Celebrating American Independence Day in India

It has been a rough week here. For some reason, the reality of living cross-culturally has been hitting me hard this week. It wears you out and sucks the life out of you-even to the point where walking down the street to recharge my phone was too much of an effort. I didn't have the energy to work at communicating with people who only speak some English. I'm tired of having to run to the bathroom every half an hour. (Need more Immodium!!!) Going anywhere is too much of an effort because of having to bargain with the autorickshaw drivers and then the shopkeepers themselves and then still wondering if I paid too much. Not knowing how much extra time to factor in when someone says "I'll be there in 10 minutes." Then, on top of all that, there is the self-condemnation of "You shoudn't take things so hard!" "You should have more patience!" "What are you doing here if you can't accept/deal with these things?" Yikes! Deep down I know it's a phase of living cross-culturally and that things will get better-just living through it now is hard!

So, with this all in mind, I was eagerly looking forward to the American Indpendence Day Celebration put on by the American Chamber of Commerce, the American Consulate General and the Taj Hotel group on Sunday. It was held at Taj Fisherman's Cove-which is roughly halfway down ECR (East Coast Road) between Chennai and Mahabs. I had two-no actually three-goals: 1.) To eat a REAL hamburger 2.) To see fireworks, and 3.) To RELAX!!!!! (Well, actually, a side goal was not to get hit by another cow while traveling down that road again....!) :) Fisherman's Cove is a beautiful resort (as are all the Taj Hotels that I've seen!) and it was good to get away with people I like to hang out with! It was a really nice event-family oriented with games and contests for both the children and the adults, lots of prizes, and lots of food. Unfortunately, the hamburgers were not so good. However, the hot dogs were decent. (They are also hard to come by here...) Liz enjoyed the potato salad, Patricia the potato wedges and I the fries. We missed the the fireworks while we were having a cocktail in the lounge. :( But it was a nice, relaxing evening.... I guess one out of three isn't bad! :) (And we managed to avoid any collisions with the livestock!) :)