Takin' it Easy

I promised that I would blog every day (as best as I could), so even though I don't have that much to share I decided to post today anyway. I decided to take it easy today, as you can tell from the post title. I was feeling a little under the weather and a little sad today so I didn't want to be too adventurous. So, What did I do today?

1) I did my laundry. I know what you're thinking, and no, I am not bragging about putting my clothes in the washing machine (although sometimes that's a big accomplishment for me). I had to hand wash all of my clothes in a bucket with woolite packets and then lined dried everything.

2) I started reading Harry Potter 5 today, which is also a big accomplishment for me. Last summer I decided to read all 7 Harry Potter books but only made it through the first 4. So now, about 9 months after finishing number 4, I read about 200 pages of number 5. And yes, I like it and can't really put it down. If Vicky is reading this I know she is really excited and proud.

3) I laid in a hammock. Yup, I'm in paradise.

4) I ate American food :) we got veggie burgers for dinner (my stomach is SO happy)

5) I did some homework. I almost forgot I was on a study abroad trip, whoops.

I hope I have more interesting things to share in the days to come!

When in Rome

When in Rome, do as the Romans do, right? Well I guess the same philosophy applies to India as well, at least for me. I know this might be hard to believe, but I woke up at 6am this morning (probably because I fell asleep at 9pm last night) and did rooftop yoga at our hotel at 730. It was amazing. I have never really done yoga before and I am incredibly inflexible, but it felt amazing to just be in the fresh air over the mountains taking everything in, including the actual practice of yoga. Our instructor is a pretty young man who has an incredibly deep, soothing voice, that made me relax almost instantly. The most amazing thing is that we only have to pay $2-$4 USD per class, say what?!? In the US it would cost $15-$20 USD for a yoga class and that is what we will pay for an entire week. I hope I stay with it and getting up at 7am does not become to big of a challenge for me.

As I have already told you, our hotel overlooks the Himalayas and it is so breathtaking. It is quite smoggy though, so taking pictures is a bit of a challenge.

I walk outside of my door at the hotel and this is what I see from all directions :)

If you know me, which you probably do if you are reading my blog, you will understand if I say that where I am right now reminds me a lot of the lair, which I mentioned in an earlier blog post about running outside. I am so excited to be spending the next three weeks here.

Expect the Unexpected

One thing to keep in mind while traveling is that no plans, no matter how well played out, are not foolproof.

In my blog post yesterday I forgot to mention the lighter and funnier things that were happening to me while in India. I did not know this, but the type of toilet we use in America is called a "western toilet," meaning that there are other types of toilets around the world. Who knew? Anyway, it was suggested to me to do an entire post on the world's different toilets, but I'll spare you and just talk about Indian toilets, commonly referred to as squatty potties.

From Wikipedia

Now let me explain this to you. You are facing like you would on a western toilet, putting your feet where the textured marks are on either side of the hole. Then you squat all the way down to your feet, and go to the bathroom in the little hole. The most mind boggling thing to me is that it flushes! I assumed all holes in the ground toilets were merely holes in the ground. I guess I was wrong. In any case, I am proudly telling the world that I successfully went to the bathroom in a squatty potty. 

Moving on. This morning we woke up at 4 in the morning to catch our flight that left Delhi at 6:40. This is where the drama begins. You know how in America and on most flights you are allowed to check a bag up to 50 lbs? Well, on this airline they said we could only have 30 lbs. WHAT? No one told us that. So as we are checking in to the airport as a group we find out that our baggage is over weight and we need to pay a fee of 11,000 rupees. This is about $200 USD. As you can Imagine, all 11 students start to shove everything they can from their checked baggage to their carry on baggage. 

We get to our gate, and our flight has been delayed, but the airline cannot tell us how long it will be. Long story short, we flew on a teeny tiny airplane (2 seats on each side with propellers on the wing) that was filthy. And by filthy, I mean there were cockroaches on the plane along with a wasp. It was disgusting. When we got to the Manali airport we were waiting for our baggage when we were informed that our luggage was not coming. Not only was our group's luggage not on the plane with us, but NOBODY'S luggage from the flight was on the plane with them. As you can imagine, there was mad and furious chaos in the airport. Our luggage is  scheduled to arrive to our hotel tonight, and I really really hope that mine is there! All of the gifts I have purchased for people so far are in my bag. *crossing my fingers*

Now we are in Manali, a beautiful small city in Northern India. The best thing about Manali so far is the weather. It is so beautiful outside, in the 80's with no humidity. It's supposed to be in the 60's at night. I should be out exploring now but I'm so tired I decided to take it easy. I will post some pictures tomorrow after I have gone exploring a little bit. 

Happy Weekend! 

Varanasi

Ok readers, brace yourself for my longest. blog post. ever.

For the last three days, I have been in Varanasi. For those of you who didn't click on my handy little link there, I will tell you a little about Varanasi. It is one of the oldest cities in the entire world. It is also known as Banaras, which is considered to be the more spiritual name for Varanasi. It is located on the Ganges river in Uttar Pradesh.

That's enough history, now I will share my experiences there with you. We arrived in Varanasi at about 11am on Tuesday - and just so you know it was about 117 degrees Fahrenheit as it was every day we were there. We were staying at a guest house at the Banaras Hindu University (BHU) because my teacher is very good friends with a professor there. When we first got there we had a lecture about the water supply in India, which is in great demand and not enough supply. After the lecture we went to the guest house to get out bearings at the hotel.

Yup, that's right. All nine girls slept in one room very reminiscent of Madeline. This experience was - interesting - but I think three and a half years or sorority life has prepared me, if for nothing else, this type of living arrangement. It ended up not being so bad. 

There are many pathways down to he river in Varanasi that are referred to as Ghats. We went down to on of the ghats to see the Aarti ceremony that occurs every day at sunset the first night we were in Varanasi. I do not know that it is fair to call it a ceremony because it does not signify anything, so maybe it should be considered a tradition? Anyway, Aarti is a state sponsored activity where every night at sunset flowers with candles in the middle are floated in to the river. We learned that while this is beautiful, it only occurs to bring in tourists to raise money. I was incredibly overwhelmed by the sheer amount of people at this particular Ghat. Not only were there people minding their own business, but there were also an insane amount of child beggars. It was incredibly depressing to see the poverty and how it was effecting people on a daily basis. 

After my first full day in Varanasi, I was fairly certain that I wanted to end my trip early and just head home. It was hot, smelly, sad, and just generally uncomfortable. 

On Wednesday we were able to sleep in late, up until 8am, but I could only sleep until 4:30. My teacher's friend, Dr. Sanjay, came to give us a lecture which was incredibly interesting. He works at BHU in gender studies and runs an organization called MASVAW, Men's Action for Stopping Violence Against Women. It is run out of BHU and targets men to educate them in a way they have never thought of before. They have coloring books for young children to teach them that men and women should be treated equally as well as similar tools for adults. For grown men they have playing cards and each card has a different message printed on it such as "real men don't beat their wives," "real men know safe sex is pleasurable sex," and "real men can have any sexual orientation." I think these cards are amazing and I think they would be extremely helpful in America as well. It was interesting to me to see how different countries can all have similar social problems. 

Later on Wednesday we went to Sanjay's home to meet his wife, Madhu. She works at a different university in India teaching teacher education and also focusing on gender issues. I kind of wish I could take a class with Madhu, I think it would be interesting and related to what I want to do with my life. After we talked with Madhu a Sitar (Indian guitar) player and a Tabla (Indian drum) player came to their home to play for us. Since I can't really describe what I saw, I have a video here. Ok, so the video wouldn't upload so here are a couple of pictures.

This morning we woke up at 4:30 to do a sunrise boat ride on the Ganges. It was so beautiful and amazing it really made me appreciate Varanasi in a way that I really couldn't before. 

We all even took turns "rowing" the boat. 

Now we are back in Delhi for the night, and tomorrow we will go to Manali for the remainder of our time here in India. I hope to blog more often with consistent internet access. 

Taj Mahal

As promised, here I am posting again! So excited, but the bad news is that I probably won't post for the next few days. Ok, updates. Today, I saw the Taj Mahal - and it was awesome.

And that's Charlie - he's a boy on my trip and when I said, "Who wants to be in a picture with me?" he said, "I do I love being in pictures!" So that's how I got a picture with Charlie at the Taj Mahal. I really don't want to sound like a pretentious snoot, but while the Taj was beautiful and amazing, it wasn't as wondrous and truly awesome as I was expecting it to be. When something is considered to be one of the seven wonders of the world, I think we are automatically expecting something truly breathtaking. So when I got to the Taj Mahal, I thought, wow, this is beautiful, but I was expecting something a little different. Don't get me wrong, it was really awesome, but I wonder if I went to Egypt and saw the pyramids, would I think - hey look, it's just a triangle coming out of the sand? 

A lot of things about India are strange to me. I have been reading May You be the Mother of 100 Sons by Elisabeth Bumiller, and a lot of things have shocked me. Although this book was written in the 1980's, my teacher assured us that most of the issues discussed in the book were relevant today. Most of the issues are women's issues, and include everything from a lack of education to sex-selective abortion and false stereotypes. So many things in India are so different from how the are in the US, which I suppose is to be expected. 

Things that shocked me today: 

1) Families of 4 riding on motorcycles - and only the father was wearing a helmet 

2) All the women are dressed nicely, mostly in saris, and look as though they should be going somewhere fancy even though that is their daily wear

3) When driving in India, honking the horn is a courtesy to let the car in front of you know you are coming, it is not rude at all 

4) Everyone here drives like a maniac and it's completely terrifying 

5) People manage to survive, and even thrive, in temperatures reaching 115 degrees (I did not fare so well)

6) There are monkeys AND cows just hanging out everywhere 

Something that really hit home with me is that things can change if everyone is given the opportunity of an education. A huge problem in India is that women are not educated because they are not seen to be as worthy of an education as their brothers. Being here, even though it has only been one day, made me realize how lucky I am to have received an education and the opportunity to study abroad. Also, it made me think back to when I read Half the Sky, and it made me appreciate Circle of Sisterhood more than I already do.

Ok, well I have to get up in 6 hours to fly to Varanasi for the next three days. I'm not bringing my computer, so I will update you as soon as I can.

The Runner Goes To India

Hi all,

Sorry I have been absent from the blogosphere for a while. I successfully graduated from college- WHAT? I know. I have decided to spend my summer studying abroad in India. I know, random random. All year I have been working on an honors thesis with a faculty member in the Family Science department and she was leading a study abroad trip to India, so I clearly decided to join. I know it sounds random studying abroad when one has already graduated, and to be honest it is.

We left Dulles at 5pm on June 9th and arrived at our hotel in Delhi at 11:30pm on June 10th. Talk about a mind-fuck. So now it is midnight and we are waking up at 6am to go see the Taj Mahal tomorrow. I am VERY excited about it. I will keep you all posted on my happenings in India and as long as I have WIFI I will post!

Happy Summer! 

The Great Terp Questionnaire

As you may or may not know, I am about to graduate from college. I couldn't really tell you how I feel about this, but I decided to fill out a questionnaire to be nostalgic. 

1. Where are you right now? (You can answer literally, or you can stop giving boring answers to every question you’re asked, and think outside the box.)

I am in a state of distress. I am in a mess of emotions leading up to my impending graduation from the University of Maryland. Currently drowning under final thesis review, final 12-page take home final, and, of course, maintaining this blog. On the upside - I am excited for my plans for next year and the summer - good news. 

2. What keeps you blogging? Your pride? Your mom? Wanting someone other than your cat to tell you that you’re awesome?

Well, I am really only blogging at this point for this class. I'm hoping my blunt response does not have a negative effect on my grade, sorry Dr. Lindemann. But really, I want to keep blogging so I can motivate myself to keep running, which has been failing lately.

3. What blogs or bloggers do you look to for inspiration, ideas, or just to get the blog side of your brain turned on?

Although it has nothing to do with running, or my blog, the blog I continually look to for inspiration is Post Secret. 

4. What is your most Terp-like quality? Is you’re not a Terp, well, I’m sorry, but you should be. Go out and get Terpy. Then report back with your newly acquired Terp quality.

My most Terp-like quality is that I truly believe "slow and steady wins the race." ****I will keep running****

5. If you could pick any celebrity or politician to give your blog a shout out via Twitter, who would it be?


Although she is not a celebrity or a politician, I would love to have Sarah Dessen give me a shout out via Twitter. She is my favorite author even though she exclusively writes young adult novels. I re-read her books regularly instead of finding new books to read because I don't think I will like them as much.

6. Congrats. Wallace Loh stumbled upon your blog and wants to host an all-night party to celebrate your genius. You get to pick the campus building and the two professors who will be in charge of DJ-ing and food/drinks. Go:

Campus building, The Chapel. I love the chapel. I am Jewish, so I don't love it because I pray there, I just find something so beautiful about the chapel and chapel field. 

The first professor who would be in charge would be Susan Dwyer. Reason: I took her philosophy class freshman year and thought she was the coolest person ever. I even contemplated becoming a philosophy minor just so I could have more classes with her. In other news, she is Australian and has a Woodle, what could be better than having a woodle at a party?

The second professor would be Ryan Curtis. I took the psychology of interpersonal relationships with him also during my freshman year. He's awesome, super fun, got a round of applause at his graduation with his PhD (I was there) and he has babies. 

Puppies, Babies, what could be better??!

7. And finally, a serious question. What have you learned from blogging? Did you learn about writing? Did you learn about people? Did you learn how easy it is to get distracted on the internet? (But jk on the last one; you already knew that, of course.)

I've learned that it's not so scary to share personal details of my life with complete strangers. It seems like such a terrifying idea, but in practice it is very liberating.