2 years later

I was just reading my India blog and I realized that the last post came off sounding very negative and I wanted to rectify that. When I said that I had a lot of unpleasant things to say about my trip, I meant the 3 day trip home, not the whole trip in general. My 6 week stay in India was wonderful. I wanted for nothing, the people were very polite and helpful, the food was wonderful, everyone spoke English to some degree, and I had access to everything t make me comfortable. The trip back home though was wretched. We missed our connecting flight in Delhi by minutes so we were all put up in the fanciest hotel I've ever seen,, the Ashok. I was given a suite since I was alone and I've never slept so good. We had one buffet lunch for free and it was amazing. I can't even begin to describe this hotel. The next day I called the airline to rebook a flight and I was given something going through  Brussels. In the elevator another passenger berated me for not being agressive enough to gt on a nonstop. I told her if she didn't like it she could go fix it the fuck herself. I paid about $80 to use the internet twice and make 2 phone calls. Needed to be done. We were all given cab vouchers to the airport and I was alone in my cab I think. Since I had gotten separated from the group (easy enough since I was the only one traveling alone) the cab driver wanted cash instead of the hotel voucher. I had none so he spit at me and I walked away. My flight wasn't for about 6 hours so the guard didn't want to let me into the airport. I basically said, look, it's dark, Im alone, can I just stand here next to you for the next 4 hours? He let me right on in. Long story short, everyone seemed very suspicious of me and my paperwork was checked multiple times by people of multiple importance. In Brussels I had to go through the same thing again (maybe a woman traveling to India alone for 6 weeks looks suspicious) and had my shirt pulled all the way up over my bra and vigorously frisked in front of the queue of people waiting to get onto my plane. O and they took my knitting needles. Funny that in all the other connecting flights no one else had a problem with my knitting needles. When getting off the plane in Brussels the woman behind me kept hitting me with her luggage and since I was a bitch by this point I turned around and said "Do you know the phrase excuse me?" She said "I have to catch an international flight". I responded "well sweetie that is so special! But guess what we all do". I let her in front of me and then bonked her with MY luggage the rest of the aisle insisting that she get out of my was because I had to catch an international flight. ANd yes, I got the middle seat flying into New York. In Hyderabad I did meet a nice group of missionary teens from New Jersey and one of them needed a band-aid so I gave him a couple of my Dora the Explorer band-aids. I've never flown internationally and I was a huge bitch the whole time. At one point the Brussels bag checkers and I were getting so frustrated with each other that they had an American worker come over and deal with me. Well, I know what it's like now, so next time maybe I won't be such a bitch! Ta!

Home

Okay, I'm home.  I had a shower and ate some cow and slept on my new futon mattress.  I went to bed at 8:30 and woke up at 4:30 which is exactly what I hope to do in the coming weeks for work so that's a really good sign.   I have a lot of unpleasant things to say about my trip, but I don't think I'll bother to go into it right now.  Except to say that Jet Airways could not manage to fly a piece of fuck towards a pile of fuck magnets on time for the big fucking conference, and all of Brussles now knows that I was not wearing matching bra and pannies yesterday.  Hey, thanks security. You rock my Casbah.

Leaving

O the taxi is here to take me home!

TV

TV here drives me bonkers.  My options that I can understand are ESPN, an American movie channel that shows stuff form the late 80's,  and Animal Planet.  It's my fault for not learning HIndi or Telegu, but it's the commercials, not the shows that drive me nuts.  There are 3 commercials in India.  Have a soft drink, watch soccer and buy a cell phone. That's what ALL the commercials are.  Very often a brand will show multiple products during one break.  For example, a brand of cleanser will show hand sanitizer, dish soap, and bar soap, in 3 different commercials in one break.  Test prep schools just show the same damn commercial over and over again.  If  lived here I would download a crapload more stuff.

Dead Gecko

Pickles drank too much detergent and died!  Photos 1) maybe Pickles will re-incarnate as the bird that will eat his own body.  2) I thought this was a Jewish place, but it's just 6 pointed stars  3) my favorite rocks 4)  peeps walking up to commuter rail stop.  5) my rocks again

Laundry

Nap!

I ended up taking a nap until 4 today so there will be no trip this afternoon, but there will be Chinese food tonight!  We will go to the Buddha lake tomorrow (I've seen it before from the back side of the Buddha).  We named the geckos in the kitchen Pickles and Dusty.  The smaller one lives in the mop bucket on the kitchen patio which has about an inch of water in it.  I wanted to call him Rusty because he will rust in he stays in the H2O too long, but my friend suggested pickles because you get pickles by leaving cucumbers in mop water for a long time.  Right?  The  big one runs under the little stove and it is dusty under there.  Also I think Rusty and Dusty are 2 characters form the movie "Prairie Home Companion".  Some good foozball games on tonight.
   Photos 1) this is Pickles, he loves this bucket.  He goes more deep or shallow if he wants and moves if the sun comes in.  Yes, i have checked to see that he is alive.  2) sweets. not too crazy about any of them  but the top left one has silver flakes and the bottom one has layers to pull apart. 3) doggies sleeping in the shade at the gas station. 4) can you count the 4 burquas in this photo? 5) I colored my hair and it came out too dark but I'm not upset.  They don't carry much hair color here and what they do have is pretty dark.  I mean, it's India.