Feel the Love

As luck would have it, now that I'm within my last couple of weeks here, I seem to be making all kinds of friends. The managers at two of the local hotels -- New Varuni House and Villa Paradiso, stay at one of these if you are ever in town -- have been incredibly kind and hospitable, especially since I arrived back in town this weekend. The girls at the cafe down the street are absolute sweethearts, and of course I made some friends in the soldiers from the train the other night. A couple of the students from the Pre-Intermediate class that I taught at the beginning of the semester, that I had since handed off to Brij and he to Jill, found me in Tibet Charity and specifically asked if I would help them study for an upcoming test because they preferred my teaching methodology. The guys here at Varuni seem to enjoy my efforts to speak the local language; they ask me "Aap kaisi hai?" when I come downstairs and smile broadly when I respond in Hindi. Being able to talk to the locals really does open up an entirely new world. I wish I'd started sooner.

Oh well. Better late than never, right? I keep watching Benny Lewis's videos for inspiration -- if he can learn enough Polish in an hour to hold a rudimentary conversation, why can't I learn enough Hindi to do the same in, say, a couple of weeks? The answer is laziness, lol. I think I know more than I realize; my vocabulary is so-so and every day I can pick out more and more words when I listen to other people talk. Indians tend to speak very fast, though, which can get intimdating... fast. Now that I can read the language, it makes things a bit easier. Brij and I made a good travel team: I could read signs, and he could tell me what the words meant. Together we were unstoppable! Well.. we could find our way around, at least.

My plan is to continue studying Hindi even after I get home. Recognizing words in conversation feels like I'm suddenly in on a secret, like I've got the means to decode the, well, code. Just as I do at home when foreigners attempt to speak English, many of the people here seem to appreciate the fact that I'm at least making an effort, even if the end result is less than polished. It's intimidating, especially when most people also speak English. I've found that a lot of them aren't interested in conversing with me in Hindi because I clearly speak English; either it's less hassle for them, or they want to practice their foreign language skills. That's ok. Now that I've gotten over the initial barrier of just getting started, I'm more motivated to learn. It doesn't seem quite so unmanageable. I've developed a familiarity for the sound of the language and I try to work it into conversation as much as I can, even if it's only a few words here and there. I expect when I get home I'll be ordering at restaurants in Hindi out of habit. ;)

I feel like I'm more on a roll with it now. I kind of wish I could stay another couple of months and really work on it........ I guess if nothing else it's a good excuse to schedule another trip to India, eh?

There's more to a good restaurant than good food

One of the fancier hotels in our area has a new chef who is redoing the menu. Apparently the owner is friends with Brij, and she asked him to invite some of his fellow teachers for a tasting. How fun, right? We thought so too. So that's what we did last night: at 8pm the six of us wandered on down to Villa Paradiso for dinner.

It was definitely some of the best food I've had here. Honestly, it was some of the best food I've had, period. There was a dish with "aubergines" and apples, a savory pear selection, and some others that were closer to traditional Indian food with chickpeas (channa) and flatbread (roti). The chef had made a chicken pasta dish that was damned tasty, and apparently the mutton was good too, but I didn't have any. I felt just a little bit like a judge on Iron Chef. I think this is fun.

This morning Marie went down to another of the very local cafes, where she captured this image:

Do you see it?

It's blurry, but yes, it's a rat. What can I say? Standards vary.

Then tonight Marie, Gill, and I headed over to Jimmy's Italian restaurant in McLeod Ganj. Marie had come here earlier in the week and said the food and wifi were good, so we figured we'd check it out. Soon after sitting down, Rinzin and Gustie came in with a student and so we all sat and had dinner together.

Jimmy's Italian: hands down the absolute worst service to date. I think it even beats (in a bad way) the abysmal service we got in that St. Louis IHOP on our way home from Winter Warpdrive last year. However! The food was actually some of the best I've found so far here in town. Conundrum....

This is even considering that in India typical restaurant service includes a server who doesn't pay any attention to you until you go out of your way to gain his or her attention. Furthermore, most places are not very good about getting all the food at a table out at the same time. If your server delivers your food and no one else's, you might as well get started because if you don't, it'll be cold by the time the rest of the food comes out. Everyone seems to understand and accept this and so far I haven't had anyone offended by everyone not eating at the same time. Asking for a glass of water and never getting it, though, and even ordering dessert and having to remind the server again 10 minutes later because everyone else's food has come out and your two scoops of ice cream are nowhere to be seen... that's not exactly acceptable customer service.

We are now making up for it by using all their internets. Balance is restored.