07/11

01:27 (writing this on 07/12)

Complicated. All of a sudden, seconds turn to minutes, minutes then to hours, hours turn to days and days turn into weeks. I cannot believe how fast the weekend is going, but that is a great thing because I am having fun. Sometimes I want to press pause in life, and to just reflect on everything that has happened. Yes, I have done a lot of simping here in India, but it is only because I want to soak everything in to make me a stronger, more confident, and smarter woman. On the side note, happy 07/11 to everyone (and no, I did not get a free slurpee here because 7/11 ceases to exist here).

Since many of the American interns are MIA over the weekend, Mariah, Gabbie and I spent our Saturday out and about. In the morning, we went grocery shopping, and I am glad to say that I have my "life-jacket" food all ready to go for my village trip. I even bought my translators Lays Masala flavor! I really need to start being smarter with my money because everything adds up in here. Items in India are not necessarily cheaper if you buy a lot of things. And slowly, the ten things that I bought for Rs 100 ends up being $15. And then, by the end of the weekend, you end up not having anymore money on your wallet. Yup, money for me is fast money, but I am going to be smart with my spendings from now on.

After our grocery shopping, we went to Ohri's and ate buffet. As tempting as it is to post a photo of my food, I am going to restrain from the temptation. I post too many food photos, and I feel like they lose value if they are not as meaningful. Nonetheless, the food was delicious and I even smuggled pieces from a fruit cake out of the restaurant (heheh). 

Our next stop: Shilparamam. As I mentioned before, this is my favorite place because of the genuine hospitality from the workers, and the opportunity to bargain. I didn't really look around the shops because I got distracted by my conversation with Zubi.

I finally bought a scarf from him! I love how he trusts his customers because I did not fully paid him. I underpaid him, and he believes that I am going to pay him the rest of the money. And, that trust is something that I do not want to break. I love how he is not very materialistic because to him, health is wealth, not money. Then, he took me around the marketplace and I was literally a tourist in the market.

Before we left Shilparamam, he bought Gabbie, Mariah and I chai (tea). I love their chai here because it's such a distinct taste and truly soothes the soul. While drinking tea, they mentioned eating dinner together, but that did not work out. 

We headed home after a long day from the market and I spent the rest of the afternoon making movies. I love being on top of my blogs and my movies. I cannot wait to publish them and just show people the videos, so they visualize my stories. At around 8:30, Gabbie, Mariah and I were supposed to eat dinner with Zubi and his cousins. Unfortunately, it was extremely late at night and unsafe to go out. As smart and safe interns, we decided to stay in and just order pizza. Trying to figure out our dinner plans was extremely complicated, but once I bit into my Domino's pizza, I no longer cared about the trouble we had to go through for the slice of pizza.