Same to same

This place is mad beautiful. From the bulbous oversized ants that explode from the cracks in the sidewalks made of multi-colored brick tiles to the first rain in Delhi in what must have been months, this city is breathing with beauty, despite the forever yellow-grey skies choked by smog.

I forgot to pack my camera, obviously. I'm really not that dissapointed--it's hilarious that I forgot something so vital and I feel like I am more able to drink in the people and ants and saris and rickshaws and open urinals on the sides of roads and street dogs matted with dirt and mountains of mangoes with my eyes unadultered by a lens. Also, there is a girl here that literally takes pictures of everything so as soon as I can get my hands on her visual stash I will try to post them up here.

It's 140 am here. My sleep schedule just went haywire. For the past few days I have been going to sleep at relatively normal hours, waking at 730 for breakfast provided by the YWCA Guest House where we are currently staying, and avoiding nap time in order to adventure. However, today I slept on and off from 230 pm to now, sadly missing a big Caribbean themed party that my new Delhi friends told me about! C'est la vie! A couple of us went to a bar/lounge last night and it was really interesting to see how the sexes interacted. In India the girls and guys dance together instead of on eachother--the only contact dancing was done by obvious couples. I am really excited to make friends with some Indian girls once we go to university and really pick their brains on the gender roles here.

Yesterday Nina (Berkeley bff), Kristen (the photographer from UC Santa Cruz), Marley (also from UCSC) and I embarked on an epic adventure to check out the Red Fort--what used to be the walled palace of the Mughal Emperor Shahjahan, built in the 17th century. We took the metro--yessss Delhi has a metro system and it is amazing. It cost 12 rupees to go about 4 stops--about 24 cents in US $. I am really excited to learn more about the metro as it is still in the process of being built in the south end of the city (Delhi is way more huge and sprawling than I anticipated, but learning to navigate it is incredibly rewarding as nothing is on a grid!) We got lost a couple times by misjudging how far away metro stops are from one another and kind of having no idea where we were once we stepped outside the station. When we finally got to the correct stop we walked by the Delhi train station terminal which was POPPIN. That place is a huge transportation hub for people all over India.

The walk down to the Red Fort was littered with these open street urinals for men and of course no facilities for the ladies (what is up with thaaaat!?). After wandering for a while in the hot, dusty roads of Old Delhi we find a girl around our age and Kristen asks her for directions and she leads us to the red fort— I am soooo grateful for the legit directions we receive from people (I have a policy of trying to only ask girls, they're more helpful than the guys here most of the time) because in the city a lot of people will walk you to some shop that they get kickback from for bringing in white tourists.

The Red Fort was gorgeous, but we were so exhausted we just plopped down on the grass in the center of the palatial compound and recharged. This group of Indians—2 girls and a guy about 2 or 3 years younger than us kept waving at us from their spot on the grass and we waved them to come join us. The girl Seema was super chatty but couldn’t speak English that well but asked us what our favorite food was and favorite actors and the like in her broken English and we responded with the little to no Hindi we had. Thus far I can count to ten (ek do teen charr paunch che sot ot now daas), ask how much something is (kitna he), where something is (kahaa he), what is your name (dom hara nam kyaa he), my name is (mira nam kelly he), and (aur) and my limited repertoire of Bollywood knowledge. She was wearing an orange mismatched salwar kameez (a dress that goes down to mid-thigh(ish) and covers the shoulders paired with a pair of loose pants) and a purple striped head covering. I was wearing orange leggings and an orange Punjabi salwar kameez top (no sleeves) and my maroon Afghani scarf. Basically we were twinsies. When we realized this glorious matching she said “same to same!” and when she asked Kristen what her favorite food was and Kristen responded mango she said “same to same!” The interaction with Seema and her friends rejuvenated all of us after our long day of being lost and sometimes being purposely misled. Any notions of frustration evaporated as we realized how welcoming some of the people here are and that some kind of friendship was formed despite huge language barriers. I am SO EXCITED to learn Hindi. SO EXCITED.

Anyways this post is long and doesn't even touch the tip of the iceberg! I'll try to post more regularly but we don't have a consistent internet source just yet. On Saturday morning we leave for Mussoorie--a former colonial British hill station (army outpost) in the foothills of the Himalayas to take intensive Hindi classes for a month. Soooo ready to go on some beautiful hikes and visit Rishikesh--a holy Hindu site and where the Beatles did some yoga and even composed some songs for the White Album. Neat!