"I feel all giddy inside"

Since I now have all this extra time on my hands, this weekend I went down to help Pete move out of the $1.x million dollar house he has been living in. Even though I am completely exhausted as I write this (I got back about an hour ago) I had a really great time and I'm really glad that I was able to do it! Friday night, our good friend Mark and his brother Aaron came over and we played cards and stayed up way to late for our own good. It was kind of scary-those of you that knew me "back in the day" will understand this-I actually had to think about the rules and strategy while we were playing Euchre, that's how long it has been since I played! But it was fun to shock Mark with news and updates about the recent spate of engagements and dating couples among the group. Amazingly, despite our late night, we all managed to wake up early enough to get everything in the truck before the rain started pouring down.

The best news for me, however, is that my visa came while I was gone!!!! Yea!!! Now I can be off again as soon as my tickets are arranged!!!

More India Pictures

I've added pictures of our Hyderabad trip as well as the visit from Stephen & Malinda-February and March posts. Check them out!

Also, here are some photos of an outing I took with my new program right before I left:

Yes, this is on the bus...while we were moving...and no, they are not standing up because it was full...apparently, choosing seats for a bus trip is irrelevant since NO ONE STAYS IN THEIR SEATS!!!!






Here we are playing cricket. I even got to play! (Although I only got to bat during practice, not during the actual match.)

And, as always, there is dancing....

Home

Isn't it amazing how when you are home on vacation and you supposedly have all the time in the world is the time when you never seem to get around to blogging? :) At least that's my excuse for the long time between these blog posts...

So I did manage to get both my apartment and myself packed up in the five days before I left. Whew. I had a safe enough flight over...although my luggage decided it wanted to take a later flight and only showed up on Friday. If you like to travel with your luggage the whole time, I recommend having a longer layover in London than 45 minutes...particularly if you have to travel from one end of the terminal to the other! :) And somewhere along the way my mobile phone has disappeared as well...so I need to collect numbers again from those of you who read my blog.

I've found that working nights in India has one advantage-it mitigates the effects of jet lag when you come back to the US. I spent the first few days at home with my parents and also hanging out with my friend Pete. You can read Pete's summary of the events here and here. Then I headed to Rochester to meet up with friends there. Of course, being Rochester, it had to snow two of the six days I was there! (Thank you so much! I was already freezing when I stepped off the plane and it was in the sixties! When do I get to leave again????) Anyway, other than that, I had a lot of good visits with people and I wish I could have stayed longer.

So the question that everyone seems to be asking me is, "what made you stay?" I guess, as I look back on my recent posts that I can understand why. The explanation that currently best sums it up is: I was like Bush, I didn't have an exit strategy. :) Yes, I wasn't happy with the second-year contracts, but I didn't yet have a good plan as to what to do when I got back to the US. In many ways, I just felt like I wasn't ready to leave-I haven't seen, haven't experienced enough of India yet. Plus, according to Pete, I haven't accomplished my purpose by finding a husband, so of course I had to stay. :) (just kidding)

So now I'm back at home waiting to leave. I was supposed to have left yesterday (Friday) but my visa has yet to appear and when I tried to call the consulate to find out the status, I found out they were closed on Good Friday, a fact I think is strange when considering that Christianity is the 3rd major religion for the country at only 2.3% of the population. I guess government jobs are the same all over... Hmmm...looks like I won't be making it into work by Monday as my new boss was hoping.