End of Week Three

I have survived three weeks of the new job. I actually am surprised its been that long; I still feel in many ways that it's week one.

Some people have asked what it is I'm actually doing. I'm a Project Coordinator for a research group that does mathematical modelling to do cost-effectiveness analyses of preventing AIDS complications. The group is run by two Harvard MDs who were in med school right when AIDS was being discovered. The guy who created the group still runs it. The model has evolved a LOT since the group was officially formed in 1994 to keep up with the many changes and discoveries in treating HIV and AIDS. I believe that the model originally was created to model the US epidemic, but the scope of the group and model has since expanded to cover developing countries as well. The group collaborates with people in the US, France, Portugal, Cote d'Ivoire, South Africa, and India and will soon start working in Brazil (I believe).

My role will be to, with the other Project Coordinator, manage the Research Assistants (9 of them), liaise between them and the Principal Investigators of the projects and the heads of the group, and then hopefully also be involved with some research and modelling. In what ways we'll be involved in the research and modelling, I'm still not quite sure. But I know past Project Coordinators have been first authors on papers, so I think to some degree you can be as involved with the science side of things as much as you'd like.

Right now I'm still in the thick of learning the model. It's really cool, but there is SO much to learn. I feel like I'm back in grad school where I was hugely inspired every day, but where my brain hurt a lot from trying to learn so many new things. There are a lot of things in this job that I'm coming across, though, that I only know about from grad school (like the difference between prevalence and incidence, or incremental cost-effectiveness ratios), so it's nice to feel like I'm using my degree. For my job in Haiti I needed a graduate to degree to get the position, but once I was in the position I didn't actually use any knowledge from my degree to get my job done. I just used common sense.

I also feel like I'm getting a crash course in HIV medicine. I've learned a ton about HIV from a clinical standpoint in the last 2.5 weeks which, again, is really cool, but is also a lot of information to take in, understand, remember, and then relate to the way it works in the model.

So basically "one day at a time" is my motto right now. I know it will take me a LONG time to get up to speed, and I'm trying not to be frustrated by that and just go with it. So so far so good. Everyone is very nice and are understanding, reasonable people, so that's good. The commute is still brutal, but now I only have 3.5 more weeks until I move into my new place. I cannot wait.

That's all for now!

Week 1: First Impressions

I survived my first week at my new job and am gearing up for week two. So far so good. The worst part of the whole thing is the train schedule from my parents' house. It's almost like they (MBTA officials) brainstormed what the most inconvenient times would be to make sure that there is never a train that gets you there exactly when you need to be, and decided to go with that schedule. For the first four days of the week I was up at 6am to catch the 7:16 commuter rail, despite not needing to be at work until 9. This is for a few reasons: 1) the trains take longer than the schedule says because they're doing track work this summer. But rather than adjust the schedules to take that into account, they just let you figure it out on your own. So what should be a 35 minute trip is actually a 43 minute trip. And yes, those 8 minutes matter. 2) The next train after the 7:16 isn't until 8:13. Yup. During rush hour they apparently don't think it necessary to run trains more than once every 57 minutes. 3) I still have a 20 - 25 minute ride on the subway from where the commuter rail takes me, give or take a million minutes depending on how horrible the subway is deciding to run that day.

The 6am thing was ruining my life, though, since I am NOT a morning person. But I had to get the 7:16 train in order to be at work by 9, but still found myself having about 45 minutes to kill once I got to my office. Less than ideal. And then twice this week (luckily on the way home) I had major train issues (breakdowns, delays, etc). So finally on Friday I tried driving to the subway and parking and only needing to deal with one form of horrendous Boston public transportation. Although that has its own set of cons, I still think it's my best option. So I will attempt another version of it tomorrow and keep experimenting until I find something I like. Basically September 1st can't come soon enough when I can just walk to work.

Work itself has been going well. Monday and Tuesday were just general hospital orientation days, so those were really boring and mostly irrelevant to my job. Pretty sure I don't need to know how to put on masks and gloves properly. Wednesday - Friday I was actually with my group starting my training for my real job. It's all pretty overwhelming and is a lot to take in, but it's also really exciting. I'm so inspired just listening about the work the group does, because I think it's all so important and I think the group approaches it in such a responsible, neutral, no-outside-agenda way (like real scientists) that it makes me really excited to be part of such a group.

On Friday we just barely scratched the surface of looking at the mathematical model we use, and I found it fascinating. It's going to be very hard and my mind was already almost blown by one of the things they've put into the model that I'm trying to get my head around, but that's part of why I think it's so cool and so interesting, is because I know it's going to be so challenging. Hopefully that will mean keeping me interested and engaged for a long time.

Random observations/thoughts/facts about working for a LARGE hospital (over 24,000 employees):
-Trying to find my way around is like learning to navigate the huge college/university campus I never went to.
-On day 1 I had to have a TB test and have blood drawn. Did I mention I'm working in research? That was a first!
-I learned I have the option of taking place in a disaster simulation if I'd like. I'd get to wear my bathing suit to work (get?), get mocked up with some fake injuries, and then maybe get put through the weird tent-thingy outside with people in outbreak suits all around me and get "decontaminated."
-I have an important looking badge that, in an emergency, would let me get through locked doors (? I think).
-There are actually codes and I actually know what some of the mean, despite not working in the main hospital building.
-They have really great benefits. For instance, in September I'll be taking part in a fitness program as a team with other people on my floor. It's free to take part and we get a 10 week free membership to the gym, 3 personal training sessions, and 2 one on one meetings with a nutritionist.


Ok, this isn't an observation about working for the hospital, just one in general from my apartment search. People are sexist. Not a surprise, I know. But SO many realtors, when finding out I was going to be working at the hospital, asked if I was a nurse. Not a single person ever asked if I was a doctor. Interesting, I thought.

Anyway. I need to go to bed. After sleeping in today until 9:45, tomorrow morning is going to be rough all over again. Wish me luck on week 2!

My So Called Adult Life

Well, dear readers, it's true. This blog does still exist. And is in need of a massive catch up. So I will do some cutting and pasting and editing of an email I sent my travel partner from India the other day updating her on my life in bullet form. Consider this a recap slash update:

-Got back from India. Three days later flew out to Denver to visit my brothers in Boulder. Funness ensued. 

-Quickly flew out of Denver back to Boston to dodge yet another massive snow storm. We had a hand full of those over the rest of the winter, although I apparently missed the worst of it in January. See below:

-Started working two days a week for my uncle's company, doing admin-y work. This had many pluses, among which was seeing my cousin who was pregnant with twins twice a week and a cousin-in-law regularly.

-Did nothing mid Feb - mid April except work two days a week and look for jobs.

-Oh, actually, I interviewed for a position at the end of March. The only noteworthy thing about that is they technically still haven't gotten back to me about it.

-At the end of April I went to St. Louis for a cousin's wedding. It was a good time and we narrowly avoided tornadoes. See previous post.

-In early May I finally started to get some feedback on the job front. Interviewed for a position at one of the big Boston hospitals on the phone, seemed to go well.

-In early May I started to plan a surprise birthday party for my mother with 85 people for mid-June. This turned out to be difficult since I a) live with my mother and b) have the nosiest mother on the face of the planet.

-Took a networking trip down to DC in mid-May to try and stir up some contacts, set up some informational interviews, and get a feel for whether or not the job search would be any easier down there. That trip went well, had 5 different informational interviews with 3 different companies, and I felt good about it. Saw many friends down there I had not seen in a long time, including a friend from Peace Corps and her husband, who I had never met. Husband asked me if I would be interested in a 3 month maternity cover position they had open where he works and I said sure, why not, so he passed along my resume.

-I returned to Boston from DC via NYC (did I mention this whole trip was done via bus? Yup, I'm that broke) and while in NYC learned that the 3 month position place wanted to interview me. So I set up an interview for the Thursday before Memorial Day weekend on the phone (which, in this timeline, was the next day), after the in person interview I already had scheduled earlier that same day at the Boston hospital. 

-In person interview at the Boston hospital went well, I thought. Phone interview with 3 month position did not go well, I thought.

-Friday of Memorial Day weekend I went to the airport to go to a Peace Corps wedding in Nashville. Missed my flight to NYC, despite being in the airport (only 30% my fault, I've determined), and had to be rerouted through MIAMI! Had a delay of multiple hours in Miami, but did at least get to watch some of one of those Bruins games. Got to TN at 3am my time and on the way from the airport to the hotel saw 3 people outside a bar with homemade t-shirts on that read "God hates gays," "God hates fags," and "Burn in hell." I think they were talking to sex workers outside the bar. 

-Wedding was awesome. It was a big ol' Peace Corps reunion as it was two volunteers who both served in Guinea (at some point or another), so I got to see many great friends I hadn't seen in years. It was way too much fun, but also way too short. Notable moments included the bride and groom walking in to the Star Wars theme and leaving to African drumming. Awesome. 

-Got back from the wedding and heard nothing from either job. Three month position told me I would hear early the week after Memorial Day, Boston hospital told me it would be 2-3 weeks before I'd hear anything. Didn't hear anything from either that first week.

-Cousin who I worked with had twin baby boys on June 3rd. Hudson and Maxwell. They're friggin' adorable. See for yourself:

They are not identical

-At the end of the next week I heard from the 3 month position in DC and they offered it to me. For practically no money and definitely no benefits. Like, less money than I was making 5 years ago without a master's. And they maybe wanted me to start on Monday June 13th. Party is planned for June 15th. Would really prefer the Boston hospital job over 3 month position. AHHH!

-Talk to Boston hospital, they tell me they have someone who is a better fit for the position and they are going to offer it to him first, I should do what I need to do. I say ok, go full steam ahead with 3 month position in DC. Talk them up a significant amount to a liveable wage and to starting the Monday after the party, June 20th. Make plans to live in my friend's apt while she's away for 2 months; everything starts to fall into place. Get very excited about spending the summer in DC with lots of friends. 

-Get cavity re-filled that has been bothering me, despite not having dental insurance, because at least I still have state-issued health care coverage that will cover the x-rays part. And did I mention no benefits in DC?

-Have surprise party on Wed June 15th, out of town guests and all. Great success. Mom is totally surprised, loves it, I am now favorite child forever. Proof:

Surprise

Favorite child

-Finally start packing on Friday, June 17th since bus is booked down to DC for Saturday morning. Packing, packing, packing, check email around 2:30pm, have one from head of group at Boston hospital saying things have changed on their end, they would like to offer me the position, not sure what my situation is, but think I would make a great addition to the team, can I please call them?

-Have slight freak out, mom goes crazy, I make her leave the house.

-Finally connect with Boston hospital guy at 3:30 on Friday, he makes me an awesome offer that includes dental benefits (grrr), I say yes.

-4:00 on Friday - Call 3 month position in DC and tell them I won't be starting on Monday.

-Unpack

-Cancel shared bike subscription in DC

-Send keys back to roommate in DC I never met

-Mind blown.

That more or less takes you up to present day. I start my new job Monday and am feeling very ready for that. I am not only bored, but very broke, so am looking forward to remedying both of those situations. I'm also just excited to have a "real" job that will be using my master's degree and working for a great organization. I hope to be happy here for some time and be able to just "be" for a while. To actually live my life, rather than worry about my next step will be.

The icing on the cake is that I found an amazing 1 bedroom apartment in walking distance to work starting on September 1st. Ideally I would have liked an August 1st move in date, but this place is worth waiting for and the extra paychecks under my belt before I move out will not go amiss.


There you have it! My 6 month recap/update in one post. Stay tuned for first impressions of the job.

STL

At the end of April, as promised, I went to my cousin's wedding in St. Louis. And, as promised, it was good times.

My parents and I flew out on a Wednesday afternoon and went through Detroit. Due to the many torandos in the mid-west, the flight to Detroit was quite bumpy. So much so that they couldn't even serve us drinks. This becomes relevant later, I swear.

When we landed we got our rental car and drove straight to Busch Stadium to meet my extended family for a Cardinal's game.

Yup, that's how full Busch Stadium was on a Wednesday night home game. The good news is our tickets were $5! I am shamed to admit that I don't remember what the result of the game was (or who they played) because I was more interested in catching up with cousins and staving off hypothermia. It was so. freaking. cold.

The next day was the bridesmaid's luncheon. It was lovely!

Me and my cousin Annie, who was also the maid of honor

My brother, Adam, and his fiancée, Laura, and my brother, John, and his girlfriend, Krystal, arrived late Thursday night. Adam and Laura got engaged about two weeks earlier, so it was great to see them in person and get the scoop on everything.

The wedding itself was scheduled for Friday and the weather was predicted to be horrible. There were tornado warnings and there was thunder, lightening, and rain all night the night before. We woke up to a very grey day on Friday and decided to hit up the St. Louis arch.

I hadn't been up since I was a kid when I cried and had to be convinced to get in the tiny, tiny elevator pod thingies that take you up (I stole that picture from some random person's flickr account). As soon as we got to the top it started pouring rain and hailing.

It was very cool to see rain and hail from above, rather than below.

 

 

 

Krystal, John, me, Adam, and Laura at the top of the arch

By the time we got down, it had stopped raining. Figures. We were still worried about the wedding, though, because it was supposed to be outdoors in the botanical gardens and there was no real back up plan for rain. Over the next few hours, though, the sun started to come out. And, miracle of miracles, they had their wedding outside in actual sunshine!

It was lovely. Right as the wedding ended it started to get grey again and the wind picked up. We moved to the 40th floor of the tallest building in St. Louis for the reception and proceeded to dance our butts off for the rest of the night. Little did we know that 40 stories below the tornado sirens were going off all night and that over the loudspeakers in our building they were warning people to stay away from the windows. Why no one came and told us, I still don't understand. My aunt came around at the end of the night to tell us not to take a certain route home because of tornadoes, but I didn't take it very seriously, because I really only ever deal with tornadoes in movies. Undeterred, we went out to a club/bar and continued the festivities.

Only the next day did we realize what had happened. There were some serious tornadoes that did some serious damage, including one that hit the St. Louis airport. My brothers and their gfs/fiancees flew out the next day and said it looked like a war zone. By the time my parents and I got there on Monday it was looking better, but I would say 80% of the windows were boarded up because they had been blown out. The day after the wedding we drove on that highway my aunt had warned us about the night before and couldn't believe how you could literally see the path of destruction. It made it all a bit more real and made me feel pretty lucky that we don't worry about those sorts of things in MA. Although, as I write this there are tornado warnings here in MA for the first time that I can ever remember, so maybe I should knock on wood.

Anyway, overall it was a lovely trip for a lovely wedding. Pretty horrible weather, but that's not what we were there for, so oh well. We managed to fit in another Cardinal's game, some custard, Easter, and lots of family time, including the meeting of many cousin's kids I hadn't met before.

Joys of Living at Home: Part II

This is what I walked down to at breakfast the other morning:

My mom, the technical whiz. 

Joys of Living at Home

*Noise of something falling*
Dad: What was that?
Me: A basket of hats.
Dad: A basket of ass?
Me: HATS!
Dad: Oh, I thought maybe you meant a basket of whoop ass.

And that, my friends, is just a picture into a day in the life of me, living at home with my parents.

Home Again Home Again

This blog badly needs to be updated. But since I've officially been home home at my parents' place in the suburbs of Boston since the beginning of February, life has gotten decidedly less interesting with fewer humorous anecdotes to relay to my hordes of fans. Hence the slow down. To make up for this, I'm hoping to delve back into the old Peace Corps journals (all 9 of them) and put some of the better quotes up here and maybe even be inspired/re-reminded enough to try and reconstruct a story or ten for the blog. This is a major undertaking, though, seeing as I haven't had the guts to dive into those journals since I left Guinea in 2006. But I'd also like to get some of my favorite stories written down before I forget even more details than I already have, so that's part of my motivation.

Since many people have asked about my "plan," here it is: For now I'm on the job hunt. Again. Ugh. Currently my hope is to find a job that is Boston based, but with the opportunity for international travel. I'm looking for Program Manager or Program Officer type positions with organizations that work in developing countries, preferably managing programs that work on aspects of sexual and reproductive health. It's a lot to ask, and so far I haven't had a lot of luck in the Boston area, so I very well may need to open that search up sooner rather than later, but we'll see how things go. In the meantime I'm working for my Uncle a few days a week to pay the bills, but that's about it.

See how boring that paragraph was? Can you see why I put off writing it for so long?

The good news is that I've got two trips for weddings coming up. The first one is at the end of April. The entire fam and I will be heading to STL (that's St. Louis, for those of you non-Nelly fans out there) for my cousin's wedding. Considering I haven't been to Missouri since 2007 and haven't seen most of my mom's family since then (my mom is from MO and her whole family still lives there), this visit is way overdue. And I can't wait! I love family weddings! I always have a blast.

The second wedding is at the end of May and is in Nashville. I just booked my ticket tonight and am especially psyched because it is a Peace Corps wedding. Yup, two of my Peace Corps friends are marrying each other, so it will be a big ol' reunion as well as a kick ass wedding. I've also never been to Nashville, so I'm pretty excited about that. Not so excited about my 6:50am flight back to Boston the day after the wedding, but I'll live.

So there's the thrilling update. Just for fun, here's a picture of the visit I made to my brothers in Colorado three days after I got back from India.

Crazy India

I saw a friend of mine for the first time since I got back from India the other day. She is a loud, outspoken, classic Bostonian who thinks I'm a bit crazy for doing what I do, but enjoys hearing about it. She claimed, like most people, that she wanted to hear all about India. But, like most people, she only had about a 30 second attention span before she narrowed it down to what she actually wanted to hear about: a "crazy" India story. She said, "You must have so many crazy India stories! Tell me your best one." I started racking my brain and felt a little bad that I couldn't think of a single one. And then I remembered: Jaisalmer.

Jaisalmer was our last stop on my month long trip to India before we headed back to Delhi where I was catching my flight home. It was at the end of a whirlwind tour of the state of Rajasthan and we were exhausted. I was coming off of a week of being sick with a nasty cold/flu bug, the long duration of which probably had something to do with the many nights we spent on public transport (trains, buses) in an attempt to save money and time. I was all for returning to Delhi a few days early and skipping Jaisalmer altogether, but my travel partner E was keen, so we pushed on. Jaisalmer is less then 100k from the Pakistan border, is basically desert, and is home to the "yellow fort," one of the "World Monuments Watch" top 100 most endangered monuments (the list changes ever year, but the fort has the accolade of having made the list in 1996, 1998, and 2000). Our guide book gives a lengthy spiel on how the fort is sinking into the desert and how tourists who stay within the fort itself contribute to that due to their demand for water, etc, etc, and how for this reason they only list hotels that are outside of the fort walls and encourage people not to stay at hotels within the walls. We were down with this (and almost never strayed from Lonely Planet for lack of other information), so we chose one of the hotels ahead of time, called and made a reservation, and were all set. We finally arrived on our puke streaked bus (see previous post) around 10:30pm.

Looking towards Pakistan from a rooftop

Some of the walls of the Jaisalmer fort at night.

Not a great view from inside the fort looking out

When traveling in developing countries, particularly where there are a lot of tourists, and particularly as a female, you learn a few things very quickly: 1) Never look like you don't know what you're doing or where you're going, 2) When you get off of a bus/train/taxi/rickshaw, always have a next destination (this is really part of #1), 3) Always bargain, even if you have no idea how much something should cost. And bargain hard. When we got off the bus in Jaisalmer, we already had a hotel reservation, so we focused on grabbing our bags from the back of the bus and attempting to ignore the swarm of hotel touts and rickshaw drivers around us until we could assess which driver looked the least sleazy. When I finally told one of them which hotel we wanted to go to he said, "Ok, no problem, 20 rupees." I was a bit taken aback, because I hadn't taken a rickshaw ride my entire time in India that had cost so little, so I wasn't sure how to bargain for something I was pretty sure I was being undercharged for. Still somewhat stunned, we followed the guy over to a rickshaw where there was already someone else in the driver's seat. My head immediately started spinning trying to think of what this scam could possibly be, but the guy confirmed for me that he would take me to the hotel we wanted for 20 rupees total and he jumped in the rickshaw next to the driver.

An auto rickshaw stand in Agra

Once we were on our way the guy turned around and introduced himself as Johnny. We gave him our fake India names and he wanted to know where we were from and how we were liking India, etc. All of the normal stuff. But I still couldn't figure out what was in this for him, since he wasn't even the driver. After the pleasantries were exchanged, however, he asked us how much we were paying for our room. We honestly couldn't remember and gave him a ballpark figure. He then said something along the lines of, "You know, I actually have a hotel." Ding ding ding! I now knew where this was going. We acted very disinterested while he tried to interest us in the brochure, pointing at pictures of really nice looking hotel rooms that we could get for the same price we were about to pay. He kept asking us, but really telling us, that he would take us directly to our hotel, because he's not a liar and wants it to be our choice, and we could look at the room, and then go with him to his hotel, which was very close to our hotel, and look at his room, and then decide. And if we still decide we want the other room, he'd drive us back to the original hotel, all for the original 20 rupees, no problem, it's our choice.

I wanted no part in this and didn't feel any obligation to him whatsoever, but then he dropped us at our hotel. We walked into the lobby and it looked like a bit of a dump. We were used to that, but boy did his pictures look a lot nicer than this place....then the guy working reception told us that our room would be ready in about half an hour. Half an hour?!?! It's 10:30 at night! What are people still doing in our room we reserved yesterday? Sketchy.

So, against our better judgment, we decided that we had nothing to lose by at least going to look at Johnny's hotel while we waited for our original room to be ready. When we went outside I was in the midst of putting our bags back in the rickshaw and very sternly laying out for Johnny what was going to happen next, when a guy from the hotel next door, also listed in Lonely Planet, came over and started trying to get us to go to his hotel. Johnny and the new guy started alternating between arguing with each other and then trying to shout over each other to get our attention and each convince us to go with them to their respective hotels. It got real crazy, real fast, as we couldn't understand either of them over the other and it was starting to get physical between Johnny and the new guy with lots of shoving for our attention. E looked at me at one point and said, "I don't like this," and we started discussing just getting out of the rickshaw altogether. Once Johnny and the new guy could tell we were getting ready to back out they got even more panicky at the idea of losing potential customers and everything escalated. The driver was now somehow involved as well and all of a sudden in the middle of the scuffle we heard a punch land. I still have no idea who threw it or who got hit, but that seemed to do the trick long enough for Johnny and the driver to get back into the rickshaw and for us to speed off.

E and I looked at each other, half laughing and half in disbelief that that had just happened. Johnny regained his suave composure immediately and turned around very casually and said, in his bizarre Australian/English/American accent, "Sorry about that. *chuckle* You know how things get sometimes. So anyway, you're really going to love our rooftop restaurant. My brother is the cook." Or something like that. Apparently getting in fist fights is common enough there that it didn't really phase him. He kept crapping on about how "chilled out" his hotel was and listing the different foreigners they had staying there and how these two Canadian girls were playing guitar on the rooftop and just chilling out.

Although we had been assured twice that Johnny's hotel was very close to ours, we drove for at least 15 minutes in that rickshaw. And at one point we entered the fort. I looked out of the corner of my eye at E, the landscape architect researching waste water management, because I knew she was not going to be impressed. The rickshaw got as close as it could to the hotel and then we had to walk the rest of the way through the narrow streets of the fort, including through a wedding. We finally got to the hotel and Johnny showed us three different rooms. They were all much nicer than any of the places we had been staying and they were all the same price or cheaper. We felt very conflicted about a) having given into this whole thing in the first place and b) being inside the fort. But we were also very hungry and tired after our bus journey and our minor victory over the guys at the bus station earlier in the day and really couldn't fathom the idea of getting back in the rickshaw and making Johnny and the driver take us all the way back to the other hotel. Nevermind that I don't believe for a minute it would have been that simple.

Narrow alleyways inside the fort

 So we picked our room, which was the same price as at the other place and much nicer, and felt guilty about it for the next two nights we stayed there. We ran into some American guys we had chatted with briefly in another town and decided to meet up with them for beers one night. After telling them this story one of them put it pretty perfectly when he said, "So you guys are eco-terrorists?" I think that's how we felt, especially E.

The hotel ended up being a fine choice (minus the eco-terrorism), but I think we left Johnny and his brother disappointed. We ate at their restaurant the very first night, and the food was fine, but nothing to write home about. E ate a local dish that was apparently tree bark. Literally. But Johnny and his brother hovered over us the whole meal and clearly would have been happy to "chill out" with us all night. We never ate another meal there again (this was more circumstantial than a conscious effort not to) and you could tell their feelings were hurt. They actually asked us multiple times if everything was alright, if the food was ok, if there was something they could change, etc. It was a bit much and I don't think they understood the idea of just wanting to try different places. I've never stayed at a hotel before where I felt bad about not hanging out with the people who ran it more. It was awkward, to say the least.

So that's about as crazy as it got in Jaisalmer. But, if that's as crazy as it got in a month in India, I consider myself pretty lucky. Here's to hoping I don't have better stories next time!

Julia : 1, India : 1

I don't know that this story will translate or be of any interest to anyone else, but I was pretty proud that my bargaining skills that I was worried might be a bit rusty held up during this trip. In the Peace Corps I went from fearing and avoiding bargaining with all of my being to really enjoying it. I learned that it should be an enjoyable experience for both parties and that if someone walks away unhappy, they have only themselves to blame. One American guy we met while traveling summed up exactly the wrong way to look at bargaining very well: "Well, by definition someone is the loser, right?" Wrong, my friend! Very rarely, however, bargaining can turn nasty and does become a bit of a face off. It's usually because you're bargaining for something you can't really walk away from; in this case, a bus ride.

We were in Jodhpur and wanted to go to Jaisalmer, so we went to the private bus stand to try and catch a bus. We were treating ourselves to a private bus because we were told it would take about half the time of a government run bus, and the government run buses are really cold at night (as you may remember from previous posts they have no heat and usually have panes of glass missing, and the temperature outside hovers around freezing at night), which we figured would not help my cold at all.

Inside of a government run bus

We showed up to the bus stand and were the only two white people. Fine. I'm used to that. Our hotel told us that the bus should cost 170 rupees, so we were a bit surprised when the gaggle of young men "working" at the bus station told us it would be 200 rupees. We said that we thought it was 170 rupees and they said nope, 200. We were brought to the ticket counter by these young men, who spoke in Hindi to the guy working the counter, and were then told by the ticket guy that the tickets were 200 rupees. Often the prices are printed somewhere, so I asked to see a list of the prices and all of a sudden no one spoke English well enough to understand me. E and I stepped aside to decide what to do next. We decided to ask an Indian guy who was sitting on the bus we wanted to go on how much he had paid for his ticket. When the gaggle of young men saw us doing this, they quickly shouted to him in Hindi and the guy on the bus slowly and unconvincingly replied to us, "200 rupees....?" I believe E actually threw her hands up in the air at the guy on the bus and said in frustration, "Come on, man!"

Well, it was quite clear at this point that we were being lied to about the price. And while this wouldn't bother some foreigners and they would say that it's silly to argue over a dollar, we are not those types of foreigners. The Peace Corps Volunteer in me will never die, I think, and E's budget made me look like a highfalutin millionaire who spent my money on silly things like food and accommodation. My blood was starting to boil, as I do not appreciate being blatantly ripped off. As we were standing there trying to figure out what to do, the guy on the bus quietly called us back over because he clearly felt bad. He told us the price was 140 rupees. 140?!?! Those bastards! If they had just accepted our 170 they still would have made money off of us and we would have been none the wiser! But instead they were so greedy that they wanted a full 60 extra rupees (about $1.50) from each of us rather than 30. Now I was really pissed, but also feeling really good about our new bargaining position. An informed one, that is.

So we went back up to the ticket guy and I gave him my meanest look and told him we would pay 140 each. He waggled his head no, but wouldn't look me in the eye as he said, "170." Oh, now you want my 170 rupees??? Well it's too late! I refused and said meanly while giving him my death look (E said it even scared her), "No, 140." He continued to waggle his head no and went on to ignore us. I was at a loss and realized I had no experience in a situation like this. I'm plenty used to people trying to rip me off, but once they realize that I know the real price they usually drop the act in order to make the sale. I had no idea what to do in a situation where someone was just refusing to sell us something at the real price. I was seeing red and could barely think straight I was so angry. I decided that we would just hand him the 140 rupees each as an ultimatum and he could take it or leave it.

Well, either he can't do math or he caved, because he took the money (after saying that one of our 100 rupee bills was unacceptable because it had a small rip in it) and wrote us up our ticket. Once we had our tickets I went off on him and the whole group of men. Not the smartest idea, and not culturally sensitive, but like I said, I couldn't think straight. I think I told them that they were all bad people and that karma is a you-know-what. Keepin' it classy in India. But boy was I fired up about our triumph over the man. Or men, in this case. Julia: 1, India: 0.

The bus ride was four or five hours long. We learned that just because we had upgraded to a private bus didn't change the fact that Indians are pukers. Within the first hour of the ride the woman in front of us was leaning out the window puking. Thank god our windows were closed. But now we also had to close the curtains. It was either that or look at the puke streaked windows for the rest of the journey. We looked across the bus in hopes of at least getting a view out of that side, only to see that a puker had already left their mark on that side, too. Gross. There wasn't a single bus I was on the whole time in India where someone didn't puke. Someone get this country some Dramamine!

Julia : 1, India : 1

Stay tuned for my next post about our adventures in Jaisalmer. 

Delhi and The Taj Mahal

Tom and I made it to Delhi on the 9th after an incredibly long bus journey (about 10 hours). The bus ride down from Shimla to Chandigarh was very winding and vomit inducing for the Indians on the bus. In the future when a bus provides barf bags I will consider myself warned. I always feel a bit bad ass, though, when the locals are puking and I'm not.

Anyway. We made it to my friend's house in Delhi and headed for the Bangladesh embassy the next morning. After dropping off Tom's visa application we headed out on the town. Finally in Delhi I found all of the harassment I'd been missing in India. Unfortunately I wasn't particularly impressed and by early afternoon had already reached the end of my rope. So what did we do? We headed for the mall. Yup, the mall. Where we contemplated seeing a movie (but didn't) and contemplated eating Cinnabons (and did).

The next day my new travel partner, E, came into town. We all stayed one more night in Delhi and the next morning Tom flew back to Bangladesh with his brand new shiny visa. E and I packed up our stuff and headed to the New Delhi train station to try and buy tickets to Agra for an evening train and to store our bags while we checked out the Red Fort in Delhi. We arrived around 2 and barely managed to sort everything out in time for our 5:30 train. And we never got to see the Red Fort. It was a horrible, horrible Delhi day. After waiting in many fruitless lines that never moved or were the wrong ones, and trying to avoid all of the obnoxious touts who sometimes physically tried to stop you from entering somewhere in an attempt to rip you off, and just being led on a wild goose chase in general, we finally managed to wait in the right line to book a ticket on the right train at 5:00. We quickly shoved some food down and then sat on our three hour train to Agra.

Agra is where the Taj Mahal is. I still can't really believe that I got to see it! We woke up at 5:30am this morning to get breakfast and then wait in line for tickets so we could get in at dawn when it's least crowded. It did not disappoint. The crowds were minimal at first and getting to watch the mist slowly fade away as the sun rose was pretty awesome. We spent three hours in there and took obnoxious amounts of photos. We packed in a full day of sightseeing with the Agra Fort (also pretty awesome) and the Baby Taj (amazing detail!). We're exhausted now and are looking forward to a full night's sleep in our really ghetto and cold hotel room. We're moving on tomorrow. Pictures to come when I get back home.

India Update

Hello again!

Just wanted to check in and say that I'm still here and am still enjoying India. Here's the latest update:

My friend Tom and I took what was supposed to be a 30 hour train journey from Mumbai to Chandigarh on the 2nd. The train was delayed by 12 hours, which was nice in a way, because we got to spend a whole other day in Mumbai with my friends from London. We went to another friend's house for lunch and got to meet his parents, which was nice. After eating dinner at one of my friends' favorite restaurants, Tom and I went back to the train station for our train that left at midnight. The train ended up running 20 hours behind, total, turning our journey into a 40 hour one instead of 30 hours. The good news was that we spent two nights on the train, and so didn't have to pay for accommodation for those two nights. It was also a very "Indian" experience and we were definitely the only white people on the whole train. We met a lovely family who had two great kids (a girl, 11, and a boy, 5). They ended up inviting us to their house to stay with them. We didn't take them up on that (because after 40 hours on the train we thought we might just need to shower and crash at a hotel, which we did), but we did go to their house for dinner in Chandigarh and had a really nice time with them. They were so lovely and were giving us gifts as we pulled ourselves away after a good three hours at their house.

From Chandigarh we spent one looong day (~ 9 hours) traveling by local buses (read: no heat and often missing panes of glass in the windows) to a tiny mountain town called Narkanda (north of Shimla). And I mean tiiiiiny. We stayed at this government run hotel for two nights and attempted to go "skiing," which was the whole reason Tom even wanted to go up to this area to begin with. Basically what we found were some hills a bit bigger than at the park across the street from where I grew up and some local kids with some really old downhill ski equipment. They "rented" it out to us and we walked up the hill in our skis about three times and skiied down and now consider that having been skiing in India. It was interesting. We (well, mostly me as a female, since Indian women seem to be fairly unseen that far north) got some very interesting, not particularly friendly looks, and although it was an interesting experience, I wasn't too sad to leave that town. It was freeeeeezing cold up there at night and none of these places have heat, so we had one ancient space heater to heat our entire room (where the windows don't even close properly) that probably hadn't been used in months. The mattresses were like blocks of ice. I don't remember the last time I was so cold for an entire night. 

Today we took a 2.5 hour bus ride back down the mountains to a tourist town called Shimla. So far we're loving Shimla! It has the feel of a mountain ski town in Colorado or something, just without the skiing or the rich people. We saw two other white people today - the first we've seen in a while! We're staying at the YMCA which has beautiful views right out the window. Again, no heat, so I'm kind of dreading getting into bed, but I think we'll rent a space heater, so that should help a little. The town goes all the way up and down the side of a mountain, so hiking up to the hotel with our packs was miserable, but since then we've really been enjoying all of the little alleyways and the markets and the shops. Surprisingly you can get everything here! Tomorrow we'll explore a bit more out of the town since there are supposed to be cool things to see a few kilometers away.

On the 9th we'll head down to Delhi and stay with a friend of mine. Tom needs to begin his visa process and will hopefully fly back to Bangladesh on the 12th or 13th. A friend of a friend is flying into Delhi on the 11th and we've planned to travel together some. Where next, I'm not sure, but probably further west and maybe a bit less north than Tom and I have been going.

So there you have it! Unfortunately pictures probably won't make it up until I get back to the states, but there will be plenty once I get to them. Hope you're all well and are enjoying your central heating.

India

I made it! Just barely. My flight was from JFK on the 26th at 4:20pm. I took an 8am bus from Boston and made it to JFK with plenty of time, and chose to ignore the fact that the snow was coming down harder and harder as I watched the Patriots game at an airport bar. Miracle of miracle, though, as I watched most other flights on the board get cancelled or be majorly delayed (one was the Air India flight I had wanted to book, but was sold out when I actually tried. Everything happens for a reason!), mine continued to be on time. We got on the plane and after waiting on the runway for two hours while they de-iced it we were off! It was a bumpy, nerve-wracking flight, but we made it to Amsterdam without any problems and was then onto Mumbai a few hours later.

I arrived at the hotel in Mumbai finally around 1am on the 28th and crashed into bed. The next morning I met up with my other Goodenough friends from London at breakfast and we started our shopping extravaganza. They helped to outfit me with two different sarees and managed to help me find a tailor who could make the blouses in a 24 hour turn around time - apparently generally unheard of. That night we went to the henna ceremony at the bride's house where I was most definitely the only white person. The next day we continued with the shopping and managed to pull together some last minute accessories for my two different outfits.

The 30th was the day of the wedding. We woke up early because my poor friend Gayathri had to tie three different sarees. We went to the actual ceremony in the morning, went home to change in the afternoon, and went to the reception at night. The wedding itself will require a different entry. It was very interesting and educational, though.

OK, am running out of time on the internet, but am heading north tomorrow on a train ! Will write more when I can! Happy new year, everyone!