Miscellany

Hello! I, alas, have not been posting everyday, but I have been taking pictures. This post will include various exciting and thrilling pictures from Delhi, in no particular order.

drum roll please....

Anoushka- the dirty dorm dog (stray) has taken a liking to me, much to Vivek's dismay (I named her, of course). She likes a good tummy rub, but I try to avoid the touching part... foot-tummy-rubs are loved as well.
Additional cuteness. Anybody want to adopt a young, cute, friendly dog? She is already spayed! :P
My sister could not believe that milk comes in plastic bags. So I got some photographic evidence, for her viewing pleasure.
I was shocked (and thrilled!) to discover that there is now offically a Cinnabon in Saket City Walk Mall in South Delhi. I know now that my mom can survive in India! :P I enjoyed a tastey cinnabon, and they do indeed taste just the same. Yum yum.
I enjoy talking pictures of subway signs from around the world. Here are some lovelies from the Delhi metro, which we have used a lot lately. It can be a bit crowded but is very nice. Many more lines are open then when I was last here.
We were able to go to the Delhi Book fair. Many different publishers and book sellers from around Delhi were there selling their wares.. I was able to get some fun books for myself and found a few Urdu storybooks for some of my kids.
दिल्ली पुस्तक मेला - Self explanatory... :P

Today I kheenched this picture of one of the many political posters adorning the J.N.U. campus.

Lastly, here is a video of Delhi traffic.. I thought it would be fun for those who have not been to India to get an idea of what it is like.

That's all for now--- more to come!

December 26, 2010 Bucket Shower

My old friend the bucket shower.

Ingredients:
Person needing shower
bucket
mug
hopefully hot water from geyser (pronounced gee-zer in India)
soap
shampoo

Directions:
Take mug, pour water over head. Wash. Repeat. Feel refreshed.

December 25, 2010- Christmas Day

Christmas was a very special day so I figured it deserved it's own post. Yesterday was a great day-- I got to see many friends and we all got to enjoy the day together. In India Christmas is a government holiday, so many people had the day off to enjoy. Vivek and I got together with our friends Manish, Sakshi, Mona, Shawshwat, Anand, Amrindra, Manjul, Sarfaraz, Nusrat and Jaya. During the day we went out to Qutab Minar-- which was bhird hi bhrid (crowded as crowded can be!). We also found another smaller archaeological site that was free and quiet and very interesting. I have been to Qutab Minar before but going as a group entailed many pictures. After we can back to campus and enjoyed dinner and a small party together. Here are some select pictures from the day:

A little boy dressed as Santa gives out candy at Qutab Minar.

Anand takes a group shot.

I think Vivek must have taken this shot (?) at Qutab Minar.
Vivek will probably kill me, but this picture of him dancing cracks me up.

Photo Blog-- Since December 22, 2010

December 22, 2010


Vivek and I see each other after five months. (Jet lag?)

December 23, 2010

Kaveri Hostel- J.N.U. I know this picture is a bit blurry, but I love how this scene in the middle of Kaveri Hostel (Vivek's dorm) is so familiar now to me. I feel like J.N.U. is my second home.

Transportation-- A Blue Line Bus (the "Killer" buses in Delhi responsible for many deaths due to insane driving-- they are supposed to be phased out as the new Green non-AC and Red AC buses are phased-in along with the Metro (subway) in Delhi (new, fancy, and a bit crowded). A JNU student on a bike passes in front. Bikes are probably the most common form of transportation on campus and around India.

December 24, 2010 (Christmas eve)

New Payel (anklets)- a Christmas present from Vivek-- picked out with help from our friends Nusrat and Sarfaraz (to go with the black sari and bangles Vivek also picked out for me-- blouse in progress, so I don't have it yet!)

Me being a dork-face (as usual). This is Manjul-- Vivek's best friend, and we three enjoyed a lovely dinner together in CP. CP is going through some major renovations these days. Here we stand in front of the "Metro Station" sign for the newish Delhi subway system.

Just arrived in Delhi

Hello All,

I just arrived in Delhi the night before last. The trip itself was quite interesting. Just before I left Boston, a huge snow/ice storm hit Europe causing many delays. The morning of my flight I called Lufthansa (I flew on Lufthansa with an intended route of Boston-Frankfurt-Delhi) and the person I spoke with said up until that point, my flight was on time. I boarded my flight for Frankfurt (and was very luckily bumped to Business class! Lucky me!) and settled in, some falling asleep. Later I was woken by a flight attendant who informed me that we were going to land-- in Munich! Confused and half asleep, the kind flight attendant laughingly explained that Frankfurt was again closed due to ice and there was no other place for us to land. Soon we landed in Munich-- but being one of the only airports open there was no gate for us to park at, so we went out near the Lufthansa Cargo terminal and sat there. I fell back asleep, and a couple of hours later we took off again because Frankfurt reopened. Luckily, my second flight was much later in the day, so I still arrived in Frankfurt with plenty of time to get to my flight to Delhi. All in all, it wasn't too bad.

As we approached Delhi I got more and more excited. Sitting next to me was a very nice German woman on her first trip to India. Since I do not speak German, she gracious spoke in English (which was not a language she used often) but we were able to have some nice conversations. I also very much enjoyed Lufthansa-- which had friendly, helpful flight attendants and gate agents. A far cry from Air France! I also learned some new German words such as "Anschlussflüge" which means "arriving flight" (very useful, no?)and "guten appetit" (guess?). German is an interesting language and I enjoyed listening to it during my trip. I also enjoyed some pretty decent vegetarian airplane food-- especially in business class.

I arrived in Delhi about 1:30, and Vivek was ready to meet me. I was so happy to see him after all this time! We returned back to his dorm-- which now feels like home since I have spent so much time here. I am already feeling quite settled in and happy. The weather is very nice, sunny and warmish during the day and cooler at night. So far the food situation is going well, and I have gotten to see some of my friends. Hopefully will be seeing more soon.

I have planned on doing a picture a day type blog for this trip, but sadly I can't locate my camera right now.. I'm sure it's here somewhere, but Vivek is off at the barber getting a shave and I couldn't find it on my own, so it will have to wait for now.

A New Blog

Hi everyone, I know it has been a crazy long-time since I posted a blog here. Grad school has been a bit time-consuming. I just wanted to let people who may be interested know I have started a new blog in addition to this one. This blog will remain my personal blog, but the other will be focused on compassion, non-profits, and such.

If that sounds interesting to you, please check it out here: The Medicine of Altruism

Storm!

We had a pretty big storm up here in New England this past weekend. There were wind warning, coastal and areal flood warning, severe weather warnings and the like. We didn't have electricity for 3 days, so my sister and I spent some time driving around and seeing what was going on in the area. There were tons of trees down, knocking out power lines and hanging precariously over roadways. Many were blocked. The most surprising was the flooding though. We crossed one river in the area and saw the following:







We also saw some flooded roads, like this one:





And being horribly bored and without power, my sister and I entertained ourselves at the local outlets (which somehow had electricity before the homes, of course!)

Frumpy Dress of Doom:



Everyone needs a pair of camoflage, fleece-lined crocs, right? RIGHT?



We went back two days later (still without electricity) and saw that at least this families house was no longer under water:


You'll notice that their barbecue was actually on a deck!

Icky Sicky

Seems like everytime I go to India I get to experience a new and exciting ;) illness. This time, I got a normal cold right before I left. While there I drank some bad water (the fault was all mine!) and I was REALLY sick for a few days. Thanks to some lovely medicine I got better pretty quick, but I was quite weak for a while after that. It was weird, I had not really experienced the weakness of 'I feel fine until I try to walk up some stairs and then I feel like I might pass out'. Certainly a new experience. Well I recovered pretty nicely from that, but then on my long flight (a whole other story) home I started to get this strange itchy spot on my skin. By the time I got home it was a giant and horrible red raised circle and painful too!! I went to the doctor and found out I had cellulitis, which is an infection of the subcutaneous layer of your skin. Ew!

After getting on antibiotics again, I started my first semester of my nursing graduate program, which is very busy but going well so far. The cellulitis infection took some time to go away, and longer to heal. Now it has been a month and it was just about healed, when.... I got another one in a different spot. Ack. So here I am again, and wondering why I keep getting so lucky (haha). This time it is even more painful and also causing some low-grade fevers. fun fun.

My theory is that my immune system was weakened from the other two things I had, so it just is not in good shape right now. And I have the stress of grad school on top of it. Ah well, at least I get to learn about new diseases all the time for nursing! ;)