Elena Togias / Inde

Hey everyone!

As usual, I have to apologize for being AWOL...despite my best intentions I always seem to manage to disappear for a while. So, to make up for it, I'm sending the longest update letter you've ever received! Anyway, here it goes...

So I left Quebec in the beginning of May...got to Toronto and still hadn't finished my last assignment of the year, so I was busy with that for a while, and I also had a pile of 90 psycholinguistics exams to mark for a prof. Yes I brought them with me to Toronto, I don't know what I was thinking. Oh, I was thinking, sure I'll mark exams for $18/hr!! I know all my teacher friends are cursing at me right now. Since I was only home for 5 days and had all that stuff to do, I didn't really have the chance to spend time with everyone I wanted to see before leaving for the summer. So I'm really glad if I got to see you that week, I know you were all equally busy. Oh and of course I have to mention the reverse culture shock I experienced: it was SO weird that everyone was speaking English!!! When I went to the subway to buy tokens, I nearly said bonjour to the guy! Seriously. Another funny thing: in the car on the way home from Union Station, I was scanning through the radio stations and thought I'd hallucinated hearing Hindi...but I went back (wanted to see whether or not I was truly going crazy!), and it actually was a Hindi program! Now what are the chances, really?

Then I headed off to Vancouver for a few days and got to hang out with a couple of friends I hadn't seen in a few years. Stayed with a friend , walked around the city (the weather was really nice almost the entire 3 days), saw the sights, and of course we ate lots of food! (Lisa's eating tour of Vancouver...Jesus, I'd barely recovered from Lisa's eating tour of Quebec! Stop trying to kill me, you're a health professional!). One night we went to a nice bar (imagine me in my normal clothes, in a nice bar...yes, it's as ridiculous as you picture it) to catch the hockey game between Vancouver and I don't remember which other team (sorry for insulting all the hockey fans). Unfortunately the Canucks lost that game and got eliminated, but it was a total crowd-pleaser game (lots of goals scored by both teams), so it was actually quite a fun night all in all. Vancouver has some true fans, though pretty tame compared to Quebec...haha. Speaking of Quebec, the whole time I was in Vancouver, I kept noticing just how Anglo it was!! Crazy! I mean, crazy how Anglo it was, and crazy that I noticed i so much.

So Monday night, 2:45am, I left Vancouver. 12 or so hrs later I arrived in Hong Kong on Wednesday morning....gotta love crossing the International Date Line. Of course, my body had absolutely no idea what time it was. I had a few hours to kill but it was a cloudy, rainy day so instead of rushing out to downtown and back for I'm not sure how much money, I just chilled at the airport. It was quite nice and pretty big, so surprisingly I wasn't too bored! Actually I spent a lot of time walking around the food court trying to decide what to eat....saw all the local-looking people eating at a really cheap fast-food place, but quickly realised why there were only locals there - the menu was only in Chinese (yes, I know Chinese isn't a language, but I don't know which language it was). So I finally decided on a bowl of mystery congee - mystery because the name was written in English letters but the name wasn't translated so I have no idea what I ordered. But it was good! I think that was breakfast, according to HK time. A few hrs later for lunch I had rice with red beans, even better than the congee! And honey-pear iced tea (I had to try it - I mean, how often do you find honey-pear iced tea?)

Then the last leg was HK - Bangkok, had to stay inside the plane for an hour and a half during the stopover. Sounds like it sucks but it's much less of a pain than having to get off the plane and back on again. Also I got to see all the flight attendants and extra cleaning people clean up the plane and put everything in order. They're like machines, I swear!! I also saw a fly fly into the plane through one of the back doors, and laughed at the thought of going through customs. I would love to declare a fly next time, just to see the look on the person's face.

Anyway....a few hours later I arrived in Delhi (FINALLY!!!! This is Wednesday night, I'd left on Sunday!!). So, as I stepped off the plane, I literally smelled the heat. And yes, I felt like I'd stepped into an oven. It was 8pm, but still it must've been in the high 30s. I was greeted by my friend's friends (thank you, thank you, thank you!) who took me to their place for the night, fed me and didn't let me pay for dinner (I tried, but Mukul said, "no way, if Rakesh finds out, he'll kill me"....so, please don't kill him, ok??). Oh by the way, as we stepped outside (at 8pm), I could not believe the heat, and now I'm pretty sure I'll never complain about Toronto smog again. Seriously. It's got nothing on the smog here! Anyway, next morning took an auto to the airport (thank god I had and Indian with me!!!)...more about autos later...there's lots to say about them! Hung out at the airport for a while, got patted down at security by a woman in a booth behind a curtain (I still don't know what difference it makes whether you're behind a curtain or out in the open, which is how they search guys). Oh and interesting anecdote about the Delhi airport - they don't let you go to the gate until your flight is called...to control the crowdedness, I suppose, but when I was there i really wasn't all that crowded. Anyway, hopped on the shuttle bus, got into the plane, and was finally off to Hyderabad!

And this catch-up email is way, way too long so more on my Hyderabadi adventures shortly!

Take care, and congratulations for getting to the end of this email!
Elenas