which includes the Dhamekha stupa noted above. However, the temple also contains a relatively large statue of Buddha as well.

Most Obnoxious Tourists: The Chinese temple. While the Chinese temple was our first exposure to a very decorated temple, it also had the most obnoxious tourists with the loudest cameras and voices. I guess the good news about the obnoxious tourists is the fact that it’s just like being back at home with the Ugly American, right?

The Archaeological Museum

Although you couldn’t take cameras inside, it was quite a site with many pieces, and all for 5 rupees (that’s about 12 cents to you Americans)! Some of the highlights included the 9 planets sculptures and the many statues of Tara and the Buddha. I need to do some more reading on Buddhism before you expect me to tell you more information, though.

A final note to my mother: you would be proud of my babushka-esque outfit, and the way in which I wore sunscreen. I was definitely the person who got the least sun out of our group.

Indian Music Lesson

 Today we also had a lesson about Indian music, taught by a guy from around here.

Some interesting points for the musically-inclined:

(1)   Indian Classical music is also on a seven-tone scale, with the notes being sa re ga ma pa dha ni. Although it’s similar to the do-re-mi system we have in the states, it’s not exactly the same, and I’m going to spend some of the summer figuring out why.

(2)   Indian classical music has two components: Raaga (melody), and taala (percussion or rhythmic cycles). Each Raaga has a specific mood and rules that may be associated with it.

(3)   Much of Indian classical music doesn’t use meaningful or real words in its composition, and thus the words wouldn’t make sense if you put them together. Therefore, less than words and music, music is solely sounds.

Lesson Demo- Hot Cross Buns

Today I got to do my very own lesson demonstration in front of everyone. My demonstration was about music, so I taught the class some Western music notation in the context of Hot Cross Buns. At the end of the class, I assure that I had about 30 adults singing Hot Cross Buns in the classroom. More importantly, I now have a starting point for my music lessons in the future. However, time schedules haven’t come out yet, so I haven’t decided exactly on what I’m going to do. Keep you all updated though!

New Clothes

Finally got some clothes. Currently have one crazy outfit, two normal outfits, and soon-to-have another normalish-but-fancy outfit. I’ll load up pictures when I can, and maybe even to this post if I can figure out how technology works.This is my crazy outfit. so crazy!

Indian art + shopping

Today we went to an Indian art exhibition, and also on a shopping excursion. The Indian art exhibition is a new gallery that features local Indian artists who are sponsored by the gallery to do work. In fact, they were holding a workshop at the same time when we were visiting, so we stopped by and made some art. I’ll put the pictures up later.

The shopping excursion was quite an adventure, especially as it took us forever to find the place that we were actually looking for. But it was definitely fun to roam around the city, and we got to see the most interesting gullies and side-streets. I was a big fan. Highlight: people screaming at us in Hindi: falling monkey!

BHU

 the temple at BHU. I swear it's not sideways in real life. From left to right: Pyper, Michelle, Violet.

 at the gate to the temple.

A Rhino outside the temple.

Today I went running at BHU for my first run. The pleasant 6am walk didn’t bother me much, especially since no one was out yet. The sidewalks were actually clear from vendors, and then once I was at BHU, the streets were actually clear, which was a glorious moment in my life. However, the amount of sweat from my pores was, in fact, not glorious, and the fact that I was wearing pants was not either. It seems strange that Westerners react to the heat with no clothes, and yet Indians respond to the heat with even more clothes. On a happier note, I’m so excited to go running again!

We also stopped by the new temple at BHU. It is called the Vishwanath temple, and it is dedicated to Shiva, who is also the god affiliated with Varanasi. It was quite beautiful, shiny, and new. Since it opens at 4am, I may go back and visit sometime, especially since shoe storage is only 50 cents (aka about 1 cent USD).  The architecture is also quite beautiful as well, and I hope to post some pictures of my adventure there soon.

Update on running: I have now also gone to the track, which was quite an adventure, especially as I got to see other fitness-minded people! Yay! Note: this is no indication of the extent to which the people actually ran, or the speed at which they ran.

Tai Chi Lessons

Here are some more notes regarding our acting lessons:

Our teacher- He is a strange one: an interesting combination of West and East. One the one hand, he has never been out of India, and has a more than healthy appreciation of Eastern spirituality. However, he also has a very Western way of talking about things, and is somewhat obsessed with talking to the few Westerners in the class. This leads to an understandable confusion. However, there are other strange paradoxes in the class, such as the friendliness and laughs of the teacher alongside the supposed seriousness of the exercise. This actually manifests itself in a bigger paradox, which I’ll now explain.

This paradox is the purpose of our “acting lessons.” The first side is that of the theatricality of teaching. Professor Kumar (our director) continues to stress the importance of acting in class (examples: putting on the “front of democracy” regarding classroom rules that you have created, teaching the children in a creative way, pretending to be an intimidating figure). Theoretically, the acting lessons would encourage this form of acting, in order to make us better teachers, right? But these lessons are based on principles from Tai Chi, telling us to “find our inner self” and look inwardly. Therefore, there is this incredible confusion in purpose, as we look inwardly and act outwardly at the same time. It seems like two different philosophies are in competition, regardless of the fact that Professor Kumar hired the man to have an acting workshop on more than one occasion.

The Holy Ganga

 Varanasi from my view on a boat!!!

 Boats with fun advertisements.

On the way over to the ghat. 

Today we went to the river for sunset, and the आरती (aarti), which is a prayer ceremony performed by Brahman in the evening and morning at the Ganga. This ceremony has several important aspects: fire, music, fire, costumes, and bells. Although the ceremony has been expanded and dramatized for tourism, it was still interesting to hear and see everything.

            However, the ceremony did not proceed as planned for two reasons: (1) rain and (2) power outages. Early, the ceremony did have to stop because of rain, and it was continued after the rains stopped (about 10 minutes later). This shows both the power of the rain, as well as the vulnerability of all activities to natural occurances. The aarti also did not proceed as planned because of the power outage. As you may or may not know, black-outs are quite common here, and can happen for many hours or just for a couple of minutes (one example is a museum ticket that I have that says “sometimes power failure is regretted.” Another example is that the power has gone out during the course of me writing this post). Almost as soon as the ceremony completed, the entire area that we were in went dark, and we had to use the convenient torches on our phone to navigate. More importantly, though, this shows the gravity of the situation- lack of power can just shut everything down, more or less.

            On the tourist and commericialization of holy practices note: it is an interesting combination of commercial and reality. While the aarti makes money for both the people involved, and the boat owners who take you around on the river, it also has a very real element, as shown by the number of people who participate actively in the ceremony, and the fact that everyone does get quiet at the appropriate parts of the ceremony. At the same time, there are huge advertisements next to the ghat where the ceremony is performed, and people are asking you for money, or for your picture.

            After the ceremony, we went to a fancy Japanese restaurant and talked to one of our managers- Jay. He told us some stories, including stories of his interactions with snakes at home (he’s from the south). Apparently, he used to catch snakes all the time, including poisonous snakes like cobras! Things are definitely pretty crazy here.

Henna Tattoos

 on my arm. and people think that skinny people shouldn't get sweet arm tattoos.

 My hand etc.

other side- I thought this was better.

Pictures - the Guesthouse

 My room.

An embroidered piece of fabric on my wall.

The Ganga

For our afternoon excursion, we went to the river (yesterday). It was very beautiful, and we could hear the prayer rituals and see people bathing themselves in the river. It was incredibly pleasant and nice, if you ignored the heckling children and adults who were convinced that we wanted to go on a boat, or buy candles and postcards. It also seems to be a truly Banaras (Varanasi), as you could see the rickshaws, the hotels, the people, and the religious center of the city. However, this beautiful demonstration of the city is what makes Varanasi backwards in the eyes of Westerners and more “modern” Indians, and perhaps with just cause, as along with the beauty of the scenes, there’s also extreme poverty and desperation. 

I'll upload the pictures later- I'm having problems with the online uploader deal. 

Teacher Training- Day 3

Just a brief note: my Hindi training has now resulted in me being able to form sentences, like यह पर्दा है (this is a curtain). Thought you'd want to know. However, I still don't know all the letters. 

But, teacher training today was quite interesting. 

Point of interest 1: We went to the museum at Banaras Hindu University (BHU) today. (The museum website is here: http://www.bhu.ac.in/kala/index_bkb.htm). Although we weren't allowed to take pictures inside the museum, they had some seriously cool things, like an incredible number of coins, really old jewelry, and statues. I plan on going back again, and talking to the curator (who is affiliated with NIRMAN in some sort of way) to find out more information. Some interesting curating notes: some pieces were organized not by time period, but by materials that they were made out of; and only the most rare, valuable, and shiny things are kept in a vault protected by a security guard. 

Point of interest 2: The Western Way. In theater class, we discussed the lack of Western understanding for all things human. Basically, our teacher asserted that Westerners don't understand how emotions work, and that only Easterners understand spirituality. This seems, to a certain extent, a play on the traditional Western-Eastern Technology-Spirituality deal, but is also interesting as he explained how really no Westerners understand what is going on. He claimed that the expression "gut feeling" is merely coincidence, but who knows? For all interested parties, your center of emotions, gravity, etc. is located 2 inches below your navel.

Teacher Training- Day 2

Today’s teacher training was about classroom management. Of course, in this lesson, Professor Kumar took care to distinguish between NIRMAN’s style of classroom management of other schools, noting 4 essential types of management: physical, pedagogic, managerial, and spiritual. Physical management is dealing with the environment of the classroom, pedagogic is about time management in class, managerial is simply dealing with management of the children, and spiritual is the idea of the post-colonial. The spiritual is the most important for NIRMAN. Post-colonial, in their definition, is after independence, and is about easing the subject-other divide by accepting and educating everyone. Being in India, this definition adopts some of Gandhi’s philosophy, namely that all religions have basic similarities and share the same essential tenets. However, more interesting to me was the fact that NIRMAN takes such care to analyze itself as a post-colonial institution, and whether the emphasis that they place on the colonial past is truly helpful to advance the institution. However, we’ll see tomorrow when we discuss these things more.

The other part of teacher training was a theater workshop, which is interesting in part because I don’t think Americans have theater workshops for their teachers. As things are here though, it’s not what it seems, and instead theater transformed into yoga and very limited and very interesting kinds of acting. For example, “acting” can mean forms of movement as well as copying rhythms, both of which seem not to be part of acting at first glance. However, it’s all quite interesting to me, and, with luck, I will not be terrible at it.

Teacher Training- Day 1

Before we’re allowed to teach anything, we have teacher training. School is closed at NIRMAN in the months of May and June for the summer, so teacher training is ideally situated in the end of June. Having come in a little late, everyone else has been trained on various issues that I have not discussed. Onto the main point of discussion: what are rules? According to our discussion, rules are things that “must be followed,” and, if not followed, will have consequences. One difference that arose between Indian and American schooling styles was discipline. While in American schools, we have detention for wrongdoers, NIRMAN teachers are expected to only lightly reprimand children, without even accusing them of doing anything wrong (in the style of “if you did something wrong, you should not do it again”).

Another difference that existed is probably just from the existence of NIRMAN, but is interesting nonetheless. At NIRMAN, they don’t use erasers. The reasoning: when children have access to erasers, they just erase, erase, erase. Not only does this make the eraser disappear quickly, but it also wastes time. Additionally, by not using erasers, children have to become more comfortable with the fact that they will make mistakes, and thus, instead of obsessing over their mistakes and wasting time, students don’t use erasers.

Other things accomplished today: bought 3 suits of fabric and went to the tailor. These will be done by next Monday probably. Two are going to look pretty standard, but one of them is pretty crazy. Just wait for some sweet pics.

Hindi Lessons

Today I learned some hindi. Theoretically, my name is जूलिया. Thus far I learned all the vowels, which I won't bore you by repeating now. 

Off to breakfast and more Hindi now- updates later.

Animals in the guesthouse

Starting with the most destructive and obnoxious:
Dogs
Mosquitoes
Giant Spider
We'll see if I get pictures up of the destruction/animals involved.

Pictures! only some because they're really hard to upload.

 Greenland from the plane.

 view of delhi (sort of) from my hotel

Fancy hotel room!

Taaza Tea, etc.

Today will be chalked up as first day of truly strange experiences.

I woke up to a monsoon, which appeared to be a light rain for a long period of time, until it was actually pouring for the next 5 hours, and then it continued to rain after that, but not as hard. Relatedly, we had a hilarious drive in the car. In addition to the regular issues of Indian traffic, there was the added 6-12 inches of water on some of the streets. This caused cars to break down, bikers to get soaked, and general chaos.

We then went to a women’s empowerment competition held by Taaza Tea (not to corporate advertise for them or anything). It was a competition for women to gain an experiential scholarship from non-profit organizations, including NIRMAN (thus why we were there). As a form of feminism, it was very strange. Of course, my book-laden brain thought to Muslim feminism when I saw women in burqas at the event. However, there were other weird things going on: the competition only offered events like cooking and handicrafts, which is to say that women were judged according to their skills in the kitchen. And then additional problems form as the women would only gain economic independence as a result of said competition, and that these economic “rights” may actually be subsumed by her husband’s rights.

Backing off from feminist theory though, there was a bonus of getting free chai samples, listening to the same 5 minute video repeat for 6 hours, getting henna all over my left hand and arm (if you’re interested, I definitely have one showing off how jacked I am). However, this whole process was incredibly strange for several reasons: (1) not speaking Hindi, there was a language barrier and I often had absolutely no idea what was going on, (2) the strange tourist phenomenon.

So here is the strange tourist phenomenon. As a visitor to India, one would expect that I would take many pictures of everything and everyone as I attempted to soak in my surroundings. Instead, I found myself photographed in a manner of ways: discreetly as someone pretended to be somewhat interested in my decorated arm, discreetly as someone took my picture while he imagined that I wasn’t looking, overtly as I sat, with my permission, without. Instead of being a tourist, I became an attraction in myself.

Food excursions today:

Indian Chinese Food- not like American.

June 19

Two important things:
Monsoon season means that it's been raining for at least 3 hours this morning already (with no signs of stopping, but several signs of flooding).
Internet connection is very limited. Therefore all posts are made during about 30 seconds of connectedness.

The Beginning of NIRMAN- June 18

Today, I woke up at 3:20am. It is currently 9:30pm, and I have not slept a wink since I woke up this morning. However, my day truly began as I left the hotel that I had stayed in for the night (studying some Devangari script in the lobby), and got to the incredibly nice Delhi airport. Apparently, I missed the fact that the airport is so beautiful when I exited it yesterday.

            I got on a flight with the illustrious Kingfisher airlines- also a maker of Indian beer- do flying and beer mix well? Apparently so, as I got a full breakfast during my 45 minute flight.

            Arrival in Varanasi was marked with a slight sense of terror as I didn’t know what to do, but soon enough I both met a companion and a driver to take me to NIRMAN. Although I quickly found my people at the airport, I didn’t find the journey to Varanasi as easy. Namely, I fought back a serious case of information overload in my brain as we travelled into the city. Not only are there many people all over the street, but there is a constant creation and recreation of lanes, a level of honking that rivals the earsplitting noises of a lumberjack-competition, and advertisements everywhere in English and Hindi.

            Luckily, we arrived to NIRMAN fine with our car mirrors intact, our bodies only slightly carsick, and more generally, just fine. I was shown to my guest-house room, which is smaller than my dorm room or regular room back at school, but also crammed with less stuff. At this point, it seems appropriate to introduce my fellow NIRMAN interns. Violet arrived with me today. Strangely, she is also from UChicago, despite the fact that we had no idea the other person was going to be there. Michelle and Piper are other interns around, but Piper is leaving in a couple of days. Soon we are to be joined by (one) Doug. The latter three individuals are all from Claremont-McKenna college, so together we shall be a Midwestern/West Coast gaggle (ignoring the fact that Michelle is from New Jersey, and that Violet is from New York City).

            Purchases of the day: Dinner (a very loose interpretation of pizza and a strawberry smoothie, all for $4 or so) and a whole outfit (you will be inundated with ridiculous pictures of me in all colors of Indian cotton, especially as I look like a doofus wearing Western clothes).

            Lessons learned: (1) mud is not just mud (which is to say it’s also poop, garbage, and everything else), (2) tailored clothes in India are incredibly cheap, and (3) having a posse of people is a good thing (especially when one person speaks Hindi).

Travelling and Delhi

Allow me to preface this with the fact that I am currently sitting on a king size bed, eating two delicious chocolate cookies that really taste like brownies. Now, onto more substantive matters—

My journey:

Dayton to Chicago (simple, unexciting)

Chicago to Delhi: After chilling in O’Hare next to a leaky ceiling, I boarded the plane. I ended up in a window seat, so I spent much time gazing lovingly out the window. We went around Greenland, so through Canada I got to see uninhabited wilderness, and in Greenland, looked at the snow-covered (perhaps cloud covered?) mountains. By the time we had gotten to Delhi, I was about halfway through Anna Karenina, somewhat dehydrated, well-fed, and tired.

Luckily, though, I found my very nice fancy taxi person, and he took me back to this incredible hotel (allow me to note that Mom booked this because she was worried about my safety). On the way back, I discovered some fun (and not-so-fun) facts: (1) there are an incredible number of slums around the airport, built mostly from abandoned metal and wood, (2) people sell food not only on the side of the street, but also in the street, (3) Indians don’t buy American cars.

Regardless, this hotel, the Leela Kempinski, has more services than I could or would ever want to use, although I have found the fitness center. For those of you interested, a couple of fun facts: (1) yes, all weights and distances are metric (this made it very confusing when I was bench pressing), (2) they are really into the whole slow movement with weights deal. However, even though they had different equipment, I found an elliptical that practically had my name on it. Fortunately, even the music fit my exercising groove, meaning that they played at least two songs from MTV Party to Go Vol. 10. I was so excited that I hardly paid attention to all of the cricket news on BBC WorldService!

Finally, I thought that I’d quickly comment on Indian hospitality. Thus far, everyone except for the immigration agent has been exceedingly nice to me, and for that I am grateful. I was also welcomed as I walked through a metal detector and had all of my bags x-rayed.

preparations

Truly, it's shocking how much one has to prepare for one of these gigs. which is not to say that I've necessarily done all of the preparations. Several points of note: all of my clothes are in gallon see-through bags with a vacuum seal in a style acquired from prior experience with hundreds of ice bags, I have acquired a ring with which I plan to impersonate a married woman, and soon I will have completed my struggle to eat all food worthy of a journey outside of Dayton. I have also stumbled upon the wikipedia travel phrasebook, which has enlightened me on useful phrases I could definitely imagine using, like "I don't understand" (मैं समझा/समझी नहीं। maiⁿ samjha/samjhī nahīⁿ) and "shiny" (चमकीला or chamkeelā). Regardless, here's to the last time I'll be in Dayton for a while.

purpose

"I received five hundred thousand discrete bits of information today, of which twenty-five are important." - David Foster Wallace (in although of course you end up becoming yourself)
And thus the attempt to sort out the million stimuli begins. Hopefully, this will serve as a perfect distillation of my experience and thoughts, and not the mindless babble of a sleep-deprived, confused traveler.
Travels begin Thursday.