Holiday Week

This week has been pretty laid back due to the two days of holiday we got in the middle of the week. Wednesday was eid-ul-fitr (end of Ramadan) and Thursday was Ganesh Chaturthi (a hindu holiday celebrating Ganesh). It was so nice to have two days of doing nothing especially since the assignments and readings have been picking up for all my classes. On Wednesday my American friends and I had a beauty day at the local beauty salon where I got my hair cut and a pedicure. The lady who was cutting my hair seemed very concerned and asked us why Americans don’t take good care of their hair but that may be due to the fact that the only two Americans who came into her salon to get a haircut hadn’t had a haircut in two years...oops. Anyway, I’d say it was a great use of my  day off.

On the second day of our midweek break I went to see a bollywood movie called Aarakshan in Mangalore with some of the other study abroad students. It was an interesting experience as the movie was completely in Hindi and with no subtitles. I could sort of get the gist of what was happening, and during the intermission (bollywood movies are really long) a professor who came along with us explained the basic story line to me. I found out that it was about a professor who was teaching classes to kids from lower castes so that they could pass the exams to get into college, but the higher caste college students started to get angry that they were admitting people from lower castes. Eventually, the professor overcomes all the obstacles and his classes become a huge success. I was told it’s based on true events which have been happening around India.

One thing I’ve found that I still really miss from the states is my morning cup of coffee. In India, there is no such thing as strong brewed coffee. At the breakfasts in the mess hall they serve nescafe instant coffee with tons of sugar and milk, which can be okay but it’s so sweet and doesn’t really have that caffeine kick to it. There is one coffee shop outside of the main library witch has espresso drinks and so on, but if you want just a black coffee, they give you an americano. After a week of buying cappuccinos every day, I’ve realized it’s not such an economically sustainable habit so I think I’ve decided to break down and buy a water boiler for my room and some instant coffee so I can at least control how much sugar and cream goes into it.


Other than coffee, I really don’t miss anything from the U.S. and I’m quickly appreciating the way many things are done here ( eating with my hands, taking bucket baths, and rickshaws ).

Yesterday I got really bored and decided to go on a small adventure to try to find Manipal Lake, which I’ve heard people talking about. I pretty much just looked at google maps and remembered the different landmarks along the way because India doesn’t have street names. I managed to get there without getting lost and it was surprisingly pretty nice and the water was semi-clear. It’s just a really small lake in a more rural area so there’s not much to it but it was nice to at least sit there and put my feet in. There was also a small temple on the lake but it seemed rather run down (or maybe a dog had gotten in and made a mess).

The lake was sort of overflowing onto the road on the way there

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Lake Manipal. I think there's supposed to be an island but it's monsoon season so the lake is really full

The little temple I found by the lake

Today I went to a park in Manipal with my roommate and some of her friends called endpoint. It’s a really popular place with families and students to go for walks and just sit and enjoy nature. Manipal is on top of a really tall, rocky hill and endpoint sits right on the edge of it. There’s great views and apparently it’s THE place to take your date to, especially at sunset. It has almost a 360 view of the surrounding countryside and you can sort of sea the Arabian Sea which is just 5 kms away.

Me, my roommate to the right of me and her two friends

One of the look out points

 End Point

 

I’m hoping to go to the beach sometime next weekend but everyone keeps warning me not to get in the water because it’s really dangerous so I guess I’ll just walk around and take in the scenery. There’s not really much of a western beach culture here anyway.

I’ll try to update more regularly in the future so my posts aren’t quite so long every time.

Happy labor day weekend!