Things that Never Change

Thursday: Jan 24, 2:37

Things that are the same in India:

My Earring Obsession

I brought four pairs at once. Awkward.

Birthdays:

 On Tuesday night Alex and I were invited to a birthday party at The Cozy Corner, one of the local restaurants. The birthday girl was Rita, the math teacher from Newton, Massachusetts I mentioned a few post back. In the past few weeks I have run into her and her new husband Jeremy quite a few times and we have developed a nice friendship. The birthday party was really cute, with pipe cleaners to play with and a guessing game about Rita. Once again the party was all foreigners, but we spanned the world, from America to Europe to Australia. Some of the people I met there hve been to over 40 countries, all before 40. It was incredible to hear their stories

Jewish Geography:

 One of the women that were at the birthday party was the nanny of a girl who was in my junior year Hebrew class. We figured this out with no more prompting than me saying I was from Chicago. Another one of the girls I have met, a half India/ Half German, Priyanka, almost went to Rochester.

Knowing People Everywhere
In the past week I have solidified my friendships with some of the girls in my program as well as some people I have met elsewhere. The expat community is almost like Rochester, for wherever you go there is always someone you know to kill 15 minutes with. The area where the program house is located and all of the students live, Assi, is popular for ex-pats and there are only a few place to eat that are trustworthy, so there is almost always someone there to chat with. Like in the Pit or at Starbucks when you see someone you know eating alone you automatically invite them to join you, and others may show up and invite themselves. At times small dinners turn into events.


An Illustration: On Monday, Alex and I planned meeting for dinner on the Ghats. I passed a store, where I recognized Tania’s shoes outside, so I stopped in and told her to meet us. We then ran into Finn, a boy from California who is writing a pop science book on the Higgs Boson, who brought along Priyanka. At the restaurant Jeremy walked in, a little early to meet Rita, so we invited him to sit with us, and when she finally showed up we had dinner together.

My Protein Shakes and the Supremacy of Peanut Butter

Every morning I have my protein shake, just like at school, and a spoonful of peanut butter, to substitute for my Cliff Bar.

Peanut butter is a joke in India, because only Americans eat it, but we eat more of it than others would think possible. I met multiple people who live in Tania guesthouse, who said they knew that they lived with Americans based solely on the amount of peanut butter in the kitchen. In the program house last semester they used the amount of peanut butter that they planned for the semester in a month. The Indians were shocked. They still make fun of our tendency to eat peanut butter straight out of the jar.