India Part II (The Wedding)

Before going to India, I didn't really know what Indian weddings entailed. Here is a little of what I've learned.

This is us and the bride and groom after a long day at the wedding hall. The wedding ceremonies started the night before with a washing and cleansing process. The next day the groom and his parents went to the wedding hall around 6 in the morning and we followed about an hour later. There were things going on all day.

Bhaskar and Deepika. The rice all over is symbolic of blessings. I've never seen so much rice thrown before!

This is me in a sari. You wouldn't believe how complicated these things were to put on. Let's just say that I didn't dress myself for that part of the day. The lady putting it on me kept asking me questions like "Do you want 3 or 4 pleats?" Finally Bhaskar's sister told her that it didn't really matter since I had never worn one before.

This is the wedding hall and the outfit that I wore for the most of the day because it was the most comfortable. What I am wearing here is a dress that you see a lot of girls my age wearing. I think that they are a lot more practical and more comfortable. After I had changed back into this outfit after wearing the sari, a little girl asked me (in Telugu-the language spoken in this part of India) where my scarf was. I didn't understand her of course, but there were plenty other people around to tell me that I had forgotten my scarf.

Before the bride and groom saw each other.

This is a tradition where the groom (Bhaskar) tells everyone that he has decided to call the wedding off and live his life as a bachelor. Then the brides family comes and persuades him to go through with the wedding.

Deepika, the bride. This was an arranged marriage, like most of the marriages in India.

The final ceremony done at the wedding hall (there is more that goes on once the bride and groom go back to his parents house that night and then in the morning) is one that I thought was pretty cool. Here the bride is being accepted by every member of the groom's family. Once the bride is married she is no longer a part of her family, but becomes part of her husband's family. Another thing that I learned is that you can tell whether a woman is married or not by the color of her bangles. Darker bangles means that the woman is married.

India Part I

These are some of the things that we did before the wedding.

Charminar: Which literally means four towers. It was built in 1591 and the story behind it is that the ruler at the time (Sultan Muhammad Quli Qutub Shah) was praying for to end a plague in the city and he vowed that he would build a monument in the very place he was praying if the plague went away.

This was the view from Charminar. And no, those autos aren't parked, everyone is driving/walking and they drive and walk wherever they want. The only reason there isn't people driving on the other side of the street is because there is a median. Another thing that you can't see in the picture is the constant honking. People honk all the time there. And as far as I could tell, they honked when they wanted to pass, someone was in their way, someone got to close to them, they wanted to turn and wanted to make sure that the oncoming traffic stopped, or just because they hadn't honked in a while. I would never be able to drive in India, and I thought that I was going to die every time we got in a car.

In Charminar. The price to get in for Indians is 5 rupees, (the exchange rate when we were there was 46 rupees to every dollar) which is nothing, but the price for foreigners is 100 rupees, which is still very cheap, but still 20 times more expensive!

After visiting Charminar, we had coconut water straight from the coconut. At the time I thought it was the best thing that I had ever tasted, but later I began to wonder if that was because I was really thirsty and dehydrated.

Yes, there is McDonald's even in India, however you won't find a hamburger on the menu. There is no beef sold in any stores.

One evening before the wedding we went out to go sari shopping. It was crazy! There were so many people in the store. There weren't any racks, but instead you sat with a store worker who brought you tons and tons of material until you found the right one you wanted.

One of Bhaskar's nieces. And if it looks like I'm really sweaty, it's because I am. It was so hot all the time and humid as heck. I don't think that I could ever live there because of the constant heat... and I live in Tucson where it is currently 101 degrees at 7:30 at night.

I got a head shot so you couldn't see all the sweat marks on our clothes. But then again, sweating was the only way to stay cool.

The toilet that we used. Not pictured is the shower, but all you have to think of is a bucket and a cup under a spigot. The shower heads that they do have don't work because the water is so hard that they just clog the shower head.

Lunch. I should have put my hand next to all the food because you can't really see how much food there was to eat. I ate about half of the rice (on the left) and I was completely stuffed. While we were there, Bhaskar's family kept telling us that they were concerned about us because we hadn't been eating a lot and they didn't believe us when we told them that we hadn't been hungry the whole time we were there, even though we were only eating about half of what everyone else ate. The first night we ate dinner with the family I noticed that I was the only girl eating with all the boys and when I asked why they told me that it was tradition to have the girls eat after all the men ate. However after that first night, there was always another girl eating with me during dinner, which they probably did on purpose to make me feel comfortable.

It was amazing to me how concerned about our welfare everyone was. They were always making sure that we had enough to drink, and that the water was sanitary (which I was grateful for). Overall, everyone was very nice.

Rome Part III

Our last full day in Rome started out with a visit to a pyramid, and yes there is someone buried inside! This pyramid has the same proportions as the ones in Egypt, it's just built on a smaller scale.

This is a part of what is left of the Jewish Ghetto. Quick history: when the Nazi's came through Rome they said if they were given 50 kilos of gold they would leave the Jews alone, so the whole community pitched in and raised the 50 kilos. In the end the Nazi's still took the Jews.

This is Hercules with the head of Medusa. The statue is in the Vatican Museum.

Us in Vatican City. St. Peter's Basilica is in the background.

The Pieta, carved by Michelangelo it depicts Mary holding Christ after he was crucified. Very amazing.

Pictures don't do justice to the massiveness of St. Peter's Basilica. The gold lettering here is 7 feet tall. The building itself is over 450 feet tall (comparable to a 45 story building) and took 120 years to complete.

Inside St. Peter's Basilica. The alter behind us is 7 stories tall and made of walnut wood.

The whole experience in Rome was wonderful. The weather was great and the food was fantastic. I really liked shopping at the supermarkets there because there are lots of treasures to be found! We came back with about 10 pounds of cheese, which if we would have bought in the states would have cost well over $150. We spent a little over $20 for all of it. We also brought back some fun pasta noodles and really good chocolate.