So this semester is coming to a close. And with it comes an end to a busy, and challenging, but still good semester.
Drew and I have been trudging through classes and Drew has had the financial burden upon himself since he was the only one with a job this semester. (Not for lack of trying though... I applied for 52 jobs and only got an interview with one of them)
We have seen some pretty fun moments this semester though. It opened up with a bang with the wedding of Jerusalem couple Heather Evans and Daniel Shallenberger. It was so nice to see everyone and have the first couple get married. And they're super cute together.
And as an awesome surprise, look what Daniel had as his groom's cake:
The Dome of the Rock!
That was such a good start to the semester. Also I've had a pretty good semester. Drew was my speaking partner in Arabic (we just had our last speaking appointment... YAY), we saw each other every day, I LOVE my Honors CIV class and Qur'an class is simply sublime. Also I get to see Melanie Chao every single Monday and Wednesday for our class together. Overall pretty awesome.
Oh yeah, and I'm taking a ceramics class to have fun! Look at some of the things I've done:
An artichoke! My first ever time working with clay
Another "bowl" for my coil project
This was supposed to be my main thing for the coil project but it kept dying and eventually shattered before making it to the kiln. :(
This is going to be my replacement. I figure I can paint on all of the neat designs.
This was my wonderful slab project. It was an R2D2 cookie jar!
But he was so awesome that he exploded in the kiln. :(
I have some other projects but I haven't been bringing my camera to class with me. That and we've been doing throwing on the wheel... a fun and frustrating endeavor.
But on to the rest of the semester.
Earlier on in the semester we were invited by our friends Raul and Lena to come visit them while they were performing in Park City. Drew and I have never been so we thought it was worth it to see it and support our friends. Park City was gorgeous! Man, I loved how when I was there I forgot that I was still in Utah. Umm... perfect for me.
The sign outside the restaurant where Raul and Lena were singing that night
Main street
My love :)
The restaurant
Leonardo's was super yummy. It was a lot of food for a relatively cheap (well, cheap for Park City) price. I highly recommend going there if you ever get the chance. It's on the second floor of the mini mall across from the theater on main street. I'm sorry I didn't take pictures of the food, but I was so darn hungry that I inhaled it whenever it came out.
And what is dinner without a little bit of music?
Raul and Lena!
They were SUPER good. Apparently in Paraguay they're actually quite famous, and just the fact that they're from Paraguay makes Drew happy. It's just an awesome bonus that they're some of the nicest and funniest people you'll ever meet.
More about the semester to come!
So our last day in Delhi we FINALLY went out. And it was a perfect day. It was absolutely gorgeous and one of the most cloud-free skies we had seen in India.
So we go to see the Quwaat al-Islam first, it was something that I had wanted to see but was a little bit far from where we were and not the highest on the list of attractions when people go to Delhi.
It was so cool! It was much more interesting than I expected and we really enjoyed the structure. So the Quwaat al-Islam is the highest free-standing tower in India.
It is also a really important place in Islamic history in India. It was the capitol of the Mughals during the height of their power.
That is an iron pole in the middle of an old courtyard
The architecture was really intricate, well, what was left.
The tower itself:
See? The buildings were a bit decrepit...
But what did remain was still quite large. To give you a picture, going back to the arches from the first picture, I had Drew stand in one and I took a picture.
Huge. And then I walked through it and took a picture of the tower through it.
And of course one with me in front of it. (It took some maneuvering to get this shot...)
After looking at the main structure, we decided to explore a little bit more. It was neat seeing some old places where people had studied or where people went to pray.
A view of the walls and gardens.
It was also neat because there was a really well-preserved area that had a tomb and some really pretty structures. I took my favorite picture of the day at a spot where you could see the tower and the structures:
It was really cool to see how intricate all of the buildings were. It was also cool to see how well preserved they were. Obviously there was some restoration but at the same time these were built well and with care.
After browsing through here for about an hour we went to Humayun's Tomb.
Once you walk into the gates surrounding the enclosure, it's a little interesting. You can't see the tomb at first and you're confronted with some awesome gates.
Delhi has some awesome architecture
We walk through the gates and voila! The tomb!
It was the inspiration for the Taj Mahal. You can see some of the similarities huh?
A little closer of a view.
We walked around a little bit and then we decided to go inside since it was 1 pm and getting super hot and muggy and we figured eh, maybe the tomb is a little bit cooler.
We went in and saw some cool arches. Also the cool thing about this structure is that it is all carved stone. So the really intricate screens are stone-usually marble. Can you imagine carving that? It would not be good if you messed up...
So we went and saw the tomb. It wasn't anything special. But it was still neat to think that it had been completed in 1571... oh only 440 years previously. It was also sweet because the tomb was commissioned by Humayun's wife.
It was relatively simple but still pretty.
So I love to explore and thankfully I have a husband who follows me a husband who loves to explore with me.
A neat picture of the tomb, to help show the length.
It was a fun picture to take, I literally couldn't step back to get it all in one shot because there are pools of water around the tomb and there was one right there. :(
So we know that we've explored a lot when we get asked by a guard where we are going. I had seen a blue domed structure and wanted to see it and apparently it was just out of the grounds of the tomb structure. Bummer. But on the way back we got to take some cool pictures.
Hubby!
Me!
After this we went back to the hotel since a. we had wanted to see a shop nearby to look at rugs and b. we didn't want to spend too much money (end of trip... starting to go broke :P)
So we went back to our hotel (Hotel Le Roi - they pronounce it LEE Roy [southern way] awesome hotel btw) and on the way passed by the India Gate. It was quick but cool enough.
It was inspired by the Arc de Triomphe in Paris.
After getting back we met back up with our driver from yesterday to take us to a shop that we had seen the day before but didn't have money. We saw some pretty Kashmiri rugs and wanted to get one.
Obviously we're poor and couldn't afford a whole one, but we got a small one and it's cute and we both really love it.
Ignore the stuff underneath it, I just took the picture when it was on our coffee table.
We decided to just relax in our hotel for a while since we didn't have enough time (or money) to see something else and we just wanted to chill. Our hotel was really nice.
The lobby
And it was cool to look up at the decorations on the ceiling.
Overall we were ready to get back to Atlanta Drew and I were on different flights (I left like 2 hours before him... and he got to fly on Lufthansa... lucky) and so that made things a little interesting at the airport. Advice to anyone who is taking an auto (as in a rickshaw) to the airport... get there early. You have to take a bus to the airport and also make sure to have your boarding pass printed since they don't even let you into the airport (where a lot of the kiosks are....) without seeing one. So that wasn't very fun but I had to leave Drew to find a printing place while I checked in. (He ended up being fine but still.... not comforting when I won't see him for the next 24ish hours).
I got on the plane and it was fun. I got a nice lady on the way to Chicago and we talked for an hour. I tried sleeping but that failed. Luckily by the time I got to Chicago I was tired enough that I could catch some sleep on my Chicago to Atlanta flight. Man, I was so tired of traveling at that point. I finally made it to Atlanta and was cheerfully picked up by my parents. Oi... I was tired though. That day I crashed before Drew even came home. (Again... his flight was later and he had a longer layover in Germany than I did in Chicago).
But we had a blast and we're so blessed to have been able to have this experience. It was phenomenal.
So... when I said I crashed, I really meant it. I had pushed my body so hard for so long that it was done. And so I woke up on Monday (India's Independence Day btw) to a nice, full-blown cold. So Drew and I decided to just relax that day. I slept probably a good 18 hours that day, at least. Poor Drew. He played on the computer while my body was recovering from travel. He had crashed at the train station in Amritsar, so it was my turn I guess.
That night the hotel was having a party on the roof for Independence Day and while I wanted to go, I was just feeling too awful to go. So Drew went and I didn't miss anything. Apparently their Independence Day is a bit of a dud. Everyone has the day off and a lot of politicians make speeches but that's it. There are no fireworks or parades or anything. That's apparently done in January. So the party was just a bunch of Indians getting drunk. There wasn't even food. So Drew just came back down after five minutes and room service it was!
Looking back, I'm super glad that I didn't plan anything for our days in Delhi. Because they would have been COMPLETELY out the window. Most of the attractions that we wanted to see were outdoors. It was interesting because even though it was the monsoon season and there are normally afternoon showers, there was a storm that came through and it rained all of monday and tuesday. That worked out perfectly. Monday I was sick all day. Tuesday I slept in until about noon and wanted to get out of the hotel since HELLO I'M IN INDIA!!! But it couldn't be too strenuous (I was still feeling bad) and preferably indoors since I didn't particularly feel like getting wet.
So we decided to go see the National Museum! I was excited. If I had read their information correctly, then we could get in for 1 rupee each since we were students (and had our international student IDS on us). Woohoo!!!! However we had to pay 500 rupees to take pictures... boo. Oh well, I wanted pictures and I had budgeted the money anyways since from the guidebooks we were told 250 each for entry. Most of the big monuments and sites in Delhi and Agra don't have student discounts, so this was nice. (We had gotten a student discount in Jaipur though, woohoo!)
It was fun! We got to see the entire museum while taking a nice leisurely pace. There were some really cool things in it too!
Mohini- a female representation of Vishnu (one of the first statues upon entering the museum... um... awesome!)
Chamunda
The ten incarnations of Vishnu (carved in Ivory and painted)
Going throughout the museum was... interesting. It wasn't very well laid out. I had picked up a map of the exhibits and where they were and that wasn't actually accurate. All of the "special exhibits" were closed and not ready yet. And even within the displays that were permanent there was some interesting arrangements.
We decided to go from the top down and the first exhibit was textiles! It looked at different textiles from around India. It was actually pretty neat however it bored Drew. What a surprise. :P
A Maharajah's relaxation room
That set up of the Maharajah's room was actually fairly neat. He had donated all of the room to the museum and so it was fun to see the various things in it from the hookah to the cushions to the chess set made of ivory.
However, the bizarre layout became apparent since the next room was "The West" as in the western world.
First up, a little bit of Mexico:
That was actually pretty cool and quite large, at least 2 feet tall.
A Mayan Pot.
It was funny to one minute be looking at textiles and then on the other side of the display area was Mayan pottery. But it got a little bit more schizophrenic.
A French vellum copy of a page from the Bible, 15th century.
There was a little display for some French and English things and everything else was Mayan pottery or artifacts.
I will say that the neat thing about Indian museums is that you can take pictures of stuff that you would not be able to in the states or the rest of the world. When I saw the Albert Hall museum I got to see a mummy and take pictures of it and some of the artifacts! Here I got to do the same with some Mayan artifacts. That's pretty awesome.
Anyways, so the Indian portions of history and art and various other objects were a little bit better organized. Although there were some random things, like an exhibit on Tibetan Buddhists right before the Indian weapons gallery.
Tibetan Buddhist container from Nepal
The weapons gallery was pretty fun. There were some rather nasty looking weapons of war. But one of the coolest things was a full suit of elephant armor!
My hubby looking awesome. :)
It was cool but funny to see since I forgot that Asian elephants are smaller so it wasn't quite as large or impressive of armor as I would have thought. But then again I wouldn't want to be charged by an elephant no matter how small.
There was a really large display case full of coins. It was cool to see ones that I had seen before and also neat to recognize some just from out stay in Hyderabad. (It had the Charminar on it from when those rulers ruled a larger portion of India).
But one of the cooler ones was one from Alexander the Great!
He is my FAVORITE historical character! Woohoo!
Geek moment aside, it was also fun to see some of the art that was displayed in the museum.
A portrait of Emperor Akbar
A painting of Akbar's court
The Bidding of Yusuf
Babur's Journey
and
The Nativity (yes THAT one)
They were all really intricate and fun to look at. At the very end of the Museum was some Buddhist artifacts. They were pretty neat.
In the class is some holy artifacts from Buddha supposedly. It was kinda funny since there was specifically a sign on the glass covering this shrine that said "do not place money here or pray here"
We decided to eat at the cafe at the museum and it hit the spot. On our way back from the museum we got a friendly auto driver for a good rate and saw a touristy place near our hotel before being dropped off there. We actually saw quite a few things we liked, but since we were only planning on going to the museum, we didn't have any money so we told the guy we'd meet up with him at a certain point the next day.
Since I was still feeling sick we took it easy and I got an early start on sleeping that night. I was determined to go out and SEE Delhi my last day!
