Did that just happend?

Varkala. It’s a beautiful beach south of where I live and the destination of my very adventurous weekend. Well, the weekend wasn’t so adventurous, but getting there and back is another story. Jacqi, Allison, and I began our little spontaneous adventure with hesitation at 6am on Friday…I think we all just wanted to crawl back into bed and forget the whole thing, but we figured you only live once. We packed all of our stuff into the bookbags and set off. Getting to the train station was the usually deal: leave our house, cross some train tracks under the bridge (avoiding large puddles), hike up a hill (no stairs), catch a bus, push and shove to get a seat (it’s a 45 minute bus ride), and stare back at anyone who is staring at you because you are clearly not Indian. Typical day. We get off the bus stop and walk the 2 km to the bus stop because there is no way we splitting a .40 rickshaw between the 3 of us. Still a typical day. We buy ‘general seating’ because it’s only 5 hours to Varkala and it seems silly to pay more than a $1 for the train ride. We begin to comment that maybe God will smile on us this weekend for being spontaneous and living in the moment. We were dead wrong…..
Our train comes and we are all of a sudden in the middle of a mad rush with others. Where this huge crowd came from is unknown to me because moments before there were only 3 of us on that platform. We come to the shocking conclusion that we are going to have to stand like sardines the entire way. We are all looking at each other with sadness and despair, but all is still okay. Then ‘it’ happens. I’m standing closest to the ‘doors’ of the train while Jacqi and Allison are with our bags in the train car (note: there are people EVERYWHERE). There is something being yelled in a language that I don’t understand and everyone is murmuring; clearly something is going on that we don’t know about. All of a sudden a man pushes past me from another car. This man is probably the most disheveled man I have ever seen. I won’t go into detail, but what Allison whispers as he pushes past her clearly sums up the description, “Jacqi, I think he’s crazy.” A few seconds later I look over Allison’s shoulder and see a cop coming towards the ‘crazy’ man. The cop is yelling what I can only guess is “Get off the train you crazed lunatic!”, but when the man refuses all hell breaks loose. Allison, Jacqi, and I are trapped beside this crazed man and he is being CANED by the cop. We are about 6 inches from the caning and I think we all had fears of being caught in the caning crossfire so we just tried to protect our heads. Jacqi and I manage to get further away from it as Allison continues to be trapped nearer to the caning. The cops manage to shove/cane the crazed man outside the train and we rush back to our bookbags (they were left when the caning began). Allison began to tear up then hysterically laughing, Jacqi just cried, and I E.S.D. (Emotionally Shut Down). I looked at the floor for a bit and then just got my bookbag to sit in the middle of the train floor. I think if we could have gotten off that train at that moment we would have, but it was impossible with all the people. The rest of the train ride wasn’t much better, but that was the last caning we saw that day. We eventually got seats after some pushing and shoving. Getting off the train was pretty funny; we literally had to leap off the train as it was moving…a little scary.

However, when we arrived at the beach we were amazed. The hotel was perched on a cliff overlooking the Arabian Sea and is one of the most gorgeous things I’ve seen in India. We spent the next 2 days drinking beer out of teapots (many places don’t have license thus serving in teapots), taking pictures, hiking down the cliff to look at the water, watching dolphins, observing the local mongoose, and eating great food. However, most of the weekend we would look at each other and state “Did that just happen?”

(local mongoose)

(teapot beer)

A Visitor...in India!?

The past couple of weeks have been the best so far!! Caitlin flew over to visit me!!! We went to Goa and had a fabulous time together. Upon arriving in the hotel room, I promptly took the first warm shower I’ve had in over 2 months!! I cannot describe how overjoyed I was to have her here. We were able to visit a spice plantation, ride and wash an elephant (I could basically drive an elephant now because I do it so often), shop at markets (Caitlin had to take a Xanax for those trips), drink beers at beach huts, visit an old fort, chase cows on the beach (she wanted to photo document each one in Goa...and I think she came pretty close), and we even celebrated her birthday!!! It was funny to see her react when people kept coming up to us asking if they could take pictures with us. I think at one point we had a group of 40 surrounding us….we are a pretty big deal. I feel rejuvenated after getting to spend so much time with such a fun and wonderful person who took the time to fly all the way over here to visit. I have some really fun trips coming up including a beach trip this weekend to Thirvananthapuram...which I can pronounce.

All pictures were taken by Caitlin








(just chasing come cows)


(celebrating Cait's birthday with our new friends)

Fight or Flight...

It all started with a roach...
Several of us were hanging out in our bedroom when a roach flew into the room. We (Jacqi, Allison, and I) were all screaming and going on. Well, Allison, Jacqi, and I high tail it out of the room with screams and pushing one another out of the way. I may have pushed Jacqi into a wall. Do you know the saying ‘Fight or Flight’? Well, it is said that everyone during a time of extreme crisis has either ‘Fight or Flight’ responses. People are born with it; you can’t change or help it. Well, the 3 of us responded in the ultimate Flight. I was the first one out of the room due to the push past of Jacqi, she was then right behind me, with Allison trailing behind us. I ran into the ‘common area’ and then something just came over me. This emotion of ‘I have to save them, I’m their only hope’. …. I had this barbaric ‘Fight’ response all of a sudden. I grabbed the nearest flippy flops on the ground and 180 back into the danger. I literally ran into Allison full force, shoved her out of the way, and dove at the roach crawling across the floor. I missed the first time and it was scurrying under my bed; so dove on my belly to kill the formidable foe. The girls erupted in a cheer and pats on the back while I hunched over in nausea and after shocks of fear. I had to sit down after such an adrenaline rush and practiced some depth breathing exercises while I was continuously affirmed by the roomies over and over. Allison, graciously disposed of the dead carcass, but all was not over. After the emotional situation we (Allison, Jacqi, and I) decided we needed “Shark Week 2010: Air Jaws’ episode. We crowded in our common area, set up my laptop, and speakers (these speakers were stolen out of an office at Rajagiri and are from circuit 1989). To get a visual, the laptop was on the table and the speaker wire was strung across the walkway to plug in the only outlet in the room. It was dark by then and we were about 30 minutes into episode. All of a sudden from another room we hear “HOLY #$(@”. We all jumped up (minding the speaker cord) and rush into the other room. ‘There’s another one!’ Gabby screams. The ‘Flight’ response was back in full force .Out of the room runs Jacqi (who is climbing over the chairs), Allison (headed right for the speaker wire plugged into my laptop), and myself. Allison is full speed ahead towards the wire and the ultimate destruction of my laptop when I grab her around the waist and some how manage to unplug the wire. I let her go, safely saving my laptop, and she runs into the corner (afterwards when recapping the story to her she states “What!!? I had no idea’…her ‘Flight’ response was in full force). I ran after her as Jacqi (remember she is leaping over chairs) is safely in our corner. The roach (not by me) is killed with a hairbrush and all is over in a matter of seconds. We all had a good laugh about ‘surrendering to India’ (our new life motto here).



(I drew this to celebrate Shark Week)