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Seeing the American flag in the Newark airport almost put me over the edge as I walked happily through the airport with the goofiest grin stretching ear to ear. I saw the other returning Americans stealing sideways glances wondering who this crazy girl was, but the smiling never stopped and the occasional giggles continued. Until I realized that I had two huge, heavy bags and the carts to carry them were $10.00.

While waiting for the flight to Denver, I had the most delicious bagel I have ever eaten, and the thickest chocolate milk. I savored every bite and let out occasional moans of happiness (which also got me a lot of staring).

A few hours later I landed in Aspen, and within minutes I was devouring my first hamburger in 10 months. Against all odds I didn't get sick from it, and have had beef every day since.

I was ready to leave India and I am SO, SO happy to be back in Aspen!!! It is the same, but I see it through new eyes. The first few days I was overwhelmed by all the green, and existence of parks and places to just hang out. The atmosphere is just so relaxed and calm... I am no longer dealing with millions of people and cows on the street! Which is a plus for driving which I am doing again! Except I do need someone to be in the car with me to make sure I stop for pedestrians, at stop signs, and drive on the right side of the road.

Closing thoughts: I have learned a ton about myself and another culture, and it has really made me see how lucky I am to live in Colorado and LOVE MY LIFE!! 

An ode to Julia

In a hot little city
Which wasn't so pretty
Two little white girls stayed.

Among only brown faces
And foreign strange places
In India they were on exchange.

They tried to make friends
And follow the trends
And most the time they succeeded.

But in those tough times
With home hard to find
It was only each other they needed.

In their schools they were great
Although Tamil was a hard trait
To learn in just a small time.

They picked up a little
And learned how to piddle
With no toilet and too much of grime.

They toured East to West
Finding the best of the best
On busses and busses they rode.

Temples and forts galore
The North they explored
With friends from every corner of the globe.

South was no small feat
And they got sick from the meat
Then were healed by the marvelous beaches.

The shopping was done fantastically
They changed their wardrobes drastically
Of their parents' money they were leeches.

They finished each other's words
They were beauties and nerds
Like birds of a similar feather.

The trek was a sign
To make the best of their time
Only three weeks left to be together.

Oh how they laughed
At the times they were daft
Which made it hard to say goodbye.

But they know that again
They would meet in ten
And for Ireland they'd try.

Gone to the Himalayas!!

A collection of small differences

At the end of my year in India which has gone by surprisingly fast, I am looking back at the little things that are so different than America. These things have now become normal to me, whereas I'm sure the usual things in Aspen will shock me when I come back in a month.

1. Eating with hands instead of silverware.
2. Drinking water without touching lips to the glass or bottle.
3. Men hold hands and touch (although they are not gay)
4. Men peeing and spitting on the roads.
5. Mattresses are made from coconut fiber.
6. Boiling milk before drinking it. This creates a skin on top which we have to blow away when pouring the milk. Then there are still chunks of solidified milk and skin floating around.
7. Animals in the road, just chillin. Donkeys, cows, goats, chickens, dogs,  and cats are the regulars.
8. Transportation for things such as sugarcane and other loads by ox carts.
9. The best meals are the cheapest ones. (My favorite meal was my school lunch which was about 25 cents)
10. In the summer there is always a fan or the A/C on.
11. Indians love their A/C whether it's 100 degrees or 60 and raining.
12. Spicy pizza and pasta.
13. Lack of appliances such as dishwashers, dryers, ovens.
14. Very little of their food is processed. Most of it is made fresh every day by the cooks.
15. Servants and the Caste system. The motto here is basically, "why do it if you don't have to?"
16. Lack of exercise. Indians don't hardly ever work out. But many of them go on short walks around the neighborhood at night.
17. Male-female relations- for the most part non-existent.
18. Arranged marriage is the norm. I know people who get married at age 18 to a guy they've never met before even though they are in love with their boyfriend/girlfriend. (A concept my mom really likes)
19. Any couple, married or not, abstains from any form of a public display of affection.
20. Mehendi. Usually for weddings and other occasions they will put henna in traditional designs on the hands and sometimes feet. I just learned how to put it.
21. The wealthier residents of India live in "colonies" which are gated communities that provide a safe environment.
22. Dancing does not mean grinding. Indians truly know how to dance with expression and have a great time moving every part of the body and spirit.
23. All Indian music comes from the movies. There aren't independent artists or albums or concerts.
24. In one religion - Sikhism- the men don't cut their hair. Period. They fold their beards under their chins and wear turbans.
25. People are not allowed to walk in the hills without a guide because of all the dangerous animals. But when we walk the only animals we see are birds and ants.
26. They put elephants in some Hindu temples to "bless" people who give it money. The person holds out a few rupees the elephant will take it with it's trunk then touch it's trunk to your forehead. A terrifying new experience!
27. Computers are a commodity. Many schools and most offices don't have them. The Police commissioner's office didn't have a computer, instead there were three or four rooms filled with paperwork.
28. Many upper class women don't work.
29. Many lower class women are employed at construction sites. They carry rocks, bricks, sand, etc. in baskets on their heads.
30. Respect is very important here, and people who are in higher positions absolutely demand it.
31. The color of one's skin is very important. As it is considered hot to be tan in the US, it is considered beautiful to be as light as possible here. They even have a brand of skin cremes called Fair and Lovely.
32. Nose rings are considered beautiful and worn by the majority of women (especially in the North). It used to be a sign of marriage.
33. Instead of engagement and wedding rings, the women wear gold chain around their necks.
34. Indian women wear bindis and when they are married they have a mark of red powder in the center of their forehead at the hair line, or at the hollow in their throat.
35. Tupperware hardly exists. Food doesn't keep for long, so there's no point. To store things they have metal containers. The problem with these is you have to open each one to find what you're looking for.
36. Soda here is made with real sugar instead of high fructose corn syrup.
37. People are classified as Veg or Non-Veg depending on their diet.
38. It is inappropriate to show much skin, especially in the South. Modesty is very important. It will be difficult to go back home and wear even soccer shorts.
39. They don't have sweet food for breakfast.
40. There are very few baked goods. Cookies come from factories only.
41. They put eyeliner and black circles on the cheek to ward off bad spirits from babies and toddlers.
42. Men drink a lot, especially when they get together. It is a rare woman who will have a drink.
43. There is a thing called paan which is like tobacco chew and is chewed by people generally in the lower class. It turns the inside of the mouth red and rots the teeth. However, it is also eaten sometimes at the end of a meal and is considered a digestive thing.
44. Michael Jackson, Justin Beiber, and Hannah Montana are hugely loved by the Indian population.
45. Every day there is a power outage for two or three hours.
46. The roads aren't cleaned, and are generally littered with trash. Although this is getting better in some of the larger cities.
47. North Indians and South Indians are very different. In the south they are very conservative whereas in the North there are more big cities with a lot of Western influence.
48. Each state has it's own language and therefore each has it's own little Bollywood. Bollywood is actually Hindi movies. Kollywood is for movies in Tamil.
49. Cars are stick shift and are driven on the left side of the road and the right side of the car. Driving in India is mostly about honking. They honk every time they go around a corner, coming up on another car, turning, just ate lunch, are in a bad mood, just feel like it, etc. It's almost like another language. "honk" means, "I'm behind you". "Honk" from the other car means, "I see you".
50. On the back of lorries (trucks that transport vegetables and fruits) it is always written 'please sound horn' or 'horn ok horn' or something of that nature. Their lorries are very colorful.

Guest blogger: Mama

The robin’s egg blue waters of the Ganges, running through the middle of Rishikesh, has a magnetic pull on a person’s attention:  for some, it is the promise of spiritual awakening, for others, it is the potential adventure that it holds.  The river is big.  Right now, I would guess that it is running about 40,000 cfs, but the high waterline is way above the current river level.  One of our river guides told us that, during high water 2 years ago, it took them about 20 minutes to run an 18 kilometer section of river…  it must have been like riding the top of a speeding train.

My Anna has had kayaking on her mind since her first trip to Rishikesh about a month ago.  I was not willing to commit to a kayak trip without first scouting the rapids and giving it some serious thought.  We signed up for a raft trip the following day to check it out.

The next day was warm and sunny.  The deep water of the Ganges pulled our raft forward through a series of rapids:  roller coaster and golf course being the two biggest.  As we approached each rapid, our guide asked if we would rather take the tiger line or the chicken line.  Anna’s voice could be heard above the others as she said, “Tiger line.”  One of the German girls did not like that, but there wasn’t much she could do about it.  The tiger line took us through a series of Grand Canyon style haystacks…  class 2 and 2+.  The river was rollicking and lovely.

The next consideration for us was gear.  Most of the guides here paddle in creek boats.  A few have smaller play boats and I even saw an old boat that looked like a Dancer from a distance.  When we asked to see the boats that we would be paddling, they were either being used on the river or stored somewhere else.  hhhmm   I did not want to disappoint Anna, but I also didn’t want to set us up for an unwanted epic adventure.  Finally, I made the decision to go. 

We showed up at the shop one morning, signed a few papers and were whisked away by a taxi.  The driver approached two young men standing on the side of the road with 2 boats and a pile of gear.  We tried on gear and loaded up, still 2 boats and 2 paddles short.  We stopped at another guide’s house and picked up another tiny Dagger.

At the put-in, there was much gear swapping and adjusting.  The gear varied from a top-of-the-line paddle to a paddle that looked like it was purchased with a rubber raft at Walmart.  Luckily, Anna and I ended up with, apparently, the better choices  After a few practice rolls we headed down the river.  Our guide looked wary.

  The first rapid was a rollicking class one+.   The waves were big and the feeling was irie.  I noticed that my boat was filling up with water…  pretty rapidly.  I think that this was a combination of a leaky boat and a porous spray skirt.  The next rapid, Roller Coaster, was a straight-forward series of haystacks.  But like many straightforward big rapids, the tricky part is at the end, where the currents can get swirly and unpredictable.  Anna followed the guide, I followed Anna and the apprentice brought up the rear.   We dropped down the first glassy wave into a series of monster waves.  As we crested the top of each wave, we could get a view of the river below as well as each other.  As I braced against each frothy wave I could get glimpses of Anna bobbing along in front of me.  Towards the bottom of the rapid, the view changed from seeing Anna, to seeing the bottom of Annas boat and her head bobbing nearby.  Anna was being blessed by the Ganges, purified by the water…  her nasal passage and eyesockets were being cleansed as she was taking in big gulps of the blessed water.  Anna was purified, cleansed, blessed and spanked by that lovely blue/green water.

As Anna was clutching her cramping stomach that evening, I was wondering if I had made the right decision and I would have to say I did.  Anna experienced the ganges to it’s fullest extent…  it was awesome in it’s power and beauty, as well as humbling.

Happy Holi

Julia and I stayed in Pune for a week after the North tour specifically for the festival called Holi. Like most others, the festival of color isn’t much celebrated in the South, and we wanted to celebrate our last one in style. It felt like Easter as we were woken up by screams of children’s laughter and went to the street of our host’s apartment building to check out the scene. Being a) the only white people, and b) the only people above the age of ten, Julia and I were unsure of how much we would be invited to participate in the celebrations. However, our little host brother and his friends made sure we weren’t left out. The 25 of them ambushed us with their water guns and refused to let up until we were forced to run away and hide an hour later. It was full-on war, and of course we came unprepared. Usually Holi is known for throwing color, but these kids weren’t allowed to use color because some of the buildings had recently been repainted.

Around town we could easily distinguish all the people on bikes who had played Holi. There would be one guy on a bike looking totally normal, then there would be a pink and blue one. Another normal looking businessman before three more pink teenagers. It was pretty funny.

Part two of the day took place with people more our age, color, and music. We found two other exchange students and a bunch of Indian friends completely covered in the brightly colored powders. After the awkward introductions to the people Julia and I didn’t know, we got to throwing some color. The powder came in bags which we ripped open and smeared on all our friends and threw in the air. The boys ambushed us with raw eggs, which they cracked on the girls’ heads, and then we broke out the watering hose. At the end we couldn’t tell who was who, and the magenta sidewalk looked like the scene of Barney’s violent death.  

Aftermath: I had pink ears for two weeks and blue feet for a few days, but other than that I was able to wash most of it off. The clothes I was wearing have been washed six times and still have irreversible stains, which I must admit I love. 

The End of the North

The purpose of going to Haridwar was to see the Ganga river arthi that took place there. It's at the higher, cleaner part of the river, and throughout the entire day you can see people dunking themselves. I can't even begin to explain how great it felt to touch water again, because rivers don't really exist in the South. Julia and I bought straw baskets filled with flowers, incense, and a lamp to float down the river when it came time. At six thirty there was a relatively large crowd around the section of river which they do the arthi. There was a man every twenty feet yelling prayers about the Ganga, although to us it just sounded like we were being scolded in Hindi. Then, they spent ten minutes collecting donations before they let us light the candle and incense and put our baskets in the river. It was so beautiful to see all the floating lights, but also kind of crazy. Everything was loud and confusing because there were people everywhere shoving things into our faces and asking for money and it was just a circus! The main thing is everyone wanted money. Haridwar is a touristy place, and where there are tourists there are beggars. It was unfortunate and sad, but it's a total Catch-22. Do we want to be the stingy foreigners, or the people who get taken advantage of? And then if we give money to one person there will be a swarm around us two seconds later. So we went back to the hotel with our pockets considerably lighter.

Rishikesh was the place I was looking forward to most on the entire trip, because I would get to be in a river again! I was expecting the raft guide to bring us on some lame rapidless stretch of river, but I was pleasantly surprised to find enormous waves and tons of cold splashing! The river is probably 30 feet wide and 30 meters deep, which means there weren't any rocks or obstacles to avoid. It was just 20 foot waves and screams of laughter. Towards the end we got to float in the Ganga for a while with our huge life vests and goofy-looking helmets. The water was moving really fast so it was easy to get away from the boat, and also freezing cold. I have to admit that I was worried about a skeleton hand reaching up and pulling me under forever, but thankfully our trip was dead body-free. At the take-out we cliff jumped 15 feet into the freezing holy river.  I keep telling everyone here about how much I miss the Punchbowl and other adrenaline-creating things, so true to form I climbed up to the top of the cliff and showed all the other scardies how it was done. Unfortunately, at the end we opened up the dry bag and my poor camera came out covered in soggy cookies and completely water-logged. Major Bummer. But still a fantastic day, and a fantastic trip.