McDonald's, a field trip, and more monkeys

So there were a few things worth mentioning about this weekend. First of all, yesterday we went shopping for some things, and in the process we ate at McDonald's. Obviously, the menu is different, as almost no one eats beef here. So they have things like the CHICKEN MAHARAJA MAC, or the McVEG; I got a maharaja mac, it was pretty good. It was like a big mac, only with spiced chicken patties, and a tomato, everything else was as a normal big mac would be. The fries taste totally the same, I meant to save my Maharaja Mac paper but threw it away when I left, I'm sure we'll eat McDonald's again at some point. 

It appears as if I will be going to this Inaugural Ball for students abroad on Tuesday night, as most of the SIP (Students in India Program) students are going though not many of the Miami students, and I was told that I "should" go for some reason. So I figure why not, it's a reason to dress up, there will be food and what not, and I can tell a story about how when Obama became president, I was at an inaugural ball for it in Hyderabad, India. So when we were shopping, I picked up a nice shirt to wear with the input of Liz Gerret, as I feel that buying clothes is a commitment, and I needed a nice shirt to go with my black pants with tiny grey pin stripes. So I went with a solid light grey, which worked out. I thought about a tie, but the only good ties I could find were pretty expensive, so unless someone has one I could borrow, the shirt looks nice enough without the tie; I just need to figure out a way to iron it. So this should be interesting, people are referring to it as "SIP Prom", because I loved prom....no, but this has a totally different dynamic to it that I exposited above, we'll see what goes down.

Today, the Miami group went to the film city theme park for Telugu films, sometimes called Tollywood. Most are familiar with Bollywood, which are films in Hindi from Bombay, hence the satire of Hollywood. It was kind of odd, it was like Universal Studios times -3, but for a developing country like India, it's an ideal place to spend a day with the family. They had some rides, a look into how movies are made sort of thing, some gardens, a tour of scenes that had been used to shoot films, etc. Of course none of us have scene any of these Telugu films, so it was not so exciting for us. 

All in all it was kind of a bizzare place, but the topper, was the wild west stunt show; now think about this, a wild west stunt show, in the middle of India...I mean we almost had to. We learned a lot, for example, did you know that in the wild west everyone fought fought ninja style? Or that you would give one man 5 consecutive round house kicks to the face, only to have your opponent get back up unphased? Or that with every shoot out, they fought to odd Sci Fi sound effects layered over saloon music of a different key? Oh yes, it was very entertaining, but I give them props.

My favorite thing of the film city, the monkeys! These would get closer to you, they would rummage through trash and get food, and when you would approach them they would feel threatened and charge at you to get you to stand down, it's actually kind of terrifying to have a monkey charge at you, and very hilarious, because it's so small, and you just freak out and run away to avoid getting a monkey to the face. They are really fun to watch, they are like little fury people, by far the coolest animal in the area. So I posted some photos I took, I didn't take a lot

People are still asking to get photos with us, it's actually getting kind of irritating. I think I am actually empathizing with real celebrities that get angry at photographers, or even getting hounded all the time to get pictures. Now I am noticing people take pictures of us from a distance, as opposed to those who ask to get one with us; they just bust out a camera phone and point it in our direction. When we got to the park some guy wanted a picture with me as we were shaking hands...like a presidential handshake or something, it's just odd. The next time I see an Indian family out and about in Cinci I might run up to them and ask them "which country are you from?" and "can we get a picture...?", to see if they get the joke.

Another irritating thing, is that there is no concept of a waiting line. You might be waiting to buy something until the worker is done with that customer in front of you, and as soon as they wrap up their interaction someone just pushes you aside. This pretty much happens in any waiting line, for some reason the revelation that things work much faster and with much more ease when they are done with order and organization has not occurred yet. So you have to learn just to push people out of your way. The worst is when there actually is a line formed and people think it's okay to just skip the whole line, I can't conceive of any cultural mindset that would consider that to be fine; as there is nothing special about any of us, and no reason why any one person should skip a line as opposed to another. Then other people think they should do it, and soon there is no line, even when an official says to form a single line, it just doesn't matter. So you just push your own way to the front. 

We sometimes refer to Dr. Pappu as Papps now, only to each other. I think that Mr. and Mrs. Pappu are officially our Indian grandparents at this point. Especially Mrs. Pappu, as she has a very grandmotherly command about her. If you combined both of my grandmothers, and then made this hybrid-grandmother Indian, you would get Mrs. Pappu for sure.

It was a hot day, and I am tired, and feel dirty, and will do some Hindi work tonight and in the morning. There is a quiz tomorrow, over the alphabet and not sure about vocabulary, but either way I think I am prepared enough. 

Also, is it weird that I like to read my own blog?