Sweet Summertime in McCall

            Oh gosh, I am behind again!!! So much has happened in the last month and a half since my return from India that I’m afraid if I try to type it all out it will take me days and be so long no one will read it! So instead of many details, I will give an overview and include more photos than usual! Yey less reading for everyone! Haha So here we go!

            After the longest flight series of my life (nearly 50 hours!!), I arrived safely in McCall after a reunion in St. Louis with Jason and to collect this little guyIn a mad frenzy the next day Mom and I unpacked, repacked, loaded the car, and headed off to California to for my cousins graduation weekend celebration! Congrats Kylie and good luck out there!  Our mother/daughter road trip gave us plenty of time to catch up from our many weeks apart and we even stopped at a friends CO-OP farm on the way where we were served the best eggs and sundried tomatoes I’ve ever had in my life! I was great to see all my California family and even though it was a hectic event-packed weekend, we still found time to chat, go to the farmers market, and do some strolling in the nice weather. Even with the overwhelming jet-lag, much fun was had. Love you all!!

            Upon arriving back to McCall I began working for Mom at the airport which means 4am wake-up for seminar breakfast, schedule organizing, question answering, a bent tail wheel here and there, and lots and lots of squabbling pilots….I quite enjoy it though :) In between work days I managed to participate in the Ponderosa Park Fun Run the second week of June and even cram in a few hikes now and then! At the end of June my dear friend Patrick came to visit for about a week from Florida and we had more fun than I can describe!! We filled our time with biking to North Beach, paddle boarding (where I was HORRIBLY sunburned!! Ugh!), hiking, chatting, canning chutney, drying fruit, cooking, watching Napolean Dynomite, and we even took a trip to Stanley to visit my grandparents! Whew! What fun and I can’t wait to see you again soon Sir. Patrick!

            Shortly after Patrick’s departure, Mom and I celebrated the 4^th of July by holding an enormous yard sale! About 2 months ago Mom sold our old house in town, so it was time to clear it out for the new owners (whom I met and are very sweet people!).  I threw in some things I wanted to be rid of, and we incorporated all the furniture from Grams’ house which had been living in a pile in the garage…..Yeah….there it was a ton of stuff…and we sold nearly all of it!! Yahoo!! A special thanks AGAIN to Patrick for helping me move and sort and set-up everything before hand. I really couldn’t have done it without you!

            Then the best day ever came! My birthday!! Haha just kidding. I worked most of the day, but I did have a wonderful evening with my friend Samuel who joined me for a birthday picnic at the lake! We had cheese and crackers and just enjoyed the breeze after a long week of work. I couldn’t have asked for a better time :) On Saturday as is our birthday tradition Mom and I piled the dogs in the kayaks and headed up river. The weather was awesome and all the dogs took turns falling/jumping in. It was quite a sight. Thanks everyone for all the wonderful birthday wishes and making me feel so loved!

            Ok so now, as promised, here are more pictures of all of these events. Enjoy!

 

Love and miss you all and I can’t wait to see you! Please email me with the latest in your lives so I am not out of the loop!!! And last but not least here are some cute pics of Charlie!! xoxo

India II

            I am so shocked to be writing this as I fly back to the USA! It seems like I only arrived in India a few days ago and now here I am desperately trying to cram all my belongings back into my suitcase (it seems to be getting more difficult the more places I go!!). So to fill you all in since the last time we chatted, more adventures have been had, more friends have been made, and more places explored!

Mumbai is a very large city. Did I mention that before? Like real big… I enjoyed living the city life but found myself looking for a different scene on my free days. A few weeks ago I spent a Sunday at the National Park. The park sits about 30 minutes (by train) outside the city and home to a large variety of birds and plant life. I was joined by three friends Georg, Neha, and Pratik and we hiked up to the parks famous Canary Caves. I was about 4 hours round tip and unfortunately unknown to us it was also the hottest day of the decade on record….no joke. At the end of our hike we were coated in sweat and utterly exhausted.  We then took a refreshing ferry ride to the Global Pagoda before utterly succumbing to the heat and dragging out sun-stroked bodies to Neha’s house for a delicious home cooked lunch. Thanks Neha for feeding us and being our guide and Pratik for being our personal photographer!!!

            The following Sunday a friend invited Georg and I to her family farm which sits about 3 hours outside the city (also by train). I was so incredible to really get into nature for a day and the farm itself are beyond words. Mansi grew up there and they pretty much grow every fruit you can imagine from coconuts to chikoos to mangos to lemons to lychees! It is much more beautiful than the photos can convey and we spent a day and a night with her family chatting about our different cultures and eating their homegrown/ home cooked food! I of course was in absolute heaven and didn’t want to go back to the Yoga Institute! We walked through the orchards, strolled around her small town, and even visited her cousins nearby textile factory. It was complete relaxation and bliss and I hope to return at some point to “apprentice” in her mothers kitchen for a while. Thanks for everything Mansi and family! It was by far one of the most amazing experiences I have ever had!

             After such fun the thought of returning to a boring lecture the following week was far too disturbing, so my trusty adventure friend Georg and I played hooky from class one day and went sight seeing around the city with our personal guide and dear friend Franziska. Franzi has been living and working as a journalist/freelancer/communications agent in Mumbai for nearly four years now. She has more knowledge about the city and its history than most locals and was kind enough to share it with us for an entire day free of charge! We visited Dhobi Ghat (the cities largest outdoor laundry facility), Mahalaksmi Temple, Chowpatty Beach, Victoria Station (where Slumdog Millionaire was partially filmed) and even squeezed in a few fabulous markets around town. By the time we returned home Georg and I agreed that although our bodies were covered in eight layers of dirt and grime our minds were refreshed with interesting Mumbai facts and we were ready to return to class the following day. Thanks Franziska for all your help while I was in Mumbai. I miss you already!

            In between these day outings I was able to sneak in a few mini-adventures as well such as my first (and second) motorbike ride in India! A classmate teaches a nearby Zumba class and offered to give me a ride a few times. It was a great way to see the city and the class was excellent!!! Thanks Serin!! Near the end of the course a Chilean couple in our group kindly asked a few of us to join them for dinner at the local Hare Krishna temple where we all spent the evening eating too much and laughing too hard. It was such a great night and not one I am likely to forget soon!

            Last Friday the course drew to a close. We had our final exam, received our graduation certificates, and said our goodbyes. A few of us went out for afternoon drinks to celebrate and agreed it was a good experience for all even if it wasn’t what we had expected.  It felt like the class had become a family and although what seems like a thousand photos were taken, I will miss them dearly. I spent my very last day in India with Franzi and Georg doing all the last minute things one should do in India, such as eating dosa, having our hands hennaed, cursing the humidity one more day, and chatting about what we liked and disliked about Mumbai. In case you were wondering what was on the list, here is an overview:

THUMBS UP

-Indian street food

-cheap cost of living

-fruit variety

-aliveness of the culture

-my awesomely tiny but friendly gym

-meeting wonderful people

-the confusing head wag

-traveling by rickshaw

-street markets

-being barefoot all the time

THUMBS DOWN

-exhaust filled air

-traffic/honking

-construction/dust

-summer humidity

-the caste system

In the end we decided it was all worth it and we would each leave a tiny piece of ourselves there. For now I will head home to my Mr. Charlie Pants (thumbs up) and prepare for my unavoidable jet-lag (thumbs down…). I also wanted to officially announce (to those who don’t know…), I have chosen to attend Groningen University of Applied Sciences this fall in their Masters of International Communications program in the Netherlands. I am very excited to be back in school and of course to get back to the Europe for a bit. Wish me luck!!

Also, on an overly proud elder sister note, Neil has gotten a wonderful job for Red Tail Aviation as a guide pilot in Moab, UT for the summer! It is such a cool opportunity and I could not be happier for him! You go Spud! You’re the bomb!

Well I think that is all to report for now! I have a busy summer ahead and am looking forward to seeing as many friends and family members as possible! I will see all you MacNichol’s at the wedding of the century (Hoorah Sara and Ross!) and all you Foster’s at the graduation of the century (Go Kylie, go Kylie, go, go!) I truly can’t wait! Hugs and kisses to everyone and please forgive my out of touchness for the past few months! If any of you have time please send me an email about how everything is going and what you are up to!! Until next time….xoxo

India Part 1

            Everything is alive in India. Everything has a smell. Everything has a sound and absolutely everything moves. Incense wafts upward from fruit stalls, sweet aromas float out from dried fruit and delicacy shops; curry, coriander, cumin, chili powder, thyme, and hundred other spices I don’t know the names of combine outside restaurants to create an intoxicating nasal orgasm (Of course the stench of rot and filthy public urinal is just as powerful not so far away). Every rickshaw honks, every bicycle dings its bell, and every driver yells. The vendors entice, the shopper’s haggle, and the stray dogs quarrel.  The surrounding scene gobbles you up and simultaneously spits you out.  Life is constantly in motion and all the while every moment the heat, humidity, and dust sinks deep into your bones until you can’t even recall what it feels like to cold and clean. There never was, and I imagine never will be again, such an assault on the senses as Mumbai, India. It is organized chaos and it is fascinating beyond measure.

            My flight to Mumbai was by far one of the most pleasant plane rides I have ever taken! The plane was mostly empty so I got to choose a fab seat with no neighbors and plenty of space to lie down and nap.  I also watched “The Best Exotic Marigold Hotel” on the way over and if you haven’t seen it, you should because it is a really fun movie. PLUS the airline food was not only decent but good! Even I ate all my supper haha I arrived very late in the evening and was picked up by the driver from my hotel. The hotel was nothing special although getting there a day early allowed me to have my first Indian market experience, as I was in desperate need of clothes suitable for the climate. Let me just say, women’s clothes here are really the best most comfortable, not to mention beautiful, clothes on the planet. The tops are loose, cottony, and brightly colored and the bottoms are either baggy Princess Jasmine style pants or leggings, which bunch slightly at the bottom. I enjoy both styles equally and take full advantage…

            The day after my arrival I took a rickshaw to The Yoga Institute where I was to spend my six weeks. The Yoga Institute is over 100 years old and trains hundreds of students per year. Besides holding teacher-training courses like mine, they also have daily classes and children’s camps in the summer.  The Institute itself is situated in the far northeast part of the city near the airport. Typically in Mumbai the Western part of the city is the wealthier side and the Eastern side takes the scraps.  Because the institute has been here so long and the city has grown in around it, my fellow yogis and I find ourselves in a lower-middle class neighborhood sandwiched between two major slums. Most impressively to the south lies Daharvi slum. It is the second largest slum in the world and houses over 1 million people on little more than a few acres. If you think that is impressive, you’ll be interested to know that it is only one of many major slum areas here in Mumbai which all together house about 60% of the city’s population…which comes out to be around 10 million people in total. Yikes! They have become so large and diverse they are nearly independent cities themselves with independent businesses and power grids. Life seems oddly normal until you take a closer look at the infrastructure and realize the “houses” are made of anything from patched cement, to tattered cloth, to scrap metal, to plastic tarps and cardboard and are piled one atop the other so tightly it is unimaginable that someone lives there….and then 3 children, a woman, and a dog come piling out the “front door” and you think, my God, the human condition is truly astounding.

*Note for concerned family members: Don’t worry I have not been wondering around slum areas. The institute is quite far from the city center and to get there I have to take a train, which goes directly through this area.

            On a different note, life inside the institute is business at usual. Rise at 6am, breakfast at 8am, class from 10am-5pm, and dinner at 7pm.  There are no tables or chairs anywhere to be found and we do everything barefoot and cross-legged on the floor (writing, listening, eating, reading etc.). It’s quite nice I must admit. The food is prepared on site and 100% vegetarian and very much my kind of good clean sustenance, but Indian style. My class consists of 6 foreigners and 40 Indians so the lectures are in a Hindi/English mix and most of the time unintelligible in either language as far as I can tell. Neither our classroom nor our sleeping quarters have air conditioning and therefore in the 98 degree heat and 90% humidity my feet and ankles are usually swollen to twice their normal size….good thing no one here wears shoes….Boo 

            As far as traveling goes, the course keeps me pretty busy but last Sunday I was able to take a trip to a place called Elephant Island with my friends Mansi (Indian) and Georg (German). The heat was excruciating, but the caves were interesting and the boat ride to and from the island was refreshing.  On the way I discovered trains here in India are divided. Women and men ride in separate cars. If a family is traveling together the women are permitted to ride in the men’s cars but under no circumstances are men allowed in the women’s cars. I am told this is because during peak hours when the train cars are crammed full that the women are inappropriately touched but unable to escape due to the crowd. It is said the men “just cannot” control themselves and there have been more than a few incidences where clothing was torn or worse and women were emotionally traumatized, and therefore were just separated all together. Interesting fact….

            That’s all to report for now!! Hope everyone is doing well and gearing up for summer! xoxo