Whiskey and Mischpoce*

* Mischpoce is Yiddish for Family

Those are the 2 best words to sum up my past weekend!

I took Saturday off this weekend, so I could celebrate Purim.  Started Fri night at Jacob's with whiskey and Limca.  Limca is a pop that is only in India, it's lime and lemoni, so it says.  I figured since I couldn't have Vernors, I'd stick with the local drink. We ate an addictive crispy rice peanut snack, listened to a lot of music, watched the Simpsons, including one where Homer gets outsourced to India (kiss, kiss Bangalore), and had some deep late night whiskey soaked conversations about life and love.  We drank quite a lot, and I'm not sure if asked I could have told the difference between Haman (booooo) and Mordechai!

Woke up the next morning, feeling so-so, as you can imagine.  Ate the closest thing I've had to Brunch since I've gotten to India and watched Groundhog Day (Bill Murray)!  After lazing around we went to the markets to do some shopping.  I bought a children's book to help me learn to read (more about this another time) and then to the park to take some pics. 

Then I had to go home so I could clean up my act and get ready for the second half of my weekend...a trip to Salem to visit my co-worker Mani's family!!  Overnight train left at 11pm and I almost didn't make it, I was soooooooo tired.  The train was pretty empty and I didnt hear any snoring, probably because I was dead sleeping.  Here is a pic of the inside of the train:

I was so nice to meet Mani's family!  It was his in-laws house actually, where his wife (Priya) and daughter (Daru) live.  We arrived for breakfast and, being the guest, I was made to eat first.  Despite my confidence in my eating skills, eating alone while strangers watch you is nerve wrecking!  So I convinced Mani to eat with me.  When visiting someones house, you must finish everything on your plate.  In this case, I had 3 idlis, 2 dosais and a chapati, along with curry and chutney.  It was tough, really tough, but I ate it all!  And it was the best coconut chutney I've had to date!

We (me, Mani, Priya, Daru and mom-in-law) drove to Yercaud, a nearby hill station.  It is 1600m above sea level and we had to drive up a crazy twisty road, with 20 marked hairpin turns!  There were lots of monkeys around.  Priya asked if we see a lot of monkeys in the States.  I said only in the zoo.  She was shocked that they rounded up all the monkeys and put them in the zoos until I explained that we don't have any wild monkeys.  Even at your hill stations?  Yes, only squirrels and mountain lions!

Daru

The hill station was beautiful and cool (temp).  We did a lot of site seeing and also visited a cave temple where we left offerings and were blessed.  Mani and Daru went to check out the deer park, while me, Priya and mom-in-law went boating on this little lake there.  You could chose a row boat, complete with rower, or a do it yourself paddle boat.  I went out on a limb and chose paddle boat, but regretted this decision as soon as we sat down.  Priya and I were paddling and mom sat in the back.  Priya was steering, but it was a little like being in a bumper car with my sister when she was a kid; we just kept going around around around in circles.  It seemed like no one else in any other boat could steer either, so we were constantly running into other boats.  We were laughing the whole time!

 

me and mom

After a windy windy drive back to the house, I became engaged in a serious game of spill the rice snack (same snack mentioned above, it's a popular snack) on the couch/floor and then put it back in the dish for a good hour.  With Daru, of course, that game is not fun by yourself!  I was pretty tired, and content to continue playing but Mani suggested I go visit a local temple instead.  He didn't want me to go alone, so he sent his mother-in-law along as well.  I wasn't sure if the temple was really necessary or if Mani just wanted time alone with his fam.  Either way, me and mom went to see the temple.  It was a pretty small temple and we walked around, barefoot, with me reading all the names of the gods aloud to practice my Tamil.  Mom seemed impressed, so that was fun.  see more pics here

When we got back to the house, I learned that our return train tickets got denied (chart prepared when we were at waitlist 2 and 3!), so Mani booked us on an overnight bus.  We had a quick dinner (more idly and delicious tomato sauce) and then had to say goodbye.  I was near tears to leave, I don't really know what came over me!  I can only imagine how hard it is for Mani to only see his family on Sundays, and have to leave to go back to work.

I didn't get my hopes up for the bus, but was pleasantly surprised by a fairly comfy leaned back "semi-cama" type seat.  There were no bathrooms and no tea, but there was a loud Tamil movie blaring over the speakers!!  It was definitely sufficient, and I slept the whole way home.  Arrived Koyambedu bus station around 515am and argued an autoride back to my place (got it for Rs.120, down from 200- still overpriced!) with still enough time to run, cook, eat, skype my parents and get to work! 

I had a really good week and weekend.  In fact, I've noticed something has changed over the past week.  It's hard to explain, but I'm afraid that I may not want to leave this place.  Leah warned me of this, but I didn't believe her.  My friend Sathish says it sounds like I'm falling in love with India.  I'm not sure I'm ready for this!

Over the next 2 days I'm heading to Villapuram to do some site visits at private and government hospitals.  I'm gonna find me a job!  (just kidding, dad, kind of)