Sunday, July 30 It's a hard knock life (kind of joking, kind of serious)

My life in India is so hard. On a regular basis my chores list is as follows: wash my clothes (The dhobi comes and I give him my dirty clothes), eat (which consists of not cooking and going to a restaurant), drink water (the servants fill up my water bottles with purified water), shower (the bathroom is in my room, with hot water, two showerheads, and a glass and marble tub), sleep (on my silk sheets in the air conditioning), clean my room (done by the live-in servants), and go to school (the Metro stop is five minutes away and goes to the school stop five minutes from class). Get the idea? Anyways, I woke up at 11 am, got my clothes back from the dhobi, which were folded with newspaper to keep the shape, ironed, and in plastic bags. The presentation was so immaculate that if he didn’t even wash the clothes, I wouldn’t know or care. Then I gave my other washing to the boy servant and he washed them. Then I walked to Fiesta with Nikhil and Alix for lunch, which was pretty good. I took a nap and hung out in the afternoon for a while in the air conditioning. Then we all caught auto rickshaws to Kamla Nagar and walked around in the heat. We looked around in some shops. This area undoubtedly caters towards Delhi University students; there are lots of hip boutiques, college bookstores, and college-age kids. After searching forever, we ended up at a Muglai restaurant. It had the best tandoori chicken I’ve ever had. However, this was overshadowed by the fact that we found a shard of glass in my biryani. We got McDonalds ice cream and I got two, but they messed up and gave me three, so tonight’s dining probably took a week off my life if the triple bypass surgery fails. We took rickshaws back and then sat around. I talked to the parentals on the phone, and they’re sending me a care package with endless amounts of energy bars. Mom also wanted to include a silk shroud to put over my head while I sleep for mosquitoes, which, let’s face it, I’d never wear. I took a drink of my water. The bottle that I thought the servants filled with safe water tasted like hose water. Alix said that Rahul drinks from an Alhambra jug water cooler, while the servants were filling our bottles with the tap. Whether or not they have an Aquaguard on their tap water is subject to debate and frankly I don’t really care, because I’m not going to trust them either way. So this prompted us to make a list of things we need, including Aquaguard for ourselves so we don’t have to rely on them. We also added internet to the list. When talking to him on the phone, he said that it comes in 128, 256, or 512 kbps. It apparently goes on the roof of the house to use with Wi-Fi, and you pay according to the bandwidth you want. But he’s of course, going to get the cheapest one, 128 kbps. That’s two times faster than 56k, for NINE people! That’s worse than dial-up…What is this, 1996? The only way I won’t get a hernia in rage is if we assign internet times or pay for the upgrade. I used to be hesitant about how you can order plane tickets over your mobile phone. Now I can see why…because it probably takes a shorter time to download a ticket on my stone-age Nokia than to download it off what they call a broadband (but really ISDN) connection. It takes him so long to do anything; get beds, dressers, crockery, internet, water filters, and desks. Everything in India is a process. I’d almost rather try and fight a rabid dog than try to set up internet. So, for the next week we’re all living on one floor because there aren’t enough beds, and I still don’t feel like I’ve fully moved in yet.