Stuff...

Yesterday I spoke to my mother on Skype for the first time in three weeks. She told me that she had just recieved a letter saying that she is accepted at the University of Copenhagen at Psychology, so congrats to my cool mom (and credits to her for having the courage!)... I am also very curios to hear how its going at home, because today is the day that Erica (the american inbound) will arrive in Copenhagen to live with my family!

Back to India: I am getting sort of restless, really wish that college would start soon so I could meet some other people my age (beside Janhavi, Neha and Christian)... But its still nice to have a good amount of time to get used to everything!

The weather is still rainy, and i would like to see the sun sometime soon. Within the last three weeks I have lost every hint of a tan I had when I left Denmark (who would have thought I'd go pale in India?!)... Although I think that in October (one of the two hottest months in India) I'll look back at these days, wishing It could go back to being cloudy! :)




I still love it here, weather and all!
Take care <3
Maria

So yesterday (wednesday) I was supposed to have dinner with the Chaudari family (my 3rd host family), but the club president asked us all over for a small party. All of my host families and the presidents family was gathered, and had tons of food (I have noticed that I love the food, but I'm not too crazy about the sweets/desserts!)... overate Again, again! The president gave me a lovely rotary-mug. His family had gotten me a traditional indian dress in a nice green color.



Still enjoying... take care
:) Maria

One big binge!

I'll just start off by answering one question which i get all the time: I am extremely grateful that I (yet) have not experienced any 'stomach problems' caused by the indian spices!.. And its certainly not because I don't eat them: just last saturday I forgot to search my food for remaining chilies, and accidentally chewed half a small green chili (that doesn't make it any better, cause when it comes to chilies, the smaller and greener, the spicy'er!) and what did I then do? I drank almost a liter of iced water, and when that didn't help, I (on advice from Dadi) started eating the pastries we had baked the previous day, that finally helped, but I felt a slight but constant burn on my tongue for the next two days! ... What did that teach me? Danish pastry rocks! -even in India !

Well to get back to the main topic, my bingeing, I went to a dinner at my counsellors on sunday. My last host-family and a couple from rotary had also come, and all in all we were 14 people (one were an infant, but what the hell)... I think they must have been cooking for 20 hours or something like that, first we had massive amounts of starters, some deep fried vegetables wit green chutney, shallow fried fish, raw vegetables with dip, idli and I think that was about it... The main course consisted of a giant pot of vegetarian pasta, one kind of indian curry, two kinds of thai-curry (one veg and one non-veg), rice and homemade garlic-breads... For dessert we had this indian thing (i don't remember the name, but it was a deep fried dough dipped in sirup) had they put a but of raspberry jam inside, and rolled them in sugar instead, could i easily have been convinced that they were a small edition of what we in Denmark call "Berlinere"

bureaucracy and a pair of shorts.

So now I'm back in English.
Today we were very busy, left the house around 7.45 to avoid the worst traffic jams(not with much luck if you ask me!)... It was raining heavily all morning(and when I say heavily, I mean HEAVILY!!!). First we went to the danish consulate, no problems there.
The bureaucracy didn't start until we reached the police station. Hoping for the best, expecting the worst; we went into the station, The receptionist sent us to the 3rd floor where we had to wait for half an hour just to be informed of all the documents that were missing (apparently my passport, Visa, copies of both, guarantee form, school admissions, letter from Rotary, host families electric- and telephone bills, passport sized photo with red background and a perfectly filled out police form weren't enough!). But this receptionist wrote down my name, verifying that I had been there, and gave us till monday to get everything right, and then we could finally move on to the fun part of the day! :)

After this, Neha, Christian, Janhavi, uncle and I were all craving for some lunch, so we went for lunch in a small south indian restaurant (actually more like a cafeteria)... Great food!!! But you see: One car, 4 teenagers, one host father and a driver. How can that work? well, it can't really! But the smallest person (happens to be me) is to sit on top of the others. But when the smallest person (weight-wise) happens to be one of the biggest persons (height-wise) a problem occurs... This person (still me) has to bend her head more than what good is (consider that I under normal circumstances are just about 0,5 centimeters from touching the sealing with my head)... We drove to a mall wherein Christian were dragged around in all the girlie shops advising Neha and Janhavi about what would be fashionable in Denmark... I bought a nice pair of shorts (not that short though)...

Finally we went up to the food court and split two slices of pizza, 4 hot wings, a portion of fries and two sodas (all for Rs. 410 = 51,25 kr.)... And I owed christian Rs 100 from a bet we had last week, so he got himself a two scoop chocolate icecone :) and then he was happy!

mælk smager mærkeligt i Indien...

Okay jeg ved godt at jeg sagde at jeg ville skrive på engelsk, men indimellem må i altså finde jer i et par danske indlæg...


Jeg skulle her til morgen (for første gang i 10 dage) have lidt vesterlandsk morgenmad. Jeg glæder mig til mine cornflakes med mælk på, indtil jeg oplever at danskere og indere altså IKKE har den samme opfattelse af hvad mælk er: De får mælken ved at en doodh-walla (mælkemand) dagligt kommer på sin cykel med to mælkejunger som han så bærer op af trapperne i alle opgangene. Vil man have mælk kommer man ud med en skål han så fylder op... Men den her 'mælk' er så fed og klumpet et det for en minimælks-drikker som mig, virker som den rene fløde, hvilket ville være okay hvis man var forberedt på det; men nå man sidder klokken halv et, lige er stået op (og vælger en gang cornflakes fordi man ikke lige overskuer chili, karry, og alle de andre inden man har fået øjne) Så er det ikke lige det man helst vil ha...


Så vær på vagt hvis i har lyt til en skål havregryn, allbran, weetabix eller en hver form for müsli... you never know what you're gonna get !

rotary-meeting and more...

SO... Yesterday we were very busy.

Slept till 11 o'clock, had breakfast and then auntie, Janhavi and I we over to the place where I will be doing Yoga... I was shocked by the prices! (Rs 500 for one hour, 5 times a week for 3 months) And I felt bad just thinking about how much we had payed for our yoga class in Denmark.

After this, we went to meet the sir. who will be teaching these classes. Then we went and had a cup of south Indian coffee with some friends of auntie.

When we came home, we had one and a half hour to change into the clothes we wanted to wear to the rotary meeting. I, of course, wore my blazer... by the way, how come the danish RYE-symbol on the blazer sais: Danmark, Rotary Youth Exchange???

well... The rotary meeting was a lot different than the ones I have seen in Denmark, so many speakers with so many causes they all support. Im very happy that I have come to such an active club... We started out by having a light indian dinner, then the national anthem were sung and then the actual meeting had started... I gave a small improvised speech, telling everybody why I was here and how grateful I am to be here. I met all my host families and were invited to like a million dinners and lunches (Im not going to starve while Im here, thats for sure!)

Så skal der snakkes dansk

After my first week in Mumbai, I talked to Christian and Neha, and we decided to spend the day together. They came by bus all the way from Navi-Mumbai (1,5 hours) and Had lunch with me and my host family. Chistian and I were both very happy to speak some danish again, but since neither Neha, Janhavi or Juhi understood, they told us to come out of our little 'danish world', and so we did.

First we had planned to go to the cinema, but the movie we were planning to see had already started, so instead we went over to the gamezone and played videogames and other fun things all afternoon... Finally we had an Ice cream! great!

Before Christian and Neha caught a Rickshawdriver who actually knew where their busstop were, I made a small calculation, and found out that I had only spent about 65kr. all day !!! Oh my, I love India !

Mumbai trains and my college

So today Janhavi and uncle wanted to show me how I am supposed to travel by train. We went by rickshaw to the station and already then, it looked very crowded. But once we got into the ladies-compartment and sat down, it actually wasn't as bad as I had pictured. There were many people and lots of pushing, and it was nice to finally arrive at Churchgate... Then Janhavi and me walked to Jai hind college where we were to take my admissions, but it had just opened today, and the madam said that the 11th grade (in wich I will be going) didn't start untill the 20th of august, so I have plenty of tim to chill and get to know the city...

One thing that worries me, is the lack of aircon at the college... It was extremely hot, and I was sweating like a pig all the time we were in there, wonder if ill ever get used to the temperatures ?!

The janhavi and I met up with uncle, and we went to the waterfront, nice view! We all had coconut-water in the roadside, it was really refreshing in the otherwise exhausting heat (a man took a fresh, green coconut, cut a hole in the top, and put in a straw. So delicious!)

We went for some great wok-food and then home just in time for pakoras, popped rice and masala tea !

Incredible India

It sure is !

Me and christian travelled all day, and finally we arrived (1 hour later than scheduled) at Mumbai airport. MAny people had come to welcome us to India, and a lot of photos were taken... I was soon in the car with both my host sisters and my host dad. As soon as we opened the door to their apartment a chain of flowers were put around my neck, and I felt very welcome. Got some diner and went to bed.

Now we are all awake, Im unpacked and I must say, it feels great to finally be here :)

I have to go eat lunch now.

PS: Theres cows outside my window, how cool is that!?

One day in Denmark

Hi everybody... This is only going to be a short status.. I am leaving Denmark tomorrow, and theres still at least a billion things left to do. I was wondering as to weather the State Bank of India would accept my visa electron or I ought to bring travelers checks. So I found there number and called them up. I got to talk to a man who's english weren't at the top of the class, but I asked my question and (I think) got the answer that it was indeed possible...

Ill get back to packing, and the next you'll hear from me, will hopefully be from India...

A new beginning

The holidays have kicked in, and I am very relaxed... Theres 5 days left in Denmark before I take off for India. Im so excited, and have my doubts to weather or not I'm able to wait until friday.

Got home from the departure-briefing yesterday, and I feel ready to go. I have a that a lot of the other outbounds from Denmark will be following my every step on facebook for the first couple of weeks (most of them wont leave Denmark until august).

10 days ago I went shopping with Joanna, and I bought all the presents Im going to need in India (and more)... I wont reveal what I bought, because my host families and counsellors might be reading this...

All in all, I just cat wait!