Saturday, July 15 Downtown Mussoorie

I got to sleep in this morning. My stomach’s still not feeling good, so I had some toast, and then I went on a walk with some of the guys to town. We were planning on going on a scenic walk, but we just ended up taking an exaggerated, hot, roundabout way past a lot of pigs to Mussoorie. What made the trip worthwhile was the fact that we saw Liz with a big raspberry on her knee and frown on her face. Apparently a monkey had chased her down the road, and she tripped and fell flat on her face. She was not amused when I began to laugh hysterically. I’m sorry but that is funny! At the time it probably wasn't funny, but looking back on that, how can you honestly not laugh? I tried to use the State Bank of India ATM for the first time today, and I couldn’t get it to work. They call it “credit” instead of “checking” account. Eventually the guy waiting behind me in the vestibule had to help me, and he got it to work like it was nothing. Having worked for two years in a bank you’d think I’d know, yet some Indian kid had to do it for me. I ended up walking with him and talking about how he’s studying IT in the US if he passes this really competitive English vocab and colloquial American English test. Then I met up and ate at a good Tibetan restaurant and we had dessert, which included Indian apple pie. It had like spices and raisins in it, and dehydrated apples. Definitely no Marie Callender’s (or Costco). We took cabs back and watched The Day After Tomorrow, a movie so bad it was good. If anything, it just made the issue of global warming hilarious instead of something to be taken seriously. I walked to town with some other people and we had dinner at Taslim’s. Worst experience of my life: It took three hours to complete our meal (which was expensive and the size of an appetizer), the weird white people from the party yesterday were there. Men were wearing skirts and talking about how horrible America is, sitting on my chair while I was in it, etc. I had to leave early, take a taxi, and get extra food at a stand BY MYSELF it was so boring.