India, India
the whole day through (the whole day through)
Just an old sweet song
Keeps India on my mind (India on my mind)

Obviously you can tell from what I've just said that India has really been on my mind lately.
I just came to a realization this evening while resting on the couch about one aspect of the trip that I enjoyed more than most parts, and that was my personal experience with the orphanage I visited and stayed in.

I may have said this in some of my earlier posts on here, but I honestly didn't look and I can't really remember, but visiting that orphanage (and of course India itself) made me feel really at home.

Although the orphanage I visited was not the orphanage that I was born in and resided in for the first 8 months of my life, I felt like that that was where my journey began. Kind of like a mega flashback in a sense.

It provoked some feelings of excitement, and yes, of course, some feelings of sadness.
But it also provoked, unusually enough, some feelings of fear.
I was worried that I might end up back in India, back in an orphanage with no family.
I can remember thinking to myself "What if Dad leaves me here?" 

But of course, all was solidified when we boarded our plane back home.
Happy and relieved, I breathed a sigh of relief knowing that I would see my family again.  

Lately, I have started noticing the similarities in the mannerisms that my sister does and how closely they compare to my parents mannerisms. I started thinking while resting today, what it must feel like for my sister to have parents that are biological to her. But also, what it must feel like for me to not have parents that look like me, and that my mannerisms could unconsciously be reflecting my birthparents mannerisms.

That reminded me of a quote from one of my favorite movies, Lilo and Stitch:
"What must it be like to have nothing, not even memories to look back on in the middle of the night?"

This quote always gets me in a sad way, knowing that in some sense I don't have any memories of home (India) to look back on in the middle of the night. Just memories here in the States. And yes, of course they are mostly all good memories, but not the ones I sometimes wish I had.

I always thought also that in the very unlikely chance that I would find, meet, or come across my birthmother while on my journey through India a couple of months ago, we would rejoice in tears and exasperated happiness and just share memories ---- memories that I long for.

I kind of lost my main point somewhere along the way in here on this post, but what I really think I am trying to say, is that every adoptee is always fighting their own battle, and each one takes a toll on us differently at different times and at different places.

These paragraphs that I just wrote above are one of the many adoption self conflicts that I am battling currently, if you are an adoptee reading this, know that you are not alone. We fight this journey together and at times, yes, we are the "biological" family to each other that we never got the chance to really get to know.   

We remain strong, united as a force of family when there is no one else there for us.
We are adoptees.

Today, as my family and I were driving home from ice cream I heard a honk come from a car at a busy intersection. This automatically flashed my mind back to the streets of India, where there is honking everywhere. It is inescapable!

To me, it is a sound that brings me joy and a smile. It reminds me of home! When my Dad and I were there, it is the sound you would hear late at night as you were falling asleep, and it would be the sound you would hear when you awoke. I always thought of it as
"The India Reveille" -- but more pleasant.

I think it's funny that this moment in the day sparked a memory that would most likely have been forgotten by now. But apparently not! This is one of those comforting sounds I look forward to hearing again when I go back, don't ask me why, I just do!

Well I haven't even been back for a week yet, and I already I want to go back!
I miss it! I guess the more and more I think about I realize how much I enjoyed the trip, and that it was the trip of a lifetime. I would turn right around and go back in a heartbeat! It was wonderful,
life-changing experience in ways that I haven't figured out how to express yet. But I can tell you that one of the biggest things I got out of this journey was having a much bigger sense of pride in where I am from!

I started the trip out feeling very uncomfortable in my home city, Kolkata, but as the trip went on and the day arrived to leave Kolkata, I didn't want to leave. It really felt like home. Now as I'm back in the States I wonder now, after experiencing what I experienced, how much I consider America my home anymore. I would seriously consider living there, but then I hesitate and think, "Would I really leave all this behind?" 

It breaks my heart to feel like I want to leave everything that my parents gave me, but my heart is screaming "Take me home!" 

Sailing over a cloud of oceans,
I'm homeward bound.
But I know the journey is not over
no, not now.
I still have a long way to go
emotional boundaries to cross,
stories to tell.
Oh wow, oh hell!

I wrote this on one of my first flights home from Delhi to Kolkata.

I am home now, safe and sound (and still sick unfortunately)!
It has been an incredible journey, and like I said in my poem above --- it's still not over!

Saw the Taj Mahal in the early morning light this morning!
Beautiful!
It really makes a difference when you're looking at it with your own eyes and not just through a picture frame! Being there at first and getting the first glimpse of it as you walk into the garden makes you want to smack yourself in the face and ask yourself, "Am I really here right now? Or am I dreaming?" Seriously.

So I actually did get some really good pictures, and can't wait to share them with all of you when I get home!

Today and tonight are my last in India for a LONG time, I start my long journey home tomorrow!
I can't decide if I like it here or not, and whether it will be something that I will miss dearly, and whether I really am ready to go home...either way, I'm coming home!

Yesterday, while waiting in line to go see the Lotus Temple, Dad said totally out of the blue:
"We're not in Kansas anymore!"

No, we are most certainly not!

For the first time on this trip (thankfully towards the end), I got really homesick yesterday.
I just had gradually started missing home more and more, until I couldn't hold it in anymore. I was trying to be "brave" and not give in to the feelings of missing and wanting to be home, but realized shortly after I had a good cry, that I felt much better.

I think we are both just about ready to be home, we are "winding down" as my Dad said earlier today. But we have one more stop, in fact it's probably the most important stop besides the orphanage of course, that we HAVE to do before we leave: The Taj Mahal!

We are going early tomorrow morning to watch the sun rise over the Taj Mahal!
I hope I get some good pictures!

(cont. from last post)

Humayun's Tomb was very similar to the Taj Mahal, it was actually the precursor to it. It was built with red sandstone and more white marble than Qutb Minar, but actually significantly less than than the Taj. We were there for for a very short time, and it wasn't really that interesting.

The last place we went to was the Red Fort, it was huge. You walk a ways down around to the entrance on the outside of the fort. It took us 15 minutes just to get to the entrance, the fort was that big! Again, like every other place we saw, it was made out of red sandstone.

The inside, before you actually get to the fort itself was a very crowded shopping bazaar with shops trying to lure tourists in to buy, buy, buy! But the fort itself had a very pretty garden with blooming flowers and water fountains.

By that time at the end of the day, we were both very worn out and were looking forward to getting to our back to our hotel room!

We got some much needed rest!

Yesterday, we toured Delhi. We went to Qutb Minar, and then Lotus Temple, and continued on to Humayun's Tomb, and ended the day with the Red Fort.

There were some very overwhelming parts of the day, we stopped by a few gift shops, and the people there were very in your face trying to get you to buy something, ANYthing!
I was WAY out of my comfort zone!

We also payed an outrageous price for our lunch at a stop during the tour that the cab driver dropped us off at in order to make a good commission. It was worth it for him, but not for us.
The restaurant's food was par and cost way too much for the amount they served us.

Although, the places we saw were magnificent!

At Qutb Minar, the buildings were made out of a rich red sandstone, with intricate designs carved into the rock. It was a tomb of one of the kings who ruled there. The tomb was like you would see in movies, a big white marble box, in the middle of the room. Very chilling but very cool.

The Lotus Temple looked a lot like the Sydney Opera House --- had that same kind of layered look, except it was built to resemble its name, a lotus. Not a big part of the tour, but pretty.

As some of you may know, the water in India is not safe to drink, from the tap that is.
The people here are used to it, although it can still tend to upset their health too.
The rule is at restaurants, we get ONLY bottled water that is sealed.

But Dad and I also have this cool gadget that we picked up from the immunizations clinic in Denver. It is called a SteriPen, and what it is is it's a UV ray "pen" that shines ultraviolet light into the contaminated water that you swirl around in the water to kill all the unwanted bacteria until the light turns off and the green light on the handle blinks to tell you that your water is safe to drink!

We've been using it ever since we got to India, actually when we first arrived at our first hotel!
It's been working great for us! Neither of us have gotten sick from the water so far, so it seems to be doing its job!

Nifty little gadget, definitely would recommend getting one if you are traveling someplace where there is no safe water to drink!

Bathed in Mother Ganga (The Ganges) this morning!

The water was warm, not cold. Probably from sitting under the hot Sun all day. I didn't feel spiritually cleansed, but I did, surprisingly feel clean and renewed!

Oh yeah, and I got sick right after bathing. Just a cold, not to worry, nothing big.
But of course, it does put a more difficult damper on things, but that's what Kleenex Pocket Packs are for! Hooray!

----------------------

We are now in Delhi, and just enjoyed a very good lunch! Now we are relaxing in our air conditioned room (you really take A/C for granted in the U.S.) and we are going to get some much needed rest before our tour around Delhi in the car we hired with a driver for tomorrow!

Well, we had another little interesting and frustrating adventure as we were trying to get off the train this morning here in Varanasi!

As a precaution even for non-tourists traveling on trains in India, it is advised to lock your luggage up so no one can steal it. Well, as most luggage locks are nowadays, they require a special code you set yourself so only you can open it. Well, in the confusion of trying to lock up our luggage and pay for the train tickets in the dark, we accidentally reset the luggage lock combination!

So, this morning when we woke up and were getting ready to get off the train, we realized what we had done. We first tried cutting the lock cable loose from my luggage handles with the
not-so-sturdy scissors we retrieved from our first aid kit, I ended up breaking those.
Then, we had to finally retrieve a knife from the car porter and cut my luggage straps off the lock, instead of the other way around. We then left the lock sitting under our seat on the train still holding onto the straps the train provided to attach our luggage to in the first place, and we walked off the train, dismembered luggage in hand!

The last day in the orphanage before we depart to the train station, has been a most relaxing and enjoyable one. The scent of sandalwood wafts by on an incense stick one of the girls has been carrying through the rooms, and I sit here letting the baby play with my iPad and watching her have such a good time hitting it with her head and hands, and sticking her mouth and ears up to it, to see if she can make it do something.
So adorable!

The days here in the early mornings and late afternoons are filled with delicious tea and sweet biscuits, tasting like American animal crackers.

I was actually interrupted in the middle of this blog post, to meet the driver to go to the train station! So I had to quickly pack up my iPad and my books and go, and now I am typing this blog post as the train slowly lurches across the tracks away from Kolkata. The next time I come back to Kolkata, I will almost be flying directly out of it after I transfer flights to go home from Kolkata Airport!

Now, on to the touristy destinations!

It is amazing how used to food you can become, my food experience here has been...edible, but not great, and sure my Dad and I have had eggs and toast a few mornings in a row here, but it's certainly nothing like American food.

If I'm not missing the aspect of BEING home, it's missing the food! And not only is it just missing the food itself, it is also missing the easy convenience of being able to get it.
You either,
a) Have to get a cab to get to where you want to go,
Or
b) You have to walk.

And it's not that I mind the walking itself, it is the environment that you are walking IN. For those of you who have not been to India, the streets, especially in narrow roads, can be very dangerous! The drivers here, I would like to say, are "trained" to drive on the roads and have a keen foot on the brake. It doesn't matter whether the driver is in a car, cab, or on a motorcycle or bike for instance, they are used to pedestrians. A few times a car bumper has grazed my leg, and I almost got ran down by a motorcycle my first time in downtown Kolkata, but they are very careful, and will stop if they have to!

But it doesn't make it any less scary or dangerous!

By the way for everybody who is reading this, I just realized that my blog is still set to Mountain Standard Time in Denver, so all the posts that you see are actually posting according to current Denver, CO time, NOT local India time, and I do not know how to reset it!
Sorry for any confusion!

Just try to remember that India's time zone is 11 1/2 hours ahead of the time zone in Denver right now.

Thanks for your cooperation!

So earlier this morning, my Dad and were talking about how overwhelming we've been on this part of the journey, and how we are ready to feel like tourists instead of outsiders. I couldn't agree with him more.

We have finally got everything settled with traveling to our touristy destinations, in terms of train tickets and plane tickets and transportation and hotels.

I'm not gonna lie and say that I haven't been thinking about (my other) home, in America, because I have. But only a little bit! Like I told my Mom briefly in a shout-out at the beginning of the trip, I'm trying my very best and hardest to be open and as adventurous as I can. Despite all the ups and downs this trip has given us, there have been MANY ups! One of them definitely being able to spend time with my Dad and share this experience with him!

People, unaware that I would be traveling with my Dad on this trip, unexpectedly asked me if I was going to be traveling alone. Well looking at this now, I know I could not have done this trip without my Dad. I honestly probably would've wimped out and come home early, if he wasn't here with me!

Looking forward to my first train ride tonight! So excited, will continue to keep you all updated!

SUCCESS!

My Dad and I were able to find a travel agency to help buy our train tickets and plane tickets for the rest of our traveling from within India. Last thing we have to finish up doing is scheduling and reserving our rooms at all the hotels we'll be staying at!

To fill you guys in about the rest of the places we are going to see in India, we are taking an overnight train from here in Kolkata to Varanasi where my Dad and I will stay for one night.
Then we will fly from Varanasi to Delhi and stay there for 2 nights, and then take the train to Agra. Then when we are done our sight seeing in Agra, we will take the train back to Delhi and fly out from the airport in Delhi into the airport in Kolkata, and wait to board our plan back home!

This is going by too fast!

Oh, one thing I forgot to mention about yesterday! The girls from the orphanage and I and my Dad all went to South Side Mall in Kolkata. It was very interesting and cool to see what sort of stores they had. Some stores carried brands that you could find anywhere, not just in America, brands such as Tommy Hilfiger etc. etc.

Instead of this mall being two or three floors at the most like most malls we're used to in America, this mall was 4 stories high. The only reason being that in India, due to the high population, they have to build buildings up, instead of across since there is not much room to spread out on the land.

So I guess that was an up to yesterday, minus all the confusion with finding a travel agency!

This has been an incredibly infuriating day! My Dad and I spent the whole day with our driver driving around the city looking for an "American Express Travel Agency" to buy our train tickets which according to the government and apparently the Indian people here, doesn't really exist! None of this would've happened if my Dad had just bought the train tickets while we were still in America. At this rate we may not be able to see everything or do everything according to plan because of this little mishap. I am SO mad. But at the same time, I just want to get the he** out of this country.

But you know, it's not all bad. At dinner earlier this evening, I confessed to my Dad that not only did I want to get the heck out of here as fast as I could, but also that I'm really starting to get used to this country and that believe it or not, despite all these bad experiences so far, I would actually consider moving here and living here. The longer and longer I stay here, the more and more it feels like home. Home.