Mehndi

Yesterday Me and Nani put mehndi in our hair. Mehndi is the Hindi word for henna. Your suppose to use a brush but i used my hands... and guess what!!!! they turned ORANGE!!!!!! I don't see a change in my hair even though i kept it in for 2hrs. here is what they look like:

Puppies!!

So this morning after i woke up Nani said that there were new born puppies in our garden type thing! She said they were born two days ago!!! they are so-so-so cute!!!!! Here are some pics.
they are as big as my hand!

Chhipkali

I told you about how many houses have little lizards. Here is a picture of the belly of a Chhipkali (the Hindi word for lizard) . They are small and greenish-brownish-tan color. They eat mosquitoes!!! A lot of people in India are scared of them even though I think they are cute.

Mice eek!

Ok so in many Indian homes there are mice, lizards, and frogs. Well, there are mice in my Nani and Nanaji’s house too. Here are all my frightening encounters. My first personal encounter was when I was sitting on my grandparents bed and talking with my Nanaji when this mouse climbs up and goes inside the AC; which is like TWO FEET from MY HEAD!!! The second one was in the morning, after I woke up and was looking around in my suitcase and a mouse runs out from INSIDE it! I totally go crazy and run to my bed and curl up and fall asleep until noon. The third time I was in this small room that has a dressing table and I was looking for a hairpin on it and a mouse jumps out at me, and I SCREAM! The fourth time was just as I was writing this a mouse comes running towards the bed I sitting on and I was TERRIFIED it would come EAT ME!
P.S. check out the poll and vote (it will make me feel better).

boring letters

After all my boring colorless rants I've decided...
time for......................................................................................................
......................................Wait for it!
..........................................................................................................
....................................................................................................................
.....................................................................................................................
..........................................................color!!!!!!!....................................................
.......................................................................................................!!!!!!!!
!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! YAY!!!!!
I will also do my best to put in relevant pictures too!!!

Visa issues part 6

Well I certainly hope this is last! This is an update about or bags. Ok did I mention that our bags didn’t come… well they didn’t. First KLM said they would drop Maa's bags off at our place of stay, but then KLM refused to drop Maa’s bags at my grandparent’s house so she had to go get them. When she did she found that a pair of sandals, a cell phone, and some yummy chocolate was missing! How uncool right... Well it is uncool. After that you can imagine how much madder my mother was! She wrote a very strongly worded letter (email) to the Delta/KLM people. We then got a call from KLM, but the Indian —Delhi at least— KLM employees are much nicer than the Amsterdam employees, so the lady listened and APOLOGIZED to my mother for our troubles! Can you believe it? She APOLOGIZED!!!!!

P.S. did you notice my colored letters????

Random... the product of... well i have no idea

A lot of people know this, but I thought I'd tell you all that I have a phobia of mice, rats, squirrels, and any other rodent thing. I have had this phobia since 4th grade when there was a mouse incident in my class. I saw a mouse yesterday... It is very not funny, so no mouse teasing… thank you.
P.S. I'm only scared of furry mice not computer mice.

I, Medha: the unfortunate

I have been blessed with an ability to play Spider Solitaire on my computer for hours an hours: when I am in fact suppose to be doing my homework! You can probably see some potential problems in this; my mother has found it especially problematic, so now i will only play one game per hour. I hope I can do it!

Drinking Chocolate

The day before yesterday Maa and Nani (maternal grandmother) went to the doctor, and on the way home they stopped by some shop and got me this thing called "Drinking Chocolate". Drinking Chocolate is basically like hot chocolate powder only better. It's better because: it has no nutritional value, it is just powder chocolate, and it has a lot of sugar! The picture is of the type we have. It is the most amazing.

Visa issues part 5

Ok back to the serious stuff. Maa wakes u we go to the airport and sit there waiting for boarding time. Maa gets nervous and asks the flight attendant at the desk if our bags will get there and the lady checked and said yes. We go sit down; we eventually board and and i start reading The Misfits. Towards the end of the flight when we're filling out the customs sheet a flight attendant comes up and gives us a slip saying there's a chance our bags aren't on the flight. Ha! We tell him we checked with the desk before leaving, and he says they'll probably be there then, so i don't worry. We get there and are going through customs and Maa asks what they would have done if I came without my old passport or the temporary visa and the guy says that we would be charged a $40 fee and they would let me in. Even if you Don't know how many dollars to a euro (like me) we would have saved a lot by just coming. according to Maa the detour cost around $750 dollars; we could have saved $710 thats a lot!!! I bet you can guess even without knowing my mother how mad she was. We go to get our checked bags. Maa's are priority because she is gold elite on Delta which is a partner of KLM (the airline we were flying). Our flight got in at 10:30pm IST (Indian standard time) and We had to wait until all the bags we went through to know if ours came or not. Mine came (yay!); Maa's didn't. We had to talk to the baggage people. They said they'd send them too my grandparent's house in Lucknow. It was like 1am when we got to the friends house who we were staying at (for 4hrs). We got there and got to sleep for 3 1/2hrs, before catching our early morning Shatabdi express train. We finally got to Lucknow and we went and bought some clothes for Maa because she didn't have any, and the KLM people said they would re-embers her for up to €100. Then we went to hospital to see one of her best friend's son who has dengue (which is the really dangerous). We finally got to my grandparent's
house where I slept. I woke up at 7am and blogged all day. Now i shall go watch the commonwealth games with Nanaji (maternal grandfather in Hindi).

written in Lucknow ect...
you know the rest

Citizen M prt. 2

here are the quotes; this is what is written on the Shower gel/Shampoo bottles in exact format:
CitizenAM
Showe/shampoo
Designed for citizens
who embrace the days,
wrestle with the light of dawn
or who are jet lagged into
thinking it's morning
even though it's midnight.
CitizenAM shower gel and shampoo
will make you feel like
you've just opened your eyes
after the best dream-filled
sleep of your life.
And perhaps, you just have.

CitizenPM
shower/shampoo
Designed for citizens
who live by the night,
dance with the dark and
don't wake up until
the sun goes down.
CitizenPM shower gel and shampoo
will make you feel like
you're about to walk into
wonderland and that somehow
everything tonight will
just fall into place.
Ans you never know, it just might.

Aren't they just so funny!
pls don't tell me how lame they are i know!

The Citizen M shower

I said i would post it didn't I? well this will be my rant about the most coolest hotel EVER! Just so you know this is not just about the shower but the hotel in general. I'm not advertising the hotel, okay maybe I am but it sosososo COOL. if you ever want a semi-cheap hotel that is AMAZING and you happen to be at Schiphol or other place with a Citizen M hotel go there, or i guess you could go to the site, and i really think you should check out the site(it's funny). It has pictures and quotes I some too!
http://www.citizenm.com

Visa issues part 4

We got the Visa despite the cost and got on the train back to Schiphol airport. After that adventure, I was shot; i hadn't slept i woke up at 8am central time which is 3pm in Amsterdam and it was 3pm again, so that's 24hrs of awake time. We went to the hotel advisory counter and were told about a hotel which cost €67 and gave a 20min shuttle to and from the airport for free and free breakfast we decided to go there once we got our new plane tickets. We go and we get our new boarding passes for our flight to Delhi the morning at 10. Then we go back to the hotel advisory counter, and ask for a reservation at the cheapish hotel. With our AmAzInG luck there is just one room left! Oh but wait that's the hot-tub room...you know the one that costs €100 extra. We say goodbye to that idea, and decide on another hotel that is €70. We aks the nice man at the desk to call them up and make reservations for us. Full. Not even the hot-tub room this time. The rest of the ones close to the airport are fancy 4 or 5 star things like the Hilton and the Raddison that cost around €200, not gonna happen. Me and Maa were about to just crash at the airport in chairs illegally when the dude told us about this hotel Citizen M which is a 2min walk away from the airport literally 2min! He says it cost €120 which is not ideal but we say OK. We walk over without reservations and go in. I immediately am totally in love with the place. We get a room that actually cost €130 but we say fine because at this point we both have sore shoulders from carrying our bags (just the carry-on bags though because the others are somewhere in the airport or are being loaded onto our next flight) and I can barley stand. We go up the the room; which is really cool too. I lay down and am out almost instantly. while I sleep Maa skypes my dad and tells him to cancel our Lucknow mail tickets, (which is the night-train from Delhi to Lucknow) so we can get our money back. She then calls a friend who aranges new train tickets for us so we can get to Lucknow .I sleep from about 4pm to 8pm. We get up buy some food at the hotel cafe go back up to our room, where I write part 1 of this story on my blog. we go back to sleep around 9pm. I wake up at 2:30 am and take a shower which I will do a mini post about titled "The Citizen M shower".

Written in Lucknow, India at my grandparents house. October 14th 2010

Visa issues part 3

We get to Amsterdam and go to the transfer desk and told the KLM lady about our visa issue, here after called Our VI. One thing you should know is that most of the people at transfer desks are/have at least one of the following: grumpy, racist, bad people skills, tired looking, rude, mean and the very rare but good, nice. Well our helper was no rare bird. She stared out OK but quickly became rude. One thing that stikes me weird is that there "name" tags only had there position or rank on them so you don't know what to address them by; which is kinda awkward. Anyways we told her our problem and she said that despite the fact that I was an OCI card holder the people in India would send me back to the USA if we didn't have my old passport with us, so they couldn't let me board our next flight. We asked what we could do and she said the only option to do without sending me back to MN was this: we go to The Hague (where the nearest Indian embassy is) by train, and get the stamp, get a train back the airport and get on another flight to India after that. First of all neither me or my mom knew where in the Netherlands The Hague was, or how long it would take to get there. We still went with the second option. Lucky us it was just a 45 minuet train ride. Good thing she didn't send me home. The lady gave us some 5min vouchers and sent us on our merry way. First we called my dad and told him to call my grandparents in India and tell them we would be late. Next we called our friend in Delhi who we were going to stay with that night telling her we'd be 24hrs late. The we got on a train and headed off into the sunrise. We got to The Hague without any tears, and headed to the Indian embassy to get a stamp (hopefully free). Another thing you should know is everyone who works at an embassy (at least all the ones either of my parents or me has been to) is paid to treat everyone who comes for help like scum. We get there and go into the "visa and passport"and it's this room maybe as big as the 7th/8th Smath room with tons of people applying for visas. We go and talk to the agent who was no exception to the rule; maybe she was a tiny bit more civil than some. She tells us that they don't care if I'm an OCI because the OCI card was issued by the USA not India. She says the only way I can go to India without the old passport is if i get a temporary visa for this trip. It gets better guess what the visa costs... €130 aka a lot for a one use thing.

written October 14th at my grandparents house in Lucknow India

Visa issues part 2

So basically what you know so far is the logistics of visa and OCI stuff if you haven't read my previous post (visa issues part 1). Here is my personal experience. Me and my mom discovered that we didn't have my old passport when we were at the MSP (Minneapolis St. Paul) international airport in MN; we knew this could be problematic, but we didn't know how much of a problem it would be. We got on the plane and I forgot all about this small detail. My mother was not as lucky she couldn't sleep the whole flight because of it (I am not saying that I could either, but for me it was the mixture of pre-jet lag, good in-flight movies, and having three unfinished presumably good books in my backpack.). She finally got nervous and asked a flight attendant if India would let me in. The flight attendant said that we should talk to the people at the transfer desk at Schiphol international airport in Amsterdam (our stopover place), but that he thought they would have it in their database, and that we would be able to get on our next flight and all would go smoothly. Not to give you a hint but he was so wrong.

p.s. I'm doing this in parts because it is such a long and juicy story that i couldn't bear to do it in just one part. It also makes it easier to read (to me at least) and to type.

written in Lucknow India at my grandparents house on October 14th (needless to say 2010)

Visa issues part 1

Well everyone has travel difficulties sometimes; me and my mother just experienced a very expensive difficulty. What you need to know first is that I'm an overseas citizen of India (OCI) , and this comes with a lifelong visa to India. What happened was that when I got the OCI I was 6 or 7 years old, so i got the visa stamped in that passport. That passport expired as passports do, so I got a new passport. The one has a different number than the old one, so the passport number recorded on the OCI what different from my current passport number. This will eventually happen to anyone because passports expire every 5 or 10 years. After it expires, when you go to India again you have to take your old passport (the one with the visa stamp) AND your new current passport. You probably guessed what happened by now, but just in case you haven't, on this trip we (me and my mom) forgot my old passport --the one with the visa stamp-- at home in MN.
To be continued...

written on October 11th at Citizen M hotel in Amsterdam (by the airport)

what? why? oh yeah! Because!

Okay, people! This is a blog of my trip to India. I'm doing it to keep all my friends and family in the U.S updated about my trip! first things first the blog title means Medha's journey. I am leaving in about 14hrs. from now so I'm really busy no more time to blog.