26th August

Today has been a very unexciting day. Spent most of the morning in AIM, my new spiritual home. They like us so much we get discounts now. It is fairly ridiculous how often we are in here.

Kaus, one of the Dutch, has announced that he has decided to go home to Amsterdam. I find this strange, as out of the four of him, he seems the most ready to try everything and accept a lot more. He says he hates Delhi, and seeing as this semester would count for nothing back home, he has decided to go back. What he really wants to do is travel in India, not stay cooped up in the hostel, which is fair enough I guess.

We had Hindi class yet again today. We have learnt the present tense, and the present continuous. I can now tell someone I am eating mangoes = “Mai aam kharahii huu”. There are different verb endings for masculine people and words, but with feminine they seem to have decided that it ends in ‘ii’ and that is an end of it. As usual, women have less choice and variety in their lives.

We came home to the hostel and sat around for a while in my room, with Lauren taking timed camera shots of us. We now have many shots of myself and Amanda looking unclean and unhappy with Lauren.

Today has been so completely unproductive. I tried practicing Hindi but I think it might be pointless.

Mum phoned to tell me that she thinks Rajasthan is a better bet than Darjeeling, which is fair enough. Everybody loves tiger safari. I found her assertion that the hotel they were looking at was in Connaught Place, and then admitting that it was actually ten minutes away from CP. Ten minutes from CP is very different from CP itself. I wouldn’t stay on CP, it is just so run-down and stagnant feeling. I know it has some of the best shops (if you mean Western ones) and some nice restaurants, but I jus don’t think staying there would be very pleasant. Ten minutes form CP though, and you are in diplomatic territory, and the whole thing gets a lot greener and a lot more posh. I am sure a hotel there will be lovely, and way out of my personal price range. I think my rents will find North Delhi a shock in comparison to the South and Central! I will have to take them to Chandni Chowk and Old Delhi so they can experience the crowds and the street vendors and the rickshaws all jostling for dominance in the tiny alleyways and mud strewn streets.