This weekend was very nice for us. Because all of the other people went on the hike and there was only the 6 of us left in the hotel, the guys were taking it easy and would make us breakfast at about 10 am instead of 7 am so we got to sleep in a lot. The other people made it back just fine, but looking pale and exhausted. I'm sure we would have had fun if we went, but we had fun here too, so no loss. Friday was spent with Goldie and Summer (the two girls we went to Rishikesh and Haridwar with) down in Mussoorie. We spent it shopping and looking around. I like Mussoorie a lot actually. It's a small town with just one main road down the middle called "the mall" that starts at a giant clock tower and winds along a ridge. There are a lot shops, both local and chain stores that are a lot of fun to look through. They even have an Adidas outlet! I bought a shawl and a book. I wear the shawl almost everyday. It's black and has pink elephants on it, I'll maybe post a picture later. The book is an autobiography of an Indian sex worker. It was really interesting, I already finished it. We then walked by this really odd area of town. It's basically a carnival. It's next to the cable car that takes you up to the top of the hill where you can get a great view. There are lots of popcorn venders and games to play like shoot the balloon for a prize. They also have a man powered ferris wheel. The passengers all board, then a man climbs into the middle of the ferris wheel and basically runs like a hamster. It was the most ridiculous thing that I have ever seen. To stop it he goes to the outside of the wheel and uses himself as a dead weight to slow it down. We were all hesitant to ride it. But after the long weekend we have had and all the things we have seen, the only thing that Andrew talks about is going back to ride the ferris wheel. He hasn't been to excited about much in India so I guess I won't discourage him. Maybe this weekend we'll go back. I'm just going to watch and take pictures, the ride looks terrifying to me. Next to the ferris wheel they had booths that you could dress up in traditional Indian costumes for 20 RS (50 cents) and take pictures. I wasn't too excited about it. But Summer and Goldie wanted to do it, so in the end I caved. We all ended up taking pictures, and they are pretty ridiculous, as you can see. Andrew refused, but he acted like our photographer and was laughing the whole time. After that we went to The Four Seasons Hotel (not a real one, but an Indian nock off that was really western and nice) to have dinner. It was so nice to have a dinner out. The Four Seasons is considered "expensive" for this town. A plate is about 150 Rs, and there is no way one person can finish one plate, it's huge! I had sweet and sour chicken on rice with a diet coke... just like home! Then we went across the street to the tavern, which is the local bar. It plays everything from Eminem rap to George Michael. Then at about 10 pm this Asian man gets out his guitar and sings 50's Bollywood music and happy birthdays. The guy is surprisingly good. It's definitely the place to be on a Friday night, by the end there were people waiting half an hour for a table! Then we walked back up the hill and gave our leftovers from The Four Seasons to the kitchen staff, who were thrilled. Saturday we got up and all six of us decided to go down the mountain further (about an hour and a half cab ride) to Derhadun, which is the largest city before you start climbing up the Himalayas. It basically was a bigger city. They had another Adidas outlet, United Colors of Benneton etc. They also had "FabIndia" which was like a J. Crew for saris; it was ridiculously over priced and had all the wood shelving and stuff that is so popular in the US. I found some shirts there that I liked, but they were 400 RS each! I bought a whole three piece suit for 300 RS, so I just remembered the style and cut. Later we went down to local bazaar. Andrew started humming the song from Aladdin "prince ali dododo Aliababa" where Aladdin comes in on an elephant to empress the sultan so he can marry Jasmine. Any who, the song just really fit the atmosphere of the bazaar. There were people everywhere, and so many stores it was crazy. We decided that incase we all got separated we would all meet at the Bank of India that was at the start of bazaar. It seemed safe with a lot of security guards and police officers around. You could by anything, they even had "departmental stores" that sold kitchen utensils and stuff. There was also a lot of fabric stores with a wide variety of 100% cotton fabrics. I decided to by a couple meters of fabric so I could have the tailor in Mussoorie make me some shirts like the ones in FabIndia except much cheaper. One square meter was about 70 Rs, and you need about 2 meters for shirt. Total I spent about 200 Rs for the material to make two shirts. In the middle of the bazaar my guide book said that there was a mausoleum from the 17th century. Of course trying to find it involved asking the shop owners (in Hindi! I was so proud) and they would each point a different direction. Eventually it seemed like all road led to the mausoleum. It's called Ram Rai Darbar and is the burial site of Ram Rai and his four wives. They each have their own little building. Ram Rai was the son of a Sikh guru who was excommunicated by his father. He then formed his own sect that was accepted by the Mughal emperors (the guys running India at the time) so they decided to build this huge mausoleum for him. It was ridiculously elaborate, but full of anachronisms. They had it all wired for electricity so they could have fans for summer and light for night time. They also had an old Regulator clock that reminded me of the Regulator clock that was Dad's Mom's. I thought it was really funny to find one of those here, so I took a picture of it. Then I tried to speak Hindi to the attendant, and say that my dad has a Regulator clock too, but he didn't know Hindi... or English. He just kept pointing at the clock and saying "hundred year old." Whatever. There were also a bunch of kids hanging around the mausoleum (some kind of weird playground) so it was fun to try to talk to them. They kept asking for "pens and candy", Andrew had a mint lifesaver in his pocket and gave it to them. But he only had one so they had to fight over it. It was then about 5 pm and we decided we wanted to go back to the Tavern in Mussoorie for dinner and get there before it got too late. We headed towards the clock tower (every town here has a clock tower with a round about circling it), to catch a taxi back up the mountain. One girl that was with us was trying to get a taxi and was not paying attention to where we were headed. First she went asked a guy where a taxi stand was, and he pointed up a flight of stairs. She went up there alone and came back saying that they told her it would be 1600 RS (we paid 450 RS for the ride down). Then we went around the circle some more to find some place cheaper. We called a taxi service that we had been given a card for when we all arrived at the hotel two weeks ago, they told us it would be 550 RS for all of us. We were walking around the circle for about 5 minutes, went into the foyer of a hotel to escape the rain, and waited for the taxi. The sixth girl was gone. At first nobody worried. We decided to walk around the circle to see where she had gone. Then the taxi showed up and we still hadn't found her. Then we asked the taxi driver to drive us around the circle. We drove around it about 3 times, and stopped off at the bank each time to check if she had gone there. Then Andrew and I got out of the cab to check up the stairs that she had gone the first time to find a taxi. I went up the stairs into a really weird atmosphere. There were guys all lounging about on pillows lining a wall and at the end was a ticket booth. They were also selling popcorn, samosas, and fried vegetables at another booth. The guys sitting around obviously found me out of place and asked (in Hindi) what I was looking for. I told them I was looking for a tall girl with blonde hair, and they said they hadn't seen her. Then I turned around and noticed that I was surrounded by porn posters. Somehow we had ended up in a sex shop/porn movie complex. I ran down the stairs. Then I started to freak out. If she had gone up there alone, what could have happened? Those guys were nice to me, but that didn't mean anything. Also from reading my sex worker book I know that the 1600 RS "taxi" price that they gave her could have been more appropriate amount for a sex job. The more I thought about the more I freaked out. Andrew and I got back in the taxi and none of us had any idea what to do. We decided to call the director of the program, who is now in Delhi arranging the apartments for us to live in when we get back. He said that we had to go to the police station to file a report. Nobody had any idea where a police station was. The taxi driver barely spoke English. We decided to call the hotel back in Mussoorie to see if she had called them. They had not heard from her. We had all been given the cards of this taxi driver incase we were in trouble. We called the dispatch and he sounded very upset. He then spoke to the driver over the phone telling him how to get to the police station. We then parked across the street from the police station. The taxi driver asked Andrew, Summer, and I to get out with him and we walked to a corner. He then told us to wait here. He went down an alley. By now it was dark outside, about 7 pm, and pouring down rain. I was completely soaked through, shivering, hungry, and scared. These beggar children kept asking us for money and would not even go away when we yelled at them. Andrew ended up giving them 10 RS, but that just encouraged them more. They grabbed my arm and I slapped it away, this made them finally leave us alone. Then the driver returned with two other men who were nicely dressed and spoke fluent English. We explained to them our situation. Apparently they were both heads of other taxi services that were based out of this city, and they knew the city well. One of the gentlemen seemed very concerned, and had assumed the worst. He said we should go file a report immediately. The other gentleman was calmer. He seemed hesitant to file a report. I'm not sure how things work here, but perhaps filing a report in the huge bureaucracy is more of waste of a time than anything else. As we were deciding whither to go into the police station or not, Summer's phone rang. It was the sixth girl, all the way back at the hotel. As soon as she turned around and we were gone, she had taken the 2 hour taxi drive back up the mountain without telling anyone. We were all glad she was safe, but furious that we spent the last two hours in the rain looking for her; especially when we had set a meeting point and she had not gone at all. We told the gentlemen thank you so much for their consideration, and got back into the taxi. The driver drove us back up the mountain and we had he stop at the Tavern so we could have dinner. He told us only 450 Rs, 100 Rs less than the estimate, because there had been one less person. Of course, this was ridiculous, this man helped us so much when we were worried was hands down the nicest taxi driver I have ever met. We gave him 1000 RS and invited him to dinner with us. He denied dinner, but gave us his home phone number waited for our phone call when we were done with dinner to take us the rest of the way back up the mountain. Needless to say, the dinner was amazing (even if we did have to wait for a table). But the rest of the group was still really angry. I started to feel that she had probably just freaked out when she didn't see us, then left. Although she had many other options that would have been more logical, I didn't feel like holding it against her. Some of the others in our group don't feel the same way. She left us a note on the door apologizing. I've just forgotten the whole thing. I wasn't particularly friends with her before, but I'm not going to completely ignore her now. Sunday Andrew just wanted to stay in and sleep. He was very exhausted from the night before. He confessed that he was very scared that if the worst was true, he would have been blamed because he was the only male in the group. While he stayed in, I went down to the tailors shop to drop of the fabric for my shirts. It was a lot of fun. The tailor was recommended to me by one of my teachers (because it is his family's business). The guys were joking with me the whole time. It was fun to get all measured up and pick out the different necklines, lengths, and sleeve style. They said it will be ready on Thursday afternoon to pick up, and only total around 120 RS for both shirts. Good deal eh? If they do a good job, I'll probably by more fabric and have them make me a couple other shirts. I then went down to the café and did my homework, which was a lot of fun to sit there and watch all the Sunday school children get out of school and come to the café for ice cream sundaes. Oh, and I took a picture for you Andrea. At the coffee shop I had a caramel latte and it was DELICIOUS. I thought that if you do decide to come to India you are guaranteed to be near one of these coffee shops (it's a chain called "Barista") and that they are better than Starbucks (in my opinion) for atmosphere. There is no such thing as "to-go cup" instead, the barista approaches you (like a restaurant), you order, then they bring you coffee. My Carmel Latte was 70 Rs, about $1.30. They have pretty much all the same style coffee as we do in America. I then went back to the shawl place to get another shawl (because I loved the first one so much), and to get another book (because I had finished the first one). The second one I picked up is called "Book of Humor" by Ruskin Bond. He's British, but was born in India. He's won many writing prizes; you can find many of his books on Amazon. I'm loving this book, it's about all of his crazy relatives and the messes they get themselves into. He also writes great children's books, and it is reflected in his simple syntax but great imagination. It's a great light read. And the best thing? He lives in Mussoorie. When I bought the book the store owner said that Ruskin Bond likes to come to the book shop every Saturday from 2-6 pm, weather permitting. So this Saturday I'm going to back and hopefully be able to catch him *keeps fingers crossed*. How cool would that be? When I got back Andrew was sitting in bed listening to his book on tape. When I walked in the room he put his headphones down and looked at me with the straightest face and said "I've been culturally abused." I was asked him what happened. Apparently he got up to go see if lunch was being served. As he was walking to the dinning room, the kitchen staff guy (his name is Anil) came up to him and linked arm and arm with Andrew. First it must be said that men here in India are much more affectionate then those in the US. It is very common to see men walking down the street holding hands; this does not mean that they are gay, just that they are friends. Andrew and I have talked about how the kitchen staff guys are really friendly towards one another, like hugging each other all the time and sitting really close. So Andrew was walking arm and arm with this guy, and had no idea what to do. Andrew said he was thinking, "There's nothing wrong about this, but there is something wrong." Then the guy slipped his hand down to hold Andrew's hand. Then Andrew started to tense up. The guy then suggested that they walk to the dining room together. So Andrew walked hand in hand with Anil to lunch, where he then was served rice and daal and ate his lunch. Apparently Andrew feels as though he has been culturally raped. He realizes that he is in India, and that things are different here, but holding hands was just too much. Summer thought it was funny because out of all the guys on the trip, Andrew is the one least interested in trying to assimilate fully. All of the other guys would have loved the hand holding as a gesture of being accepted and culturally aware; but they only treat Andrew this way and it is so funny. He now likes to walk around with his arms crossed, and stay in the room as much as possible. I'm sure after a couple of days his fear will wear off, but not the hilarity of the situation will continue.
This weekend was very nice for us. Because all of the other people went on the hike and there was only the 6 of us left in the hotel, the guys were taking it easy and would make us breakfast at about 10 am instead of 7 am so we got to sleep in a lot. The other people made it back just fine, but looking pale and exhausted. I'm sure we would have had fun if we went, but we had fun here too, so no loss. Friday was spent with Goldie and Summer (the two girls we went to Rishikesh and Haridwar with) down in Mussoorie. We spent it shopping and looking around. I like Mussoorie a lot actually. It's a small town with just one main road down the middle called "the mall" that starts at a giant clock tower and winds along a ridge. There are a lot shops, both local and chain stores that are a lot of fun to look through. They even have an Adidas outlet! I bought a shawl and a book. I wear the shawl almost everyday. It's black and has pink elephants on it, I'll maybe post a picture later. The book is an autobiography of an Indian sex worker. It was really interesting, I already finished it. We then walked by this really odd area of town. It's basically a carnival. It's next to the cable car that takes you up to the top of the hill where you can get a great view. There are lots of popcorn venders and games to play like shoot the balloon for a prize. They also have a man powered ferris wheel. The passengers all board, then a man climbs into the middle of the ferris wheel and basically runs like a hamster. It was the most ridiculous thing that I have ever seen. To stop it he goes to the outside of the wheel and uses himself as a dead weight to slow it down. We were all hesitant to ride it. But after the long weekend we have had and all the things we have seen, the only thing that Andrew talks about is going back to ride the ferris wheel. He hasn't been to excited about much in India so I guess I won't discourage him. Maybe this weekend we'll go back. I'm just going to watch and take pictures, the ride looks terrifying to me. Next to the ferris wheel they had booths that you could dress up in traditional Indian costumes for 20 RS (50 cents) and take pictures. I wasn't too excited about it. But Summer and Goldie wanted to do it, so in the end I caved. We all ended up taking pictures, and they are pretty ridiculous, as you can see. Andrew refused, but he acted like our photographer and was laughing the whole time. After that we went to The Four Seasons Hotel (not a real one, but an Indian nock off that was really western and nice) to have dinner. It was so nice to have a dinner out. The Four Seasons is considered "expensive" for this town. A plate is about 150 Rs, and there is no way one person can finish one plate, it's huge! I had sweet and sour chicken on rice with a diet coke... just like home! Then we went across the street to the tavern, which is the local bar. It plays everything from Eminem rap to George Michael. Then at about 10 pm this Asian man gets out his guitar and sings 50's Bollywood music and happy birthdays. The guy is surprisingly good. It's definitely the place to be on a Friday night, by the end there were people waiting half an hour for a table! Then we walked back up the hill and gave our leftovers from The Four Seasons to the kitchen staff, who were thrilled. Saturday we got up and all six of us decided to go down the mountain further (about an hour and a half cab ride) to Derhadun, which is the largest city before you start climbing up the Himalayas. It basically was a bigger city. They had another Adidas outlet, United Colors of Benneton etc. They also had "FabIndia" which was like a J. Crew for saris; it was ridiculously over priced and had all the wood shelving and stuff that is so popular in the US. I found some shirts there that I liked, but they were 400 RS each! I bought a whole three piece suit for 300 RS, so I just remembered the style and cut. Later we went down to local bazaar. Andrew started humming the song from Aladdin "prince ali dododo Aliababa" where Aladdin comes in on an elephant to empress the sultan so he can marry Jasmine. Any who, the song just really fit the atmosphere of the bazaar. There were people everywhere, and so many stores it was crazy. We decided that incase we all got separated we would all meet at the Bank of India that was at the start of bazaar. It seemed safe with a lot of security guards and police officers around. You could by anything, they even had "departmental stores" that sold kitchen utensils and stuff. There was also a lot of fabric stores with a wide variety of 100% cotton fabrics. I decided to by a couple meters of fabric so I could have the tailor in Mussoorie make me some shirts like the ones in FabIndia except much cheaper. One square meter was about 70 Rs, and you need about 2 meters for shirt. Total I spent about 200 Rs for the material to make two shirts. In the middle of the bazaar my guide book said that there was a mausoleum from the 17th century. Of course trying to find it involved asking the shop owners (in Hindi! I was so proud) and they would each point a different direction. Eventually it seemed like all road led to the mausoleum. It's called Ram Rai Darbar and is the burial site of Ram Rai and his four wives. They each have their own little building. Ram Rai was the son of a Sikh guru who was excommunicated by his father. He then formed his own sect that was accepted by the Mughal emperors (the guys running India at the time) so they decided to build this huge mausoleum for him. It was ridiculously elaborate, but full of anachronisms. They had it all wired for electricity so they could have fans for summer and light for night time. They also had an old Regulator clock that reminded me of the Regulator clock that was Dad's Mom's. I thought it was really funny to find one of those here, so I took a picture of it. Then I tried to speak Hindi to the attendant, and say that my dad has a Regulator clock too, but he didn't know Hindi... or English. He just kept pointing at the clock and saying "hundred year old." Whatever. There were also a bunch of kids hanging around the mausoleum (some kind of weird playground) so it was fun to try to talk to them. They kept asking for "pens and candy", Andrew had a mint lifesaver in his pocket and gave it to them. But he only had one so they had to fight over it. It was then about 5 pm and we decided we wanted to go back to the Tavern in Mussoorie for dinner and get there before it got too late. We headed towards the clock tower (every town here has a clock tower with a round about circling it), to catch a taxi back up the mountain. One girl that was with us was trying to get a taxi and was not paying attention to where we were headed. First she went asked a guy where a taxi stand was, and he pointed up a flight of stairs. She went up there alone and came back saying that they told her it would be 1600 RS (we paid 450 RS for the ride down). Then we went around the circle some more to find some place cheaper. We called a taxi service that we had been given a card for when we all arrived at the hotel two weeks ago, they told us it would be 550 RS for all of us. We were walking around the circle for about 5 minutes, went into the foyer of a hotel to escape the rain, and waited for the taxi. The sixth girl was gone. At first nobody worried. We decided to walk around the circle to see where she had gone. Then the taxi showed up and we still hadn't found her. Then we asked the taxi driver to drive us around the circle. We drove around it about 3 times, and stopped off at the bank each time to check if she had gone there. Then Andrew and I got out of the cab to check up the stairs that she had gone the first time to find a taxi. I went up the stairs into a really weird atmosphere. There were guys all lounging about on pillows lining a wall and at the end was a ticket booth. They were also selling popcorn, samosas, and fried vegetables at another booth. The guys sitting around obviously found me out of place and asked (in Hindi) what I was looking for. I told them I was looking for a tall girl with blonde hair, and they said they hadn't seen her. Then I turned around and noticed that I was surrounded by porn posters. Somehow we had ended up in a sex shop/porn movie complex. I ran down the stairs. Then I started to freak out. If she had gone up there alone, what could have happened? Those guys were nice to me, but that didn't mean anything. Also from reading my sex worker book I know that the 1600 RS "taxi" price that they gave her could have been more appropriate amount for a sex job. The more I thought about the more I freaked out. Andrew and I got back in the taxi and none of us had any idea what to do. We decided to call the director of the program, who is now in Delhi arranging the apartments for us to live in when we get back. He said that we had to go to the police station to file a report. Nobody had any idea where a police station was. The taxi driver barely spoke English. We decided to call the hotel back in Mussoorie to see if she had called them. They had not heard from her. We had all been given the cards of this taxi driver incase we were in trouble. We called the dispatch and he sounded very upset. He then spoke to the driver over the phone telling him how to get to the police station. We then parked across the street from the police station. The taxi driver asked Andrew, Summer, and I to get out with him and we walked to a corner. He then told us to wait here. He went down an alley. By now it was dark outside, about 7 pm, and pouring down rain. I was completely soaked through, shivering, hungry, and scared. These beggar children kept asking us for money and would not even go away when we yelled at them. Andrew ended up giving them 10 RS, but that just encouraged them more. They grabbed my arm and I slapped it away, this made them finally leave us alone. Then the driver returned with two other men who were nicely dressed and spoke fluent English. We explained to them our situation. Apparently they were both heads of other taxi services that were based out of this city, and they knew the city well. One of the gentlemen seemed very concerned, and had assumed the worst. He said we should go file a report immediately. The other gentleman was calmer. He seemed hesitant to file a report. I'm not sure how things work here, but perhaps filing a report in the huge bureaucracy is more of waste of a time than anything else. As we were deciding whither to go into the police station or not, Summer's phone rang. It was the sixth girl, all the way back at the hotel. As soon as she turned around and we were gone, she had taken the 2 hour taxi drive back up the mountain without telling anyone. We were all glad she was safe, but furious that we spent the last two hours in the rain looking for her; especially when we had set a meeting point and she had not gone at all. We told the gentlemen thank you so much for their consideration, and got back into the taxi. The driver drove us back up the mountain and we had he stop at the Tavern so we could have dinner. He told us only 450 Rs, 100 Rs less than the estimate, because there had been one less person. Of course, this was ridiculous, this man helped us so much when we were worried was hands down the nicest taxi driver I have ever met. We gave him 1000 RS and invited him to dinner with us. He denied dinner, but gave us his home phone number waited for our phone call when we were done with dinner to take us the rest of the way back up the mountain. Needless to say, the dinner was amazing (even if we did have to wait for a table). But the rest of the group was still really angry. I started to feel that she had probably just freaked out when she didn't see us, then left. Although she had many other options that would have been more logical, I didn't feel like holding it against her. Some of the others in our group don't feel the same way. She left us a note on the door apologizing. I've just forgotten the whole thing. I wasn't particularly friends with her before, but I'm not going to completely ignore her now. Sunday Andrew just wanted to stay in and sleep. He was very exhausted from the night before. He confessed that he was very scared that if the worst was true, he would have been blamed because he was the only male in the group. While he stayed in, I went down to the tailors shop to drop of the fabric for my shirts. It was a lot of fun. The tailor was recommended to me by one of my teachers (because it is his family's business). The guys were joking with me the whole time. It was fun to get all measured up and pick out the different necklines, lengths, and sleeve style. They said it will be ready on Thursday afternoon to pick up, and only total around 120 RS for both shirts. Good deal eh? If they do a good job, I'll probably by more fabric and have them make me a couple other shirts. I then went down to the café and did my homework, which was a lot of fun to sit there and watch all the Sunday school children get out of school and come to the café for ice cream sundaes. Oh, and I took a picture for you Andrea. At the coffee shop I had a caramel latte and it was DELICIOUS. I thought that if you do decide to come to India you are guaranteed to be near one of these coffee shops (it's a chain called "Barista") and that they are better than Starbucks (in my opinion) for atmosphere. There is no such thing as "to-go cup" instead, the barista approaches you (like a restaurant), you order, then they bring you coffee. My Carmel Latte was 70 Rs, about $1.30. They have pretty much all the same style coffee as we do in America. I then went back to the shawl place to get another shawl (because I loved the first one so much), and to get another book (because I had finished the first one). The second one I picked up is called "Book of Humor" by Ruskin Bond. He's British, but was born in India. He's won many writing prizes; you can find many of his books on Amazon. I'm loving this book, it's about all of his crazy relatives and the messes they get themselves into. He also writes great children's books, and it is reflected in his simple syntax but great imagination. It's a great light read. And the best thing? He lives in Mussoorie. When I bought the book the store owner said that Ruskin Bond likes to come to the book shop every Saturday from 2-6 pm, weather permitting. So this Saturday I'm going to back and hopefully be able to catch him *keeps fingers crossed*. How cool would that be? When I got back Andrew was sitting in bed listening to his book on tape. When I walked in the room he put his headphones down and looked at me with the straightest face and said "I've been culturally abused." I was asked him what happened. Apparently he got up to go see if lunch was being served. As he was walking to the dinning room, the kitchen staff guy (his name is Anil) came up to him and linked arm and arm with Andrew. First it must be said that men here in India are much more affectionate then those in the US. It is very common to see men walking down the street holding hands; this does not mean that they are gay, just that they are friends. Andrew and I have talked about how the kitchen staff guys are really friendly towards one another, like hugging each other all the time and sitting really close. So Andrew was walking arm and arm with this guy, and had no idea what to do. Andrew said he was thinking, "There's nothing wrong about this, but there is something wrong." Then the guy slipped his hand down to hold Andrew's hand. Then Andrew started to tense up. The guy then suggested that they walk to the dining room together. So Andrew walked hand in hand with Anil to lunch, where he then was served rice and daal and ate his lunch. Apparently Andrew feels as though he has been culturally raped. He realizes that he is in India, and that things are different here, but holding hands was just too much. Summer thought it was funny because out of all the guys on the trip, Andrew is the one least interested in trying to assimilate fully. All of the other guys would have loved the hand holding as a gesture of being accepted and culturally aware; but they only treat Andrew this way and it is so funny. He now likes to walk around with his arms crossed, and stay in the room as much as possible. I'm sure after a couple of days his fear will wear off, but not the hilarity of the situation will continue.
Comments
Post a Comment