April Fooled?

I just walked out on to my balcony and saw something a little out of the ordinary. If it was Christmas time in the US or Diwali time here I wouldn't have been surprised, but as I think through my limited knowledge of upcoming Indian holidays my mind is drawing a blank as to why this is happening. And then it hit me. My neighbors are trying to pull the ultimate April Fools joke on the neighborhood. They want us all to wake up tomorrow morning and think it's Christmas.


Well neighbor, I've got news for you. I caught your April Fools joke... You didn't fool me!

Bowling Upstairs

I’ve got a good friend in town here whose family has quickly become one of my favorites. They’re the same family that we went and played Holi with at the beginning of March. Well, his kids are great, and so we decided to treat them to something new and fun this weekend. We surprised them by taking to Baskin Robbins where there’s a bowling alley upstairs (yep, that’s right… inside of Baskin Robbins there’s a bowling alley... on the third floor).

It’s a new “bowling alley” consisting of two lanes (one of which was open), and it was their first time to bowl.

Notice the barefoot-ness... There were bowling shoes, but not required...

After an exciting game where we didn't worry about the score (I mean, come on, there weren't any bumpers) we took them downstairs, played a few arcade games, and treated them to ice cream. It was a great afternoon with a couple fun kids!

And this was just funny...

-एरिक

Using a Camel for advertisement, and I'm not talking about Joe Cool.

In the U.S. we have a lot of advertisements. Here in India it's no different; it might even be worse. Consumerism reaches every corner of society here. For example, here's what I saw in Delhi:

Over the last 6 months (yeah, I've been here almost 6 months already!) I've seen lots and lots of advertisements, but this week here in town I saw a new advertising strategy that blew me away... Camels!


Yep! That's a Camel being used as a portable billboard!

-एरिक

Recliners in a Movie Theatre?

The last few days have been jammed packed with some crazy things. Let's see, where to begin...

On Friday my roommate and I decided to go down to Delhi. Right now there’s a giant, four month festival going on an hour or so from here (at the train stop before ours), meaning that train tickets are very hard to come by these days. After scouring the internet for train tickets, we were finally able to come across two tickets for Sunday night. The only problem was that when I booked the tickets I was confirmed, but he was on the wait list. We decided to go anyways.

Sunday evening rolled around and we headed to the train station. Luckily, he was moved off the waitlist and we found our cabin. The two of us had a nice little room to ourselves with a set of bunk beds and much more room than usual, even in comparison to other first class cabins (which usually have four people to a room). The train ride was very uneventful, and we arrived in Delhi just after 8 the next morning. After trying unsuccessfully to get a flat rate autorickshaw we finally went to the street and did some bargaining. A 45 minute rickshaw ride took us to a friend’s house where we cleaned up, had a nice cup of coffee and took a quick nap.

For lunch we had KFC, and man, I’d forgotten just how much I like fried chicken. It didn’t compare to Southern Classic in Ruston, but it was still so good. After lunch we headed to the mall where we had good coffee and then went to the movie. We bought Gold Class tickets to watch Alice in Wonderland.

A Gold Class movie was definitely a new experience for me. As Gold Class ticket holders (they make you sound so important) we went into our own little waiting room that looks more like a club than a movie theatre. There they gave us apple juice in champagne glasses while we waited for the movie. As the movie was getting ready to start we were escorted into a movie theatre full of leather recliners! We were given blankets (because even though it was 99 degrees in Delhi they managed to keep this place frigid), and there was little button you could press to have a waiter bring you a coke and popcorn or something off of their full menu of items! We watched Alice in Wonderland in 3D, which I thought was really good, and the only downfall to the experience is your waiter comes around right at the end of the movie to give you your bill. All in all though, it was definitely the most unique movie experience I’ve ever had.

After the movie we headed to Hard Rock Café where I indulged in a bacon cheeseburger covered with barbeque sauce. Mmm… the first hamburger I’d had in 6 months, and it was delicious! After dinner we went back down to a little coffee shop where I splurged again and got a big slice of cheesecake. Nothing like taking advantage of getting what we don’t have here!

Monday morning came too soon, and we were up bright and early to head back home. Because of the train situation we booked a taxi to take us the 8 hours back. This time there were 5 of us in the car, and our driver was the craziest driver I’ve ever had, in India or out. What is supposed to be an 8 hour trip ended up only taking around 5 including a 30+ minute break for tea! More often than not we were all grabbing for anything hoping that we wouldn’t hit the cars and people he was running off the road. There were several close calls (we’re talking millimeters here people), but somehow we managed to get back in one piece.

After another quick nap, we all headed out to a friend’s village for dinner where we were treated to another feast. And then I came home and crashed. After all of this food over the last few days, I’ve got to get back to the gym ASAP.

Most of the places we went don't let you have a camera, so I left it at home this round. It was a quick, tiring trip, but it was good. It was nice to get away, even just for a day, and to have a chance to get a few tastes of home we can’t find up here.

In only 15 minutes

Some days I still cant' get over the fact that this...

is only 15 minutes from this...

-एरिक

Big Buddha, Big Buddha, Big Buddha

One of the places college students tend to hang out around here is the Buddhist Stupa south of town. I headed out there this morning to hang out and see if I could meet a few new people. When I made it there it was pretty dead, but I did take the time to look around the grounds.

You can click on a picture to see a bigger version.

The giant 125 ft Buddha is what catches you eye first, but there are quite a few other interesting things there, too.

The Buddhist prayer flags and prayer wheels are really intriguing.

I didn’t realize this until today, but every one of the thousands of prayer flags actually have prayers written on them.

And I'm pretty sure that these two signs were trying to say the same thing, just in a little different way.

-एरिक

You Never Know What You're Gonna Get

Here I think you could take the same situation on any two different days and end up with two very different outcomes.

Take buying a couch for instance - Today Travis and I took a trip down into the bazaar, found a couch, bought it, and had it delivered. It was here before 3pm. Now as you can see it was brought by a different mode of transportation than expected, but it got here, was taken upstairs, and now its in the living room. No problem.



But then again, as we found out over Christmas at our friends' house, it's not always as easy as our experience today was. At their house it took 3 Americans and 5 or 6 Indians to lift the couches up to the 3rd floor by nylon rope.



Only in India!

-एरिक

Sunday Mornings

One of the best ways I’ve found to practice my Hindi listening skills is to go to church. The last few Sundays I’ve visited a little Hindi speaking church about 25 minutes away. After a prayer time almost an hour is spent singing, and as the singing is going on I’m doing my darndest to keep up reading/singing from the hymnal. Then there’s another good hour or more of preaching. It can be a little overwhelming at times, especially when the pastor gets excited about what he’s preaching on, but I’ve been pleasantly surprised at the amount I’ve understood. Now I’ll be honest, it’s hard to stay focused for that long when I have to hang on to every word to understand what’s going on (whatever happened to hour long services like we had in the states? And I used to think those lasted too long sometimes), and from time to time I slip away into my own world (at least I haven’t broken out the Sudoku puzzles in a few weeks). It is a really great chance to practice though, and I’ve really been blessed by some of the people I’ve meet there over the last few weeks.

I’ll leave you with the verses we studied today:

"यहोवा की शरग लेनी, मनुष्य पर भरोसा रखने से उत्तम है।
यहोवा की शरग लेनी, प्रधानों पर भी भरोसा रखने से उत्तम है।"
-भजन संहीता ११८:८-९

"It is better to take refuge in the Lord than to trust in man.
It is better to take refuge in the the Lord than to trust in princes."
-Psalm 118:8-9


-एरिक (Eric)

A Little Morning Motivation

there's nothing better than a little encouragement every morning to get up and do your best.


It also probably helps to subliminally boost my competitive spirit, but let's be honest, it's not like I really need any help there.

A Wacky Week

After such an exciting day last Monday for Holi, it only seems right that this week I’m feeling a little under the weather. I’ve come down with some sort of stomach bug that I can seem to shake. I’ve actually had it for right at two weeks now, but the first week I just let it run its course hoping I’d improve. After no luck I went to the doctor last week, got put on some meds and told that I should be feeling better in a couple days. It’s been almost another full week now and I’m still not feeling better. In fact, even after really trying not to, I feel like I’m starting to get dehydrated from the loss of fluids. So it’s back to the doctor first thing in the morning to see if he can figure out what’s going on. If you think about it, be praying for my tummy.

Other than my stomach pain though, things have been going okay around here. I’ve really started making some good friendships with some of the college guys around here. Basically, I try to spend several hours four or five days a week going to different college campuses, meeting people, and just getting to know them. It’s been a lot of fun so far as people are very approachable and interested to learn more about me and why I’m living in their world for now.

I feel like my Hindi is still improving, too. The last two weeks I’ve gone to a Hindi speaking church to get the extra listening time in. It’s definitely a challenge and by the end my head feels like it’s about to explode, but I’m understanding a lot more than I have in the past.

Also this week my friend Josh booked his plane tickets to come visit me! He’ll be staying for over a month, and I’m excited about seeing an old, friendly face!

Quote of the Day:

On Skype this morning

“Hey! Guess where we are!” – Mom

“Nicaragua… guess what time it is.” – Me

Well, it was well before 8am here and she didn’t mean to call that early, but I was a little grumpy, ha ha. It was also too early for me to be coherent enough to thank her for the awesome package that arrived last night. It was full of Reese’s Easter eggs, fruit snacks, oatmeal creampies, beef jerky, gumbo mix, a nice new CoolDry polo and a ton of other good stuff! Thanks Mom!

As my story implied, my mom and sister are in Nicaragua for the next week or so. If you’re interested in what they’re doing, you can click here

Holi 2010

Oops! The post have moved. Read it at EricRowell.net