I'm registered!

I finally completed the foreign national registration process in India!  I know it might not seem like a big deal to you, but it is.  A lot of people, including Bob, say that registering ranks first among their worst experiences in India.   My registration was remarkably uneventful.

at the fro office

Last Tuesday, we went to the FRO office to begin the process.  When we showed up, the place was eerily calm, and we later found out the Mr. FRO himself (who people describe as a monster, the master of nightmares, or at best, jerk) was out for the day.  Jai, a man from Bob's work who was helping us, told us that meant the employees were doing whatever they wanted, including registering people very quickly.  We pushed to the front of the group, since there aren't any lines here or concept of "turns" and turned in all of my paperwork (about 100 pages of documents including a letter from Bob's work, a copy of our apartment lease, etc).  In thirty minutes my passport was stamped, and they told me to come back in a week to pick up my official "papers" or proof of registration.  When I left, I had a sinking feeling they would lose everything in the mess of their office.  It was the least organized place I had ever seen.

casual day since the master of nightmares is off

very sophisticated filing system

he has my passport in his hand!  it's all over!

Today Bob and I went back, with Jai, and happily retrieved my papers in all of 10 minutes.  My forty minute FRO experience is completely unheard of, and I'm sure that if other foreigners heard about it, they would be paying me to find out how it went so smoothly.  If you live in America and never plan on coming to India, skip to the next paragraph.  For the rest of you:
1.  Go on a day that the evil Mr. FRO is not at work.
2.  Shove your way to the front of the group.  You will have to be kind of rude, but it will be worth it.  Plus, it's not rude in Indian culture.
3. Smile.  A lot.
4.  Ask a helpful Hindi-speaking friend to go with you.  Or even better, say a few things in Hindi yourself, and be sure to use the Indian head bobble when people ask you questions.

When we left, we also went to get something notarized at the courthouse down the road.  To our surprise, it was an outdoor district court that looked a lot this photo I borrowed from another website:

this looks a lot like the outdoor district court we visited today

It was infinitely cool.  Jai was very proud that we only got charged Rs. 150 ($3) until we told him it was free at home.  Also, the notary guy didn't even read the paper or ask for our passports, which is kind of the whole point of a notary.  Oh well.  No complaints here.

All in all, it was a pretty successful day.  Registering was something I was super anxious about, and now it's over!

An Exciting First Week

It's Sunday, and I am trying to avoid thinking about the fact that Bob will be going to work tomorrow, and for the first time, I will be alone in India.  Right now, Bob is making a delicious Indian dinner of chole with poori.  Chole is his favorite food here, and he has pretty much got me thinking the same, especially since he can cook it himself.  Note: Bob is a much better cook in India than he was at home, and he insists on cooking everything.  Maybe that will change when he returns to work tomorrow, but so far I have enjoyed breakfasts of "almost organic" eggs, which come in packs of ten, not twelve, along with "lite" milk, which comes in a box off of a shelf instead of a carton from the refrigerator.  I also love the Indian potatoes he makes, which are a lot like aloo tikki, which he usually makes along with one of the 24 boxes of Kraft Mac and Cheese that I brought from home.  We'll be out of those soon :)

Anyway, I had a great week, despite the extreme heat and the insidious effects of jet lag.  Here are some of the more interesting things we did/experienced:

1.  First monsoon-like rain.  I think it was on Thursday night, although I keep losing track of what day it is.  On Wednesday night/Thursday morning, I slept for about 14 hours, which means it was almost impossible to fall asleep on Thursday night.  Instead, I laid awake watching the first season of Parenthood (which is great, by the way).  For hours, from our balcony windows, I could see lightning north of the city, toward the mountains.  I've never seen lightning like this before.  It was like there were a million paparazzi in the sky, all taking pictures of the city. Finally, near dawn, the storm moved in over the city (anyone who knows me well knows how afraid of storms I am, and how desperately I wanted to wake Bob up).  There was thunder and lightning for about another hour, and then suddenly, it started to rain.  It was like nothing else I've ever seen.  It was kind of like one huge car wash-- the intense wind blew the rain in every direction.  It encircled trees, cars, and everything else I could see from our apartment, and before I knew it the wind started to blow huge buckets of it up onto the balcony and violently into the window from which I was watching.  The magnificence of the whole scene erased every trace of fear I had been feeling, and I screamed for Bob to wake up.  "It's monsooning!"  I yelled gleefully (and for which he still mocks me), but he let me drag him out of bed at 5 am, and we watched our first monsoon rain together.

2. First Hindi movie.  On Friday morning, we went to join some of Bob's Indian friends for breakfast at a mall.  We went to Bob's favorite restaurant, Haldirams, and ate some of the most bizarre things I've ever had for breakfast.  Every bit of it was hot and spicy, but I have to admit, I liked it.  Kind of.  It will take some getting used to.  A picture from breakfast is below. The girl sitting next to me is Prenna, and I think we are going to be best friends. She's so nice, and she always translates things into English.  Also, the guy sitting across from me is Gaurav, and he is Bob's best friend.  He is hilarious, in a pretty American way, which is rare.

Anyway, afterwards they begged us to go to the movies with them to see Ready, the new Salman Khan (read Indian Brad Pitt) movie.  We had no idea what we were getting ourselves into.  It was two and a half hours long (with an intermission, of course), there were about 6 Bollywood musical scenes, and did I mention there weren't any subtitles?  Despite all that, Bob and I both had a lot of fun, and I was glad we went. Below is our favorite scene; be careful, the song might be stuck in your head for days, and you might catch yourself doing some of the dances.

3. First ride on the Metro.  One night last week, Bob and I decided to go to a Khan Market, a popular market in Delhi.  We could have taken a taxi, which would have been faster, but the Metro is much cheaper (about 40 rupees, or less than a dollar).  The first time we rode in a general car, and I got so anxious and claustrophobic that we had to get off after about 4 stops.  There were people literally all over us, and more people got on at every stop.  There are only about 20 seats in each car, and the car we were in was filled with about 100 people, all grasping for the handles hanging overhead.  We got on the next train, which came pretty quickly, and it was less full since it was so close to the one before.  Bob also showed me the "women only car," which was less crowded, calmer, and cooler.  After a few more trips, I feel much more acclimated to the whole thing, and I can see why the Metro is the preferred mode of transportation.  Although it is the slowest (it took about an hour and a half to travel about 10km or about 6 miles), riding in a taxi or autorickshaw would have been expensive, and harrowing in and of itself-- a description of the traffic in Delhi will undoubtedly require a separate post!

4. First date night.  On Friday night, our apartment complex finished work on its pool and had a big opening party and cookout.  The pool was a little gross, mostly because of the monsoon storm that came the night before, but we got in anyway.  Why not?  The cookout food was delicious-- they served chaats (snacks) like chole, some sort of aloo (potato) stuffed with dal (lentils) cooked over hot coals, and butter naan, which might be my favorite thing in the world.  We only stayed in the pool for about 20 minutes, since kids were staring at us like they'd never seen Americans before (Bob's white face must be giving us away), and the pool water was starting to gross me out.  After a pretty thorough shower, we went out to meet Bob's Canadian friends from work for drinks.  We went to a great rooftop bar called Jolly Rogers, which was fun but a little over priced, even by American standards.  I got to meet Sharon, Bob's friend's fiancee, and she is, in a word, awesome.  She's been here for about a month and she's great at traveling and exploring.  She keeps telling Bob and I all the stuff she's discovered, all the fun trips to take, in and out of the city, and she's also just really funny and interesting.  The Canadian guys were fun too-- they kept quizzing everyone on world history and geography, which sounds annoying but is kind of fun after you've had a couple of drinks.

Overall, I had a great first week.  Depending on how I sleep tonight, I think I'm starting to beat the jet lag, and although I'm anxious about my first week alone, I'm looking forward to my first few excursions alone.  Especially since another monsoon storm is moving in, which means it will be about 10-20 degrees F cooler tomorrow.  By the way, I'm not sure they're really called monsoon storms, but Bob and all his friends, both Canadian and Indian, think it's hilarious when I say that.  And you know me-- I'll do anything over and over as long as it's funny.

On tap for tomorrow:
Bob- work.  He doesn't want to talk about it, since he's been off for a week.  Poor kid.
Me-A trip to the mall tomorrow for some ready to wear Indian clothes, a new yoga mat (I have class on Tuesday night!), some slippers (I totally understand why it's gross to wear your shoes inside now), and about 20 passport photos (foreigners have to have them all the time here), and groceries.  Wish me luck!

Family and friends, we miss you!

k and b, from delhi, with love

Akshardham

So... it's been a long time since my last post... I've been super busy at work, but I figured out the solution to this problem... I'll just blog at work!
Lately I have been getting into work around 10 am and working until 10pm... so long days and nights. They're starting to get longer since I'm starting to miss home and I'm desperately awaiting the arrival of Katrina. I know, gross, bob loves katrina, bla bla bla... whats new, right?
Anyways... so I've been having a great time in india since my last post. I'm starting to get a lot more comfortable in the office and I'm starting to make my 'work friends'. So I realize that I usually do a bullet point outline of my days in india, so I'm just going to stick with that. So, a few new things that I have learned/experienced in india...

• Akshardham: I went to Akshardham last weekend. I think it's the newest temple in Delhi. The place was massive, the architecture was beautiful... it was truly an experience i'll never forget. 

Ram and Nattu (2 guys from the office) were nice enough to take me there and show me around. First we went to the central temple... It had statues of a lot of the hindu gods and they shared the story of each of them... very interesting. Then they took me to the center of this temple and we looked at the 'main god' of the temple. By this I was very confused... b/c in hinduism there are 3 main gods... verma, shiva, and one other i think? But now there is a main, main god?
Confusion...
Anyways... I found out that each temple has it's own god that's worshiped. I can't remember the name of this one, but I learned plenty about him through videos, animatronics (seriously), and tours throughout the temple. It was truly a hindu god theme park. A little creepy, but a little fun.
After the creepy animatronic shows and such, we went outside (by this time it was dark) for the water/light show in front of the giant main god statue. There were probably about 2000 people there. Very very fun.

So that was Akshardham. This blog isn't letting me add photos, but I think they're available on facebook!

Bob