Continuing....

I'm still really not used to blogging, meaning I still feel like I'm not good at it. Then again how can you really be good or bad at this? I still suck at making titles anyway.

So continuing from where I left off, now I really don't know what to say since there is so much to say.

Walking back to the car after leaving the airport, I had this extremely surreal feeling(which I still have) like I couldn't believe I was really in India, on the OTHER side of the world. The first thing that really caught my attention was in amongst the crowds of people there was a dog, kind of skinny and a bit mangy looking, it wasn't that last one I would see on my journey. So after we got to the car and got all of our luggage loaded up, I got my first taste of Indian driving.

Indian driving is sort of.....crazy. To put it frankly. There are lines on the road but you'll never see a straight line of traffic. People on mopeds will go in between cars with little space to spare. Everybody is cutting everybody else off and everybody has their hand almost glued to the horn. In driving school they teach us defensive driving; in India its mostly offensive driving.

So on the ride home, my intellect was pretty much fried from the jet lag(I don't really remember it) I couldn't really comprehend what I was seeing right away. I always thought that when people referred to "slums" in India, they meant neighborhoods in cities. Along the highway, slums were everywhere. Some were crude shacks made out of corrugated tin, others were made out of old billboards, some where made out of palm branches, and still others were nothing but tarps on a string. It was a sad sight, but what can you do about it?

So another thing that you see a fair amount over here is cows. They pretty much run loose; occasionally you will see cows tied to posts but for the most part they run free. And for those of you wondering if cows are sacred, they are. This is due mostly to the fact that they provide milk for their calves as their mother, and they provide milk for humans as well. Because they provide milk for humans they are seen as mothers to humans as well, which is what makes them sacred.

We had an almost three hour drive from Bangalore to Mysore, and I fell asleep through half of it. Notable things I remember seeing was a flight school which was surrounded by concrete and barbed wire fence, and a riding school. Also, there were many various Hindu temples along the road side, all richly decorated. I also saw a few mosques, including a very large one somewhere near(or in) Bangalore.

When we got to Mysore, I was so tired that everything looked the same, so I can't really describe it. Even now after being around different areas of Mysore a few times I can't describe it, I'm really not used to the city. There are lots of people selling green coconuts on the side of the road; these are for drinking the fresh milk out of them.

So we finally got to Mukthi's parent's house, a very nice little one story abode. All the houses(and most of the houses in the city) are made out of cement and steel and surrounded by a short cement wall on all four sides. They houses are decorated very nicely and are very pretty. Pretty much all of the houses have access to their roof, which they use to dry clothes as well as drying grains in the sunshine. Most houses also have a coconut tree or two either in their enclosure or nearby, which provides them with an ample supply of coconuts throughout the year.

We received a very warm welcome from Mukthi's mother. Lunch was being prepared when we got in, and I was shown around the house and shown the the shower(since that's all I really wanted after going more than 24 hours without one) So they don't really have showers here...or baths. Which is fine with me, they have hot water which is really all I could really ask for. What bathing consists of is filling a bucket with water, and using a good sized cup and pouring water over yourself. Not bad, you get pretty clean actually.

So afterwards I brushed my teeth and since jet-lag effected my judgment, I didn't think anything about using the tap water to brush my teeth instead of water from the reverse osmosis system. I sat down to lunch and I really really did not want to eat; as soon as I sat down I had the biggest wave of homesickness, since in our house we all eat meals together and there's always lively talk. Its like at that moment I finally felt like "wow, this is really real" So before I could start crying, I excused myself saying I was really tired since I didn't sleep at all. So I went to my room and started crying. Then I started to feel sick in my stomach, and I was like oh shit..... Thank goodness for po chai pills, which is pretty much Chinese super pepto bismol. So I took my pills and went to sleep, being woken up three hours later by mosquito attacks. We sleep in mosquito nets at night because the windows don't have screens on them, and they don't have A/C so they keep the windows open all the time for ventilation. Its pretty nice actually.

So ends my current tale, after I woke up I didn't feel any better, ended up crying in front of Mukthi. I hate crying in front of people, I don't know why,I just do. It taken me almost a week to get used to the spicy Indian food, I didn't really eat much at first since I really had no appetite. Once you get used to the spice of Indian food though, spicy food becomes really addicting. More about food later though.

Peace.