Day 7

My Oh My! What a day it has been!!!

The streets here in Bangalore are easily the scariest thing to me. No lanes. No speed limit. No crosswalks. It's essentially one giant death trap. Yet surprisingly, Bangalore has a very low vehicle accident rate. Which you wouldn't expect, for the reasons listed above, but also because everyone is honking their horn during the entire duration of their ride! Honking however, is actually for communication, not for being pissed off. Indians are very calm drivers. They honk every time they speed up, slow down, pass, turn, come up next to someone, see someone they know, notice a pedestrian is walking out in front of them.. they are ALWAYS honking. And though I know accident rates are low, being out on the streets still makes me feel like I'm going to die. But today I sucked it up. I rode a rickshaw. Auto-rickshaws are India's taxis. Except they don't have doors? It reminds me of those kid trailers that parents hook up to their bikes for their children to ride along with them.

Except with Rickshaws, we don't get helmets.

Nonetheless, I wanted to go to the botanical gardens and no one knew how to get there! So we hailed a rickshaw and off we went!

It actually was a fun drive. We were in a rickshaw caravan with two other groups of girls and we kept passing each other and waving and talking to each other! Meanwhile, our drivers were talking to one another because only one out of the three of them really understood where we wanted to go. But we made it. And it. was. worth it.

Nicole and Erin being picture perfect as always.

My best attempt at being cool.

This is Raoul, stray dog turned guide dog, He stayed by us for the majority of our time in the gardens. My friend here, Erin, said something completely accurate about the situation, "India: where the water has more bite than the stray dogs."

I cannot get over how green everything is here. The gardens were breath taking. The only downside to the trip was that everyone we passed either asked to take a picture with us or took one without asking. I was not a fan. But I also wasn't going to let that get in my way of taking everything in. After we had walked the entire grounds, a couple girls and I walked into the middle of one of the gardens and just sat for a second. Soaking in Bangalore. Finally hunger, and mosquitoes, got the best of us and we hailed a rickshaw back to the university.

"What next?" I wondered. Then I remembered I had laundry to do.

I'll start by saying that I was not forced or even expected to do my laundry by hand. Much like the increased wifi privileges we American students receive here, we also have the privilege of using the single washing and drying unit they have in the building.  I might use them in time to come, but I thought this experience would be good for me. I had never washed my clothes by hand before. Even when the article of clothing specifically says "Hand Wash Only", I still throw it into the washer! So I grabbed my complimentary bucket that came with my room, shoved my laundry detergent and clothes pin into my bad of dirty laundry, and headed up to the roof of my building.

Luckily for me, a middle-class American without a clue what to do, a nice girl named Gurmet was washing her clothes and was excited to teach me how. Well, maybe excited isn't the word.. more of intrigued. Even after the fifth time I explained to her that I was choosing to wash my clothes by hand merely for the experience, she still seemed confused as to why I would choose this. But she was more than willing to be my mentor. Turns out, a bucket and detergent is not enough for washing. I needed two buckets, detergent, and a bar of soap. Still intrigued, she lent me her second bucket and bar of soap. After a few blank stares, miming, and repeating sentences quite a few times, Gurmet succeeded in teaching me how to wash my clothes by hand, on a stone slab. I felt pretty great about myself. I didn't know however, that they would take two days to fully air dry. Oh well.

Well, after the gardens and laundry, I was still up for some adventuring so I shot my new friend Bonis a message to see if he wanted to meet up. We sat and talked for a bit. He helped me with my Hindi. And I showed him Mandy's Mermaid Bae Dance video at Santa Monica Pier (which after me bragging about my sister so much, he felt like he knew her and exclaimed, "I am so excited to have a friend that performs in Hollywood!") And then we decided to explore. Turns out, I had only seen half the campus.

This is Bonis, holding up my name tag because we were excited that I was an official student here.

Bonis, "Have you ever seen Jesus meditating?"

Again, I can't get over how beautiful it is here. After we walked through the rest of campus, Bonis showed me the streets behind the campus. These were much easier for me to take in than the front streets. We stopped for some freshly pressed sugarcane juice (which was amazing and I'm going back), saw some of Bonis' friends, and made our way back to campus.

And finally, I am tired. Another successful day in India.