Travel Plans!

December is coming up, the students are gone, most of the faculty and staff are leaving, and I have to work for most of the month. But no worries, I've found myself some vacation days and some places to go!






December 7th-10th I'll be taking a short trip to Oman. Its on the southern end of the Arabian Peninsula and apparently is very green and mountainous (the opposite of Qatar). Its just a long weekend but it will be nice to get away, especially because the Asian Games are making the city CRAZY!



I also finally finalized my plans for my trip to Hong Kong to see Chev! I'll be there from December 27th-January 3rd, and I'm gonna sightsee while Chev is at work, and then we're gonna go out for New Year's, and I hear that Chinese New Year is really cool. I'm so excited to see Chev and to finally get to see Hong Kong since I've been wanting to for a few years now.

It rained!!!!

For almost the whole day. The first precipitation since I've been here. Dave and I walked around the Education City campus as it was drizzling and the construction workers looked at us like we were crazy, but it was so worth it! I'm totally missing fall and winter. The temperature has finally gotten down to 60 degrees at night, and around 80 degrees during the day. This is still a bit too warm for me, but at least the Starbucks are serving pumpkin spice lattes :-)


I've been neglecting the blog recently. I've actually had a decent amount of cultural interactions and somewhat important realizations, I just haven't had any time to process them and write them down. Finals are next week and the students are freaking out. En masse. And their panic is feeding off of one another. Although after next week the halls and lounges will be completely quiet, and that will be a lot worse than the panic.

The Taj Mahal

My first view of the Taj














An absolutely gorgeous building. It was built by Shah Jahan, the third Mughal (Persian) emperor of India as a monument to his beloved wife, who died giving birth to their 14th child. It was her tomb, and he was intending to build an identical building in black accross the river, as his tomb, so that his soul could eternally see hers. Unfortunately his son was quite power-hungry, and imprisoned Shah Jahan in Agra Fort. Even the son knew how important the Taj was to his father, though, and imprisoned him for many years in a small room in the fort from which Shah Jahan could see his wife's monument. After his death, one of his daughters took his body to the Taj and buried him next to his wife. Their tombs are the only part of the building that is not completely symmetrical. He even built a mosque on the west side of the Taj, and put a completely empty building on the east side to preserve the symmetry. Ah, the crazy things you can do with enough money.

The mosque at the Taj

The carved walls of the Taj

The view east from the steps of the Taj at sunrise

A few thoughts about Tuesday

I decided that I would take a break from unsuccessfully trying to post more of my India pictures to say a few things about the U.S. elections (especially now that VA and MT are actually decided).

Yay!!! That's my whole initial thought.

I am so extra-glad about Bob Casey beating Santorum (I had thought of about a million insults to use here, but at this point there's no need to call him names *cough "Devil!" cough*) Casey's such a good guy, he'll do great things for PA, and on a more personal note I'm happy for Josh 'cause I know how hard he's been working.

When I interned at the Democratic Foreign Relations Committee last year, the Republican majority had taken away all but four offices, I think. Five if you count that closet that they put the European specialist in. I hope Senator Biden goes in and takes all of their offices and puts them ALL in closets. I know its petty, but that was annoying!

I hope Nancy Pelosi manages not to scare the crap out of the entire midwest. Not sure that's possible.

I hope that the Democrats don't squander this great opportunity that they have. Not only as a policy-making body, but as an example of non-corrupt politicians who actually care about the public that they represent. But in terms of policy -- good lord, balance the budget and fix this mess of land formerly known as the sovereign state of Iraq.

Rumsfeld's resignation could very well be a superficial attempt to convince the Democrats that Bush is willing to work together for the next two years, and I won't be convinced until I actually see substative cooperation from this administration.

Barbara Boxer, as the new chair of the Senate Committee on Environment and Public Works, has already pledged to have hearings ASAP on global warming and the human impact on climate change!!

The whole world seems happier, at least the people I know here. Even if they don't follow American politics, as soon as you say "Bush's party lost big" they get a huge smile on their face.

Did I mention that Santorum lost!! And yay!!!!

We now return to our regularly-scheduled India pictures. Hopefully. If I can get blogger to work correctly.

Ranthambore Wildlife Park, Rajastan

Ranthambore is about a 5 hour drive from Jaipur. When we arrived we had lunch at the hotel and went on our first of two wildlife safaris! The big attraction is supposed to be tigers, but we didn't get to see any of those. We did get to see a lot of monkeys and deer though, and a crocodile, and the park itself is absolutely beautiful. The next safari was the next morning at sunrise. Ranthambore was actually my favorite overall place of the trip, for the following reasons:

The mountains and fresh air were awesome, especially after living in a desert. It was so nice to be outside in real autumn weather, and to see real trees!











The little town by the park is not very touristy, and our guide was so cool. He went out of his way to show us a Hindu temple in town, and then took us shopping at a place where actual Indian women would buy the fabric for their clothes. We could tell it was local because the owners didn't even speak enough English to bargain their prices, so the guide helped us bargain in Hindi. Then he took us to a pretty cheap souvenier store that donated a portion of its profits to a children's charity. He also answered every question we had about Hinduism and Indian culture.

women on their way to the temple

Our hotel was awesome. It was an old hunting lodge from British colonial days, and if you've ever seen a movie about the British in India, this is exactly what the hotel looked like. There were little tables with umbrellas next to cricket and croquet fields, big porches on the main building, and a hammock that I laid in and read every free moment I had. It was so peaceful and relaxing, which is totally what we needed in the midst of all the chaos that I mentioned before.











Monkeys are cute!

Jaipur, Rajastan

cows in india are happy 'cause they can relax on the street without fear of being eaten








The first city we went to in India was Jaipur, which is about 4.5 hours from Delhi in the large state of Rajastan. Its a pretty touristy place, and the primary attractions are the Red Fort (which has elephant rides!) and the palace. Also in Jaipur we did some shopping for carpets, textiles, art, and jewelry. For these first two days, Jumana and I were with her sister Dina and Dina's friends from the Doha Asian Games Organizing Committee: Natalia, Anthony, Khalid and Marlen.






Khalid, Jumana, Marlen, Dina, and Natalia with a Hindu god statue.



The view of the Fort and the Old Treasury building above it from the elephant taxi stand








And the elephant taxis with their drivers. Some of their owners had painted their trunks for the diwali festival that was just finishing when we arrived.








The palace that the Maharaja of Rajastan still lives in. Even though all of his real power has been replaced by the secular, democratic government of today, he still holds symbolic power (sort of like the British monarchy).

Anthony and Khalid check out the snake charmer that was outside of the palace. We all got to hold the snake, which we were assured had been "de-poisoned."

The view of Jaipur from the top of the Fort, and a much closer view of the streets... the chaos is hard to portray in a still photo, it was the craziest driving I've ever seen.