African-Middle Eastern Week

My last national week ever. It's so sad, because the next National Week is my own, so I won't get to participate in it. It was fabulous though, a great week to end on.
It started out with a phenomenal poetry session - the best I've ever seen. They brought blankets and pillows into the lecture room and created a warm and cozy atmosphere, and served Turkish tea, and then started reciting the most amazing poetry - so powerful, so full of emotion, so beautiful... and they did something no one else has done before: they sang some of their poems, and the combination of music and poetry was gorgeous.
The taster session was great as well, it rivaled the Italian one, because though it didn't have as much food it had much more varied and exotic foods that made up for it.

And they had Arabic/African music playing, so after eating we all danced and danced:

(The Israelis have the craziest hair ever, especially when they dance!)


The next day we had the "chill-out session" when we relaxed, drank tea, smoked nargille, got massages and face masks, and generally calmed down.
And then the show. Oh so much fun.
I was partnered with Honza, and we went as a camel:

There were some other really great costumes as well:

Marco as an African Warrior


Ridhima and Joe as street beggars


Eduardo as a Jew :)


I participated in the show, doing a skit with Nevin on the cultural differences between America and Palestine. e.g. How she literally drinks Tabasco sauce, and is shocked at short skirts, how I'm not allowed to touch the Koran and how (the crowning glory of the show) we dress differently to go swimming. She came out in a full body suit, looking like a deep-sea diver, and I came out in a bikini (in front of the whole school! AAAH!). It was fun, though I got teased mercilessly afterwards.
The skits were funny, the dances were beautiful, the raps were great. And there was one really profound dance/sketch that was serious; when four people came on stage representing four major issues: Julie as a drug addict, Eitan as a prisoner, Ansally as a prostitute, and Elroy as a disabled person.

It was really touching because it reminded us that the problems that we always hear about in African and the Middle East are actually universal, that everything they have, we have as well, but to a lesser extent.

On a more upbeat note, the next week is Native Speaker Week, the one I've been waiting for since Balkan Week, oh so long ago! I'm so excited for it, we have such a great group and such fabulous ideas, it will be the best week ever!!!!

EE Show

Friday was the EE show for which we were all very excited. We kept seeing first years doing strange things around Duino, hearing loud music coming from the basement, coming up on conversations that stopped as soon as we got there, and other tell-tale signs of an upcoming show.
Our invitations were interesting - mine was, "the hairiest hair model", for example, and some others were, "The Most Colorful Butterfly", "The Scariest Mummy", "The Most Romantic Boy"
(that's Nyamka, who does a surprisingly good impression of a romantic boy...) etc. Toni (Finland) was "The Strongest Vodka", of course:

I had a violin lesson so I didn't have much time to prepare a costume, but I cornrowed half my hair and then made a row of buns in the middle and left the rest down. Slightly uncomfortable in the crowded room, but whatever.
Their show was great (not better than ours though, we still have the UWC record for greatest EE show ever :) haha) the theme was "GuinnEEs Book of World Records", hence the costumes.
They had a lot of songs with changed lyrics, like "Let It Be" turned into, "The EE" (as in, "there will be an essay, the EE....") and such, and some crazy record stuff, like a competition between a first year, a second year, and a teacher to eat the most pasta, drink water the fastest, peel an apple without breaking the skin and transport a raw egg from one bowl to another using chopsticks.

They had a great skit about the EE (Evil Essay) tormenting us poor second years who would rather be partying or drinking coffee. They/we finally defeat him by finishing the essay on time and have a great big party. Yay!

But now Axel, the Swede who played the Evil Essay, freaks me out - anyone would if he looked like that!

There were also some very sweet skits, like the paper dance where they came onstage holding pieces of paper to form out sentences like:

And at the very end they all came on stage with the name of their EE friend taped to their...ahem...bottom and invited us onto the stage to dance and hug and congratulate.
this is my EE friend (Lorenzo) and me:

They also made fantastic cake for us, which was a wonderful idea and I need to find the recipe because it was insanely good, even the tiny piece that I got and shared with my EE friend.

And afterwards Lorenzo took me to Old Castle for the first time. By strange coincidence he happened to be present at the conversation early in the year when I said, "I've never been to Old Castle, so now I want to make it a special occasion - I think I'll get my EE friend to take me when I finish my EE." So after the show he said, "So, are you ready to go to Old Castle?" I was so surprised that he knew what I was going to say before I said it!
But Old Castle was fantastic, so beautiful and ancient - it's 11th century they say - to think that we had this in Duino all this time and I'd never known...
So the EE show was fantastic, in all its elements, I love our Primi!!!!!

Vienna

Last weekend was 'Long Weekend'’, our 4-day vacation. After much trial and tribulation, manindecisionns and revisions, and a lot of looking at flight/train ticket prices, we decided to go to Vienna for three days. The group consisted of: Vanessa, Nidhi and me (the Weird Sisters)

and our first-year male companions, Nidhi's primo, Shashank, Vanessa'’s boyfriend, Bar (Israel), and my adopted primo, Lorenzo.

When we got to Vienna, we met up with my co-year, Leah, and Andrea from Brazil. So this is all of us:

We had a fabulous time. We left Saturday evening and took the night train to Vienna. We didn't get much sleep, but that was mostly our own fault, as we stayed up most of the night talking and laughing and watching a movie. When we got there, we made our way to our hostel, the Blue Corridor (you can imagine why I chose itJ), deposited our bags, and went out to explore Vienna. We went to the Schonbrunn palace of the Hapsburg emperorsgapedawped at beautiful rooms and paintings while listening to the commentary on headphones, enjoying making a running commentary on the commentary in whispers.

Then we went to the Stefansdom Cathedral, the cathedral I had marveled at last year when I went with Street Performance. If anything, it was more awe-inspiring and more beautiful than before. We sat there and looked around and talked about the art like good Art History/World Cultures students, pointing out the differences between the gothic and baroque styles and how it differed from the renaissance style of the Venetian churches we had just seen and generally feeling very educated and prouourselves. Then.Then we went to meet Leah and Andrea at the Opera house. When we finally got there, after walking around the entire city of Vienna looking for the Opera (it turns out that the first building we found was actually the correct one, but we didn't recognize it from the back, so we walked all around the rest of the city to finally come back and realize our mistake), we sat in line for tickets again, this time for Carmen. After 2 hours we ended up with almost exactly the same spots as last time, which was really cool. The opera itself was fantastic. I love Carmen! All the music is fantastic, even the minor melodies, and the performance was awesome. The sets so real you couldn'’t tell where the stage ended and the backdrop ended, the costumes were of brightly colored swirly gypsy skirts and Toreador capes, and the actors that you into the story without even needing the subtitles on the screens on our seats.

The next day we went to the National Treasury, an amazing collection of insanely expensive stuff, from beautifully embroidered cloaks to ornately carved reliquaries to portraits of the Emperors and their families. My favorite was the huge sapphire, cut in such a way to reflect as much light as possible:

In the afternoon, we split up:– some to the Freud museum, some to go shopping, and Lorenzo, Shashank and I to go to the Kunst Historische Museum. When we got there, Shashank learned two new words in German: "Montag Geschlossen" (Closed Mondays). Aahrg! We sat and fumed for a while, but then decided to go enjoy our day somewhere else. And you know what? we had so much more fun than we would have had if we'd gone into the museum.

If I write it down, it'll sound dumb - we walked around Vienna, laughing about German, we almost went into an Italian church until we realized we lived in Italy, we sat on the steps of the Parliament building, we walked around a garden somewhere, and we went to an Esperanto museum. You may think that an Esperanto museum is about the dumbest place imaginable, especially when it's one small room that documents the history of a well-intentioned but useless language, but it was so much fun!! Lorenzo and I could basically understand the signs in Esperanto if we worked together, and we played pakman with Esperanto grammar and had fun with the interactive maps of where Esperanto conferences were being held around the world. They had to kick us out when they closed, and we walked to the meeting place planning a Project Week to learn Esperanto in a host family somewhere far away.

All together again, we went out to dinner at a bar called "The Centimeter" and had a wonderful dinner that came in a wheelbarrow which we all ate out of. Before we ate, Lorenzo proposed a toast, and said, "To the person who helped organize this trip and made it a wonderful weekend, to a great friend, and a great EE friend, Anika." I was so surprised, Lorenzo was my EE friend? I squealed and jumped up to run around the table and hug him. Suddenly it all made sense, the fact that he never wrote long letters was explained by the fact that I already knew everything he might write, having stayed in his house at the beginning of the summer while getting my visa. And having a face to put to those wonderful gifts he gave me was so nice!

Then we packed up and got on the train, sadly leaving Vienna behind. Once again, we stayed up all night talking, and when we got back to Duino we slept all day. Or rather, I slept half the day and spent the other half of the day feeling sorry for myself and wishing I was back in Vienna. But long weekend was over, and I had other things to look forward to...like the EE show!

Opening Ceremony

My second (and last) Opening Ceremony was on Friday the 13th of October (haha). The only time throughout the year when everyone wears their national costumes together, and thus we have a lot of pictures. There isn't much else to talk about besides the pictures - speeches, choir, more speeches, music scholars playing, more speeches...anyway. There was good food afterwards, and we went on little "cultural visits" in the afternoon, exploring the surrounding area.
Nik and I wore national costumes, and were very proud of the result:

Other random pictures:


this is my prime and I: the two American girls, Lucy (Colorado) and Sarah (Virginia) and my adopted prima, Keleigh (Canada).

Speaking of adopted primi, these are two of my three adopted primi: Keleigh, whom I adopted because she is so very similar to me and the ways in which she's different are really cool - she's been doing Highland dancing for 14 years and she headed a "lights out canada" program to conserve energy and reduce global warming etc. at home, which is awesome. Lorenzo is the guy who hosted me in Milan at the beginning of the summer, so I adopted him because of our pre-college connection. There third adoptee is Nkechi, a girl from Nigeria who lives in scholtz (my residence) and has american citizenship, so she's my prima as well. I like my nicely diverse family.

This is Ximena, my rooma from Uruguay. Isn't she cool? I'm so lucky with roommates...

And this, as you can probably recognize by now, is the Weird Sisters: Nidhi, Vanessa and I. (All in blue, I might add. we have excelent taste.)
Afterwards, on the cultural visit, I had a strange encounter:
I was walking along the river when I saw a woman who was dressed like me - in 100-year-old clothes. I laughingly said to Nidhi, "hey, look! I have a friend!" and the woman came up to me, saying, "do I know you?" in English.
Apparently she's dressed this way all her life, and she just retired from her job as a seamstress. She's been to America multiple times to sell her dresses to others like her (I don't think she's amish, but she's something very similar) and she thought I was the daughter of one of her clients. She was very nice and we had a wonderful conversation, and before we left, I got a picture with her:

Isn't that great?

Asian Week

This is belated. Mi scusate, perfavore. I have a million excuses which I don't want to recount right now - they all have to do with essays and lab reports and ugly stuff like that.
So I'll tell you about the wonderful things in the college and specifically, the first National Week.
Asian Week was wonderful, we had a lot of activities throughout the week, and I can't do it justice, of course, but I'll try my best.
The first thing that distinguished the week from other national weeks was the Cultural Fair, which they had out on Fore Lawn, and served tea, wrote our names in Chinese, taught us to play the Erhu (chinese cello),

did henna tattoos,

and danced to bollywood music. Shashank, the Indian primo is a great dancer, and he led us all in corny bollywood dance moves.

The second thing, chronologically, and first on my list of favorites was Dicipline Day, when we all had to act as Asians do in school - dress in uniforms, not talk in class, address the teachers as Mr. ___ and Sir, etc. and they could send us to the Naughty Corner if we misbehaved, a place where we had to "Stand, look at the wall, and contemplate your crime and Be Sorry". We all had so much fun with it, but I didn't go to the Naughty Corner (not that I didn't try).

The poetry session was amazing, as always. I never knew that Flora (China) and Valentine (Indonesia) were such good orators. Valentine presented a revolutionary poem that made me tremble with fear. I never knew such a small, sweet girl could carry so much power.
The taster session was different than usual - normally we have it in the dayroom of one of the residences, and we all crowd in like people trying to escape from a fire and rush around trying to get as much food as possible on our plates at one time. Then we go to a corner and try to eat it all, generally ending up feeling bloated and bruised (from the mad fight for food) but very, very happy. In Asian week, however, they put the food in mensa, and we went through the normal mensa line to get the food at the end. I was late, so didn't get very much food at all, and ended up eating just mensa food, and it seemed that they didn't cook nearly as much as the other weeks. But it was fun anyway, and the best part was that they put Indian music on and we all got up and danced with Nidhi and Shashank and Malika (the volunteer from India).
Then there was the show, which was great. I was told to dress up as Sailor Moon, and I put my heart and soul into the costume. From 8 am to 7 pm I was working on it, gathering clothes and designing the outfit - the final product? here.

I participated in the show, too, which was really fun and funny. I and my rooma, Corina, played/sang "I like chinese" by Monti Python. (general gist:
"I like chinese, I like chinese
they only come up to your knees,
but they're always friendly and they're ready to please.

I like chinese thought,
the wisdom that Confuscious taught,
if darwin was anything to shout about,
the chinese will survive us all without any doubt."

It was a smash hit - everyone loved it, and even now people sing it randomly in the halls and ask me for the words. I'm proud to have made a worthwhile contribution to the UWC society.
And that was Asian Week.

People

In a terrible act of disrespect, I have yet to describe my new primi. They, as a general rule, are amazing and great and fun and nice and smart...but there are some that stick out more than others.
First: my roome. I'm now in a small all-girls residence called scholtz, rooming with a second year (Corina from Greece) and two first years, Ximena from Uruguay and Lamira from Western Sahara.
It's strange, because I seem to be repeating the room I had last year with completely different people: my new roommates correspond exactly to my old ones. Lamira = Nevin, she's Muslim, so she wears a scarf and prays (I was so sad to be leaving that with Nevin, I missed it so much over the summer, and now I have it again!) and she seems shy and quiet at first, but that's only because her English isn't too good. Actually, she's talkative and sing-ative and funny and energetic (exactly like Nevin, but I don't think she's quite as crazy. Or at least I hope not :$ ). We've been known to walk up the street at midnight singing My Heart Will Go On at the top of our lungs and waltzing, and this is just within the first month, I have a premonition it will only get stranger.
(This is me and my roomine -the new one (Lamira) on the left and the old one (Nevin) on the right)
Ximena = Marta. Firstly, they have the same birthday (in a week, I need to plan something!) and they also do random creative things, like decorating paper and drawing and stuff when they should probably be doing homework. :) Ximena also really likes videography (though I don't think Marta does), she made a video of her and all her friends before she left, and she showed it to me and Lamira and her latina friends. She hangs out a lot with the Latinos, and so my Spanish seems to be getting better just because of hearing it so often in my room.
And Corina = Giulia, the seconda who's never in the room, but when she is, is really nice. Like Giulia, she spends all her time in Trieste, and like Giulia, we wake up in the morning to find that she never did come home - her bed's still untouched. But she's so much fun to talk to, Corina and Ximena and Sylvia (our neighbor from Italy) and Boriana (also neighbor, Bulgaria) and I have stayed up till 2 am countless times talking about life, the universe, and everything, and it's great fun.
Next, my Primi:
I've already mentioned Gavino, my primo. He's crazy and cool, but I haven't spent as much time with him as with my Prime.
Prime: Sarah, from Virginia and Lucy, from Colorado. The three of us and Keleigh from Canada and Julie from the UK get along really well together, more than I've been able to connect with other native speakers in the past. Sarah and Keleigh are huge Gilmore Girls fans, so I've seen a couple episodes with them - they're not that bad... and it's fun to talk to them about American issues as Americans.
I'm sorry I don't have any pictures of them yet, I'll add them later.

Choir

(our two choir directors, Vanessa and Katy, after their first performance)

Although it isn't my official aesthetic activity, choir has been an important part of my life here, and I have a feeling it will become more important as the year progresses. So far we've been overloaded with concerts, which is good - they're really fun and we get good food and have a great time, but it's hard to perform after only having rehearsed 3 or 4 times, especially for the first years.
Choir this year is so much better than last year - already I feel like we're better quality and have better songs, even though we've only added 2 or 3 to our repertoire so far. Vanessa is going a great job as choir director, I'm so proud of her...
Last weekend we had three concerts, and all of them were great, especially the one on Saturday. It was a gathering of train workers from Slovenia and Italy and we sang for them all the songs we knew. It was crazy - the first years learned half the songs on the way there in the van, and I was the only soprano who actually knew what she was doing, yet it sounded great. And afterwards they gave us really yummy finger-food (the best part of choir). My favorite part, though, was the people who came on after us, a small band that played dance music (waltzes and stuff). We were so happy and proud of ourselves that we all got up and danced, and Honza (the Czech primo) grabbed me and started teaching me cha-cha and blues and polka. It was SO MUCH FUN! Jumping and spinning around the room, and everyone else dancing too (but not like us, haha :) )...and Honza's now starting ballroom dance classes for which I'm incredibly excited. He's already taught us a couple steps in dance activity and I think it's going to be great, he's a wonderful teacher, making it fun and funny and easy.
Singing and dancing, could life get any better?

International Show

Ok, this is out of order - technically the International Show was on Saturday and the first day of school was Monday, but whatever.
Every year the second years introduce UWC to the first years through an event called the International Show where the first years have to dress up (this year it was a beach party, last year it was 80s style) and the second years put on a show for them.
Throughout the first 2 weeks we second years practiced our acts and got ready for the show, while also showing our primi around and re-bonding with our friends.
I was in three acts, the "Wake Up sketch," a rhythmic cup sketch, and a Angel vs. Devil/ Violin vs. Electric Guitar duet.
The Wake Up sketch was funny - we documented the progression of wake up routines, from the first day (wake up at 6:30 To shower, put on makeup, eat a nice, hearty breakfast, then saunter off to school)to the last day, when the alarm rings at 7, 7:30, 7:45, 8:00 (when classes start) but at 9:00 we're still sleeping.

Then I did a cup sketch...you know the cup game, the one where you move the cups from person to person in a circle doing a rhythmic pattern of clapping and hitting the cup on the table/your hand/etc. It was great fun, and we didn't really mess up too much, which was amazing. The premise was: a row of girls and 2 guys on the end of the table acting bored, then Renato (as "cool guy") comes in and starts doing a pattern with his hands and we're all impressed so we copy him, one after another. Finally it's the (now jealous) guys' at the end of the table turn and they do it really fast and we all turn our attention to them.

Renato gets mad and picks up a cup to do the cup pattern and regain our favor (of course) and we all end together happily.

Then the one I really worked on: the Angel/Devil sketch. It went like this:

I come onstage in an angel costume with my violin, and start playing Meditation from Thais - slow, romantic, beautiful violin music - when, halfway through my first phrase, I'm interrupted by a loud chord from an electric guitar: Renato, dressed as a hard-rock devil, comes onstage and starts showing off on his guitar.

Thus ensues a competition of us each trying to outdo each other with faster and harder and more impressive songs.

Then, in classic UWC style, we ended together, playing a Paganini caprice in harmony.
We had so much fun planning and playing the songs, and everyone loved it ... great success all around.

The costumes of the primi were great...especially my primo. Gavin (or Gavino as he likes to be called) dressed up as a lifeguard, sort of. He was wearing a speedo and a lifeguard t-shirt: Wow.

There were a lot of other acts as well, like Marco's and Margherita's dances, they did ballet and hip-hop "duets."
It's amazing how they can move their bodies so smoothly and gracefully ... I wish I could do that...

There was a rendition of "Cell Block Tango" from Chicago, that was great, really funny and musically well-done.
And Dominika and Ana Maria did an amazing fire dance, spinning balls of fire on chains around and around in complex patterns, it looked so cool!
There was also the traditional Israeli dance, that's performed at every show. It's a series of movements repeated, and each one has a special meaning - very powerful and beautiful to watch.

And the Christian fellowship did a dance that was really cute, all of them singing, "Testify! Testify! I will testify to love!"

All in all, it was an absolute success, I loved it. More on the actual people soooooon. I promise.

Second First Day of School

Well, that was an auspicious start to the year. Out of five classes today I was late for four of them and missed the fifth completely. Granted, the skipped class wasn’t my fault, but still … let’s start at the beginning.
Just like we predicted, my two first year roome, Ximena and Larima, woke up at 6:00 am and 6:30 am respectively. I, being the experienced second year that I am, waited until 7:30 to rise from my blue cloud of slumber. I had plenty of time, but I decided that I should start the year out well and eat breakfast: a mistake. (actually, it was a case of deja-vu, I recall making the exact same mistake last year with exactly the same result) The logical consequence of eating breakfast (an error I won’t repeat in the future) was scarfing down a bowl of cereal and running to World Cultures class and arriving there just barely on time … but the door was closed! (door closed means I’m late = bad) Apparently Henry’s clock was 5 minutes fast, and though I informed him of the fact, it didn’t reduce the embarrassment.
Great class though, a discussion of the different meanings of the word “Classic” applying to everything from Greek civilization to “Gone with the Wind”. And next I had a free block. I spent it in the normal free block routine: do various nothings until you realize it’s 10:00 and you have to run to your next class, wondering where your hour went, because you certainly didn’t use it!
Theory of Knowledge, my next class, moved buildings without prior notice, and the sign on the door directed me to the building I had just come from – ahrg. I arrived at class out of breath and had to sit right at the front of the class in the last available chair. My placement was perfect for becoming Official Scribe for the class, an idea our ToK teacher has decided on – write down everything said so we can remember it later – and so I was stuck typing frantically as everyone else had a lively discussion on the nature of history and memory and the effect that writing things down and taking photos has on them.
Yay: break! So I went back to Schultz, my residence, and had a second breakfast, because the last one didn’t cut it. Once again, I mismanaged time (perhaps it’s the relaxing effect of yogurt…), but still got to the room on time – only to find no one there. My English class had been moved as well. Again I run to the other building (in the opposite direction again), and just as I enter the door I see my teacher coming, so I scuttle into class so as to appear un- late ( maybe the red cheeks and panting gave me away though).
Wow. English class was heaven. After a year of Beth (our last teacher who left) we had all trained ourselves to automatically switch our brains off as we enter the classroom, and this class was a frantic fumble to find the switch back on. We read – and I mean really read – The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufok, and discussed modernism in Britain and America and its effects and influences in 20th century culture. I haven’t thought so much in English class since the end of AP English in high school (discounting the math homework I used to do there last year).
Determined to get to Music on time, I was waylaid by my Italian teacher: “I missed you in class today, where were you?” What? I had been devastated that my favorite Italian teacher had been switched to C block while I remained in B block with another teacher…or at least that’s what the list said, and I hadn’t gotten a new schedule to say anything different. But apparently I was switched along with my teacher (yay!!) and missed my first class (oops.)
So, I was late to Music as well, but that didn’t really matter because Stefano doesn’t really care anyway, and we talked about orchestration in the Romantic period and the differences between Brahms’ and Bruchner’s early symphonies.
I was early for lunch though, and had a wonderful time with the other native English speakers excitedly lauding our new teacher and laughing at my blunders. It’s been a great day though, because even though I was late, the classes were all really fun, and I’m so happy to back.

Taj Mahal (ok, a little late)

I'm home now, which explains the lack of blogging - it's completely slipped my mind for the past 2 weeks, what with all the people and things to see and do around here.
But there are still a story or two left from India, so I will dutifully recount them:
I sadly left all my new friends in Solan on the 24th of July, especially Nidhi's family. I already miss her brother and sister - so cute and so funny when they argued - and her mother and grandmother, with whom I could never quite communicate because of the language barrier but still managed to bond through smiles and gestures. And of course Nidhi's father, who took us on all our travels and made my trip so special.
We went to Delhi again, but this time it was monsoon season and only 90 degrees - yay! Cool weather! - we took the train this time, the rickety old public transport train to Chundigar and then a superfast air conditioned train from their to Delhi. Both of them had their merits: on the train to Chundigar we shared the compartment with a group of boyscouts on their way to Delhi, and we shared cultures all the way down the mountains, i.e. sang songs together. I would sing a song in English and then they would respond with a Hindi or Punjabi song that they all shouted out (because none of them could sing). We had a great time, and every time we came to a tunnel we all screamed our heads off, according to tradition.
The train from Chundigar to Delhi was really cool - first class type treatment in a normal compartment, with lots of food and nice seats and stuff.
We spent the night in Delhi and then went to Agra to see...the Taj Mahal!
It was hot and the train there was uncomfortable, and when we got there at around 10 AM we hadn't eaten breakfast yet, so we walked around outside to try and find something to eat...and failed. There was NOWHERE to eat, and soon we had a line of mini-taxis following us asking if we wanted a ride. Nidhi's dad kept saying, "no, no, no! We don't need you!" and they kept pestering us anyway. So he finally went to the head office, and complained to the taxiboss about the annoying cabbies...and then ended up taking one of them to McDonalds after all. Nidhi and her father ate hamburgers while I watched and enjoyed the AC, and then we went sightseeing.
First we went to the Agra Fort, a massive Moghul palace of Redstone, and wandered in and out and around all these amazing rooms for the kings and queens and royalty of ancient India. It was cool to think of the idea that people actually lived there, in that manner, hundreds of years ago.



Then, on to the Taj Mahal in a horse-drawn buggy.
It was beautiful, just as spectacular as you expect it to be, especially as you see it first through a red stone and mosaic-ed arch that frames it beautifully, then walk up to in along an avenue of trees and fountains.
You take your shoes of when you go in, out of respect, and walk barefooted on the soft white marble in the hot sun around the perfectly symmetrical building. Inside it's dark and crowded with tourists, so it's not as nice as outside, but it's still interesting to see the grave of the woman who inspired this work of art. (did you know that after the architect finished the design, the king cut his hands off so there could never be anything as beautiful in the world again? Wow. That's royal.)

Nihdi and I took a nap on the Taj, it was warm and comfortable and nice...

I was dressed in a Salvaar Chemise, and everyone around us kept asking eachother (and me sometimes) whether I was Indian or not. I love how despite my blond hair and blue eyes I looked Indian enough to be mistaken. (victory!).

Back to Delhi, and then the plane in the morning.
It was so sad to leave India... I must come back sometime, something about this country touches your heart like nothing else. The cows in the streets, piles of dung covered in hay (strangely beautiful), the rivers, the mountains, the language, the people, hospitable and talkative and nice and always bragging about their country...I couldn't leave it forever.
But I could leave it for a while, if leaving it meant going home. And go home I did.