India!

So....remember when I had a blog? Seems like a long time ago, doesn't it? Well, I'm coming back! I'm really going to try. I promise. (Even though Amy is probably the only one still checking this...Hi Amy! Aren't you proud of me?)

So here goes:

I just got back from a week-long trip to India, for a Fulbright conference. My roommate and I went a few days early to hang out, since she had never been to India before. The conference was in Calcutta, which is great, because I love Calcutta (aww, remember the good times, Becky? Remember?) We weren't even sure if we were going to be able to go on the day we had planned, because Leah had to wait until the afternoon of the day before to be sure that her Indian visa came through. I know this is how most people in the world have to travel (American passports being the exception rather than the rule), but it was a little silly considering that if she had done it herself she would have just had to sit at the High Commission for a day.

But she got her visa and we got up super early the next day to go to the airport in Colombo. We were worried that the security would be really bad, because there had been an air raid in Colombo like 3 days before, and one of the targets was the airport, so we were worried about security. But surprise surprise there were only the normal amount of checkpoints on the way in and we only had to go through security twice, so that was good. But of course that meant we got there real early, so we sat for a while in the airport. It was only the first time of many that we did this.

The other exciting thing that day was our 9 HOUR LAYOVER in Bangalore. Literally. As nice as the Bangalore airport is (and it is quite nice) we did NOT want to sit there for 9 hours, so we went into the city, telling the taxi driver the name of a road that we had been told has stuff on it. Once we got there we walked around for a while, got into a rickshaw and asked the driver to take us somewhere interesting. He did, to some big building that I think is the state level version of Parliament, whatever that is called. State Assembly?


We finally got to Calcutta, for three days of fun and excitement. Also three different hotels for those three different days. The first one we chose just because it was late and its the one the taxi took us to, but it was pretty overpriced, so we found another one the next morning. Now, we were in Sudder Street, the backpacking district of Calcutta, which is like every backpacking district in India. So we were walking around with our backpacks on, which is like screaming fresh meat, and so of course we end up being lead around by this dude, which I always feel like I should be able to avoid by now, but somehow can't. So the room that he eventually took us to (which we basically took so we didn't have to be led around anymore), was cheaper, but actually a little bit gross. There were lots of tiny cockroaches in the bathroom, which somehow was way grosser than the monster cockroaches we get on the island. So the next day we walked around without our backpacks and found a room that was actually quite pleasant.

Leah was really excited about shopping, because Sri Lanka doesn't really have the same kind of gift shopping as India. So we did some shopping and saw a couple of cool temples, and ate some delicious Indian food. We even went back to that Punjabi place by your apartment, Becky! I wanted Leah to have some good paneer. Mmmmm, paneer. Calcutta has amazing street food, too. This is one of my least favorite things about Sri Lanka - no street food! Tragic.

But all too soon, we whisked ourselves away from the wonders of backpacker-dom and arrived at the conference hotel - the Hotel Hindustan International, a five star hotel in Calcutta. It was a little bit different. Cons: over air conditioning, vaguely gross food (with gluten hiding in it somewhere). Pros: amazing mattresses, television. I haven't had a TV in a long time, and it was kind of mesmerizing. Among the things that Leah and I watched: the Santa Clause 2. Yes, thats right. Not the first one. But the sequal.

But turns out the conference was actually pretty cool. I heard a bunch of ten minute presentations about people's research, and then there were some other panels, etc - lots of normal Fulbright self-congratulatory-ness, but also some interesting things about travel and collaboration and exchange. Surprisingly interesting. I learned that archaeologically, we have no evidence that unicorns ever existed. I also learned that Nehru was bff with the founder of the ACLU. I also got very briefly but very strongly excited about Tibetan and Sanskrit philology, which is something I never imagined I would say. But when someone is at a podium essentially pounding his fist and saying "vocative, vocative! This syllable is NEVER the vocative!" well, I wanted to pound my fist too. Fuck the vocative.

That's right, folks. That is the moral of my trip to India. Fuck the vocative.