settling down and in

I had a dream last night that I adjudicated a visa for Debbie Gibson. I realize that as an American citizen she would never show up at my visa window but since my mom answered some strange question on facebook "What is Becky dreaming of?" by saying I was dreaming about her arriving in Chennai I thought I would set the record straight. Lately I've been trying really hard to make sure I get enough blob out and do nothing time...I have a lot to catch up on after crazy October.

Last Sunday Natalie and I wore saris and attended another wedding. This one was for Nithya who works in the commissary. However, it was totally different from the last one. The ceremony had been at 7 in the morning but the reception that we attended was in the evening. It was a love match so the crowd was very small, it seems her family was not in attendance. There were "thrones" on the stage and lots of picture taking and buffet eating and staring at each other in our awesome outfits. But it was a bit strange that the Americans were the major group of guests.

This past week was my birthday. There was a high level visitor in town though and I was in charge of putting together a lunch at the CG's residence with university leaders for the visit so my actual bday consisted of just being exhausted. But since the 11th was a day off we went out on the 10th...after the lunch and then the ELO dinner at the CG's residence. We were supposed to go to Salsa at the Park but Salsa at the Park is no more...so we had drinks at the Leather Bar...and cake. It was fun to hang out with everyone although what I had really wanted was to see and talk with my niece and nephew. I did call them but Allie was out at day care and Luke was down for the count with Swine flu. I need to figure out Skype so I can see and talk to them.

Bollywood classes are back! We had a bit of a break as our teacher went to Thailand. Yay dancing!

It is raining. A lot. At one point during Diwali I remember thinking how can there possibly be any more fireworks left? They must have set them all, all the fireworks in all the world, off already...I feel the same way now about the rain. It is insane. Many families have been finding worms and tadpoles in their water. Not me yet. But I am terrified everytime I take a shower that I'm going to find worms. EEEEEEEEEkkkkkkk.

Bollywood dancing and a wedding

Natalie and I are taking Bollywood dancing lessons. With Chennai Man 2008, Jodi No 1 (the Indian version of either Dancing with the Stars or So you think you can dance?) winner Sanjay. Boy that man can moves his hips. And his shoulders. Along with Natalie and me, two others from the consulate, an Indian woman, a French woman, a British woman and a 12 year-old Indian boy hang out in a small room and bumble through his choreographed fun. I have to admit I was curious about Sanjay, especially after he was telling us that he would be on T.V. the next day. I don't have a T.V. but I do have You Tube. So I watched my teacher rock out to Bon Jovi on the Chennai beach with some little kid. Yes I did. We won't talk about it again. The first song we have been learning is Talli Main Talli Ho Gai which apparently means I'm so drunk. At many points in the song our hand motions are supposed to represent doing shots...I've never popped my hips so much while doing shots but whatever. I look like a epileptic spider on crack who just had vodka sprayed on her and fell into a blender that happens to have been slung down a slip and slide while trying to do the dance. Natalie looks flawless. I want to take a video of her and post it so people can have an idea of what I am SUPPOSED to be doing. But it is a ton of fun and next family wedding Natalie and I will totally rock our new dances. We are working on Jai Ho now. I've downloaded the songs and due to the monsoon making running impossible, Natalie and I just have Bollywood dance party in the apartment instead. Life is good. Some of the moves though are very counterintuitive. Sanjay gets a little fed up with the class's general lack of ability to do his crazy moves but he tries not to show it. Usually he starts showing us something insane which seems simple enough when shown slowly but becomes impossible to do at the speed of the music. After we try it with music he tends to sigh and then just tell us to shift from foot to foot and pump our arms. When the french lady kept saying "but my arm wants to go here not there" he took a deep breath and told her to "use your head". Heart.

Last weekend I went to my first Indian wedding. It was the pinnacle of efficiency, an economist's dream. We arrived slightly late having gotten lost (I suppose we should have turned at the cow in the road but we went straight). I sadly did not have a sari to wear as my sari shirt had not been made yet, sigh. Oh, I forgot to say whose wedding it was! Balu, a cutie who works in the consular section with us! He has the most rocking glasses. Anyways, we show up late and go up to the third floor and people usher us forward saying please come and then put up chairs in the front row for us to sit and give us diet cokes. Kinda felt bad ruining the view of the super cute kids who had heretofore been the front row. Balu and his bride and family members were on stage. As were bananas and flowers and things that were making smoke. A whole lot of photographers were at the foot of the stage. A heck of a lot of people were in the audience...hundreds and hundreds. I didn't really understand what was going on but jasmine was pinned in the bride's hair and the cords were tied around the neck and some rings were exchanged and then Balu and his bride walked around the alter and then walked around it with their family and then it was receiving line time. Everyone (yes EVERYONE) took off their shoes at the foot of the stage and worked their way up to say congrats and have a picture taken and then collect shoes and then were herded to the second floor. The second floor had eight rather long tables which probably fit about twenty people on a side. The room was arranged in sections of two tables with chairs just on one side of each table and an aisle between each pairing of tables. As guests sat in the chairs, waitstaff went down the aisles b/w the tables and rolled out new paper, then a waiter went down the aisle and gave each guest a fresh banana leaf and bottle of water, then a whole slew of chefs with their own pots walked down the aisle and loaded the banana leaf with all sorts of deliciousness (especially the pineapple wonder). People ate and if they wanted more they folded the leaf one way and when finished folded it the other. And then the waitstaff just rolled the paper and leafs back up which was our cue to move so that the little kids stalking our chairs could sit and the process could be repeated for the next batch of guests. We then left. Overall, ceremony plus meal took about an hour. Beautiful! Tonight we are invited to a wedding reception. My sari shirt is made but the tailor didn't open yesterday due to monsoon. I might just wear my sari with a tank top and tuck it into my workout shorts since I don't have a petticoat.

Hyderabad

The newest consulate in India is Hyderabad and since it just started adjudicating visas this year many of its ELOs have come to Chennai to do some training. Being plain awesome, they decided to invite all of us from Chennai to go visit them. Ten of us accepted including me and Natalie. We left right from work, fitting five of us in my hatchback with our bags and my driver to get to the airport. Tiny little plane, Nat and I seated in the very front FACING some nervous looking couple. Oh, I forgot to mention that it was Kingfisher Airlines (yes the country's equivalent of Budweiser has an airline...classic). The meal consisted of a cole slaw sandwhich and strangely cut up potatoes that pretended to be applesauce, dismaying Whitney. We arrived and were amazed by their beautiful, clean, orderly airport. You feel the high tech wave as soon as you get off the plane in Hyderabad.

We go to dinner at this peaceful restaurant with a Buddhist theme where I got myself a beautiful, juicy, heaven-tasting steak. The difference in the experience all had to do with the small details that for some reason they can't figure out in Chennai - the music was in the background allowing conversation to be in the foreground, the waiters are trained to not put their hands in your food or to rub their hand all over the rim of your glass when putting it down, we all got our own menu, they actually had the wines on their wine list, waiters walk around instead of reaching over people...it is amazing how much of a difference these little details make. Dinner ruled. So did bed. We stayed with Janice and Jerry and Abbie(Janice is the ELO, Jerry captains a ship in 3-month on, 3-month off intervals and yes he has dealt with pirates!!!!!, Abbie is the beautiful golden lab). They have a great apartment on the first floor but also have a "rooftoop palace", a little apartment on the roof!

My morning was so great. I woke up and watched the sunrise from the rooftop, going downstairs to make coffee by boiling water and putting it through a paper towel with coffee grounds...yum! Finally got to do some reading on Ghost Wars. Gotta stop and talk about something I read here. This is a quote by Ronald Reagan:
"My problem with Bill was that I didn't understand him at meetings. Now, you can ask a person to repeat himself once. You can ask him twice. But you can't ask him a third time. You start to sound rude. So I'd just nod my head, but I didn't know what he was actually saying."
He is talking about Bill Casey, the CIA director at the time. Seriously, if you are the president and it is your CIA director and the Cold War is going on...YOU CAN ASK AS MANY TIMES AS YOU WANT!!!! This both made me laugh and cower in fear at the same time. So Reagan really wasn't lying when he said he did not recall...except maybe it was that he never actually heard. WOW.

The rest of the weekend was pretty sweet too. We saw beautiful old buildings and palaces and arches. The town is much more Muslim and the architectural style reflects that. The city is old and walking around the streets has a real charm. Chennai, being the Detroit of India, appears to not have as many older buildings, most are more or less big concrete blocks, at least in the neighborhoods we are mostly in. There is a large stone Buddha statue in the middle of their (stinky) lake. Originally when they tried to take it out the barge sunk and many people died. It stayed on the bottom of the lake for I think 20 years before they raised the money to raise it out of the water. I got pics. When leaving the lake, there was a crowd staring over the side and a police van. The driver told us that they are fishing a corpse out of the lake. Huh. We ate at a Bollywood themed restaurant and I couldn't tell the wax people from the real ones. When we went to brunch at the Marriott the waiters did a choreographed line of cakes that they brought out to us (still don't know why). My favorite part was the confusion they had after depositing the cakes...they all kinda looked at each other like "Now what?" and then ran into each other trying to slink unnoticed back into the kitchen.

All in all a great time. Oh, when we tried to go home, the check in lady informed us that Kingfisher had sold us a flight that did not exist...maybe they had been sampling too much of their other product? So we spent a lot of quality time at the airport. Difference with the US? The airline offered nothing for the inconvenience - no free flight, no meal voucher, not even a bottle of water. Nothing. Oh well, I made it home.

diwali

Diwali ruled.
I am fortunate enough to live in an aparment that was relatively quiet...colleagues kept posting on facebook about not being able to sleep and wailing dogs but I came through pretty unscathed...only one time did I feel like I was under siege in my apartment.
For those who don't know, Diwali is when the entire population buys a crapload of fireworks and then lets little kids set them off for about three days straight with no supervision. It is loud and bright and kind of fantastic. Except when trying to walk to Yomaris' house for the party...then the indiscrimnate firecracker setting off on the street really does seem a personal hazard...but we all got through okay. After some imbibing we went on the roof armed with firecrackers...the entire sky of the city in every direction was lit up with constant blitzes of color...we just took in the sights and made our contribution (thankfully with no injuries despite our lack of pyrotechnic skills and the plethora of exposed wires on the rooftop).
Diwali ended for me at the Hash. The Hash goes on around the world and finally Natalie and I tried out the Chennai one. What happens is people ahead of time plot a running course but those behind have to find it and there are plenty of false routes along the way. It was really cool and we wove through busy streets, a cricket field (with a game going), temples, the beach. People kept asking if I was a virgin and while at first I thought it might be an uncomfortable conversation explaining the differences in cultural norms between our great nations really they just meant if I was a first timer to the Hash. After the run there is beer and food and ice blocks. Big ice blocks. Natalie and I had to sit on the ice blocks to get introduced...and right after we sat a bunch of kids started setting off a whole bunch of firecrackers in a corner, thus delaying our ice-sitting time...when finally we were introduced I was explained as Becky with the U.S. government and Natalie as my sister who bought a one-way ticket because she is looking for a mate.
Fan freaking tastic!

i suppose i lied

just read the end of my last post where i said i would nap and finish the thailand story tomorrow...i did nap!
Okay a quick recap of the rest of thailand because alas i waited too long...check out the pics on facebook, says so much...Dinner at the hotel, yummy pizza, signed up for two tours to maximize the use of our time. The next day we got a van to ourselves and a tour guide drove us about 1 1/2 hours outside of bangkok, with stops to see coconut cutting, scraping, boiling, making along the way. We got on a long skinny motorized boat and took off down the canals, ending at the floating market. At the floating market I bought a sweet purple hat that doubles as a fan. Then we got on a paddled boat and checked out the market...I found the beer here boat that floated past and was super happy! (Shhhh, it was after noon SOMEWHERE). On the way home we stopped and took elephant rides...again the pics explain more. The driver sits on the elephant's neck and "steers" by using his feet and tickling behind the elephant's ear. Natalie and I were on a carriage thing on the elephant's back. So fun.
When we got back to the hotel, Bridget and Holly took off for McDonalds. Natalie and I went into a little hole in the wall restaurant. The kind woman standing above much broth and various types of balls of meat didn't really speak english so after trying to discern what is on the unpublished menu we just sat in chairs and waited. A bowl of noodles with awesome yummy meat balls showed up...the one meat ball was some sort of shrimp and cinnamon. It ruled. And it was 30 baht, less than a buck. The next day we saw a bunch of temples that really were mindblowing but again I am not a describer of visual beauty so check out the pics. Oh there was a ferry and two massages...the thai massage reminded me of a book I have with the title "Yoga for People Who Can't Be Bothered to Do it".
Okay it was maybe three weeks later but I did in fact talk about the rest of Thailand!