Running with the Chinese

I arrived in Suzhou on Wednesday evening with little hiccup (not including the 6 hours before my flight when I found out my ticket was cancelled and needed to be reinstated by my Chinese travel agent). They brought me to a fabulous hotel that has white robes and a bath tub-my dream. It became quickly apparent that getting by with only English would be significantly more difficult than it was in Mussoorie. I tried to call the front desk to ask which internet network I was supposed to connect to. No one knew what I was saying. My travel buddy got on the phone, and he told me they'd call me in two minutes. I was skeptical, but in two minutes, two men showed up at my door and plugged in my router. Problem solved. Within an hour, I was back on the grid and ready to tell the world I was safe and sound.

House Hunters International

On Thursday, I went apartment hunting. I felt like I was on House Hunters International. There was an apartment that I had been shown a couple months ago that I was interested in, and they had been holding it for me. I looked at four different apartments. One was brand new and very IKEA'ed, but it was surrounded by construction. I was also concerned with the newness of it all-everything that wasn't right would be discovered by me. I saw a couple other buildings with great views, but they just seemed very plain or had weird features that weren't visually pleasing. My second choice was an apartment on the 29th floor of a building, and it had a bath tub. In the end, I choose the one that I had seen a couple months ago. It has some sort of geothermal temperature control, and it is 71 degrees year round. After freezing in Mussoorie for three winters, I felt like it was an obvious choice.

Today, I have orientation ALL DAY! I went for a short jog this morning, and I did not get lost. I got waved at by a local-totally blending in! I'm definitely ready to see my new school and meet my new, hopefully, best friends. AND ANWER IS COMING!!! 

Closing Time WS14

I taught my last class at Woodstock on Wednesday, June 4th. On Thursday, I attended my final JS assembly, and I cried my eyes out. Saturday was graduation and staff banquet. Sunday was pure Oakland Getters bonding. Today was "holy shit we have a ton of stuff to pack." And on Thursday, June 12th, we will leave Mussoorie for Delhi.

I can't believe I made it.

Three years later.

On the way to Rishikesh 2011

Halloween 2011: Black Swans, Dolphin Trainer, 80s Workout Instructor, and Devan

2011

Agra Fort QB 2011: Anwer and Lindsay's Love

Qutab Minar 2011

My life be like ooo-ahhhhh

Goa 2011

Raj Bus Riding 2011

She needs her sunglasses!

Dress Like a Student Days

Independence Day 2013

Remember that time we ate waffles every day for 30 days?

Home sweet home

The fastest ladies in Mussoorie

#winning 2013

Paris 2013

1989

Robby and Bobby

#winning

#abouttowin

Just Dancing with the sub junior ballers

I will not miss this.

Last day in Boyd's Dungeon

I won't miss this either.

I will miss this!

I hope you had the time of your life.

Monkeys and Mushrooms

Sunday was a lesson in survival and stupidity.

Something that often happens on the weekends is the veg kids come around and overcharge people on vegetables. I was a sucker on Sunday and bought 500 grams of mushrooms. (I had some for breakfast and some for dinner. This will be important information for later in the story.)

The weather is warm. The sun is shining. And the monkeys are frolicking. I enjoy keeping my doors open to facilitate air flow. Anwer has warned me time and time again that the crazy langur monkey will show up in the house and eat me. It's funny because two monkeys did come as far as the porch on Saturday morning. I screamed and waved a sheet crazily, and they left without a fight. You think I would know better by now.

On Sunday, I did not know better.

I was drying laundry in the yard and chatting on the phone with Tina. I noticed one of my blankets had fallen down the cud. I shimmied down the cud while still chatting on the phone. On my way back over the fence, I saw a monkey perched nicely on the ledge staring at me. I made a run for my house and slammed the door behind me. I was still on the phone chatting. I began to retreat back into my living room, when I saw a monkey. Inside. My. House. EATING BANANAS IN MY LIVING ROOM! I turned immediately back around and ran out the door, obviously leaving it open so the monkey could follow. Instead, what I then saw was two more monkeys running into my house to grab some snacks!

I ran around to the side window to assess the situation. I finally decided I needed to end my call with Tina because things were spiraling out of control. I screamed and pounded on the window encouraging them to leave my kitchen immediately. They shockingly left with minimal damage. I lost three bananas and two cinnamon rolls. The little thieves sat in the yard nicely eating their snacks while I tried to get back into my house.

I closed the door.

Later in the evening, I began to feel some stomach pains. In the land of typhoid, malaria, and amoebas, this was nothing to be concerned about. I waited it out for awhile. The power went out due to a storm, and I just sat in the darkness trying to not be in severe pain. Around 1:30 AM, I decide it's too much. I wake Anwer and make him call the health center to see if I might die.

The nurse on call suggests that I take some pain medicine to ease my suffering. After Anwer wandered around in the darkness trying to find it, I popped the mystery medicine (because it was dark and Anwer was sleepy, it might have been a vitamin C pill). About three minutes later, I found myself running to the bathroom to prevent the projectile vomit that was about to come out of me from spraying all over my powerless home. Let's just say that large amounts of fluids and debris were coming out of my body from multiple directions for many hours that night. It was violent. It was awful. And I have strong belief that the mushrooms were to blame. Around 4:30 AM, I had cleansed my body more thoroughly than any raw food diet ever could.

So what are the lessons we learned?
1. No more monkeys jumping in my house.
2. Do not, under any circumstances, ever, buy any mushrooms from anyone. ever.