This morning I woke up early, very early, to skype some friends from home. Unfortunately I got the time change confused and only got to talk with them for a few minutes. But just seeing them was a great way to start my morning. After changing into the churidar’s Stella lent us, Rachel and I hurried off to the hospital for our 7 AM yoga class. When we arrived, our very to-the-point instructor informed us that we hadn’t come the day before. We apologized, but he paid no attention and carried on, instructing us to take off our shoes and go into the practice room. We stepped into a small room with thin blankets on the floor along with an older woman and three other university-aged girls. Our instructor went through a series of breathing exercises with us, helping us get in touch with our breathing and feel our breath. When we get the breathing under our belt he said we’ll get to move on to some actual poses. When our class finished, the instructor gave us a slip of paper that was an invoice for our classes. He instructed us to take it to the cash counter downstairs around lunchtime and we could pay then. We assured him we would do just that, and with invoice in hand we headed out of the yoga department. As someone who doesn’t practice yoga, I thought, “I breathe every day all day, why do I need to get in touch with my breathing?” Rachel later explained that a huge emphasis of yoga is to sync your movement with your breath. Hopefully I will develop a better understanding of this as we continue our classes.
After our yoga class we walked back to our apartment to get ready for the day. Rachel had a Skype date with her friends, and I was ready early, so I went to the university food court to get some coffee from “Barista.” When I first arrived, the coffee shop wasn’t even open yet! I guess Indians don’t drink coffee in the mornings like Americans. Soon a worker arrived and I ordered an espresso Italiano. As I sat drinking my coffee, I enjoyed people watching. It is always so interesting to just sit and observe what goes on around you. I had to laugh when the only other person I saw get coffee that morning was another American. Rachel came and met me at the food court and then we were off to work. Nothing much happened during work, just the usual costing and researching. For lunch we decided to go back to the place Stella had taken us the day before. We felt adventurous and wanted to get some food that felt more authentic. We walked in and sat down, and a waiter came up to us and asked us if were here for lunch. When we told him yes, he turned and walked off. We guessed that the same thali (meal) was served to everyone for lunch. Our guess was correct. The waiter came with two metal plates filled with food. Each thali consisted of rice, two chapatti, roti, four vegetable gravies, yogurt, and pickles. He also brought us fried vegetables and roasted, spiced cashews. What a lot of food!
I was excited to eat with my fingers again and dug into the rice. As Rachel and I sampled each gravy, we tried to determine what vegetable was in it. One was potato, one was green beans, one was something that resembled okra, and the last seemed to be some kind of thin gravy with spices in it. While I don’t care for the pickles or yogurt here, everything I did try was delicious. And it seemed so healthy too. It reminded me of the food we had at the wedding. We assumed this was traditional South Indian food. The fried vegetables were just some concoction of shredded vegetables, battered and deep-fried. I don’t care for deep-fried food, but Rachel thought they were tasty. The cashews were delicious. We couldn’t determine what the spices were but vowed to buy a few of the bags to take home with us. As we exclaimed how delicious the food was, we decided that we would definitely be coming back soon.
After lunch we had a bit more time, so we went to pay for our yoga classes before wandering around the shops near Tiger Circle, the center of town. As we meandered down the street, we stopped at a movie table. Most of the movies were Hindi Bollywood films, but the stand owner showed us his American movies, and Rachel and I were so impressed with his selection. Despite the price of $1 per DVD we only got one movie, deciding that we better make sure it actually works before stocking up. The DVD we decided on had six movies on it including Braveheart, Troy, and Robin Hood. As we walked back to the office, we decided that tonight was movie night for sure.
After working for a few more hours, we broke up our afternoon by visiting George, an intermediary between Primacy and the Manipal Group. His real name is Prodipto, but that’s a little tricky so he also goes by George. He wanted to ask us a few questions about cosmetics, and we were happy to oblige. We spent some time talking with him, covering food, life in Manipal, and music. He was so friendly and we discovered that he is friends with Mike and AJ. It is a small town! After a while we decided we had better get back to work, but we were glad for the break and to get to know George better.
After work the unpleasant sight of a torrential downpour greeted us. I had no desire to go out into the monsoon, but Rachel plunged ahead and I quickly followed. As we waded upstream, all I could do was laugh. The water was ankle deep at times, and by the time we reached Tiger Circle we stopped at Snack Shack. Needing a break from the monsoon and looking for an excuse to get ice cream, we ordered what we refer to as “Chocolate Deliciousness,” but the waiters know it as “More Than Cake.” It is a bowl of ice cream on the bottom, chocolate cake over that, a layer of chocolate fudge, and topped off with lots of bananas. We nearly licked the bowl clean. Still not wanting to go out in the rain, we finished with a nice hot cup of tea. Following our after-work treat, we couldn’t put it off any longer and sloshed home to get ready to work out.
After our Insanity workout we were drained and opted for a night in. In true movie night form, we ordered pizza and sprawled out on our bed to watch Braveheart. We laughed when we popped the movie in and the quality was horrible. Oh well, if you pay $1 for a set of six movies, what do you expect. It was good enough to watch, just not the high definition we’ve grow accustomed to. As we settled down with our pizza, we knew this was just what we wanted. Rachel had seen Braveheart a while ago, but I had never seen it. It was so good! Even so, we were both so tired that by 10:30 we could hardly keep our eyes open. We decided to finish it tomorrow night so we could go to bed. We had to get up early again for yoga!
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