Spring Road Trip

Every year Rice gives its students a four-day weekend in early April, a break called spring recess. Freshman year, I went on a short trip to Austin during spring recess, to visit friends at UT. Starting sophomore year, I've gone on road trips with my incredible friends to various and sundry places in Texas: South Padre Island sophomore year (quite possibly the most epic spring recess ever), Corpus Christi/Port Aransas junior year (tons of fun, one highlight being that we saw real porpoises in the Gulf of Mexico), and San Antonio and thereabouts senior year.

It wasn't easy to get my parents' permission to go on that first trip in sophomore year. It was the first time I would be traveling such a long distance with friends, and it also was a trip involving boys, both facts which gave my parents pause. Thankfully, though, they eventually relented. It's funny to think back to the frustration I felt two years ago about my parents' worries, because now it's almost a matter of course that spring recess (and fall recess, which is the first semester parallel) means that I'm going on a road trip with my friends. I'm so happy I had these road trip experiences in college. It's these that cemented my friendships, and our trips gave birth to countless memories, quotable quotes, and new musical finds.

This year, as I mentioned, my friends and I (five of us total, which I think makes this our smallest trip to date) went to San Antonio. We'd already been there once before (for a fall recess) to go to Six Flags Fiesta Texas, so this time around we day tripped at Lake Travis and Enchanted Rock. I didn't join my friends at Lake Travis (met up with friends at UT instead), so I can't write about that, but I did enjoy Enchanted Rock.

Enchanted Rock is located outside of a little Texas town called Fredricksburg, known for its proud display of German roots and its antiquing. I think the hill itself is just a large rock formation made of pink Texas granite (which is quite lovely). The entire park is really well-maintained and pretty. We walked along really clearly marked trails to a pseudo-summit of sorts, and sat in the sun for a while to catch our breath. I felt a bit silly because there were a lot of older people walking up and down and around the hill fearlessly, but I was definitely treading with caution, especially on the steeper parts. Really there wasn't anything to be worried about, but it was just something I wasn't used to. So of the four of my friends, one started feeling a little sick when we were sitting at the summit, so she and I laid down in the shadow cast by a big beautiful boulder while the guys climbed further up and explored for a while. It was a really gorgeous day as far as the weather was concerned, so laying in the shade was absolutely glorious. We also got to take in an amazing view of the sky. There's nothing quite like a Texas sky.

After the five of us met up again, we all went back down the hill and waded in the small, clear creek at the start of the trail. The water was so clear you could see the pebbles below, and we saw quite a few tadpoles and some sort of tiny crustacean in the water. It was really lovely. We stopped in Fredricksburg for ice cream on the way back to San Antonio, which was a great way to end a really pleasant afternoon. Below are a few pictures from the day:

The beautiful sight from the beginning of the trail

The group, excluding me. It was a sunny day!

The guys on the climb down

The girls = )

Lovely deciduous trees--I missed these so much while I was in India!

Me and the best friend. We looked disgustingly like a couple with our unwittingly matching outfits.

Feet picture in the creek! The pebbles blend into our brown skin.

Okay this is blurry, but Texas wildflowers [this photo was taken on our drive back to Houston] are gorgeous.

And There'll Be Sun Sun Sun...

I feel almost guilty [almost, but not quite] that I'm enjoying temperate, sunny weather in Chennai, India while my friends back home shiver in 40-degree weather. Then I remember that I'm covered in mosquito bites (and getting more by the minute) and I don't feel so guilty anymore. This, my friends, has been the [happy] refrain (happy refrain, that's from some song I think...anyone know which? "And we will sing this happy refrain..." something like that) of nearly all the postcards I've written so far--and I've only written ten out of the 28 or so I'm to write from India. Funny story: the postcards, which feature scenes only from South India (in fact, I think, only from Tamil Nadu--which makes me happy because yay South India!) cost 6 rupees each. Postage for each one to America costs 15 rupees each. To be expected, but it's still pretty funny.

Other news:

1. My cousin who picked me up at the airport is a pretty darn good driver, which is saying something because driving in India is insane.
2. I made enchiladas for my two cousins here in Chennai for tiffin yesterday. (I love the word tiffin. Tiffin tiffin tiffin.) They rather enjoyed them, but now I have lots of refried beans and tortillas and enchilada sauce left in the refrigerator. I'll have to get my aunt and uncle to eat an enchilada or two later today.
3. Yesterday I showed my cousins (Abhi and Akhil, so I can stop writing "my cousins" all the time) the video for "Down" by Jay Sean on my iPod Touch (yay iPod which has proven so useful on this journey so far!). It was rather an interesting moment, just because there I was, Indian by birth but thoroughly American, showing my Indian-Indian cousins an r&b song by a British-Indian guy. They didn't really say whether they liked the song.
4. I bought myself Indian shampoo on the first day I got here. I'm really fascinated by the concept of beauty products and cosmetics made solely for Indian women. Foundation that's actually brown? Yes, please! (Okay fine, you can get brown foundation in the States, too, but it's different here. It just is. Plus, cosmetics are a bit cheaper here.
5. I won't be leaving India for another five weeks, but when I do, I'm going to go crazy buying Indian packaged food. We've been to the grocery store twice already to buy enchilada supplies, and I've begun to scope out all the types of noodles and sauce mixes and soups I can buy to fill up my soon-to-be-emptied suitcases. Yay empty suitcases! Speaking of which, when I was unpacking the things my parents had bought for our extended family here in Chennai, I found that it brought me great joy to begin clearing out my suitcases. It generally bring me joy to throw things out or get rid of things: papers, old ticket stubs, and so on. This is not really a very good thing, I'm afraid, because it's nice to hold onto objects that carry sentimental value. But I've never been very good at that.
6. There's a store near my uncle's flat that sells fresh chips. Kind of like a donut or bagel shop, except with chips. There are chips made of all sorts of vegetables and tubers: plantains and potatoes and lots of other Indian vegetables that I don't know the English names for (or the Tamil names, come to think of it...). I need to hit that place up soon because chips in India (even regular potato chips) are FTW.
7. I'm planning to get my nose pierced this Saturday. I'm pretty nervous about it, not so much for the impending pain, but because I really don't know how I'll look with my nose pierced. Truth: it could turn out really terribly. Also truth: I don't really care that much. I've wanted to have my nose pierced ever since I was a little girl. My mother has her nose pierced, like my grandmothers and most of my aunts. It's just something Indian women do. So hopefully the next time I blog I'll be able to tell you what it's like to get one's nose pierced in India. Let's cross our fingers for a no-harrowing experience!

All in all: I haven't had coconut water or roasted corn or mangoes or palm fruit (my mom says it's probably out of season, which breaks my heart a little) yet, nor have I gone to any temples, but I'm having rather a good time here so far. It's nice to be here A) in February, when the weather doesn't have me sweating constantly; and B) alone. I'm not being dragged around by the whims of my parents (my dad is usually fun when we're in India, but my mom goes insane, talking incessantly about how there's not enough time to do all the things she needs to do). Being here alone makes me feel grown-up, in a good way, and truly participatory in my experience here. I get to suggest what I'd like to do or where I'd like to go. Accordingly, Abhi and Akhil are supposed to take me to a coffee shop today, which should be a trip.

Being here is nice. I just hate that I'm missing such a big chunk of my life back home (seven weeks is a long time!) while I'm away.

Note: Entry title comes from "5 Years Time" by Noah and the Whale, which is a fantastic and fun song.

A New Beginning

I've officially defected from Xanga and come over here. I've been thinking about doing this for quite some time, (a bit idly, I'll admit) but I was hesitating because I always develop attachments to the things I use often--cameras, computers, glasses, cars, and also blogging sites, apparently. I felt a bit like I would be betraying my little ol' Xanga were I to start a new blog here. But since I haven't posted regularly in my little ol' Xanga for ages, I don't feel so guilty anymore. Besides, the Xanga had too much of my teenybopper past attached to it; perhaps that's why I haven't blogged much recently: it was slightly buried in the remnants of the past. Anyway, though, here I am!

Having graduated a semester early, I'm spending this spring semester working in my lovely plant genetics lab on campus (You're sure to hear more about it as time wears on. Lots of fun stuff happens in lab.) and going to India (to visit family) and Singapore (to visit a friend) for seven weeks! Which is a long time. Which brings me to the reason I felt like posting in the first place. I know the trip could be really good, if I went at it with the right attitude. I'm sure there will be many memories to be made, lots of fun to be had, much soul-searching to be accomplished [check it out--countable and uncountable nouns in that list, woot!] in both India and Singapore. Yet I kind of don't want to leave home. I feel like being gone for such a huge chunk of the semester will lose me the opportunity to watch my friends do a lot of interesting things--not to mention to do a lot of interesting things (i.e. go to Chicago over spring break, do random stuff in lab that both annoys and entertains the postdocs, linger obnoxiously long over lunch in South Servery, do movie nights and celebrate 21st birthdays and on and on) with my friends here at home. And I know I'll get homesick in India; I always do. Plus I've never actually gone there by myself before, so I'm slightly nervous about lugging around my bags and making my way through the airport and actually knowing what I'm doing.

All that being said, though, if this trip isn't going to suck, I need to get myself excited for it. So to that end, here is a list of things I am looking forward to doing during my trip to Asia:

1. Drinking fresh coconut water (eleneer; how the heck do you transliterate that?)
2. Eating palm fruit (or so I think it is; all I know is it's called nungu--again, how do you transliterate that?--in Tamil)
3. Eating roasted corn (suttu solam!)
4. Seeing Singapore for the first time!
5. Visiting the temples I love
6. Writing lots of postcards to friends back home
7. Getting to know my cousins better
8. Going to Pizza Hut in India; yay for paneer on pizza!
9. Making enchiladas for my cousin in Chennai
10. Buying clothes and shoes and earrings and other nonsense in Pondy Bazaar and elsewhere
11. Seeing parts of Chennai I've never seen before (hopefully this will happen)
12. Writing in my little green journal and maybe even conceptualizing a new piece!
13. Reading lots of books in my spare time

Right, that's a pretty good start, I'm thinking. But if I want to actually get on the plane, I need to pack, which means I need to get off the computer and get my day started, which I am loath to do, but I guess I should just suck it up. Hopefully I'll be able to update this once or twice while I'm in Asia so that I can show you guys what I'm doing over there. Here's to happy blogging!