I love FRENCH FRIES.
I don't think it is going to matter where I go in the world, FRENCH FRIES will forever and ever remain my favorite food.
In India, sometimes, I have to be careful, or my FRENCH FRIES come to me with a strange India fried taste which makes me shudder to think about, so out of fear, I don't order FRENCH FRIES too often here.
I love dems.
Update on life:
- I have been listening to a lot of Hall & Oates. Help me.
- Tagore house is in an uproar - everyone's grumpy because the power continues to go out in the middle of the night and we immediately drown in our sweat and now all of the air conditioners in the house are broken. Having a house full of young'ins who grew up with air conditioning... placing them in the next hottest place in the world next to the center of the earth without a refuge from the impending heat stroke doesn't bode well.
- HCU is having a festival - Sukoon, which means "relax" or "relaxation" in Urdu (mixture of Arabic and Hindi) and it is far from relaxing. This sign looks like a Nickelodeon sign to me.
We rode this definite death wish of a ferris wheel - no straps, metal that flexed under our feet and certainly going in circles close to 30 mph. And, it was water powered. We were positive we were just going to be tossed out by the sheer speed of the thing that a man was controlling by rotating this lever that connected to the water barrel.
I mean, any place that rents out ginormous camels that bare their teeth for its riders does not have a relaxing atmosphere. But, there is this band that keeps playing this horribly depressing song - "Depression, Anger, Pain."
That's uplifting, relaxing, yea?
The party atmostphere becomes more apparent in the dance parties in the street every night. Male Indian dancing, the only type you will see in India, is absolutely hysterical. There is nothing like watching one guy do the stanky-leg (Susan) while two other guys hold his knees and pretend like he is having a seizure and try to hold him down from just pure full body gyrations. There is a lot of hip action, and a good deal of jumping and high pitched girly screams. I don't know if that is a concept here, to "scream like a girl." I'm going to say it isn't, because they do it a lot.
I got a few videos of it all- entertaining.
Indian carnival food isn't exactly like at home... no funnel cakes and candy apples, no hotdogs or greek gyros. Nope, you can get entire plates of biryani and sawarmas and tamato flavored popcorn if you wish, though. Wash it down with a refreshing bottle of coconut milk.
-And our SIP cultural performance. I performed a Kuchipudi dance solo.
I'll post the link so you can see it. Sorry I don't have any pictures of backstage and such - I gave away my camera too soon and didn't get any pictures. This is a Riane picture of us.
My teacher and makeup artist arrived an hour late, so I had an hour to get dressed... and it took 2 hours. So the show started an hour late, but it wasn't just because of me. All of the Kuchipudi dancers had costume malfunctions.
India time. No biggie.
First, neither my nose nor ears are pierced, although this might change soon. I want to get my nose pierced, but I think about how painful the fake bull ring hoop they gave me was to put in and how my nose started bleeding and I teared up when they clamped this stupid gold ring to my septum. Makes me rethink the nose piercing idea, although I certainly would not get a bull ring.
I don't think I'm that much of a baby - that shit hurt. Plus, he literally was trying to pierce my septum without the proper tools. Anyways, they had to bobby pin these ginormous earrings that went from the side of my skull down past my ear hangy thing... to my ears.
I didn't know bobby pins were so... multipurpose.
I wasn't measured previous to the performance - so I was brought the costume of a 16 yr. old, but in a country where I am bigger than most of the men, it was meant for a 12 yr. old Allyn. Not a 20 yr. old Allyn who also happens to be a sweaty American.
By the end of the whole ordeal, they had let out all of the seams just so I could get the shirt past my elbows, I had been thoroughly violated by some women who tried to smash my already non-existent chest into this half shirt meant for children, and I had a ginormous wedgie worse than any gym suit could possibly give me, plus a few bizarre layers that attached I have no clue where. My feet where painted red, I was given multiple headdress pieces plus some fake flowers, I had 2 nose rings, two arms full of bangles, bells around my ankles, and other random things pinned to my costume in various places.
It was an experience.
But, I was so tired from worrying how I was going to mess up this piece that I learned in full only two days earlier that I almost feel asleep in the makeup chair. Maybe that was just my narcolepsy - it's unclear.
- And now today, I finished and sent one final paper out and then Riane and I bought place tickets to Calcutta, train tickets to Sikkim and are looking for places to go hiking in the Himalayas (actually pronounced as "Himahlias").
Tonight is Mexican night at Novotel :)
My dance peformance:
