Settling in

So, we're finally starting to feel a little more at home in Delhi. We finally got a fridge and internet at the apartment, which is wonderful, and really makes it feel a lot more like home. Jordan and I spent the entire weekend catching up on the Daily Show and Colbert Report episodes from the last month. It was great. It also rained all weekend, which has brought the temperature in the city down to a tolerable high 80s - mid 90s. That helps a lot, but I'm still not feeling too great...I've had a lingering flu for 2 weeks now that I just can't seem to get over, and I've been having a really hard time staying adequately nourished. Being vegan is basically impossible here, and even though I've tried giving up veganism and eating dairy products, it's been so long since I've eaten that stuff that now it makes me sick. So I'm living mostly on beans, rice, bread and cereal, which means I feel really exhausted most of the time, and get lightheaded when I walk up stairs. It makes doing anything (including buying and preparing food...so much easier to have it delivered) much harder to manage. I'm kind of concerned about it, mostly because I can't make the most of this trip when I don't have the energy to do anything, but hopefully I'll get it figured out soon and come up with a diet that works for me.

We've also started going to class, although sometimes that can be a bit tricky. Here, you really can't count on your professors to show up to class - twice in 2 weeks, I've gone all the way to the university only to find that my class was cancelled. Attendance seems to be not that much of a priority here. In my experience, though, at least, the students here are really nice and friendly. When I went to class last week, a few of the students kind of took me under their wing, helped me with administrative stuff and getting the readings for class, and gave me some food for lunch. They also told me about a guest lecture that was happening later that day: a Tibetan Buddhist monk gave a lecture on the concept of selfhood in Buddhism. It was pretty interesting, and it was just kind of a cool experience in general.

On Saturday, it was Independence Day here. It's celebrated by a ceremony and presidential address at the Red Fort. It was at 7 AM, though, so Jordan and I slept in and missed it. A couple people in our group tried to go, but they couldn't get in, so apparently we didn't actually miss anything. The way locals celebrate the holiday here is by getting together with their families and friends and flying kites. We went up onto our roof and were amazed by all the people we say flying kites and hanging out on their roofs. Here are some pictures:

Most of those little specks are kites. Some of them are birds, but most of them are kites.

And here's a video:

We couldn't really capture it - there are way more kites way off in the distance that don't really show up in the photos or video. It was really cool, I felt like everyone in the city was connected. It was kind of surreal.

Oh, and here's a photo of the courtyard/park thing on our street - this is a view from our roof.



I'll put up photos of the inside of the apartment whenever I get around to taking some. It doesn't look like much now, though, because it's enormous and we don't really have any furniture, so it's mostly empty.

This weekend Jordan and I are going to be traveling somewhere. We haven't bought our train tickets yet, but we're thinking about going to Amritsar, the holiest city in Sikhism and home to the Golden Temple. The weekend after next, we're all taking a trip to Jaipur, the capital of Rajasthan, and Agra, to visit the Taj Mahal. I've always wanted to go see the Taj Mahal, so I'm super psyched!

We uploaded a whole bunch of new photos today, including some from our time in Mussoorie, so go check out our Flickr photostream to see them.