Sun, fun and the not so fun

So I went and met the parents. I traded stories with the mother, had a Gin and Tonic with the father, gossiped about the lack of decent men with the sister and played softball barney with the nephew.

None of the above is true, obviously. In this day and age my expectations were just expectations.

I left home armed with my specialty pudding to show the family what a culinary goddess I was, but the vehicle my friend chose to drive was a steaming oven, so the once nice work of art turned into sludge, which after a very abrupt brake decided to land all over my jeans. Yes jeans and a tee was what I decided to wear. S laughed so hard because the substance that stained the crotch of my jeans reminded him of something, which he refused to tell me. Anyway after wiping it off along with the angry look that had made its way to the upper part of my anatomy, I went to face the awkward introductions. It didn’t go off bad and I found it funny when Cookie’s sister managed to serve me the drink first when clearly there were 10 others who should have got it before me. After casual awkward mingling, we decided to go on a boat ride on the canal. That was fun, in parts and places. We came back and stuffed ourselves with food; for once I enjoyed the food, in fact I loved it. The boys were very gracious with their comments about my leftover pudding and I wholly appreciate it. Makes me want to cook more. After that we played games, which we fought over and I evicted Cookie because he’s a sour loser. Went to the beach, came back and went home. So it was nice, and the family wasn’t anything like the Adam’s Family. Dang!

Onto other news, the Great White One left. I managed to blink away the tears and hold a wide smile throughout the goodbye speech. He was a great boss even though I had many an argument with him. The department organized a day out sailing as a final goodbye and it was the best Saturday in a long time. I absolutely loved it even though I’ve been taken sailing before. This time the guy who took us didn’t let us loiter in the water, he got me to tack and it was fun and tedious because we had to keep moving when the boom kept swinging. Also he got me to arch my back out of the sailboat, so basically I could feel my hair touching the water. Loved it. I also managed to kayak a few times, ran around playing fetch with Lucy and Nugi ( Springer Spaniel and a Dachshund), played pictionary and went on a speed boat ride. Did I mention that it was the best Saturday in a long long time?

Just a few days ago I also met up with my O/L computer batch. They’ve all grown up, become disconnected, some a little more blond than they were before. I was just glad that I met them, at least I know where they are and what they look like but I don’t think I’d be good friends with most of them like we were back then.

Yeah that’s it.

Yindia

The recent tip to India was an experience. We flew Sri Lankan and got really crap service, since there were 18 of us flying we wanted seats together and we made it very clear, I don’t which part of together they didn’t get, they scattered us all over the freaking plane. Once on the plane we just decided to sit together because the flight was almost empty.

The Chennai airport is terrible, the toilets are dirty and the people are rude. Outside in the baking sun it was no better. The bus that picked us up was terribly uncomfortable and we had to ride in it for 3 hours to Pondicherry. I wanted to stay awake and watch the sights and sounds around me but unfortunately the weariness overtook me and I kept dozing off a couple of times. My first take on Pondi, well it was a loud “what the hell is this”. The town looked very drab and the people didn’t look at all interesting “and where was the left overs of French colonization???”.

After a tiring journey and having to put up with the rest of the bus complaining. I was quite famished and disoriented but I still didn’t get myself all upset. We were greeted by the Course Director and promptly escorted for lunch. Our first taste of Indian cooking wasn’t bad… after we filled our bellies we were whisked away to the hotel. The hotel was really very nice with a view of the ocean and the Promenade. Soon after we put our bags in the room we were taken on a tour of Pondi against our will. First we headed to this dreadful place where boats rides were cheap. So we decided to go on one and boy was it bad. Next we went to Auroville. I loved that place, the architecture is beautiful and the handicrafts that were on sale were amazing. I left the place happy with a pair of orange crochet shoes and a paper lantern. Late in the evening some of us had to change money so we were sent with 3 guides to take us to the moneychangers. People in Pondi walk everywhere because everything is quite close by so too decided to walk and that was fun. The streets were paved with stone, like in any European country and they were lined with French styled houses. It was just beautiful it made me feel like I was walking down a Spanish street apart from the people of course. We also found a Bazaar type thing happening on the Promenade so we decided to go and have a peek. We came back to the hotel dreadfully tired, had dinner and went to bed.

The following morning we had to attend our training sessions, at times it was a bit long and boring. But my favourite that day was the SLS session. After that we had to do our book presentations, which went off well. In the evening we were taken to the Tamil section of Pondi where usually the shopping is done. The shops there were interesting and cheap. So did a little walking around and shopping.

Since our sessions finished early on Saturday we went back to the shopping district. Hung around there for a while and went back to the hotel to do our assignments. Sunday was the last day of our training programme and it was also time to present our strategy. My team did well and I was extremely happy about it. The sessions finished early so Tall one, shorty and me decided to do a bit of sightseeing. We went in the bicycle rickshaws to the Botanical Gardens and then walked around to a bookshop. Got me some books because they were so cheap. Then went back to the hotel for a nap. At 4 we were taken to that dreadful place where we were taken on the first day. From there we had to take a ferry ride to an island. The island was ok, we played volleyball and watched a ship burn in the distance. Came back to the dreadful place where they had organized a folk dance for us. I don’t think it was a folk dance at all but what really captured my heart there was that the ones who performed were street kids whom this woman had taken under her wing so that they would focus their attention on this instead of getting themselves into trouble. I thought that was a great thing to do and immediately felt bad for complaining how badly they danced. After the show they wanted all of us to join in the dance and we did, it made those kids so happy, I felt tears stinging my eyes, “really”. After all that dancing Drama Queen wanted to talk to me regarding her love life. I was quite honest and told her what I really thought of the whole scenario. I don’t know what her decision would be but at least I’m glad that I got it off my chest. We said our goodbyes to the ones we met in Pondi and went back to the hotel to pack because we were leaving early next morning.

The ride back to Chennai was terrible; we got stuck in traffic for over an hour without budging an inch. So we decided to get off and walk even though it was 16 KM to our hotel. As soon as we started walking the traffic started to move and I thought that we all going to be run over and I kept shouting and saying “I don’t want to die in India”. We escaped and got back into the safety of the bus, I’ve never been more happy to get on to that horrible metal structure. After dumping our bags at the hotel we headed out to T Nagar the shopping district, we did a bit of sari shopping and left to Spencer Shopping Mall. The Mall is huge and had quite a selection but they were quite expensive. We repeated the same thing again the next day till we bought stuff for almost everyone at home. All of us were quite happy to leave India so we made sure that we got to the airport ahead in time so there was no chance that we would miss our flight.

So on the scale of 1-10 I would rate my trip a substantial 5. Not bad for India.