Rishikesh

Rishikesh is very pretty and the people here are very nice. It's weird that you can only be somewhere a day and get to know people. We made friends with this man who stamps colored powder designs on your forehead. He said he'll do it for us every day.

Yesterday we walked the edge of the river and checked out all of the little shops. JD found all kinds of little presents and haggled for a very pretty scarf. He also took a dip in the Ganges. These three men were swimming in the same spot and they got quite a kick out of it. They asked to take a picture with us and one asked if he could kiss me. Firm no to that.

It's been pretty funny encountering Indian tourists who want to take pictures. JD was looking at some earrings at a shop inside and I was on the street having my picture taken with one million people. People just shove their babies in your arms. So far, two for two have started wailing.

Went to a religious ceremony at night that was very nice. Lots of singing and a fire. Hard to explain but it was nice.. until the very end when we found out my shoes had been stolen. JD carried me on his back for a while and I walked the rest barefoot. Not exactly a place you want to be barefoot when cows are roaming the streets, but I survived. Washed and sanitized my feet when we got back.

Time for breakfast. Hope everyone has a happy thanksgiving.

The longest bus trip

We didn't take very good pictures of it, but we had an insane day yesterday. Felt very India.

W started by saying goodbye to Sanjay (owner) and Claudia at our hotel. Finally figured out how to turn on the hot water though so after a proper shower, we were all geared up to go to the international bus terminal, ISBT, to get to rishikesh, just north east of us. Sanjay told us where to go on the metro and we felt pretty prepared.

So we get to what's supposed to be the 'gleaming international bus terminal' according to lp and its under construction and looks like it has been partially complete for years. Then everyone we meet keeps telling us we're in the wrong place and we need to take their taxi to a different bus station that's an hour away. Now, the guide book tells you never to trust people who tell you something has burned down or moved, so we went from bus to bus asking for rishikesh begone deciding we were truly in the wrong place.

Anyway to make a long story short, we found a really nice guy who looked it up on his phone and told us that there are three isbt stations and we wanted this other one. So finally we did get there, it was insane, fiiiiilthy, JD used a horrifying bathroom and we got on this rickety, grimey local bus to rishikesh.

7 cold, tiring hours later, we made it. It was really kind of terrible. A little girl a seat ahead of us had her head out the window the whole time which was fine until she started getting sick. We moved, but the window in the back was stuck open and Himalayan air was pretty chilly. JD was amazed that I hadn't been able to sleep on the hotel bed at all but I couldn't stay awake in his lap on the bus. Fight or flight mode? I don't know.

Anyway we're still in bed but the hotel staff are all amazingly friendly here. We're in kind of a yoga resort town on the banks of the Ganges close to where it originates (I think) or in any case, fresh enough to get in. Lots of foreigners. We had pizza for dinner w American cheese melted on top. Also paneer parantha with homemade mango pickle and a banana lassi, lemon ginger tea, freshly made lemonade with mint. Theres Wifi in the hotel which makes us both feel at home to be able to check in.

I think today the plan is supposed to be massages, a dip in the Ganges, mango lassis and a bit of yoga. But not a whole lot has been going according to plan around here, so we will see tomorrow.

No hint of Delhi belly after two days. :)

Delhi

Delhi was not as overwhelming as we had heard or imagined. Woke up to breakfast in the dining room where met a girl from Canada, Tina and one from Germany, Claudia. Tina was finishing up a trip and had lots of advice. Claudia arrived last night as well. We all ate breakfast and we headed to the train station with Claudia. We had to run across six lanes of bikes, rickshaws, buses, etc. it was a little scary but fine.

Then we spent the next four hours in the foreigners section of Delhi main station.. once we found it. The line snaked around the entire room and every 15 min or so, the entire line stood up and shifted. About half way we realized we needed to go talk to the man with a computer to pick out actual train numbers before booking.

It worked fine though and now we have tickets from Delhi to Udaipur, Mumbai, Goa and Kerala. Northwest to south. Then we'll fly from Kerala to Calcutta probably and finish the north in the final week and a half, including Agra where the Taj Mahal is.

After booking we met a nice couple from Britain and Australia and had a beer and dinner with them. It was delicious and they all made fun of me for being so nervous about eating. JD showed off our beloved steripen. (Google it, it's awesome).

Checking out tomorrow morning and heading to rishikesh in the afternoon.

The first few days

Well it's been a very long two days. We drove to Houston and then flew all night to Amsterdam, got in at 12 or so, hung out. Went to the national museum to escape the cold for a while. Walked around the city. Had kind of underwhelming expensive tourist food. I'm glad to stop paying European prices.

We stayed in a 10 room dorm with a bunch of exchange students from Germany. Or from a German school. The kids themselves were all Korean but for a lone American.

Headed to the train station this morning to catch our 7 hour flight to Delhi. We both watched a couple of movies to try to stay awake so we'd be sleepy tonight. I slept maybe two hours last night. Judging by JDs snoring, he got plenty :)

We couldn't find the driver in Delhi right away so we called the hotel quickly and they told us where to find him. He was very nice and suggested a few itineraries. He had three traffic rules: good horn, good brakes, good luck.

The plan for tomorrow is to see the best of Delhi before we try to book a ticket to the next stop the next day. Thinking about rishikesh (where the Ganges originates) or else north to McLeod Ganj where the Dalai Lama lives or west toward ..the region starts with an R or an A.

Anyway ready for sleep in a real bed. JD has been really good to travel with. Puts up with me when I'm cranky and looks out for both of us.

One day to go

Well, valuable lesson with the mobile blogger app. It deletes what you write if you take a picture after you write the post.

Faj (my dad) upgraded my cell service for the month we're gone, so you can expect a daily post, and maybe a text message! Pretty excited about staying in such good touch.

I think we're both a little nervous but mostly just ready to get going. We fly to Amsterdam tomorrow and have a 24 hour layover there before continuing on to Delhi, so it'll be a nice way to ease in to traveling.

in closing

how do you sum up the last year of your life spent on a campaign? i
don't know that it's possible. my brain is still feeling mushy after
four solid days of printing lists from midnight to 2 am, waking up at
7 to be in the office for volunteers to pick them up, spending the
next 13 hours bouncing from location to location and then going back
to the office to pull and print lists for the next day. but my job was
easy compared to what our volunteer organizers were doing; training
brand new volunteers and managing 4, 12 hour, back to back phone
banks. keeping everyone on task, motivated, focused.

this is the small, window-lined office i've been working in since
june. my "desk" is the short end of a long, collapsable table, and
every day i sat wedged between a preschooler-sized sink and the table.
from there, i could see everyone who came in the door of the building,
who volunteered in my room, and a tiny sliver of our room across the
hall so i could yell directions to the person sitting near the door
when we heard someone saying something crazy or, more often,
fantastic.

i am incredibly proud and honored to have been a part of what we just
accomplished. it feels like summer camp in that i'm going to miss the
people i've met, the inside jokes, the endless tacos and lattes and
phone calls. but it isn't really like summer camp at all because at
the end of our journey, we reelected the president of the united
states.

together, volunteers in austin called more than 125,000 people the last four days of the election. we made up more than 1/5 of the state's total even though we're 1/8 of the team. as the only paid staffer in the office, there were a lot of questions that came my way in the last year. but in those final four days, each organizer was the master of their own team. they made it fun, they hit goals, and they did it without any help. 

our volunteers represented every piece of america; young, old,
wealthy, poor, every ethnicity. every day we laughed, shared crazy
phone calls, experienced frustration and forged ahead. i will never
forget their stories and their reasons for being there. at the end of
the night, no one headed to the citywide watch party because we wanted
to end the way we began; in our neighborhood teams, crowded together,
working tirelessly. i couldn't be more proud of what we did, and i
can't wait to see what we will do.

spider smile

i've never been good at cleaning. things don't feel thoroughly clean after i clean the way they do when gram or minky cleans something. really i just stack things in piles and then when it gets totally out of hand, i get rid of the irrelevant things and keep a smaller pile until it happens again.

the other morning i was in bed and thought it was sweet that my boyfriend had drawn a smiley face on his windowsill, but upon closer inspection it turned out just to be a serendipitous dust formation with a spider for an eye.

while we're here, i've uploaded a few random photos.

these are my birthday shoes from minky. they're bright purple suede. it hasn't been cold enough outside to wear suede too much yet, but they fit like a dream and are super comfy. looking forward to cold weather.

and being raised in an HPO family (hinting pays off), i suggested that if bf hadn't thought of a gift for my birthday yet, i was planning on getting one of these little fold up backpacks from baggu for india since it could fit in my bag when i didn't need it and then be a good little day pack once we got there. he picked out elephants for india.

time for bed!