Status

162 days spent in India so far.

201 days to go.

5 trips out of Mumbai(Safala, Lonavala, RYLA, South tour and Bordi + Kutch and Pune coming up).

3 hostfamilies.

52 hindi letters - 10 vowels, 2 modifiers (?) and 40 consonants i had to learn by heart.

Uncountable numbers of mango juice.

Insane amounts of hours spent in Mumbai's local trains...

1 big fat indian wedding - soon to be two :D

5 major religious festivals celebrated (Ganpati, Janmashtami, Nav raatri, Diwali and Rakhsha bandhan)

14 letters and packages from home (friends and family together)

5 letters sent back home + 6 packages

waaaayyy too many rupees spent

7 times did I bake danish pastries - alt fra Kringle og brunsviger til hinbaersnitter og kanelsnegle altid vellykket og vellidt - Selvfoelgelig!

4 yogaclasses per week! lately they have been done along with Janina (USA) <3

15 other exchangestudent-friends + many many many indians!

4 danish dinners cooked (f.eks. lammefrikadeller med remoulade og kartoffelsalat eller vegetarlasagne med raakost, groen salat, og floede kartofler)

very few times have I been up before 7.30 in the past 5 1/2 months :P

1 run after I stepped unto the scale the first month and realised I had put on two kg's in 30 days.

3 kg's gained since my arrival (a number I'm rather proud of! for other inbounds it has been as high as 10 !!! )

16 degrees is the coldest i have experienced in the past 5 1/2 months

100000000 ... new dishes tasted (or at least that is how it feels)

1 birthday with 3 birthday cakes and tiramisu-cake in my face and my hair (det lignede til forveksling at nogen havde knaekket sig direkte i frisuren :S )!

3 saris!

7 indian outfits, punjabi suits, salwar kameez or whatever you choose to call it.

3746 photos

and

infinite numbers of priceless experiences that i wouldnt have missed for the world! I love India, I love Mumbai and I love life as an exchangestudent!

Festival season and college start

Again it has been a little while since my last post, and I want to inform you all that I have now started college. Im in FYJC (First Year Junior College) at Jai hind college. In my class there is two other exchange students; Marion from france and Severin from Germany. Everyone at the college is so nice and helpful.

Last week there was a festival here in India called Janmashtami. They celebrate the birth of Krishna. A little jar of curd or butter is hung in a string high above the ground (because krishna used to really like dairy-products :) ) and people form human pyramids and try to break the jar. Usually theres a price for the team that breaks the "dahi handi"...

Then there were Ganpati festival wich is the celebration of Lord Ganesh (the elephantgod), I build a big thermacol temple with my hostfamily and we held a big celebration in the apartment all my host cousins and aunts (i guess?) were there for the celebration.

In the society we had a ganpati too, and on monday I moved back with my first host family, and wednesday we were to emerse the ganpati idol into the water, and there were held a big celebration... Everyone were dancing on the street, it was a GREAT experience.

one 10th of my stay is now completed!

Now Im back again, we passed the first month, my host sis (Janhavi) has left India and gone to Denmark and I have gotten through my one-month-crisis (although; to call is a crisis might be to overstate it just a tiny bit)... I knew when coming here, that there would be more rules than I was used to in Denmark. But when I was not allowed to travel alone for 7 stations by train to meet with some other inbounds, outbounds and rebounds. I felt as though I was being treated like a kid. Luckily we sorted things out. My host mom took me to the station during peak hours to show me what it could be like. Seeing that, I were able to see that there might be some sense to their restrictions, and we made a deal that I could go if it was out of peak hours.


2nd class in the Ladies compartment during peak hours (7pm)

And yesterday I actually went, by train, alone, all the way to churchgate (a one hour journey) and then to my college to pick up another sigature needed for the FRRO registration (have lost all respect for anything that has anything to do with the bureaucracy that going on there)... And I met up with Stuti, one of Janhavis friends from the college. We went for ice cream, and she followed me to the station where i took the train to Goregaon and a rickshaw home.

Im busy!

Hi everybody whos reading my blog... Its been a while since my last post, but im just going to make a quick update.
Wednesday i was at lunch with my third host family, the Chaudari family, and rushed home for my kathak-lesson (fell very big and clumpsy, and im afraid Ill hit the fan with my hands, if I stretch them over my head!)... Thursday was pretty nice, the sun was shining (!finally!) Janhavi and I went to see eclipse (I have senn it in DK, but she really wanted to go). In the evening we went to dinner at my second host family, the Inamdars. They have a huge apartment, pretty new building and very modern decorated. Really liked talking to their daughter and niece(but she's going back to US in a week).

Today we went to the southside pretty early, and started out by going to the college to get some more papars for the FRRO registration (bureaucrazy !) ... Then we went to grab some lunch at Subway with Stuti, Alisha and Charmi(some of Janhavi's college friends)... After that Thea, a rebound who had gone to France, picked us up, we went for a coffee, and talked for a while :) Thats to be done again!

All for now
Maria

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