Sometimes Sam forgets to smile for pictures:
Here are some old books up on the second floor:
A statue of Gandhi in Gandhi Park (we're watching the movie Gandhi also in bits while we're here and on the plane on the way here):
More to come!
Thursday, February 7, 2013
We're in India!
We made it to India! Sam beat me to the punch on the first post from here, but I've got pictures. We went to the Delhi Public Library:
Sometimes Sam forgets to smile for pictures:
Here are some old books up on the second floor:
A statue of Gandhi in Gandhi Park (we're watching the movie Gandhi also in bits while we're here and on the plane on the way here):
Sometimes Sam forgets to smile for pictures:
Here are some old books up on the second floor:
A statue of Gandhi in Gandhi Park (we're watching the movie Gandhi also in bits while we're here and on the plane on the way here):
Wednesday, February 6, 2013
Thoughts from the first 24 hours in India
A post with photos and more details is coming, but this is just some thoughts from our first day here in India.
Here is a list of our accomplishments from our first 24 hours in India:
- no one barfed (yet)
- the driver at the airport was actually there with a sign, and we
made it to our first hotel
- we crossed busy, multilane streets in Delhi
- we had two delicious meals of Indian food
- we did NOT get scammed
- we rode the metro around Delhi
Overall, not a bad first day!
India, so far, is a whole different world from Chile. I think before
visiting either, I would have guessed that they were at similar levels
of development, but in truth, Chile (especially in Santiago) is very
modern and developed, and India is exactly what you might expect.
The hustle and bustle of this city is just crazy. Just as you've
probably heard, the streets are shared between cars, motorcycles,
motorized rickshaws, bike rickshaws and pedestrians. There are no
separate lanes and rarely even sidewalks. Usually we are just walking
on the road alongside parked cars, with all these other vehicles
zooming by.
When we have to cross a street, we find a group of Indians waiting and
we cross when they do as part of their group. It's very nerve
wracking, and Caroline is a bit braver about it than I am.
We stand out a lot because we are white. Except at the hostel, it's
rare to see any other white people at all. We might have seen 10 total
all day.
A lot of young Indian guys will approach us offering advice, but we
have read that these are all touts or scams, and that you should
basically avoid anyone who approaches you like that. It's sort of
disappointing and also stressful, because they mostly approach me, not
Caroline, because it's not so typical here for men to talk to women
they don't know well.
The food has been really good so far, and I think we'll find even
better food, because so far we've only eaten at our hostels'
restaurants. The prices are amazingly cheap - like $1.00-1.50 for a
vegetarian dish or $.70 for naan bread - but actually a guy staying at
our hostel told us that this is a bit pricey compared to street
stands, called dhabas.
We are not sure if we will eat at the street places at all. So far,
we've had two tasty and cheap meals with no getting sick (yet!), and
we might decide we just don't want to take the risk to try a place on
the side of the road...but we've seen a lot of food that looks REALLY
good, and nearly everything is vegetarian! We might decide to take the
risk, but not yet.
We chatted with a nice German couple at the hostel this evening. They
have already done many of the stops we will be doing, so it was cool
to hear about that. We might run into them touring tomorrow, since we
has overlapping plans.
Ok, that's all for now. We are really tired, but I don't know if it's
from jetlag or from 4 straight days of traveling. Either way, some
good sleep tonight will do the trick.
Here is a list of our accomplishments from our first 24 hours in India:
- no one barfed (yet)
- the driver at the airport was actually there with a sign, and we
made it to our first hotel
- we crossed busy, multilane streets in Delhi
- we had two delicious meals of Indian food
- we did NOT get scammed
- we rode the metro around Delhi
Overall, not a bad first day!
India, so far, is a whole different world from Chile. I think before
visiting either, I would have guessed that they were at similar levels
of development, but in truth, Chile (especially in Santiago) is very
modern and developed, and India is exactly what you might expect.
The hustle and bustle of this city is just crazy. Just as you've
probably heard, the streets are shared between cars, motorcycles,
motorized rickshaws, bike rickshaws and pedestrians. There are no
separate lanes and rarely even sidewalks. Usually we are just walking
on the road alongside parked cars, with all these other vehicles
zooming by.
When we have to cross a street, we find a group of Indians waiting and
we cross when they do as part of their group. It's very nerve
wracking, and Caroline is a bit braver about it than I am.
We stand out a lot because we are white. Except at the hostel, it's
rare to see any other white people at all. We might have seen 10 total
all day.
A lot of young Indian guys will approach us offering advice, but we
have read that these are all touts or scams, and that you should
basically avoid anyone who approaches you like that. It's sort of
disappointing and also stressful, because they mostly approach me, not
Caroline, because it's not so typical here for men to talk to women
they don't know well.
The food has been really good so far, and I think we'll find even
better food, because so far we've only eaten at our hostels'
restaurants. The prices are amazingly cheap - like $1.00-1.50 for a
vegetarian dish or $.70 for naan bread - but actually a guy staying at
our hostel told us that this is a bit pricey compared to street
stands, called dhabas.
We are not sure if we will eat at the street places at all. So far,
we've had two tasty and cheap meals with no getting sick (yet!), and
we might decide we just don't want to take the risk to try a place on
the side of the road...but we've seen a lot of food that looks REALLY
good, and nearly everything is vegetarian! We might decide to take the
risk, but not yet.
We chatted with a nice German couple at the hostel this evening. They
have already done many of the stops we will be doing, so it was cool
to hear about that. We might run into them touring tomorrow, since we
has overlapping plans.
Ok, that's all for now. We are really tired, but I don't know if it's
from jetlag or from 4 straight days of traveling. Either way, some
good sleep tonight will do the trick.
Tuesday, February 5, 2013
BAJA LA MUSICA!!!!
This is the story of how Caroline and I ended up sounding like cranky old people shouting at the hip kids. Except that in this story, we're the good guys, and the hip kids are jerks. I'm pretty sure. You decide. A story in three parts: The Background, The Escalation, and the Showdown.
This is annoying for typical background noises: dogs barking or whining, car alarms, trash cans banging around, etc. But the real problem has been our neighbors across the alley, the partying apartment.
Immediately across from us and one floor down, there is an apartment where a few young people live. During the day, they often have the sliding door open and loud music playing, but that's ok - sometimes it's even good music, and during the day it's no big deal. However, on many weekend nights, they have LOTS of friends over and we can hear the loud music and shouting and other party noises, sometimes as late as 5am. I know this makes us sound like grumpy old people, but we want to sleep!
Finally, I decided to go down and talk to the doorman of our building (in spanish). I didn't understand the whole conversation, but basically he was saying that my two options were to go talk to the doorman in the other building or to call the police. I went to the building next door and started to explain to the doorman how loud this apartment was being.
He cut me off and basically said "Yeah, I know. We've had complaints every weekend, and the police have already come once tonight!"
I replied: "What? The police had already been there? Why couldn't they do anything about it?" I'm not exactly sure I understood, but I think the doorman said that the police wrote a ticket for the partiers, and when the doorman tried to give it to them, they wouldn't even open the door, so he just slid it underneath.
While this is happening, another guy from our building comes over for the same reason. We chatted a bit about how terrible these guys are, and when I went back to Caroline I felt emboldened to take action since I knew that it was really disturbing other people too.
The background
Our apartment has been pretty nice overall, but one of the major flaws is that we have a lot of noise. Our windows and sliding doors face out to an alleyway, and just across the alley there is another high rise apartment building facing back to ours. The result is that any noise in the alley is extremely echo-y and loud. (Bill Elliot, our friend who is an acoustical consultant, would hate this place!)This is annoying for typical background noises: dogs barking or whining, car alarms, trash cans banging around, etc. But the real problem has been our neighbors across the alley, the partying apartment.
Immediately across from us and one floor down, there is an apartment where a few young people live. During the day, they often have the sliding door open and loud music playing, but that's ok - sometimes it's even good music, and during the day it's no big deal. However, on many weekend nights, they have LOTS of friends over and we can hear the loud music and shouting and other party noises, sometimes as late as 5am. I know this makes us sound like grumpy old people, but we want to sleep!
The Escalation
A few weekends ago, we had a bit of an escalation. They had a really loud party with singing, shouting, open windows and blasting music, continuing to 3am. At that point, Caroline and I had been laying awake for an hour or so, and we were getting pretty frustrated. We were already using earplugs and a white noise background, and still couldn't sleep.Finally, I decided to go down and talk to the doorman of our building (in spanish). I didn't understand the whole conversation, but basically he was saying that my two options were to go talk to the doorman in the other building or to call the police. I went to the building next door and started to explain to the doorman how loud this apartment was being.
He cut me off and basically said "Yeah, I know. We've had complaints every weekend, and the police have already come once tonight!"
I replied: "What? The police had already been there? Why couldn't they do anything about it?" I'm not exactly sure I understood, but I think the doorman said that the police wrote a ticket for the partiers, and when the doorman tried to give it to them, they wouldn't even open the door, so he just slid it underneath.
While this is happening, another guy from our building comes over for the same reason. We chatted a bit about how terrible these guys are, and when I went back to Caroline I felt emboldened to take action since I knew that it was really disturbing other people too.
The Showdown!
I didn't want to just give up and feel totally helpless, so I opened our sliding door that faced over the alley, and in my loudest voice, I shouted across to the partiers: "Baja la musica!!!!!" which I think means turn down the music. I got their attention, and they tried to shout some stuff back and start a conversation, but I just kept saying angrily "Baja la musica!"
Not surprisingly, this didn't solve the problem. They kept on partying loudly.
I kept shouting: "Can you think of the other people?!"
At this point, other apartments facing the alley are starting to light up, and people from both buildings are also leaning out to yell at the partiers. It started to feel like maybe we had enough critical mass to make them shut down, but still, the partiers shouted taunts at everyone and continued.
We started shouted to some angry tenants in the other building, and they seemed to be saying that they were going to go and knock on the party apartment door from the inside. We had them surrounded, but still, the noise continued!
With no other ideas, I turned to the one option I could think of. I grabbed a rotten tomato off the counter, and I whipped it across the alley where it hit one of their window panes. THAT got their attention. (an consideration here - the alley was fairly wide, and our apartment is one floor up from theirs, so the throw for them to retaliate would be much more difficult).
At this point, they turned the music down a little, and a few girls came to the window to try and talk with us. They tried to explain "All of Santiago is a party on Saturday night!" but we just kept saying to turn off the music. While this is going on, we can see the door to their apartment open and the other angry tenants confront them from the other side. Meanwhile, I just stood there with another tomato in hand and shouted again "Baja la musica!"
Finally, after a few minutes of this situation, they turned the music way down and closed their windows, so we could finally sleep. Caroline and I cheered our little victory, and finally got some rest.
Monday, February 4, 2013
Museo Histórico Nacional and Santiago Cathedral
I wrote this post earlier, and scheduled it to post now. We're actually traveling right now!
Two weekends ago we went to the Museo Histórico Nacional and then stopped by the Cathedral in the Plaza de Armas. Both were free (since we went to the museum on Sunday) and both were really cool! In the museum, there was a lot of cool historical stuff from Chile, going from very old to much less old but not too recent. Here is a map of where different groups lived in Chile before it was conquered by the Spanish and made into a country. I think that yellow region in the middle is the Mapuche area, which is a group we've learned about and whose culture still exists today:
This statue is a stairway to the sky, as I recall:
I think this was the founding of Santiago, but I took the picture because Sam said it looked like a Dominion card:
If I had this dress and this were the fashion of the times, I would never have to worry about my hips!
Sam is excited and sleepy about the cannon:
An upcoming post will explain why he was so sleepy that day (it's a great story, one we'll tell the grandkids :) ). Here is a painting of a woman fighting in battle. This is something I'm not sure I have ever seen before! I wouldn't have even noticed it if Sam hadn't pointed it out.
This is "The configuration of an Elite" in some time period. I guess this would be a better description if I remembered the time period. Oh well!
I guess being an elite involves having a fancy box to stand near:
I took this picture of some cool old doors for Jenn:
Look how giant the keys were! I guess it's hard to tell the scale, but the smaller one is thicker than a pencil and the bigger one is just comically large:
I liked this spiral column:
I think this is another one of the founding of Santiago. I'm pretty sure those guys are San Martín and/or Pedro de Valdivia:
A cool old carriage:
This is an old Chilean flag. I'm not sure why the picture turned out so bad:
I really liked this painting of some sailboats:
This is a cannon with a cannon ball in it. And you could touch it! You probably aren't supposed to, but Sam investigated and it turns out you can pick up the cannon ball:
The traditional Chilean cardboard desk:
Just kidding, I'm not sure what the deal is with the cardboard, but I don't think it's a real Chilean tradition. But here is a cool old telescope:
And a cool old sword and scabbard:
We had been seeing a bunch of portraits of famous guys that have streets named after them in Santiago, streets that we are often either on or crossing. Then Sam said we'd seen almost all of them, except Manuel Montt. Then I asked him if he was just kidding because this was right behind him:
And guess who that is? Check it out:
You can't plan that sort of thing! Here we are in the reflection of a fancy old mirror that was functional, unlike another one in an earlier room:
This picture of an old sewing machine is for my mom:
Speaking of street names that are named after old guys from Chile, here is our patron guy:
Vicuña Mackenna, the guy our street is named after! So he really did exist! It's a pretty good street, too:
A really epic ship battle scene painting for Keith:
Here I am in the second floor of the courtyard in the middle of the museum:
Then we went to the Cathedral. It had some cool stained glass:
This is a statue of Mary that was on top of the front of the cathedral until it fell off in the major earthquake in 2010:
Now she's inside the cathedral, hopefully on a more stable support. There has been a lot of restoration on her too:
Another cool shot of the inside of the cathedral:
Here is a lot of silver:
A view from the back towards the front:
And a little side room off to the left when you first enter:
Two weekends ago we went to the Museo Histórico Nacional and then stopped by the Cathedral in the Plaza de Armas. Both were free (since we went to the museum on Sunday) and both were really cool! In the museum, there was a lot of cool historical stuff from Chile, going from very old to much less old but not too recent. Here is a map of where different groups lived in Chile before it was conquered by the Spanish and made into a country. I think that yellow region in the middle is the Mapuche area, which is a group we've learned about and whose culture still exists today:
This statue is a stairway to the sky, as I recall:
I think this was the founding of Santiago, but I took the picture because Sam said it looked like a Dominion card:
If I had this dress and this were the fashion of the times, I would never have to worry about my hips!
Sam is excited and sleepy about the cannon:
An upcoming post will explain why he was so sleepy that day (it's a great story, one we'll tell the grandkids :) ). Here is a painting of a woman fighting in battle. This is something I'm not sure I have ever seen before! I wouldn't have even noticed it if Sam hadn't pointed it out.
This is "The configuration of an Elite" in some time period. I guess this would be a better description if I remembered the time period. Oh well!
I guess being an elite involves having a fancy box to stand near:
I took this picture of some cool old doors for Jenn:
Look how giant the keys were! I guess it's hard to tell the scale, but the smaller one is thicker than a pencil and the bigger one is just comically large:
I liked this spiral column:
I think this is another one of the founding of Santiago. I'm pretty sure those guys are San Martín and/or Pedro de Valdivia:
A cool old carriage:
This is an old Chilean flag. I'm not sure why the picture turned out so bad:
I really liked this painting of some sailboats:
This is a cannon with a cannon ball in it. And you could touch it! You probably aren't supposed to, but Sam investigated and it turns out you can pick up the cannon ball:
The traditional Chilean cardboard desk:
Just kidding, I'm not sure what the deal is with the cardboard, but I don't think it's a real Chilean tradition. But here is a cool old telescope:
And a cool old sword and scabbard:
We had been seeing a bunch of portraits of famous guys that have streets named after them in Santiago, streets that we are often either on or crossing. Then Sam said we'd seen almost all of them, except Manuel Montt. Then I asked him if he was just kidding because this was right behind him:
And guess who that is? Check it out:
You can't plan that sort of thing! Here we are in the reflection of a fancy old mirror that was functional, unlike another one in an earlier room:
This picture of an old sewing machine is for my mom:
Speaking of street names that are named after old guys from Chile, here is our patron guy:
Vicuña Mackenna, the guy our street is named after! So he really did exist! It's a pretty good street, too:
A really epic ship battle scene painting for Keith:
Here I am in the second floor of the courtyard in the middle of the museum:
This is a statue of Mary that was on top of the front of the cathedral until it fell off in the major earthquake in 2010:
Now she's inside the cathedral, hopefully on a more stable support. There has been a lot of restoration on her too:
Another cool shot of the inside of the cathedral:
Here is a lot of silver:
A view from the back towards the front:
And a little side room off to the left when you first enter:
Sunday, February 3, 2013
A long layover in Canada again
Hello again from Canada! We're having a brief taste of winter, and I have to say, brrr! I don't like it! We have an unfortunate flight schedule so that we have two nights in a row (last night and tonight) on planes, with an 11-hour layover here in Toronto. So not as much sleep as I'd like, to say the least.
The first flight was fine, we arrived on time with no problems. It looks like the next flight is on time, as of now. Hopefully we'll be tired enough from last night on a plane to have an easier time sleeping on the plane tonight. Next update from Israel, probably!
The first flight was fine, we arrived on time with no problems. It looks like the next flight is on time, as of now. Hopefully we'll be tired enough from last night on a plane to have an easier time sleeping on the plane tonight. Next update from Israel, probably!
Happy Birthday Isaac! Happy Birthday Rachel!
Two of my favorite people are having their birthdays today! Happy birthday to Isaac and Rachel! I hope you guys both have great days!
Friday, February 1, 2013
India and Israel - some exciting updates!
 |
| YUMMMMM!!!! |
I woke up this morning and found a few bits of good news in my email.
First, I heard back from the professor at the Technion in Israel. Back in October, she told me that she had a project I could work on with her, and that they were expecting to receive funding so I could get paid. However, in the months since then, they have had some trouble actually getting the funding transferred from the grantor, even though the funds are supposed to be committed. I heard from her today that they talked with the grantor and it will work out, and just in case, they have secured interim funding from the Technion so that I will definitely be able to get a stipend for the work. Hooray!
Second, some exciting plans for our trip to India. A few days ago, I had the idea to use CouchSurfing to try and organize a sort of potluck dinner in Delhi where people can also cook together and then share a meal. (you might know CouchSurfing as a website just to find a place to sleep, but it is also a very vibrant community of travelers and hosts interested in meeting new people)
Well, I posted this idea, and the initial response was a bit slow...however in the last couple days it has taken off like crazy and there are now at least 20 people expressing interest! And luckily, there are a few different people offering to host this potluck! So now, it looks like we will have plans to meet a bunch of travelers and Delhi residents, cook together and learn from each other, and then share a wonderful meal.
I hope this all works out, because I really believe that cooking and sharing a meal with people is one of the best ways to get to meet someone new. And also, I hope I will learn how to make really excellent Indian food! When I try to make Indian food now, it turns out tasting pretty good, but it isn't quite the same as what you get in restaurants. Hopefully after this I will learn some new tricks!
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)