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Hello everyone!! I heard that quite a bit of people missed me at the Pro-Nationals and believe me, when I schedualed my trip to India, we weren't planning on going to them. Anyway, since my dad can't answer the question, "What's she doin' in India?" Well, we have friends over there and I went for a visit. The woman used to work with mom while she lived in the States and when she moved out to India she said I could come and stay with them anytime I wanted, I just had to fly myself out and pay for my personal expenses-room/board and food were to be free. We always put them up when they come back and visit in the States so there was no problem housing me for a month, and this year just happened to be the year I could do it financially. 
So now I return home, greatly inriched by my expieriances. I came to find that India is much more the land of opportunity than America is. The counrty is still developing and so rags to riches stories are much more a possibility there than here. It's also a place where people can live for years wandering in the jungles and the Himalyas and not die. I really felt that India is a country where anything is possible.
While I was there, I took two classes from a well traveled and very respected Guru, who was extremely kind and also took the time to explain smaller things about culture and religion to me. I was very popular in the second of the two classes-I made more friends there than I've ever had in my entire life. We did some really fun stuff-played games, climbed mountains-I climbed a rather large, rocky, slippery hill, blindfolded and guided by someone who didn't speak English-I didn't even know what I was doing until I got to the top and looked down on the valley and realized how easily I could've been broken. The guru gave some wonderfully meaningfull lectures as well. It is easy to see why he is respected world-wide. So, I now have more people than I could ever need to stay with in India~I was sort of adopted. We had a HUGE dance party the last night and of course, everyone wanted to dance with the white girl. We had an India vs. America contest where 3 of the guys tried to copy everything I did and they were very intrigued by American dance things, even a simple cartwheel. The classes were deffinitly the high-light of my trip.
Other than that, I went to Hyderbad and Secunderbad(the twin cities of south India), Chennai, Pondicherry and Auroville(eastern costal cities-Pondicherry is was French port so I got to speak French in India, which I was rather very excited about~Auroville was founded in most part by a French woman known as "the mother" and it is a self-sufficient village dedicated to the ideals of equality and spiritual growth), Bangalore (India's Chicago) and Mysore(has the 2nd largest silk industry in the world and is famous for it's light wieght) and Finally Bombay (India's NewYork), Pune and some L place I can't remember how to spell. But the L place was absolutely amazingly gorgeous-one can see why many movies are filmed there. It looked like something out of a fairy tale. I managed to do quite a bit in 25 days. I slept on trains, busses and cement floors-in noisy, smelly cities and in the the middle of nowhere with the bugs and the lizzards(some of which were a bit large) I mastered crossing the street(which is actually very dangerous in India) and the Indian toilet. I learned how to bargin with street vendors and that if they really annoy you, you can turn and speak with a slightly raised tone, in a language you know they don't speak (French worked quite well) and they'll leave you alone because they'll assume you don't speak English. However, this does not work with beggars who will swarm you and follow you rather aggressively-I had one woman lunge at me.
So I had a wonderfully fantastic time and I'm already thinking of when I can possibly go back. The only thing I didn't like was the food, which was either extremely spicy or grossly sweet. Only Indian would eat pinanpple with pepper. I became quite sick a week in and after that I adopted a policy about foods I didn't recognize and NOT eating them. They also eat later in the day than we do and have much larger portions. I really had to be firm when I said I couldn't eat anymore. But I posted some of my favorite pictures for all to see-hope you enjoy them!
PS-Brian Palmquist-Remember you said my Indian name should be Raja? Well Raja is a boy's name and it means king. Rama is a girl's name that I could except.
See everyone at Beloit!
So now I return home, greatly inriched by my expieriances. I came to find that India is much more the land of opportunity than America is. The counrty is still developing and so rags to riches stories are much more a possibility there than here. It's also a place where people can live for years wandering in the jungles and the Himalyas and not die. I really felt that India is a country where anything is possible.
While I was there, I took two classes from a well traveled and very respected Guru, who was extremely kind and also took the time to explain smaller things about culture and religion to me. I was very popular in the second of the two classes-I made more friends there than I've ever had in my entire life. We did some really fun stuff-played games, climbed mountains-I climbed a rather large, rocky, slippery hill, blindfolded and guided by someone who didn't speak English-I didn't even know what I was doing until I got to the top and looked down on the valley and realized how easily I could've been broken. The guru gave some wonderfully meaningfull lectures as well. It is easy to see why he is respected world-wide. So, I now have more people than I could ever need to stay with in India~I was sort of adopted. We had a HUGE dance party the last night and of course, everyone wanted to dance with the white girl. We had an India vs. America contest where 3 of the guys tried to copy everything I did and they were very intrigued by American dance things, even a simple cartwheel. The classes were deffinitly the high-light of my trip.
Other than that, I went to Hyderbad and Secunderbad(the twin cities of south India), Chennai, Pondicherry and Auroville(eastern costal cities-Pondicherry is was French port so I got to speak French in India, which I was rather very excited about~Auroville was founded in most part by a French woman known as "the mother" and it is a self-sufficient village dedicated to the ideals of equality and spiritual growth), Bangalore (India's Chicago) and Mysore(has the 2nd largest silk industry in the world and is famous for it's light wieght) and Finally Bombay (India's NewYork), Pune and some L place I can't remember how to spell. But the L place was absolutely amazingly gorgeous-one can see why many movies are filmed there. It looked like something out of a fairy tale. I managed to do quite a bit in 25 days. I slept on trains, busses and cement floors-in noisy, smelly cities and in the the middle of nowhere with the bugs and the lizzards(some of which were a bit large) I mastered crossing the street(which is actually very dangerous in India) and the Indian toilet. I learned how to bargin with street vendors and that if they really annoy you, you can turn and speak with a slightly raised tone, in a language you know they don't speak (French worked quite well) and they'll leave you alone because they'll assume you don't speak English. However, this does not work with beggars who will swarm you and follow you rather aggressively-I had one woman lunge at me.
So I had a wonderfully fantastic time and I'm already thinking of when I can possibly go back. The only thing I didn't like was the food, which was either extremely spicy or grossly sweet. Only Indian would eat pinanpple with pepper. I became quite sick a week in and after that I adopted a policy about foods I didn't recognize and NOT eating them. They also eat later in the day than we do and have much larger portions. I really had to be firm when I said I couldn't eat anymore. But I posted some of my favorite pictures for all to see-hope you enjoy them!
PS-Brian Palmquist-Remember you said my Indian name should be Raja? Well Raja is a boy's name and it means king. Rama is a girl's name that I could except.
See everyone at Beloit!
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