Beginning to say goodbye

Yesterday we had our goodbye lunch with Florence and Jacob John. The lunch solidified that I was indeed leaving India in a week...I can't believe it has already been a month! I think about being here a couple weeks ago and how I was homesick, concerned about money, missing my friends - now I don't even want to think about leaving! I'm finally settled in India and I have to be stripped away!

As to distract myself from my slight depression over leaving I'll talk about the goodbye lunch.

Jacob John brought us to one of his favorite restaurants for a buffet called Mustard. The buffet had my favorite chat type nachos - you cannot imagine how tasty. They also had Bengali fish (9/10), Bengali style Paneer (8/10), yellow daal with chili (7/10), and assorted fried rice, basmati, rasham, and mung. The desserts were definitely the highlight of the buffet...an unbelievable kiwi souffle (10/10), carrot halwa (9/19), and the best mango ice-cream I've had in India. Great going away lunch.

After we headed back to campus and got some comfy Christ University sweatshirts, how I'm going to squeeze that in my bag I have no idea. Next came class then a Crafts Bazaar with some friends. The Crafts Bazaar hosted crafts from all over India, mostly from Rajasthan. Since I'm going to Rajasthan I didn't want to buy too much, I just got some shoes, a little jewelry, and some gifts for friends. I'm pretty sure (absolutely sure) I got ripped off on the shoes, he orginally tried to sell them to me for 400 ruppees (asburd! That's about $8 USD), but I got him down to 300 ruppees...still over priced but what the hell they're pretty.

The day ended fantastically with USA beating Algeria by 1 which means we are first in our bracket and moving on to the playoff rounds!! U S A