you're so cute when you're slurring your speech

I'm one of the few expats who is still in Hyderabad for the weekend, because we have Monday off; I have stuff that I want to accomplish here, so I didn't travel anywhere. Tonight, I watched four episodes of 'Scrubs' that someone brought back from the States. Then, I went downstairs and watched a couple of episodes of 'Lost' on TV with Matt. I had a beer, and then we split a bottle of wine--I used to be somewhat anti-wine, but after several hard alcohols were forcibly removed from my repertoire due to poor decisions, wine is becoming more and more appealing. It also helps that it is the hardest alooholic beverage to acquire here, and I love the challenge of a hard-to-get scenario. The end result is that we talked until four a.m., which wasn't the smartest thing in the world since I have tons to do this weekend, but my time here is quickly coming to an end and I won't pass up opportunities for socializing.

There's nothing to say of importance right now, and it's 4:35 am, so I suppose I should try to sleep. The goodbyes are becoming increasingly difficult, but I think I'll save that discussion for another time, or else it will become far too repetitive. Goodnight, everyone!

i've got dozens of friends and the fun never ends...that is, as long as i'm buying

I left the office a little before seven tonight to go to a team dinner at Angeethi (home of the famous murgh makhni). We have these dinners every quarter, and so it was no surprise that we were going--but it was a surprise that it turned into a going-away dinner for me, and that the team gave me presents and got me a cake. I really love that particular team; it's a smaller team that I started working with on some projects when I first got to Hyderabad, and they're very near and dear to my heart even though I haven't been that involved with them since I went to Europe. It was hard to have a going-away dinner now, because it doesn't feel real yet--I still have two and a half weeks here, and that is no time at all, but it's still enough time to pretend that I don't have to leave. They got me some cool gifts, though; my favorite is a hot-pink dupatta (scarf) covered in white circles, big silver sequins, several half-dollar-size mirrors, with a seashell-and-silver-bead fringe on both ends. It's horribly fantastic; it is so far past 'bad' taste that it's back to fabulous taste. I really, really love it, and I need to find an outfit that I can wear it with. Arod took pictures tonight, so when she sends them to me I'll post a copy of me with the scarf for your edification.

As mentioned before, I'm staying in Hyderabad this weekend; unfortunately, the planned trip to Ajanta next weekend fell through. It turns out that the railroad between here and there was washed out during the rains, and so we can't take a train; Ismail showed me a bus instead, and the bus itself was posh enough, but the seats didn't fully recline, and so it would be like sitting and sleeping in an airplane encountering massive turbulence for twelve hours there and back, since the roads are so terrible. So, we're trying to find someplace else to go--wish me luck. For now, though, it's time for bed.

each broken heart will eventually mend

Today is a rather bittersweet day; it's my sister's birthday, which is a happy thing, but it's also my grandfather's birthday, which encourages memories that I tend to shove away out of self-preservation. He would have been eighty today, which normally would have necessitated a grand midwestern party (or at least a roast beef dinner with the family), but he's gone and so birthday celebrations are no longer necessary. I haven't stopped missing him, but the pain is no longer as sharp and demanding as it used to be--and that, in and of itself, makes me want to cry, because it feels like a betrayal that it's become easier to bear as the years have passed. Hyderabad makes me think of him fairly often, though, because he loved rocks, and Hyderabad has more than its fair share of boulders (and people breaking the boulders up and carting the pieces away on their heads). I suppose it doesn't matter so much anymore; life goes on, I've changed, my family has changed, and every change takes us a step farther away from how life was when he was still here. There would never have been enough time with him to satisfy me--and so all I can do is try to be satisfied with what I had, which was incredibly special and absolutely fundamental to who I've been and what I will become.

True to my avoidant nature, I successfully sidestepped any thoughts of him all day, since I was very busy at work; I was at the office until eleven, and then came home with Matt and ate dinner in his apartment before coming upstairs and finishing some more work. Now I desperately need some sleep so that I can do it all again tomorrow. Goodnight!

we'll become silhouettes when our bodies finally go

Despite the fact that I was operating on about six hours of sleep, today went surprisingly well. However, there is nothing to note, other than that I realized today that I only have 11 working days left in the Hyderabad office. That's insane! I have no idea how I'm going to finish everything that I'm supposed to finish before my last day here, so the next few weeks could be a bit insane.

So, since there's no news to report, and since I could use some sleep, I'm going to go to bed. I've posted pics of my Delhi trip below for your viewing pleasure. I've also posted a new 'picture of the moment'; Sarrol the Barrel of Death was an entertaining moment of my past that was much too short. Errol and I were tied together at the ankle and the thigh, and so were horribly mismatched against an entirely unimpeded (and naturally agile) Walter. However, despite our quick and brutal defeat, we set off a trend of dorm wrestling that lasted most of the year. Man, those were the days--I would try to move that tradition to Hyderabad, but marble floors are even less conducive to wrestling than the carpet-covered concrete floors of Loro. Alas, we all grow up, and so my days as part of Sarrol the Barrel of Death are over :(

the taj mahal 

downpour in the courtyard between the mosque and the taj 

the calm before the storm 

the taj mahal in the rain, as seen from the nearby mosque 

this was an audience area of some sort; the women of the harem could reach the third level directly from their apartments, and emperor akbar sat in the very top room, looking out over the courtyard below 

a cool platform set in the middle of a pool in fatehpur sikri 

not-humayun's-tomb; but, this other tomb was almost cooler because there was no one there and the landscaping was gorgeous. thank you, driver, for not understanding me. 

humayun's tomb, delhi; this was a precursor to the taj mahal 

a really cool carved marble screen in humayun's tomb, delhi 

burn it down 'til the embers smoke on the ground, and start anew when your heart is an empty room

My flight today was delayed by about 45 minutes, so I didn't get back to my apartment until ten p.m. Surprisingly, there were a lot of people still hanging out in my apartment--some of them live there, some of them were just finishing dinner, and some of them were loitering in hopes of hearing about my experience in the spa in Delhi (see below). I hung out with Arod, Regina, Rohit, and Neel until 12:30, which was a little ridiculous since I need to go to work early and get caught up on emails and things. But, it was nice to hang out a bit before going to bed, even if telling the whole breast-massage thing out loud seems a little awkward.

I did a bit of sightseeing and shopping in Delhi today; I saw a tomb that my driver thought was Humayan's Tomb, and then I saw the real Humayan's tomb, and then I went shopping in Khan Market (home to a lot of booksellers, which explains why my bag was so much heavier on the way back to Hyderabad today) and at the Cottage Industries Emporium. I tried to go to the Bahai lotus temple, but alas it is closed on Mondays. I didn't do as much shopping as Delhi deserved, but I did as much shopping as I had the appetite for, so things worked out v. nicely. I also ate at McDonalds--the service was so much better than the service in most (all) restaurants in India, and the french fries and icy Coke were as good as they are in America. Yay.

I will post pictures tomorrow, but for now it's time for bed; I just wanted to let y'all know that I'm alive and that the sushi did not incapacitate me.

Oh, and if you took my advice and downloaded Death Cab for Cutie's 'I Will Follow You Into the Dark' and liked the song, or if you didn't follow my advice but are looking for new music, purchase the entire album. It's called 'Plans', and it has been on constant repeat on my iTunes for a couple of weeks now. That's where most of the title lines (such as the one above) have come from, since I'm not listening to anything else. While 'I Will Follow You Into the Dark' is still my favorite song (I've listened to it 89 since downloading it, not counting however many times I've listened to it on my iPod), I am becoming increasingly infatuated with 'What Sarah Said,' 'Your Heart is an Empty Room', 'Someday You Will Be Loved', and 'Brothers on a Hotel Bed'. It is well-worth the purchase, even though it is neither techno nor angry poprock. Goodnight, everyone!

if i don't make it, know that i loved you all along

There's a slim chance that I will die in my sleep tonight, after the second night in a row of tempting fate by eating sushi in Delhi. I'm staying in this swanky Japanese hotel, and they have a swanky Japanese restaurant--and so yesterday and today, I had sushi for dinner. It was so good, and so I really hope that it doesn't make me sick tonight. I felt fine this morning, but that isn't necessarily a guarantee. But, since I hadn't had miso soup, or veg tempura, or california rolls, or any other Japanese food in five months, I was willing to risk it. All of the food was amazing--I don't know whether it was actually a good restaurant, or if it was just a welcome respite from curry, but I left very satisfied after both meals. Now I just have to make it one more month before I have all the tempura and crunchy crab rolls that I could ever desire within a ten-minute drive.

Yesterday was the big day for sightseeing--I hired a driver and made a mad daytrip to the Taj Mahal and Fatehpur Sikri. A few problems with this plan: 1) I spent about eight hours in the car, 2) because we left at six a.m., I didn't have time for breakfast, 3) because I didn't want to get dysentery I didn't eat until I got back to the hotel, thus repeating my European habit of not eating all day, and 4) it rained while I was at both the Taj Mahal and at Fatehpur Sikri. Despite the rain, the Taj was as gorgeous as it is reputed to be, and Fatehpur Sikri was very haunting and memorable. The latter was a city founded by Emperor Akbar, but it was abandoned when he died due to chronic water shortages; the palace and city were inhabited for less than twenty years before being deserted, and now only ruins remain of a architecturally fascinating city.

However, despite the beauty around me, I had trouble properly appreciating it because there were tour guides all over Fatehpur Sikri trying to force people to use them for tours. If you stopped moving for even a second, one of them would pounce on you and start asking if you wanted a tour, telling you that it was 'only 50 rupees, so little when you have spent so much to come here'. It might have been worth hiring one of the damned men just so the rest of them would leave me alone, but I probably couldn't have gotten the hired tour guide to shut up either, so I just tried my best to ignore them. They would even come up and talk about how peaceful and quiet Fatehpur Sikri is, which I of course found ironic.

Anyway, after the Taj and Fatehpur Sikri, I have no need to see any more World Heritage Monuments for awhile. I've seen quite a few major pieces of human history in the past few months; between my tour of Europe and my excursions in India, I have had an amazing summer. Today, though, I felt absolutely no desire to go out of the hotel, since it looked grey outside and I was too annoyed by the prospect of fending off more tour guides to brave the monuments in Delhi. So, I stayed in my hotel all day, and I pampered myself with a massage and a facial. I also worked part of the afternoon and evening, since I'm leaving India in three weeks and have tons to do before I go home.

The facial was quite interesting--I've never gotten a facial before, but I'm pretty sure that most facials don't include a breast massage. The woman asked me to take my shirt off when she started the facial, which I accepted with few qualms because I figured that she didn't want to get my shirt wet. After half an hour or so of rubbing my face with various creams and unguents, she asked me to sit up. Then, with absolutely no warning, she unsnapped my bra, and within seconds I had oil all over my chest and torso. She also massaged my back, which was nice, and the facial left my skin feeling very soft--but the chest massage sort of weirded me out. Granted, I could have asked her to stop, but in weird situations my first instinct is to just go with it unless I'm in actual physical danger (just ask Jasmine and Michael about my tendency to pretend nothing unusual is happening). As I told Vidya, I'm just glad that I got the silver facial, since if I had requested the gold facial, I probably would have ended up having sex with the woman. I'm willing to get another facial in the future--but I bet that American cosmetologists will look at me v. strangely if I specify in advance that I don't want the breast-massage part of the package.

Tomorrow I've arranged for a driver to take me around Delhi (thus eliminating the other thing I didn't want to deal with today--predatory autorickshaw drivers), so I'm going to see some historical tings and do some shopping. I'm flying back to Hyderabad tomorrow night, and then the mad dash towards the finish line of my trip will begin in earnest. I'll post pictures when I get back and upload them; goodnight, everyone!

out on the street are so many possibilities to not be alone

I got to leave work at 3:30pm today for an offsite, which rocked; as mentioned yesterday, we had tickets to see 'Salaam Namaste,' a newly-released Hindi film. Unfortunately for me, the movie was in Hindi and so I couldn't understand the dialogue; fortunately for me, it was v. heavy on songs and dances, and the plot was easy to pick up even if I missed the nuances of the characters' thoughts. By the end of it, I was ready to leave, since it was about three hours long. The last scene was in an emergency room, where the female star was giving birth, and since the volume of the film was much too high, her incessant shrieking gave me a headache. However, the male lead was absolutely ridiculous, and the storyline was relatively controversial--the costars actually made out and had obvious sexual encounters onscreen, lived together before marriage, got pregnant, and discussed whether to have an abortion before the girl decided to keep the baby. It was also set in Australia, which gave them an excuse to have a dance sequence at a wedding in which all of members of the bridal party stripped off their formalwear so that they could frolic in swimsuits on the beach. I thought that part was completely hysterical.

After the movie, we had dinner at a nearby hotel; the food was decent, and we played fun icebreaker-style games. I didn't get home until almost eleven, and then I had to pack for my trip to Delhi tomorrow. I'm going to leave straight from the office, but i'm taking my laptop with me since this isn't a real vacation and I have work to do. So, perhaps I'll blog over the weekend--Delhi is not nearly as remote as Hampi, and so I should be better able to keep in touch. No promises, however--and if I don't go to sleep now, I won't make it to the office tomorrow, and that would be truly unfortunate! Goodnight, everyone!

when you call my name, it's like a little prayer

Yay for work. I taped an hour-long meeting at work today for a project that I'm working on, but I didn't have a tripod, and I had to hold as still as possible--the end result was a massive cramp in my arm, and sadness over the fact that I have to do half a dozen more of these in the next week :( I'm going to have to figure out some sort of propping system, since I'm sure that the video contains easily-discernable jerks where my wrist spasmed uncontrollably.

I stayed in the office until a bit before eight p.m., then came home and ate Mexican food. It's rather sad--Ranjit is out for two weeks to visit his family, and so Anup has cooked for the past three nights, and we're all enjoying it much more than we were enjoying Ranjit's food before he left. I feel like I'm being disloyal to him somehow--but the Thai food that Anup made last night actually tasted like Thai food, and the Mexican food tonight actually tasted like Mexican food (sans sour cream and guacamole), which is a huge improvement over the almost-Thai and almost-Mexican that we were used to.

After dinner, I worked on a couple of things that I had to do for tomorrow, and then rebooked my tickets home. I'd booked them way back in April, and had just picked an October 10 departure out of thin air, and so it was time to switch this before the flights that I wanted became all booked up. So, I'm flying out of Hyderabad on the 16th, and returning to San Francisco on October 26. The intervening days will be spent lazing about in Bali, where I will hopefully get a glorious tan and write my romance novel while sipping exotic beverages on the beach. I'll be back in California just in time for Halloween, which should be fun--it will be interesting to see whether anyone in the office recognizes me, and I hope that my friends haven't forgotten who I am.

I also got my tickets for this weekend's trip to Delhi, and I'm in the process of confirming my trip to Ajanta in a couple of weeks. Some people are trying to convince me to go to Sri Lanka for the long weekend next weekend, but I think that I want to spend it shopping in Hyderabad, since I have a v. limited amount of time left in this fair city. I'm going to miss Indian VH1--tonight they played 'The Fabulous Life of Britney Spears and Kevin Federline' for like the fiftieth time, followed by the usual weird mix of videos; a Ricky Martin video was followed by 'I'm Too Sexy' by Right Said Fred, and there was some Michael Jackson, Madonna, and Linkin Park thrown in for good measure. American VH1 pales in comparison.

Now that I have accomplished so much, it's time to go to bed so that I can get up and do it all over again! But, tomorrow is our offsite, and we're going to see a Hindi movie ('Salaam Namaste'), followed by dinner. I won't understand the movie, and I will probably be annoyed by the mice in the theatre, so I may sneak out and shop in the mall beneath the IMAX. However, that's not a very team-oriented activity, so we'll see if my desire to escape the Bollywood dance numbers outweighs my natural inclination towards social acceptability.

as the blood runs red down the needle and thread...someday you will be loved

The Hampi trip was physically brutal, but emotionally wonderful. Spending so much time on a train was not pleasant and was probably a good way to pick up a nasty infection, but the gorgeous serenity of the rocky terrain more than made up for it. Excluding the quick trip to Sri Lanka, it had been so long since I had actually seen the moon, or been to someplace with relatively clean air; and even though I was with the same people that I spend all my time with, it was nice to be with them in a place other than Hyderabad. I don't think that I'm designed for city living; traffic drives me crazy, and conversely nothing makes me happier than driving around winding country roads with no one in sight for miles. While California hardly qualifies as 'sparsely populated', it will seem completely empty compared to Hyderabad, and so there are definite advantages to returning to America.

I've decided to go to Bali for a week after I leave Hyderabad. I'll be good and not try to smuggle ecstasy into the country, since I have no desire to spend fifteen years in an Indonesian prison. It will be nice to take a break between my India life and my California life so that I can start the process of fitting the two together before I have to go back to the crazy whirl of friends, family, work, and parties. I'm going to get back to the States just in time for Halloween, which means that I should find a costume here--maybe I'll dress up as a Naxalite rebel. Nothing would be better than showing up dressed as a terrorist at an office where most people probably won't recognize me. Sounds like a good way to get arrested!

It's still early (around 10:20pm), but I haven't recovered from Hampi yet, so I should go to bed. But, I've suckered about 14 people into doing another 12-hour train ride in a couple of weeks, this time to the caves at Ajanta. They're all fools, and I'm so excited. Lauren and I decided today that our first expat reunion should be a Greyhound busride to Spokane, just to make sure we make a miserable trip to an unlikely destination. I'm obviously down for anything, but I doubt that the Spokane trip will happen. Sadness.

a little flesh, a little history

What a weekend! Spending 24 out of 60 hours on an Indian train is not the best weekend one can have, perhaps, but Saturday was one of those perfect days that comes along so rarely. Hampi was breathtaking--we saw lots of amazing ruins, gorgeous rock formations, etc., etc. We also found some great shopping in Hampi Bazaar, some terrible breakfast in the hotel restaurant, and a tolerable dinner in the restaurant bar. Some people found too much malt liquor in the bar as well; by the next morning we were all miserable from food poisoning, hangovers, or both. Needless to say, Sunday was a bit more relaxed; we went back to Hampi Bazaar, revisited a couple of the more scenic vistas, hung out by the river, and then had an early dinner at the Mango Tree. The restaurant was out in the middle of nowhere (an area we had christened 'the killing fields' because of an altercation we had had with a travel agent earlier in the day; we were sure we were going to get killed over 300 rupees, which would be laughably tragic). But, the restaurant was amazing--it was overlooking the river, under an ancient mango tree, and the 'chairs' were actually long, carved stone benches with built-in reclining backs. We relaxed at the Mango Tree, drank lots of Coke and ate lots of extremely tasty food, and then headed back to the hotel. We only kept one room for Sunday night since we were catching a 10:45pm train--and so the seven of us took turns showering whilst watching 'Rocky III' and then part of 'The Matrix' on tv. There is nothing better than cramming seven people into a room with two twin beds, one desk chair, and a questionably-stained couch while the steam from seven showers emanates from the bathroom. Awesome!

Getting back on the train was painful; there is nothing worse than using a squat toilet in a moving vehicle. I woke up around six a.m. and couldn't fall asleep, and so I listened to my ipod and watched the countryside until we arrived in Hyderabad around 10:45am. I took a quick shower at home, went to work, and was rather unproductive. Now I should go to sleep to make up for last night's sleeplessness. Pictures from Hampi are posted below!!

The river as seen from an uncompleted bridge. 

Apparently you can take two motorcycles and eight dudes across a river in these deathtrap-looking coracles. 

Empty packets of Immodium after the group did Immodium shots in my hotel room Sunday morning--thanks for the memories, hotel restaurant! 

At breakfast in the hotel restaurant on Sunday. Some people (not me!) were a bit worse for the wear after too much Royal Challenge the night before. 

Katzman and Nick near a rock that they tried to climb; the rocks in Hampi are breathtakingly large. 

The stone chariot and the entrance gate to the music temple. 

Josh, Nick, Katzman, Salim, and Heather. Notice the slack-jawed expressions--the tour guide had long since become completely incomprehensible. 

The last temple that we stopped at--the smaller-diameter pillars that surround the large pillars actually make music if you tap on them. The British cut through one in the thirties, expecting them to be hollow, but they're actually solid rock. Amazing. 

Katzman, Josh, Lauren, and Nick at some ruin or another (they all start to blend together). 

The remnants of the king's palace. 

The royal palace in Hampi had a great aqueduct system; I was able to walk under it without ducking, unlike Katzman, Salim, and everyone else in the group. 

The elephant stables at the queens' palace. 

A shiva-linga in a water temple; from what I gathered, Shiva (the destroyer) is not worshipped in a recognizable humanoid form, and so these phallic statues (shiva-lingas) are worshipped instead. 

Standing in front of a statue of one of the avatars of Vishnu. 

The 'Mustard Ganesh'--the guide's explanation of why this is the mustard Ganesh was unintelligible, but apparently this was where the common people came to worship. 

The only Hindu temple not destroyed when the Deccan kings sacked Hampi in 1565.