Playing catch-up

Well, once again I find myself way behind in keeping these things updated. I was originally hoping to have an updated post at least once a month, but I guess that's not going to happen. Since it's been almost 2 months since my last post this is just going to have to be an over view and not too overly detailed.

I have now been in India for over 4 months and the time just seems to be flying by faster and faster! I've also done a little bit of traveling around the area in the past months, but it's nothing compared to what I have to look forward to! In the very beginner of next year I'll be going on a trip to Goa (south western India) with my 11th grade at school. It's a 7 day trip and only costs about 5,500 rupees, which is somewhere around the $130 range at the most, so it was just too go an opportunity to pass up! Then my family is going on a 12 day trip to Kerala( just about as south as you can go in India and no end up in the ocean)after school here gets out. My school will end here in the very end of February! It's s strange to think of school being over in February, that means that I'll have about 6 full months of no school before my 12th grade will start in America, but I'm not sure if this is entirely a good thing in some ways!

About a month ago my family took a day trip to Karnal. Karnal is only a 2-3 hour car ride west of Delhi and is where my family lived before moving to Delhi. Karnal is basically a big town in a very agricultural area, known for having some of the best quality rice in India. My dads side of the family actually sort of co-owns a farm in Karnal, so we got to visit that, as well as some relatives who live in Karnal. When we were walking around the farm, we got to see a cobra, not 4 feet aways from us! It just slithered into its hole, but it was still pretty cool to see a cobra in the wild!

More recently I went on a weekend trip with my siblings and a few older cousins. We went to a Gurudwara ( Sikh temple) in Paonta, which is about a 7-8 hour (including traffic and road conditions) west and a little north of Delhi. We went because it was going to be the first Sikh gurus birthday on Monday. It was in a very beautiful area and right alongside the Yamuna river. It felt really nice to get out of the city and be in such a naturally beautiful area. There were lots of hills and forests around and the river was spectacularly clear.

It's starting to get a little cooler here and everyone has starting unpacking all there winter cloths. Indians are very funny about cool weather, they have a ridiculous amount of really heavy sweaters and coats and even several pairs of long underwear. It's a little over the top, seeing as the weather never even makes it to freezing here! I also had to buy my winter uniform for school recently. The new items include long sleeved white blouses, a gray sweater vest thing, longer socks and a navy blue blazer, which I am in no way looking forward to wearing!

I have my AFS mid stay orientation next week. It's in Baroda ( just about as far west as you can go in India, before running into Pakistan) and all of the exchange students in Delhi (about 4 of us) are taking the train to get there, so that should be about a day and a half train trip one way. I'm not really looking forward to it, but maybe I'll have something nicer to say about it after I get back from it. We'll see, but until then, this in enough for now!