This weekend was nice. It was really relaxing and a fantastic cultural experience. Different from that which we've been doing. Saturday, we went shopping around. I bought a book on the Mafia. It was like $2, and I have decided that I really like coffee-table literature. It's just interesting enough that you can look at it for 20 minutes or so when you're procrastinating, but not interesting enough to read from cover to cover. I don't know if any of you can relate or not.
For lunch, we went to this restaurant that is the coolest buffet I have ever seen. It's not a buffet where you stand up and go get your own food when you want it. There are waiters walking around with platters of food. When you want some, you ask for more. And it only cost like $4. Tragically, I didn't eat. To be honest, the food didn't even look appetizing to me at the state of mind that I was in. I was still feeling sick from throwing up on Thursday. It sucked. The food was probably super good and all I felt like eating was water. So tragic.
India movie theatres are really interesting. We went to see The A-Team after we did some more shopping. My second time seeing the movie. All in all, it was entertaining, because of how over-the-top Hollywood has become. Anyway, before the movie, everyone in the theatre stands up and sings the Indian national anthem. Then, at the middle of the movie, they stop it for intermission. The intermission was actually really nice. It gave you a great chance to get up and go to the bathroom and stuff. Really cool stuff.
Saturday was Aaron's birthday, so everyone wanted to go celebrate. We got dropped off in some part of town where all the parties are going down. After everyone, with the exception of Dhruva and I, drank some booze, got a little buzzed, smoked some hookah, lost their buzz, then we went and tried to find some clubs. Despite being incredibly hot in Inda, you cannot wear shorts and go to clubs. Who'da thought? So it was a no-go on the clubs. Then, we got in a pretty epic 10 minute argument with some cab drivers because they wanted to charge a lot of money to take us home. We ended up talking them down to about $12 for the ride which was really good considering how far away we were.
Yesterday was Sunday and a really cool day. We got on a bus at 6:30 AM and rode 3 hours up a giant of a mountain. We spent the entire day driving and checking out these rad ancient temples. Seriously, these things were built like 4000 years ago. So crazy. One of the temples had a pool of water that was believed to be the source of the 5 great rivers of India. Everyone in the temple would go down to the cow statue waterfall that had water coming out of its mouth and would wash their hands, feet, hair, and face. Then, they would sometimes drink the water. Another temple seriously looked like it was straight out of Indiana Jones. It was on the edge of this huge cliff. Unfortunately, it had been raining so all we could see were clouds in front of us. But still, it was such an indescribable feeling to imagine thousands of years of monks sitting and meditating on that temple overlooking this great empty valley truly witnessing God's artistic hand in all of nature. It was overwhelming in some aspects. So beautiful.
It's been a trip for sure. India is an amazing place. One thing I am starting to realize, however, is that I wish I could work on more personal level with the people. The thing that I loved most about my mission in Japan was the people. Just working so closely with them, it was natural and easy to grow and love them. I don't feel I have had that kind of opportunity to do with the people of India, so I still feel so very distant from them.
Things are going well. I still can't get over this diarrhea, but that's probably more information that you were bargaining for. Anyway, I'm out. Special shout-out to my sister Mackenzie. I don't think she reads this, but I was just thinking about her. I love you, sis. Hope all is well.
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