Sorry for the slow down in updates, we've been pretty busy lately. We are now officially moved into our apartment (paid first month's and last month's rent). We do not have AC as promised, but there is a fan in every room, and it helps to keep it cool. The weather forecast for Delhi says it's supposed to cool down in about a month or too. Andrew still wants to find a cheap AC unit just for our room if possible so that we can sleep easier. Our apartment is a three bedroom, two bath, with a small living room, dining room and kitchen. We also have a little room in the back that we can do laundry in (by hand, of course). A funny thing about it is that everything is marble. They use it a lot here because of the extreme temperature differences it's the only material that would be able to handle it. So marble floors, counters, shelving, even we have a built in marble desk. It did come fully furnished (thank goodness) so all we had to buy was sheets and pillows and kitchen utensils. Although all of that stuff is cheaper here than in the US it still all adds up (especially in rupees). For two pillows, two sets of sheets, four bath towels, two hand towels, one "wipe your feet after taking shower" towel, and cleaning brush, detergent, clothes hangers, trash can with bags, and four rolls of toilet paper were 1760 Rs. Which is about 44$. For now we figure all we really need more is utensils and a pot to be able to boil water in. Our apartment is in Old Delhi, in a district called Dr. Muckerjee Nagar. It has one main road going through the middle of it that has all the shops you could possibly need (and some pretty good restaurants). Shooting off of this main street there are smaller streets that have the more specialty stores. One shoot off will have all of the tailors, another all of the meat shops, another all of the electronic shops, etc. So you have to find out which type of store is on which street, but it's kind of fun once you get the hang of it. We are about a three minute walk off of the main street. It seems to be the perfect distance so that it's not too far, but we can't hear the traffic at night either. The last couple days have mostly been spent buying stuff for the apartment. Yesterday we also went to the study center yesterday for a group meeting. We had to figure out how to get there, so we took an auto-rickshaw to the metro, then took the metro to right out side of the study center. It was really easy. The rickshaw was 50 Rs to the metro (divided by 5) then it was 9 Rs to take the metro. The metro here is really clean and nice. You do have to go through security (metal detectors and frisking), but then the metro is very efficient and cheap. It's by far the cleanest metro I've seen, because most people, except the upper middle class, can't afford to take it. At the study center we met our Hindi teachers and found out how we get mail. If anybody wants to try to send us anything it should be sent to the study center, where we each have individual mail boxes. The address there is 8/17 Sri Ram Road, Civil Lines,/ Delhi 110-054/ India (with the backslashes (/) being a line break). You can just put one of our names at the top and it should work out. Lots of other people have already gotten packages sent there and the system seems to work out fine. The Hindi teacher turns out to be the sister of the principle of the school that we went to in Mussoorie. She has been teaching our program for the past 21 years, hopefully enough time to work out all the kinks in the system. We'll have Hindi twice a week for 1.5 hours. It seems like we're starting to get our schedules worked out. I'll start at 11 MTW and have Sociology of India from 11-12, then on MW I'll also have Art History of India from 2-4:30 then Hindi 5-6:30. Andrew has a similar schedule. MW he has Political Science from 9-11, Art History of India from 2-4:30, then Hindi from 5-6:30. It's all tentative still, but it seems like it will all work out fine. There is a really nice grocery store next to the Study Center that has all of the American brands (like Tostitos salsa!, but no chips) so maybe one day after class I'll stop by there. They also have a lot of breads (I haven't found the bakery near us yet...). The student center also has a small library, TV room, and internet, which are all free for us to use for the entire time we are here. Yesterday we had a market recommended to us that is in south Delhi and we went with a group of about 5 other people. It was a lot of fun. It seems to be the place where "the locals" shop. Nobody haggled us. There are these skirts here that I really like wearing (a floor length, wrap around) and at the stores that we have been to before I had to bargain down from 500 Rs to about 200 Rs (which I paid). At this market I asked how much and they said 150 Rs right off (with no haggling!). So we did quite a bit of shopping (three shirts, two skirts, a bath mat, etc). I think I want to go back later. We're planning on sending a little gift box back home sometime this weekend so if anybody has any requests let us know (ex scarves, shawls, jewelry, wrap around skirts, Lays Masala-style Chips). Andrew just started to do his own laundry (for the first time!) but he says he's not having any fun. It's horrible because it's hot, he's in India, and he's all wet. He's complaining because I'm not in the shower yet and he wants to go see the movie Batman-Dark Knight (again). The movie theaters are quite the experience here, but I'll have to tell you about it later because Andrew's complaining. Oh, and I'll upload pics of the apartment once we get settled in and there isn't stuff all over the floor. I'll upload this entry later today at an internet cafe. Well I never made it to an internet café today, so instead I wrote more about our day today (to be uploaded tomorrow). Bonus: a little blurb from Andrew. We just got back from seeing Batman again. Everything today went really smoothly. This was the second time we have been to that movie theater (called "Fun Movie Theaters") which is a chain and has theaters all over Delhi. The first time we went there I was really excited to get into the movie and was climbing up the escalator. Unfortunately, escalator stairs have those jagged teeth edges. As I was rushing, my foot missed the top of the stair and my toe was cut by the edge of the stair. It immediately started dripping blood all over. So I hop up the escalator and there is a security guard sitting there, and I desperately point to my toe and the dripping blood. He looks genuinely concerned and asks me to sit down in his seat and sit still. He comes back with another guy with iodine, Neosporin, and cotton bandages. They pour the iodine all over it (which stung), then put a huge glob of Neosporin, and gently wrap it with a cotton bandage. Andrew was so freaked out by the whole thing that he just stood about 3 feet away cringing. They wrapped it really cleanly and seemed very concerned about my toe, but neither of them spoke any English. I told them "Danyavad" (thank you in Hindi) and "Namaste" (hello/goodbye) and went on to buy a large popcorn and a large soda (for 150 Rs, less than 4$) to console my pain. The movie was amazing, except half way through some blue lights went on and the screen went blank to say "intermission". It was the only part of the movie that reminded me that we were in India, otherwise we could have been at Hacienda Crossings in Livermore. Today there were no incidents (but still the popcorn). We took the metro home and got a rickshaw with no problems-quite a feat. We have found that bicycle rickshaws are considerably cheaper than auto rickshaws (like ¼ of the price). But it feels a bit weird sit in the back of a bicycle and be driven around by a guy when it's really hot outside and he's dripping sweat, entirely too skinny, and has an aura of an entirely different culture that seems underground and untouchable in some way. Although India is confusing enough to figure out, the whole rickshaw culture seems especially hard to understand. Most people think that the rickshaws are always trying to rip us off, but with the price of gas, the heat, and the permits they have to get, I don't believe that we are paying way too much. (ANDREW: Wrong, we are getting ripped off because we've asked locals and they say we are paying almost double what they pay. But, it doesn't really matter because usually there is more than one person taking the rickshaw so the price is halved and everyone pays less than a dollar each.) FINALLY GOT IT UPLOADED, BUT PICTURE-LESS... The past two posts have been picture-less because I can't find an internet cafe with IE 7, so the picture uploader for Travelpod can't work, which is a bummer. I have a lot of really good pictures of us from the last week of Mussoorie and now this first week in the apartment, but I can't seem to get them uploaded. We are supposed to get internet for sure in our apartment on Tuesday, so then I can use my own computer. But until then, there will probably be no pictures. I carry my USB around with me with the pictures on it, so if I see a nicer cafe then maybe I can drop in and just upload some pictures. When I do upload them I'll put it in an entry so you can know to go back and look through the previous entries with pictures. PICTURES! I asked the guy if they had any faster/newer computers, and they had one in the back. .. that he was using for "personal" use. Which was awkward. But either way, I got the computer, and I know have uploaded new pictures to this entry and the previous one about our last week of Mussoorie. So check them out!
Sorry for the slow down in updates, we've been pretty busy lately. We are now officially moved into our apartment (paid first month's and last month's rent). We do not have AC as promised, but there is a fan in every room, and it helps to keep it cool. The weather forecast for Delhi says it's supposed to cool down in about a month or too. Andrew still wants to find a cheap AC unit just for our room if possible so that we can sleep easier. Our apartment is a three bedroom, two bath, with a small living room, dining room and kitchen. We also have a little room in the back that we can do laundry in (by hand, of course). A funny thing about it is that everything is marble. They use it a lot here because of the extreme temperature differences it's the only material that would be able to handle it. So marble floors, counters, shelving, even we have a built in marble desk. It did come fully furnished (thank goodness) so all we had to buy was sheets and pillows and kitchen utensils. Although all of that stuff is cheaper here than in the US it still all adds up (especially in rupees). For two pillows, two sets of sheets, four bath towels, two hand towels, one "wipe your feet after taking shower" towel, and cleaning brush, detergent, clothes hangers, trash can with bags, and four rolls of toilet paper were 1760 Rs. Which is about 44$. For now we figure all we really need more is utensils and a pot to be able to boil water in. Our apartment is in Old Delhi, in a district called Dr. Muckerjee Nagar. It has one main road going through the middle of it that has all the shops you could possibly need (and some pretty good restaurants). Shooting off of this main street there are smaller streets that have the more specialty stores. One shoot off will have all of the tailors, another all of the meat shops, another all of the electronic shops, etc. So you have to find out which type of store is on which street, but it's kind of fun once you get the hang of it. We are about a three minute walk off of the main street. It seems to be the perfect distance so that it's not too far, but we can't hear the traffic at night either. The last couple days have mostly been spent buying stuff for the apartment. Yesterday we also went to the study center yesterday for a group meeting. We had to figure out how to get there, so we took an auto-rickshaw to the metro, then took the metro to right out side of the study center. It was really easy. The rickshaw was 50 Rs to the metro (divided by 5) then it was 9 Rs to take the metro. The metro here is really clean and nice. You do have to go through security (metal detectors and frisking), but then the metro is very efficient and cheap. It's by far the cleanest metro I've seen, because most people, except the upper middle class, can't afford to take it. At the study center we met our Hindi teachers and found out how we get mail. If anybody wants to try to send us anything it should be sent to the study center, where we each have individual mail boxes. The address there is 8/17 Sri Ram Road, Civil Lines,/ Delhi 110-054/ India (with the backslashes (/) being a line break). You can just put one of our names at the top and it should work out. Lots of other people have already gotten packages sent there and the system seems to work out fine. The Hindi teacher turns out to be the sister of the principle of the school that we went to in Mussoorie. She has been teaching our program for the past 21 years, hopefully enough time to work out all the kinks in the system. We'll have Hindi twice a week for 1.5 hours. It seems like we're starting to get our schedules worked out. I'll start at 11 MTW and have Sociology of India from 11-12, then on MW I'll also have Art History of India from 2-4:30 then Hindi 5-6:30. Andrew has a similar schedule. MW he has Political Science from 9-11, Art History of India from 2-4:30, then Hindi from 5-6:30. It's all tentative still, but it seems like it will all work out fine. There is a really nice grocery store next to the Study Center that has all of the American brands (like Tostitos salsa!, but no chips) so maybe one day after class I'll stop by there. They also have a lot of breads (I haven't found the bakery near us yet...). The student center also has a small library, TV room, and internet, which are all free for us to use for the entire time we are here. Yesterday we had a market recommended to us that is in south Delhi and we went with a group of about 5 other people. It was a lot of fun. It seems to be the place where "the locals" shop. Nobody haggled us. There are these skirts here that I really like wearing (a floor length, wrap around) and at the stores that we have been to before I had to bargain down from 500 Rs to about 200 Rs (which I paid). At this market I asked how much and they said 150 Rs right off (with no haggling!). So we did quite a bit of shopping (three shirts, two skirts, a bath mat, etc). I think I want to go back later. We're planning on sending a little gift box back home sometime this weekend so if anybody has any requests let us know (ex scarves, shawls, jewelry, wrap around skirts, Lays Masala-style Chips). Andrew just started to do his own laundry (for the first time!) but he says he's not having any fun. It's horrible because it's hot, he's in India, and he's all wet. He's complaining because I'm not in the shower yet and he wants to go see the movie Batman-Dark Knight (again). The movie theaters are quite the experience here, but I'll have to tell you about it later because Andrew's complaining. Oh, and I'll upload pics of the apartment once we get settled in and there isn't stuff all over the floor. I'll upload this entry later today at an internet cafe. Well I never made it to an internet café today, so instead I wrote more about our day today (to be uploaded tomorrow). Bonus: a little blurb from Andrew. We just got back from seeing Batman again. Everything today went really smoothly. This was the second time we have been to that movie theater (called "Fun Movie Theaters") which is a chain and has theaters all over Delhi. The first time we went there I was really excited to get into the movie and was climbing up the escalator. Unfortunately, escalator stairs have those jagged teeth edges. As I was rushing, my foot missed the top of the stair and my toe was cut by the edge of the stair. It immediately started dripping blood all over. So I hop up the escalator and there is a security guard sitting there, and I desperately point to my toe and the dripping blood. He looks genuinely concerned and asks me to sit down in his seat and sit still. He comes back with another guy with iodine, Neosporin, and cotton bandages. They pour the iodine all over it (which stung), then put a huge glob of Neosporin, and gently wrap it with a cotton bandage. Andrew was so freaked out by the whole thing that he just stood about 3 feet away cringing. They wrapped it really cleanly and seemed very concerned about my toe, but neither of them spoke any English. I told them "Danyavad" (thank you in Hindi) and "Namaste" (hello/goodbye) and went on to buy a large popcorn and a large soda (for 150 Rs, less than 4$) to console my pain. The movie was amazing, except half way through some blue lights went on and the screen went blank to say "intermission". It was the only part of the movie that reminded me that we were in India, otherwise we could have been at Hacienda Crossings in Livermore. Today there were no incidents (but still the popcorn). We took the metro home and got a rickshaw with no problems-quite a feat. We have found that bicycle rickshaws are considerably cheaper than auto rickshaws (like ¼ of the price). But it feels a bit weird sit in the back of a bicycle and be driven around by a guy when it's really hot outside and he's dripping sweat, entirely too skinny, and has an aura of an entirely different culture that seems underground and untouchable in some way. Although India is confusing enough to figure out, the whole rickshaw culture seems especially hard to understand. Most people think that the rickshaws are always trying to rip us off, but with the price of gas, the heat, and the permits they have to get, I don't believe that we are paying way too much. (ANDREW: Wrong, we are getting ripped off because we've asked locals and they say we are paying almost double what they pay. But, it doesn't really matter because usually there is more than one person taking the rickshaw so the price is halved and everyone pays less than a dollar each.) FINALLY GOT IT UPLOADED, BUT PICTURE-LESS... The past two posts have been picture-less because I can't find an internet cafe with IE 7, so the picture uploader for Travelpod can't work, which is a bummer. I have a lot of really good pictures of us from the last week of Mussoorie and now this first week in the apartment, but I can't seem to get them uploaded. We are supposed to get internet for sure in our apartment on Tuesday, so then I can use my own computer. But until then, there will probably be no pictures. I carry my USB around with me with the pictures on it, so if I see a nicer cafe then maybe I can drop in and just upload some pictures. When I do upload them I'll put it in an entry so you can know to go back and look through the previous entries with pictures. PICTURES! I asked the guy if they had any faster/newer computers, and they had one in the back. .. that he was using for "personal" use. Which was awkward. But either way, I got the computer, and I know have uploaded new pictures to this entry and the previous one about our last week of Mussoorie. So check them out!
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